Just when you thought Australia couldn’t get any more fucked, a group of Aussie scientists just won a Nobel Prize for *checks notes* wombat shit.
Well, sort of. It was an Ig Nobel Prize to celebrate funny scientific discoveries, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
We all know that wombat poo comes out in little cubes, but fuck knows WHY. But it looks like a scientific study might’ve just worked it out.
In a collaborative effort between the University of Tasmania and a tech professor from Georgia, the research points to the “extraordinarily long” intestines as the cause for the cubical shit.
Our measly 7-metre intestines are nothing compared to the 10-metres of intestinal goodness wombats are blessed with.
Their intestines also have parts that are rigid, which could be the reason for the cube poop, but that’s just a theory.
Unfortunately this doesn’t tell us why it’s a cube, but it gives a little more insight than the initial theory that it happened at the ‘exit point.’
Personally, this is what I imagine.
The shitty discovery earned the researchers an Ig Nobel Prize from Improbably Research. The annual award appreciates humorous research that “makes people laugh and then think”.
“It is a genuine honour to have our research recognised through this award, and of course, a lot of fun,” one of the researchers Dr Scott Carver said.
Other winners of the hilarious science prize also include Italian scientists who theorised that pizza could prevent some forms of cancer, and an Iranian nappy-changing machine.
Ten awards were given out at the tongue-in-cheek ceremony at Harvard University on Thursday, according to The Guardian. An eight-year-old was also present at the event to cut off speeches at the one-minute mark, saying “please stop, I’m bored.”
Honestly, I would pay that girl to come to every wedding and birthday I attend for the rest of my life.
The winners of the award win a 10-trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe, but this is also a joke because the country stopped using the currency nearly 10 years ago because of hyperinflation. Scientists are fucking hilarious.
Team wombat shit took home to physics prize. The scientists include Patricia Yang, Alexander Lee, Miles Chan, Alynn Martin, Ashley Edwards, Scott Carver, and David Hu. Their official prize was for “studying how, and why, wombats make cube-shaped poo.” Yes, a poo prize.
You can read about their research here if wombat poo tickles your fancy.
Meanwhile, I have had the Wombat Stew song stuck in my head for the last hour, but have substituted “stew” for “poo”.
Wombat poo, Wombat poo, Gooey, brewy, cubey, poo-ey, Wombat poo!
Happy Friday, science is cool.
