That's a fantastically positive spin on what looks like (to an outsider) a hot pile a poop. It's more like two children tearing the teddy bear in half because neither could compromise.
> "We opened those intestines up like it was Christmas," said co-author David Hu
He must be fun at parties. ;-)
> The marsupial then stacks the cubes - the higher the better so as to communicate with and attract other wombats.
If I was a comedian who specialized in toilet humor (and let's face it - I totally would), I would either quit my job because of this sentence, or (if I was good at it), I would turn it into my next standup routine. I probably could just read the article verbatim and get a few laughs, assuming the audience was not openly hostile.
Just to be clear, I think this is very interesting, and absolutely a valid area of research. But it is rather funny as well.
EDIT: Now I wonder - what do wombats try to communicate by stacking poop? This seems like a very existentialist thing to do.
I think Pre-Poop Your Pants is a really clever way to package the core idea. I agree that the article is well crafted, and I don't think it's childish to talk about poop in this context.
Serious and funny - to me - are not mutually exclusive. The idea of wombats stacking their poop is very funny, but if I was a biologist, that would make me want to investigate the matter even more.
During my Zivildienst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst), I had lots of contact with all kinds of things leaving the human digestive tract. You get used to it surprisingly quickly, as long as you have and endless supply of rubber gloves and disinfectant. OTOH, the revulsion feces inspire in most humans serves a purpose, evolution-wise, so finding a middle ground would be rather difficult.
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