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Penguin Poop Seen From Space
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."
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.)
Sorry to be pedantic, but guano comes out of a cloaca, 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. (Incidentally, the word 'urea' derives from 'urine,' and not vice-versa.) Since birds don't urinate, they convert their nitrogenous wastes into uric acid, which is what stains rocks and statues white. So, especially given the point of this article, the guano/feces precision is relevant.
Yep.
Umm, you DO realize that the only penguins which can fly live in the UK?
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