One thing in science journalism has always struck me as odd, how very few science stories contain something which make them interesting reading from the title on. 'Humans made from arsenic' is hardly going to catch your eye and imagination on the tube into work is it? So when I found this press release from the University of Leicester about how a weird rodents urine can be used to detect climate change I was shocked. I mean, it has everything; cuddly furry animals? Check. Toilet humor? Check. Politically sensitive topic? Check. And (my favourite) it proves just how un-geeky scientists can be, what with the leader of the research group having to use his intensive rock climbing skills to scale mountains in South Africa to cut samples out with giant angle grinders. Brilliant!
The Rock Hyrax is the closest relative of the elephant (despite looking like a giant guinea pig) and whilst sharing similar tusks is always a giveaway of a genetic relationship, the fact that they both have similar toilet habits is what really gets scientists going. Rock Hyrax's share communal toilet spaces (called middens) over generations spanning thousands of years, and as these build up and crystallise they form perfect, stratified samples of climate history.
In South Africa it can be hard in the dusty and dry deserts to get any organic material with which to sample past climate change. The Rock Hyrax's fossilised urinals contain metabolites and plant matter which can be dated and analysed to test how their habitat changed over the generations which used the midden. These can then be compared with deep ocean core data which has been taken nearby to get an incredibly accurate picture of how climate has varied in southern Africa over the past 30 000 years. And this new data will help produce ever more accurate climate modelling systems, and with this new found use for urine historical climate records can only get excrementally better!
No comments:
Post a Comment