At dinner tonight, some people were talking about this cow at the university farm that has a hole in its stomach that you can stick your arm into.

I was utterly flabbergasted (or is that udderly?) and refused to believe it was true.

Then I came home and looked on the web and, indeed, an artificial hole in a cow’s stomach is called a fistula (check out the Fistulated Cow homepage).

I’m sure it’s useful for research, but I still think it sounds kind of cruel.

But this guy (scroll down) doesn’t think so.