Cube-shaped poop made the headlines and according to an article by the Guardian, it could change our lives. Apparently, it's not easy to poop cubes and needs special stretchy and stiff bits in the digestive system to make them. The fascinating fact that wombats poop cubes grabbed the attention of researcher Patricia Yang. She and her team carried out a study that possibly proves some scientists have the world's worst jobs.
Cube poo is beloved by wombats
First, let's see what we know about cube poo. Well, it seems to be an achievement that only wombats can do.
This may put them on the top of the poop pile. So enamored with their special ability, the creatures take it a step further and seem obsessed with the stuff. Gizmodo notes that "these Australian marsupials can drop anywhere from four to eight pieces of dung, each measuring about 2 centimeters across, during a single excretion session."
The nocturnal animals pass as many as 100 overnight and then they diligently collect them and stack them in little piles. The shape means they won't roll away, which could mean missing out on a life partner. Their prized poop becomes useful on two fronts - to mark their territory and to attract a mate. And, it seems, on a third front, it attracts scientists with a deep interest in things fecal.
Scientists examine bowls of euthanized road victims
Interestingly enough, Patricia Yang is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology - in mechanical engineering. Body fluids fascinate her, so she was ever so excited about the cube poop. Her team worked on animals that were euthanized after becoming accident victims.
The team examined the texture of the poo from one end of the digestive system to the other and discovered that it's the normal shape and rather runny at first.
(Yeah, put up your hand for that yucky job). It seems in the last eight percent of the intestine, the excrement solidifies into the cube shapes. The findings of the study note that this makes it into a shape of a cube rather than a sausage shape. Finding out how could change our lives.
How wombat poo can change our lives
Using a balloon to blow up the intestines, and one assumes, a lot of technical know-how, the team established that the lower bits of the intestines contract at different times and pressures, which are not even.
The long and short of the findings is that there's more research yet to be done, but conclusions can be drawn from the fascinating cube-shaped poop fact.
Apart from being of medical interest in the treatment of the human digestive system, it can be applied to modern manufacturing technology as well. In an abstract posted to the Bulletin of the American Physical Society, it says, "This study addresses the long-standing mystery of cubic scat formation and provides insight into new manufacturing techniques for non-axisymmetric structures using soft tissues."
In other words, One day, top-notch modern technology will process future products in cubes that could potentially change manufacturing as we know it. And, it's all thanks to wombats who pooh cube shapes, and a bunch of scientists who just may have one of the worst jobs in the world.
