Flickr/Emmanuel Dyan

When will the cow sit? It's the question that a bunch of scientists tried to answer in their study Are Cows More Likely to Lie Down the Longer They Stand? The scientists were interested in knowing the ups and downs in a cow's life, literally.

Five Scottish scientists tried to predict cows' intentions of standing up or lying down after studying video recordings of cows and tallying them with data recorded by electronic sensors.
The Guardian summarised the study published in the Applied Animal Behaviour Science journal as:

A new study shows that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely it is to stand up, but the reverse is not true. Once up, you cannot predict how soon a cow will lie down again.

It didn't take me long to understand its application in our daily life. The study can be used to predict when will a cow sitting and ruminating in the middle of a road give way to the vehicles honking frenetically, or when will the cow standing in the middle of the road move under the shade of the gulmohar tree for a power nap. Kudos for the Scots.