OK, given that the resolution wasn't good enough to tell what end was which, my guess is that their criteria for determining the direction the cow is aligned isn't very precise. Say it's 30 degrees either side of North-South, that's 120 degrees out of 360 degrees, so 33% of the possible directions. So they're seeing about twice as many cows as they should aligned NS - assuming that it's pure chance. But when you take into account things like maximizing sunlight as someone else pointed out, facing into the wind to minimise cooling, the direction from which the cows expect to see the farmer deliver the next tractor-load of oil cake, etc. it probably isn't that rand om.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-08-26 10:35 am (UTC)