In news that is sure to delight fans of a certain Gary Larson cartoon turned meme about the limitations of bovine cognition, cow tools are real. Larson’s 1982 comic for his series The Far Side showed a cow standing behind a table bearing an array of oddly shaped objects.

Credit: Antonio J. Osuna Mascaró/Cover Images Gary Larson’s 1982 The Far Side cartoon Cow Tools has long delighted internet jokers - with its oblique anti-humour making it one of his most shared creations online.

In 1982, cartoonist Gary Larson published a now-iconic "Far Side" comic titled "Cow Tools." In it, a cow stands proudly beside a jumble of bizarre, useless objects that are "tools" in name only. The joke hinged on a simple assumption: cows are not intelligent enough to make or use tools.

For decades, the default assumption has been that cows don’t have the kind of minds that support tool use. A famous Far Side cartoon, Cow Tools, made that idea into a joke: a cow stands beside strange “tools” that look like nonsense, because of course a cow couldn’t invent anything useful. But a new study suggests otherwise.

A pet cow named Veronika uses a tool in a surprisingly sophisticated way—possibly because she has been allowed to live her best life

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Mmm, steak! Nubia Millan, owner of La Sierra Carniceria y Taqueria, designed the eye-catching advertisement for her stores in Denver and Longmont. (Claire Martin, The Denver Post) If you’ve driven down West ...