this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
187 points (97.0% liked)

Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

You can't just say something like that and not show us


PDF

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Making you guys read. Get learned. This is a science community!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Jokes on you I only looked at the pictures😤

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You're not my PI!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

… who’s measuring the diameter of penguin buttholes?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Grad students, obviously.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Sorry, too lazy for a proper screenshot Ping

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why "Pooh"? It's not a bear. Why not "defecate"?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's alliteration. If you continued reading, you can see that they have a much more professional title right underneath

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But it's "poo" for a shit, "Pooh" is the bear

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"pooh", uncapitalized, as the title is if you read it, can also mean excrement informally.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I don't think so, Tim.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Why not at least "poop"?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Whose idea was this?
Who paid for it?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Probably nobody. Study like this wouldn't cost much, you'd just be reviewing footage of penguins looking for them to shit. Easy way to get an authorship credit.

My guess anyway, I haven't actually checked the methodology.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Looks like it was a follow up to someone asking an entertaining question during a lecture, which is the best reason to do some science!

According to Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of the Research Institute of Luminous Organisms in Japan, a co-author of the original 2003 paper, these fecal findings all started with an expedition he led to Antarctica. Although he was collecting samples of local marine worms and tiny terrestrial insects called springworms for further study, he also took copious photographs of the many penguins in the region, which he used in his lectures. During a seminar at Kitasato University in Japan, a young woman asked about a slide showing a penguin brooding on its nest, wondering about the white and pink lines radiating outward. She interpreted them as "decoration" and asked how the penguins made them.

"I explained that a penguin stands up, moves to the edge of its nest, turns around, lifts its tail, and then shoots from its rear, which leaves a 30-40 cm long streak of semi-liquid whitish stuff behind," Meyer-Rochow wrote in a 2019 blog post. "Everybody laughed—with the exception of the questioner. She got red in her face and quietly sat down." (The color of the feces depends on the penguin's diet: if primarily fish, the poop is white. If the penguin has been feasting on krill, the poop takes on a pinkish hue.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Someone measured enough penguins to find the average ~~butthole~~cloaca size though. I would NOT do that for free..

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Basic animal physiology for common animals is pretty well nailed down, I presume you could look that up. We probably also know how big their internal organs are, on average, just as an example.

Also note, for free vs no reward are not the same. Being cited as an author of something, anything, is important for advancement and recognition in your field. Students seldom get much financial compensation for the research necessary to graduate, for instance.

That said, I'm guessing. I am not in biology or any of its offshoots.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This guy was all about biology and it's offshoots!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They at least thank the "New Zealand Universiy Grant Committee", so them maybe?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The illustration from the full study: https://i.imgur.com/2sS64b6.png

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ohhhh I remember reading on an encyclopedia about this research! I think it even won an Ig Nobel prize https://www.livescience.com/pengins-projectile-poo.html