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IcerocketThe Worst Jobs in Science 2007
Our annual bottom-10 list, in which we salute the men and women who do what no salary can adequately reward
Posted 06.14.2007 at 2:00 am
8 Comments
by Chris Gall:
Photo by Chris Gall
Number 10: Whale-Feces Researcher
They scoop up whale dung, then dig through it for clues
"Brown stain ahoy!" is not the cry most mariners long to hear, but for Rosalind Rolland, a senior researcher at the New England Aquarium in Boston, it´s a siren song. Rolland, along with a few lucky research assistants, combs Nova Scotia´s Bay of Fundy looking for endangered North Atlantic right whales. Actually, she´s not really looking for the whales-just their poo. "It surprised even me how much you can learn about a whale through its feces," says Rolland, who recently published the most complete study of right whales ever conducted. "You can test for pregnancy, measure hormones and biotoxins, examine its genetics. You can even tell individuals apart."
Rolland pioneered whale-feces research in 1999. By 2003, she was frustrated by the small number of samples her poo patrol was collecting by blindly chasing whales on the open ocean. So she began taking along sniffer dogs that can detect whale droppings from as far as a mile away. When they bark, she points her research vessel in the direction of the brown gold, and as the boat approaches the feces-the excrement usually stays afloat for an hour after the deed is done and can be bright orange and oily depending on the type of plankton the whale feeds on-Rolland and her crew begin scooping up as much matter as they can using custom-designed nets. Samples are then placed in plastic jars and packed in ice (the largest chunks are just over a pound) to be shared with other researchers across North America. "We´ve literally been in fields of right-whale poop," she marvels.
In the past few years, other whale researchers have adopted Rolland´s methods. Nick Gales of the Australia Antarctic Division now plies the Southern Ocean looking for endangered blue-whale dung, a pursuit that in 2003 led him to a scientific first. While tailing a minke whale, Gale´s team photographed what is believed to be the first bout of whale flatulence caught on film-a large, disconcertingly pretty bubble trailing behind the whale like an enormous jellyfish. "We stayed away from the bow after taking the picture," Gales recalls. "It does stink."
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Comments
That's so disgusting. Go vegan!
0 out of 7 people found this comment helpfulLook on http://www.hazmatdiving.com you will see some pictures and gear of hazmat divers...
5 out of 5 people found this comment helpful"Go vegan!"? Like blue whales aren't already poster kids for vegan. Or is "go vegan" sort of a cheer, like "Yay team!"? Or maybe just a verbal tic like "you know" and "Have a nice day"?
Because I can't see the relevance of a comment like "go vegan" to the (presumed) concept of producing less smelly bodily waste. Are you really implying that a vegan whale (or any fauna for that matter) would produce less smelly excrement? Your veganity must not extend to beans, legumes, cruciform veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), leafy vegetables such as cabbage and any number of greens, even the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.
"Go vegan", indeed.
2 out of 3 people found this comment helpful"Go vegan!"? Like blue whales aren't already poster kids for vegan. Or is "go vegan" sort of a cheer, like "Yay team!"? Or maybe just a verbal tic like "you know" and "Have a nice day"?
Because I can't see the relevance of a comment like "go vegan" to the (presumed) concept of producing less smelly bodily waste. Are you really implying that a vegan whale (or any fauna for that matter) would produce less smelly excrement? Your veganity must not extend to beans, legumes, cruciform veggies (broccoli, cauliflower), leafy vegetables such as cabbage and any number of greens, even the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.
"Go vegan", indeed.
0 out of 0 people found this comment helpful
zayıflama kilo verme
1 out of 2 people found this comment helpfulzayıflama hapı sohbet
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That's so disgusting. Go vegan!
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0 out of 1 people found this comment helpfulkarınca yumurtası yağı
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the good old onion, because there is no significant qualitative difference in the offensiveness of the waste produced by those plants and, say, a burger. Plus those vegetables have the added benefit of producing methane in an animal gut in amounts from merely homeric to life-threatening.
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thank you popsci..
0 out of 1 people found this comment helpfulmore than one story hear kids- pig story last page for sure warrants us all to -go vegan- !!!!!
1 out of 2 people found this comment helpful