[ad_1]
Today I learned that a) wombats poop is shaped like a cube, and b) scientists figured out how they poop like this.
These are two great things!
Perhaps you were already familiar with the geometry of wombat droppings? Fucking hipsters. Anyway, it was a surprise to me. And apparently, the precise mechanism by which he assumes this shape has also been a mystery to wombat scientists for a long time.
But as Science reports …
To get to the bottom of the mystery, scientists dissected a wombat that had died after being hit by a car. They examined the intestines and found they contained two grooves where the guts are more elastic, which the team first reported in 2018.
In the new study, the researchers dissected two more wombats and tested the muscle and tissue layers of the guts, finding regions of varying thickness and stiffness. They then created a 2D mathematical model to simulate how regions expand and contract with digestion rhythms. The intestinal sections contract over several days, squeezing the poo as the intestine extracts nutrients and water from the feces, the team reports today in the aptly titled Soft Matter journal.
The more rigid parts are “like a rigid rubber band -[they’re] will contract faster than soft regions, ”says David Hu, a biomechanics researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and author of the study. The softer intestinal regions slowly squeeze and mold the last corners of the cube, the team found. In other mammals, the wave peristalsis of the intestinal muscles is consistent in all directions, but in the wombat, the grooved tissue and irregular contractions over many cycles form firm, flat cubes.
The full study is here, although it pays off; this beautiful wombat poop photo above comes from the paper.
[ad_2]
Source link