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If, like me, you're someone who thinks we need to do something about global warming, you might be surprised to learn that in addition to lowering harmful emissions from factories, cars and trucks, researchers have recently discovered that lowering cow flatulence can also reduce the levels of some greenhouse gases -- particularly methane.

An article in the latest issue of Sierra magazine cites a 2006 United Nations study that reports that bovine emissions are a growing source of greenhouse gas, which causes global warming. Livestock production worldwide is responsible for 18 percent of such harmful emissions in the Earth's atmosphere, it says. Moreover, the report also suggests that because worldwide meat production is expected to double by 2050, that percentage is sure to grow.

Like goats, sheep and buffalo, cows are ruminants, animals that have four stomachs and digest their food by regurgitating and rechewing it. This is what is commonly known as "chewing cud." The problem arises when digestion in ruminants produces more gas than it does in single-stomach mammals such as your uncle Fred, who delights in asking children to pull his finger so he can amaze them with his feats of gastric dexterity.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against cows. (Or uncle Fred.) They're an important link in the human food chain because they're able to convert grass into milk and meat, which, as the need for four stomachs suggests, is no small feat. Indeed, Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," a book about the benefits of eating organically grown food, points out that "the relationship between cows and grass is one of nature's under-appreciated wonders" for this very reason. People can't digest grass. Without the cow and its four stomachs, there'd be no milk for your cereal each morning, and no hamburgers, New York strips or rib-eye steaks.

In an effort to reduce all the hot air -- from the cows, not the scientific community -- researchers in the United Kingdom and Germany are diligently at work developing a unique solution to the problem: anti-flatulence pills for cows. The pills contain bacteria that improve digestion and create less gas. One fist-size pills lasts several months. Understandably, researchers are also looking into other ways of administering the bacteria, including the possibility of adding it to the cow's feed.

If test runs of the pill go as expected, preliminary estimates suggest it could be used to reduce Europe's methane output by 4 percent to 6 percent, which is more than half the 8 percent reduction stipulated by the environmental treaty known as the Kyoto protocol, according to the Discovery Channel Web site. If the livestock industry worldwide were to adopt similar measures, the pill could make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gases on a global scale.

There's more here than a lot of bloated speculation. Such studies suggest that the solutions to our problems may be found in areas we previously ignored because they seemed either too improbable or ridiculous to consider at the time. Even in places such as Rye Hollow, where there are easily more cows than people, there's probably more we can do to address the problem of global warming.

We ought to be open to every new possibility, even if it includes giving Beano to cows.

Steve Kark teaches writing in the English department at Virginia Tech.