Cure for cow flatulence cooked up by scientists
LONDON (Reuters) – Cows belching and breaking wind cause methane pollution but scientists say they have developed a diet to make pastures smell like roses — almost.
“In some experiments we get a 70 percent decrease (in methane emissions), which is quite staggering,” biochemist John Wallace told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Wallace, leader of the microbial biochemistry group at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, said the secret to sweeter-smelling cows is a food additive based on fumaric acid, a naturally occurring chemical essential to respiration of animal and vegetable tissues.