Lately, Veronica, the Swiss Brown cow,
\nliving in a small town in Austria, has
\ncaptivated the internet. At first, scientists
\ndidn\u2019t believe the owner, Witgar Wiegele,
\nwhen he told them Veronica used a tool.<\/p>\n
The scientists investigated, witnessed
\nthe feat. The cow picks up a stick
\nor a broom with her tongue, holds it
\nin her mouth, scratches hard-to-reach
\nparts of her body, uses different tools
\nfor her tender bits and sturdy parts.<\/p>\n
The scientists did tests, over and over again,
\nand Veronica didn\u2019t disappoint. The headlines
\nthen, \u201cCow Astonishes Scientists\u201d and \u201cTool
\nUsing Cow Challenges What We Know about
\nFarm Animal Intelligence.\u201d Maybe bumper
\nstickers will be next: \u201cRemember Veronica!\u201d<\/p>\n
In tenth-grade Biology, we began
\nour study of multicellular organisms
\nby dissecting a worm. We gathered
\na metal tray, forceps, tiny scissors,
\nprobes, and pins, and we scooped up
\na rubbery chemical-preserved specimen.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember wearing gloves or safety
\nglasses. I do remember the internal organs,
\nintestine, esophagus, nerves, heart, and skin
\nso carefully spread apart and pinned down.<\/p>\n
Frog dissection, a different story.
\nI examined mouth, belly, and fingers,
\nuncomfortably noticing their similarity
\nto my own. The frog\u2019s leg muscles,
\ntaut, striated, eventually skinless,
\nand revealing strength needed to push
\nthrough water, a troubling discovery,
\ngiven how much I loved to swim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lately, Veronica, the Swiss Brown cow, living in a small town in Austria, has captivated the internet. At first, scientists didn\u2019t believe the owner, Witgar Wiegele, when he told them Veronica used a tool. The scientists investigated, witnessed the feat. The cow picks up a stick or a broom with her tongue, holds it in … Continue reading Problem-Solving Vertebrates<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6885],"class_list":["post-2639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6885"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 14:20:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2640,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639\/revisions\/2640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2639"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}