Ever met a myotonic goat?

Perhaps not, but you’ve likely heard of fainting goats. That is, goats believed to possess a specific genetic disorder, a problem in their code if you will.

When these particular goats are startled, a rotten bit code in their DNA causes them to instinctively stiffen their legs. This leads to them falling over near instantly, or at the very least, carrying on a stiff-legged shuffle around the farm.

In a mix of both sadness and intense laughter, watching a goat nearly, though quite literally, be scared to death can be enlightening. Interestingly enough, it turns out this laughing stock of the barnyard is also a great metaphor for applications with their own bad code. While scientists continue to study just what’s going wrong in a myotonic goat’s code, you can now do the same, metaphorically speaking of course.