Cow "matrix": giving cows a virtual grassland, away from the pain of crowded farms

Although the fourth installment of The Matrix suffered a setback in word of mouth, it still does not affect the title of "masterpiece" of the first three installments. The reason why The Matrix trilogy is a masterpiece is largely due to its setting being too avant-garde when the movie was created.

In The Matrix, as long as you take a red pill, you can leave the virtual world and enter the real world. But this real world is not so beautiful. Humans lie in jars filled with nutrient solution and are raised in energy farms like crops. The energy generated is used to generate electricity for the intelligent system "Matrix".

Image source: The Matrix Setting Collection

Every person has numerous tubes inserted into their bodies. These tubes allow human consciousness to be in a "beautiful" virtual world, but humans do not know that the real world has been destroyed by robots, and they have long been reduced to biological batteries to be slaughtered by AI...

Image source: The Matrix Setting Collection

Part 1

The Matrix in real life: Put VR glasses on the cow

If The Matrix had a real-life counterpart, I'd guess it would be a dairy farm in Türkiye:

Photo credit: Zekeriya Karadavut/AA

The cow in the picture has a head that is too big for one VR pair of glasses to fit on it, so it has to wear a pair of VR glasses, one on each side.

This is a project that Turkish farmer İzzet Koçak developed on his farm in 2018:

By letting the cows listen to classical music and wear VR glasses, they can see the endless forests and grasslands and immerse themselves in the beautiful nature. They will mistakenly believe that they have escaped from the emotionless farms and gained a brand new free "cow" life, thereby increasing the cows' life happiness index and achieving the goal of high milk production.

Image credit: Zekeriya Karadavut/AA

Imagine a cow wearing VR glasses. What it sees in the distance is a green grassland instead of a gray wall. What it sees when it looks up is a blue sky instead of a dark cowshed. What it eats when it looks down is tender grass instead of hay (although it tastes like hay, it looks like tender grass). The cow can't help but shed tears of emotion. It turns out that the world outside is so beautiful!

Part 2

Are the cattle enjoying the “green grassland” really productive?

Of course, the farmers achieved their goal.

The project of giving cows VR glasses lasted for 10 days. Under normal circumstances, without VR glasses, a cow can produce 22 liters of milk a day. After giving cows VR glasses, these cows immersed in the "beautiful" world were obviously less stressed, and their milk production increased to 27 liters, and the quality of the milk was also better.

Image credit: Zekeriya Karadavut/AA

There are 180 cows in the farm, 100 of which are responsible for milk production. Due to the trial stage, only two cows enjoyed the "immersive beautiful grassland service". However, because the trial effect was good, the farmer immediately renewed the order for more than ten pairs of VR glasses from the manufacturer.

In fact, İzzet Koçak is not the first farmer to put VR glasses on cows. He learned it from a farm in Russia.

Cows wearing VR glasses on a farm near Moscow

(Photo source: msh.mosreg.ru)

It's obvious that this farm is more professional, you can tell by looking at the glasses.

In addition, they also have a special development team, with the participation of veterinarians and breeders, who customized a beautiful natural life scene for the cows: in the summer sun, looking at the endless green land, just bending down to eat a mouthful of tender grass, no, feed...

VR glasses also need to be professionally customized because cow eyes are different from human eyes. Cow eyes are located on each side of the head, with a 300-degree field of view, but poor vision. Most importantly, the range of colors that cows see is also different from that of humans. Although cows can also see most colors, they are most sensitive to red, orange, and yellow, but not blue, green, and purple. Therefore, "Niuniu VR glasses" must be specially customized according to the vision characteristics of cows.

Milknews conducted an experimental test at RusMoloko Farm in the urban area of ​​Ramenskoye

(Photo source: msh.mosreg.ru)

Overall, the experimental results conducted by this Moscow farm are quite good. It was observed that after the cows put on VR glasses, their anxiety was greatly reduced and their milk production increased.

Part 3

Wearing VR glasses can increase milk production. Why?

I have previously published an article titled "Do Happy Cows Taste Better?" In simple terms, the better the welfare of the farm, the tastier the beef.

The same goes for dairy cows. In modern farming, they produce milk in a intensive environment, so their mood is definitely not very good, and their milk production will not be very high.

If you were asked to live in a 30-square-meter basement with no windows, no sunlight, and only an exhaust fan, and the constant ding-dong noises from the renovations upstairs during the day, would you be happy? Would you be motivated to work? Of course not, and neither would an ox.

The physiological manifestation of a bad mood is the increase in the levels of various stress-related hormones, including cortisol, glucagon, prolactin, sex hormones...

For example, when cortisol levels rise, a large amount of glucose is released into the blood, paralyzing the function of renewing and creating new tissues. Over time, cows will have digestive problems such as loss of appetite, and milk production will decrease. This happens to humans, too, so be careful not to be too stressed, or your body will have problems.

If it can sense that its living standards have improved (even if they are virtual), and then it becomes happy, it will naturally produce more milk.

Although it is great to create a virtual prairie for cows, the cost is still a bit high. However, considering that the cost of hay is also rising and the ways to increase milk production are becoming increasingly limited, perhaps one day "VR cows" can really be fully promoted.

Then it’s not called a dairy farm, it should be called the cow matrix, or the cow moon reading.

References:

[1] https://interestingengineering.com/a-turkish-farmer-tests-out-vr-goggles-on-cows-to-get-more-milk

[2]https://msh.mosreg.ru/sobytiya/novosti-ministerstva/25-11-2019-10-07-55-na-podmoskovnoy-ferme-testirovali-vr-ochki-dlya-ko?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.interfax.ru%2Frussia%2F685484

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Produced by: Su Chengyu

Producer: Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

(The images with source indicated in this article have been authorized)

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