Penguin Poop Seen From Space 86
Scientists have found ten new emperor penguin colonies by spotting their skid marks on the Antarctic ice from satellite images (video on page). The ice around the penguins gets very dirty because they congregate in a small area in very large colonies for months. Peter Fretwell, Mapping Expert, British Antarctic Survey says, "What we find is that we can see the guano (excrement) from space. They stay in the same space in very large colonies for eight months of the year and the ice around them gets very dirty, and it's that that we can see on the satellite images."
Someone needs to set up a cron job... (Score:5, Funny)
...to automatically purge their logs.
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Done in one.
I thought the problem was with two.
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Another reason (Score:2, Funny)
Another reason why gentoo is shitty.
Newsflash! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Newsflash! (Score:4, Insightful)
Completely unexpected ability to find new penguin colonies and better understand the population. Cool!
Just because it's obvious in hindsight, doesn't mean that it was expected or even thought of before.
Cheers
I went ahead and (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure if that helps.
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They can do that? (Score:1, Funny)
Holy crap! you gotta be shitting me!
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It's a pretty versatile camera, though it's kind of old and not as regular. There were some pipes that needed cleaning, and they needed more fiber optics but taking pictures of poop is its number two duty!
huh. (Score:5, Funny)
And somehow, we're the ones blamed for polluting the planet.
I think every guy everywhere... (Score:5, Funny)
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No shit. Eerrrmmm...yes shit?
Now there's something! (Score:4, Funny)
...the BBC documentary Planet Earth skipped over. No, it was all pristine, white landscape with cute penguins huddled together. Not once did they show a dirty red-brown shitty trail aftermath of their voyage. Next time I watch that, I'm going to look very closely at the background.
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...the BBC documentary Planet Earth skipped over.
It wasn't skipped over. They point it out in the episode about ice worlds. You might be thinking about the first disc in the series which is a sort of summary of their entire collection.
Re:Now there's something! (Score:4, Funny)
Too bad they published this before Planet Earth was filmed. Otherwise, Attenborough could be all, "These penguins create such a great trial of excrement, it can be seen from space. In fact, if this excrement was edible, it could sustain an entire village of people for 5 years..."
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In fact, if this excrement was edible, it could sustain an entire village of people for 5 years...
Hmm, it's too late for Planet Earth, but it may not be too late for a truly horrific episode of Man vs Wild.
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rj
Hey! Look! (Score:5, Funny)
I think there's an emperor penguin colony in my underpants!
OR... (Score:3, Funny)
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I think there's an emperor penguin colony in my underpants!
It's HOT GRITS :/
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I think there's an emperor penguin colony in my underpants!
Bow before the emperors in my pants!!!!!
You think the great wall of china's big? (Score:2)
You should see the mess penguins make man, we can see that shit from SPACE!
Doesn't Take Much (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, to dirty water ice enough to darken it considerably takes only a very small proportion of contaminants. Next winter, collect one of those dirty, nasty tire-bergs off of a car and melt it down. See how much of it is water and how much is dirt. For all it's nastiness, it's almost all water. (More broadly, this is true of planetary surfaces. The colors we generally associate with various surfaces are often due to trace components on otherwise white material.)
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Save the planet, run Albedo Linux. The penguin without the poo.
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Wow, all those billions (Score:2)
Your tax dollars at work....finding poop from space.
Thank God there's TANG to fall back on.
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It appears that Tang was a citrus drink modeled to the taste of the uglis tangerine. [homecitrusgrowers.co.uk] It's a citrus fruit that is a mix of an orange, grapefruit, and tangerine. But now Tang has decided to offer pineapple accent flavors so get ready for the new and improved tang, the Pu-Tang.
Yes, studies found that most men and quite a few women prefer the taste of Pu-Tang over ugli fruit.
No, not really... (Score:2)
The average satellite probably doesn't have a camera on it. In fact, even the average *spy* satellite can't read the words on a stop sign... They're looking from the top down. It would have to be at the very edge of the horizon, and they would have to be pointed that way.
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You have more than one word on stop signs in your area?
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STOP
(if you want to...)
Sorry, George.
guano != poop (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to be pedantic, but guano comes out of a cloaca [wikipedia.org], which is kinda like a combined urine/feces vent. Humans, and most placentals, have separate urine and feces vents.
We usually equate urine with water and salt regulation, but it's also our way of getting rid of nitrogenous waste (ammonia mostly), which we expel as urea [wikipedia.org]. (Incidentally, the word 'urea' derives from 'urine,' and not vice-versa.) Since birds don't urinate, they convert their nitrogenous wastes into uric acid [wikipedia.org], which is what stains rocks and statues white. So, especially given the point of this article, the guano/feces precision is relevant.
Re:guano != poop (Score:5, Funny)
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Sorry to be pedantic, but wouldn't that be a "cloacal-retentive" tag?
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So... Now we know how birds "do it". What about the apiarian half of the Birds and the Bees?
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Sorry to be pedantic, but wouldn't that be: "Sorry to be pedantic" is a new meme?
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
I've been asked... (Score:2)
Yes, but how does it rate? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Yes, but how does it rate? (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, that is SO offensive. And I can't stop looking!
Oh Dear! (Score:1)
Re:So, does this allow us to monitor the colonies? (Score:4, Funny)
Number of penguins eaten by polar bears on a yearly basis: zero.
Wrong side of the planet.
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Give me a penguin and a polar bear, and I can prove you wrong.
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Number of penguins eaten by polar bears on a yearly basis: zero.
Wrong side of the planet.
Yeah, so it's pretty unlikely, but can we really be sure the number is really zero? While I doubt a polar bear made it to the south pole, birds can get lost and are sometimes seen thousands and thousands of miles from their usual habitats, and penguins are strong and capable swimmers. Can't you just see the penguin couple?
"Dear, I think we went the wrong way back our vacation in Argentina. The sun seems to be in the
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Umm, you DO realize that the only penguins which can fly live in the UK [youtube.com]?
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No, I had no idea, it's merely a bizarre coincidence that I talked about them swimming and getting eaten by an orca.
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Don't eat the yellow snow (Score:3, Insightful)
One for the igNobel? (Score:2)
That is alot of poop! Maybe a researcher could study this a go for the igNobel award.
http://improbable.com/ig/ [improbable.com]
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Shoot all the penguins (Score:5, Funny)
That dark guano is going to absorb more sunlight and accelerate global warming and the melting of the ice!
We must preserve the home of the penguins, or they'll have nowhere to live.
Oops, we just shot them all.
Never mind.
If penguin poo is visible from orbit... (Score:5, Funny)
...the bullshit in Washington D.C. must be visible from Mars.
This is just Google (Score:1)
Obligatory Muppets quote (Score:1)
Penguin poop... from... SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE.
(Followed by obligatory non-caps message to defeat the lameness filter.)
I poop therefor I exist! (Score:1)
I poop therefor I exist!
Take that! Microsofties (Score:1)
I think it speaks volumes that our poop can be seen from space. Let us know when Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer poop can be seen too.
<1% market share indeed.