Photo: Chris Grooms/Queen's University
Ah, the glamorous life of a scientist. The working with expensive lab equipments, wearing those stylish lab coats and ... wading chest-deep in bird poo?!
Scientists at Canada's Queen's University discovered a 6-foot deep tower of bird excrement in an abandoned chimney on campus and realized they can use it to find the reasons of the declining population of the North American chimney swift bird.
"What we have is a history book that we didn't think we had before," said Dr. John Smol, one of the study's authors. Smol went on to explain that, to his knowledge, this is the first time anyone has ever measured stratified towers of bird droppings.
With this data, the researchers hope to show a link between the use of the insecticide DDT and the lower numbers of insect-eating birds, in particular, chimney swifts.
Chimney swifts roost in smoke stacks of all kinds. The Queen's University chimney was home to a population of 4,000 up until it was covered over with mesh in 1993. The two-metre stack of guano represents 50 years of bird droppings.
But first, someone actually has to go inside the tower of bird poo. Like my labmates in grad school used to say, "Science is a harsh mistress.": Link
Comments (2)
The man lacked imagination and could have added some cherubs or pixies, etc.. 0r England is probably still laughing since he did end up with most of what Davis owned in life and obviously didn't advise on style and grace as well as refrain from offering moral opinions. He was not going to spoil the fun.
I think it's not too late to add some angels and fairies........... Maybe the family dog or why not Mr England. Only in America.
After all the whole point of an epitaph is for the deceased to be remembered, and it's common practice around the world - many of the World Wonders are essentially epitaphs (pyramids of Giza-Egypt, Taj Mahal in Agra-India)
sweet
actually pretty lame but oh well
Is love so dead in this world these days?
No most of the US is not this wierd. Only in Kansas.
I've lived there and the wierd people of California have nothing on the wierd red necks of Kansas. This is really strange and a huge waste of time and money.
Please do not judge the entire U.S. on Kansas.
Please. No, really.
ages. I am surprised that no ghost stories have been linked to it(or are there?)
At first glance, it looks like an odd grave featuring
a dinner party or something like that.