Mad Cow disease detected in California dairy cow

This final note today, the first thing about which you need to know is that milk does not — repeat not — transmit Mad Cow disease.

That said, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today that it’s found a dairy cow in California that has been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It’s the fourth such cow found in the U.S. food chain in the past nine years.

The Department of Agriculture says there’s no reason consumers should worry, but markets don’t mess around with this kind of stuff. Cattle futures in Chicago traded down as far as they’re allowed to go today.