What do we know about the brains of cows?

They surprise me every day.

They show a level of social bonding that I haven't seen with my dogs.

It's Wednesday, September 11th, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm Scifry producer D. Peter Schmidt.

If you've ever seen a cute cow video on social media, you might notice that they seem to have a lot in common with dogs.

They can wag their tails, they love to gobble down some tasty treats.

And if you're lucky, they can flop over for a nice belly or neck scratch.

They're clearly curious and emotional animals, but how smart are they exactly?

Neuroscientist Dr. Gregory Burns explored this question after moving to rural Georgia and started to raise cows of his own,

applying his years of experience studying animal brains. Here's Gestos and science

journalist Sophie Bushwick talking with Dr. Burns about his new book,

Cow Puppy, an unexpected friendship

and a scientist journey into the secret world of cows.

Dr. Burns, welcome back to Science Friday.

Hey Sophie, great to be here.

So I love the title of the book, Cow Puppy.

Can you tell us the story behind that word

and how you got started raising cows?

Yeah, I'm fond of the title too. So I ended up on this farm back in 2020 and without kind of a clear idea of exactly what I was going to do other than I had this vague notion that I was going to grow vegetables and live sustainably and of course I would have to have animals because being a dog person and general animal person what's a farm without animals right and and I didn't

know exactly what I was going to get and pretty soon found myself with with a bull and two cows, which I got primarily just to manage the grass.

We had all these pastures and the idea kind of morphed into this, well the cows will eat the grass.

...