Hungarian Wins "Nobel" Prize for Bird Poo Breakthrough: "

Hungarian scientists may have missed out on this year's Nobel Prizes, which have been handed out over the last week, but one Magyar super-genius is getting world-wide attention for his research. József Gál and his German collaborator Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow received this year's Ig Nobel Prize in fluid dynamics for an application of complex theories of physics to the pressure sometimes found inside penguins. In their 2003 study 'Pressures Produced When Penguins Poo: Calculations on Avian Defecation,' Gál and Meyer-Rochow examined photos and other evidence and concluded that penguins crap with a force of up to 60 kilopascal, which is four times higher than the stress measured in the rear ends of humans about to make a major movement.

Gál, who teaches at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, told New Scientist that penguins have always been known to defecate with great force, so that their waste is propelled far from their nests on the Antarctic ice. Now, thanks to their work - which you can read here - we know exactly how much force. Meanwhile, Gál's collaborator stressed that the research had been embraced by the field. '[Everybody] understood that examining the physical properties of the release of fluids through small orifices was something of general importance.' Not only that, but there also seem to be valuable commercial applications for the findings.

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(Via Pestiside.)