Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Scientists explain how wombats drop cubed poop
Wombats, the chubby and beloved, short-legged marsupials native to Australia, are central to a biological mystery in the animal kingdom: How do they produce cube-shaped poop? Patricia Yang, a postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, set out to investigate.
Yang studies the hydrodynamics of fluids, including blood, processed food and urine, in the bodies of animals. She was curious how the differences in wombats' digestive processes and soft tissue structures might explain their oddly shaped scat.
During the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics 71st Annual Meeting, which will take place Nov. 18-20 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Yang and her co-authors, Scott Carver, David Hu and undergraduate student Miles Chan, will explain their findings from dissecting the alimentary systems, or digestive tracts, of wombats.
"The first thing that drove me to this is that I have never seen anything this weird in biology. That was a mystery," said Yang. "I didn't even believe it was true at the beginning. I Googled it and saw a lot about cube-shaped wombat poop, but I was skeptical."
[...] So, why do wombats poop cubes? Wombats pile their feces to mark their home ranges and communicate with one another through scent. They pile their feces in prominent places (e.g., next to burrows, or on logs, rocks and small raises) because they have poor eye sight. The higher and more prominently placed the pile of feces, the more visually distinctive it is to attract other wombats to smell and engage in communication. Therefore, it is important that their droppings do not roll away, and cube-shaped poop solves this problem.
Yang hopes that the group's research on wombats will contribute to current understandings of soft tissue transportation, or how the gut moves. She also emphasized that the group's research involved mechanical engineering and biology, and their findings are valuable to both fields. "We can learn from wombats and hopefully apply this novel method to our manufacturing process," Yang said. "We can understand how to move this stuff in a very efficient way."
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @03:57PM (4 children)
Cubes? It sounds like a new toy to replace lego bricks.
Maybe these wombats could be trained to defecate in orderly rows upon rows, like stacking bricks, to form structures, such as restaurants.
Wombats defecating reminds me: Microsoft please, PLEASE wait until Windows is stable enough to release, before releasing it.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:42PM
Build the Wall! Build the Wall!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:44PM (2 children)
If you click through to the article, the term "cube" is being used very generously. "Not entirely round" would be more accurate. "Just not-round enough to avoid rolling away"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Funny) by deimtee on Tuesday November 20 2018, @11:56PM (1 child)
I've seen wombat shit. It's close enough to a cube with rounded corners that Apple would sue them for it.
One job constant is that good employers have low turnover, so opportunities to join good employers are relatively rare.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:50AM
So Apple is going to sue the shit out of them?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:01PM
Yo Wombat's so round it eclipses the sun!
Yo Wombat's teeth are so yellow when it smiles the traffic slows down!
Yo Wombat's so square it poops cubes!
"So?"
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:13PM (2 children)
This certainly will be one of the nominees for the IG Nobel next year.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:59PM
Trump "Hold my KFC, I need to talk to you about the Finns raking their forests to prevent fires"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:39PM
Whether or not it wins the IG Nobel, this research is definitely worthy of a large government grant and a dedicated research center.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:27PM (1 child)
From TFA . . .
Could this improved understanding be applied to create a pill for humans to excrete regularly shaped bricks suitable for construction purposes?
I eagerly await the TV ads for this new pill.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:41PM
Just scare the hell out of someone. The Internet tells me, and as we know The Internet never lies, that this causes people to "shit brix."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:20PM (7 children)
SN keeps citing Physics.org for articles. The content is good, however the website's javascript is god awful. I only have JS enabled for the top level domain and as soon as I open the tab (vivaldi) the browser becomes unresponsive and cpu starts struggling.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:21PM (3 children)
Sorry, phys.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:31PM (2 children)
Just disable exzemascript altogether and the site works fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:55PM (1 child)
Elaborate, please. I find no search results for exzemascript.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:45PM
A typo. The word is correctly spelled eczemascript.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:39PM (1 child)
I'll tell bytram again to use ScienceDaily [sciencedaily.com] instead. That site is not a browser killer and also links directly to university article sources instead of to another page on site and then the university homepage.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday November 21 2018, @02:57AM
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:33AM
The site works fine without any js enabled. And, allowing the images from their CDN, and then using reader mode, gives you nicely formatted text with images.
(Score: 5, Funny) by ilPapa on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:18PM (2 children)
I'm not one to brag, but I have developed such exquisite control over my sphincter muscles that I can poop a perfectly-shaped icosahedron.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:13PM (1 child)
Dodecahedrons make better Christmas tree ornaments.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @12:37AM
You both make great moronahedrons.
(Score: 5, Funny) by ilPapa on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:20PM (1 child)
Clearly, he has never seen Donald Trump's hair.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @12:42AM
That's not biology, but lack of.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:52PM (6 children)
Where's C0lo? I need to know exactly how venomous these "wombats" are, and how many Aussies they kill every year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:07PM
They're about the only pet you can kick around like a ball and no one will scream animal abuse.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:32PM (2 children)
Down the wombat hole.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:04PM (1 child)
Drop-bears from above, wombats from below, bandicoots in the armpits of the Dreamtime. A lovely continent! Unfortunately, there are no longer any Diprotodons. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:24PM
They dreamed alright with a belyful of Diprodont.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Tuesday November 20 2018, @11:03PM (1 child)
Not venomous, but they are incredibly strong. They are generally not aggressive unless threatened, and will normally retreat into their burrows when a predator is present. DO NOT STICK YOUR HAND IN A BURROW. The wombat's chief defence is it's incredible strength, and they allow a predator to climb partially over them before pushing their back up against the tunnel roof and crushing the skull of the attacker. If your arm ends up between a wombat and a tunnel roof, it will be crushed.
(Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday November 21 2018, @12:02AM
Oh, OK, extremely venomous and they murder thousands each year.
I thought so.
Thanks for the info.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:21PM
So it really is possible to "crap bricks". It's no longer just an idiom.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:57PM
They didn't want their poop to roll away. They went with cubes. The other option was really sticky poop, and that was by far a less pleasant option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @12:44AM
If spherical cows make rectangular poop, does that mean rectangular cows make spherical poop?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @08:08AM
Square anus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @09:06AM
On the bright side, this would make it easier for game developers to simulate more realistic wombats.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @11:46AM
It is dark, past midnight. The wind is rustling the tent and sighing through the branches of the trees round the clearing. Occasional nightbird calls echo from afar. Suddenly a terrible scream tears the night.
"What the hell was that?"
"Wombat."
"A wombat? Something's killing a wombat?"
"Nahh, wombat taking a shit."