Ig Nobel Prize winner Marcus Byrne has a new book called Dance of the Dung Beetles. It can please and enlighten anyone—human or beetle or both (Beatle)—who ever has contact with with dance, dung, life, or the universe. The 2013 Ig Nobel Prize for biology and astronomy (a rare double-category win!) was awarded to Marie […]
Tag: Dung
Why Lawyers Are Nice (or Nasty)
Which might be the best strategies for lawyers to maximize success – should they be honest or dishonest (and/or aggressive or passive) ? Researchers Giovanni Sartor, EUI – Florence [pictured] Michel Rudnianski, CNAM/ORT – Paris, Antonino Rotolo, CIRSFID – Bologna, Régis Riveret, University of Aberdeen, and Eunate Mayor, EUI – Florence, offer solutions in their […]
Alwynne B. Beaudoin’s compost of dung research
Alwynne B. Beaudoin’s “The Dung File” is one of the more effusive collections of research about dung. Beaudoin says: “The Dung File consists of a list of references dealing with pollen, parasites, and plant remains in coprolites and latrine fills from archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sites. The focus is on studies in North America, although the […]
The importance of dung, to an eventual writing career
Gorilla dung matters. This came to mind today, when I saw the news about a particular gorilla: “Famous Dian Fossey Gorilla Presumed Dead at 38“. In ninth grade biology class, I wrote a report about a book about gorillas and about Dian Fossey and other scientists who studied those gorillas. Being a ninth grader, I was impressed at how dung had played […]
Creatures that present poo to their girlfriends as a gift
If you are in Johannesburg this week, you can hear details about the ways a male is judged by the size of his balls, if that male is a dung beetle. It is not uncommon for male dung beetles to obtain sexual favors from females by presenting them with a ball of crap. But of course […]
‘Harvesting the guano of insectivorous bats: is it sustainable?’
A new paper in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Vol 7, No 6 (2015) asks, and answers the question: ‘Harvesting the guano of insectivorous bats: is it sustainable?’ Investigators Thet Thet and Khin Mya Mya focused their studies on one cave, in a complex of four caves on Sudaung mountain, Sintkaing Township, Mandalay Region (21044.941’N […]
Meat, following vanilla, from dung
Hearing about unexpected things, people used to say, “How do they think up these things? There must be something in the water….” The Digital Trends web site, among others (see video, below), reports that a scientist has devised a way to make meat, of a sort, from feces: Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama […]
A Solid Approach to Old Dung
Coprolites, which are not manufactured to meet to meet any regulated industry standard, can be examined in a standard way: “A Standardized Method for the Description and the Study of Coprolites,” F. Jouy-Avantin, A. Debenath, A.-M. Moigne, and H. Mone, Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 30, no 3, March 2003, pp. 367-72. (Thanks to Tom […]