Society is already moving toward more efficient, well, everything. Cars, washing machines and light bulbs are all undergoing green makeovers, and now so are cows. Wait a minute, cows?

Sure, why not say, say researchers, who claim that a bovine growth hormone would help feed a growing human population and be good for the earth as well. The hormone given to dairy cows would increase milk production anywhere from 10 to 16 per cent than the standard lactation cycle. "Inputs" such as feed, fertilizers and fuels and "outputs" including methane (read: farting and burping) and carbon dioxide would be reduced. Currently the European Union has a moratorium on the use of bovine growth hormone due to animal welfare concerns even though the U.S. has used it for the past 14 years. The new information is expected to be used in an an effort to convince the EU to lift the moratorium on the grounds that doing so could have positive environmental implications.

"Supplementing cows with [growth hormone] on an industry-wide scale would improve sustainability," said Judith Capper, of Cornell University in New York, the lead author of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

» The Independent