Odd news: Cows tails send text when in labor

Moo-ving out: Sensor sends
text alerts from cows in labor

DURHAM, N.H. — University of New Hampshire dairy researchers are more relaxed these days about monitoring pregnant cows: A sensor attached to their tails sends text alerts to help detect when they’re in labor.
Moocall measures tail movement patterns triggered by labor contractions. On average, it alerts dairy managers by cellphone and email about an hour before a cow gives birth.
Moocall was developed in Ireland and released commercially last year. The company says the University of Kentucky also uses the technology.
Doctoral student Kayla Aragona says with about 70 calves are born every year at the farm, it’s a help.
But it’s not foolproof. One unhappy cow rubbed her tail up against everything and banged the sensor on the wall to try to get it to fall off, leading to false alarms.

Employees give CEO a new car
after he shared the wealth

SEATTLE — The employees of a company whose boss gave them a well-publicized big raise have bought him a new Tesla.
The Seattle Times reports that Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price posted the news of the gift on Facebook Thursday, saying “Gravity employees saved up and pitched in over the past six months and bought me my dream car.”
Gravity spokesman Ryan Pirkle said the gift was thought up and organized by an employee who was one of those most impacted by Price’s decision last year to raise to $70,000 the annual salary for all the more than 130 people who work at the company that processes credit-card payments. At the time Price said he would also make $70,000, dropping his salary from more than $1 million annually.

Police use Pokemon Go
to lure fugitives

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Police in New Hampshire’s largest city have gotten the Pokemon Go bug, trying to lure fugitives with the popular app.
A post on the Manchester Police Department Facebook page announces that police recently detected one of the more rare Pokemon characters — a Charizard — in the booking area. The post invites those whose names appear on a list linked to the post to be “one of the lucky ones” to come capture the Charizard.
The list includes the names of the more than 500 fugitives on the department’s wanted persons roundup.
Sgt. Eric Knight said Sunday the post has yet to net an arrest. But it’s been popular with its Facebook followers.
Since the post went up late Saturday night, it’s captured more than 13,000 “likes.”