Alexandra Thompson passed along a press release. University of Amsterdam. It’s called “Hoe de poep-emoji Zijn Vorm kreeg.” How the poop emoji got its shape.
If your emoji knowledge stops at the smiley face let’s talk. There is the poop emoji. Shaped like a conical tower. Coiled ropes of faeces. Soft-serve ice cream. The Emojipedia says. A monstrous image during a heatwave.
Remember The Emoji Movie? 2017. Patrick Stewart voiced the poop. Stentorian tones. Imagine him reading this.
The science comes from Nature Communications. April study. Many animals produce coiled poop. Earthworms. Some mammals. The shape emerges from fluid ropes falling on a rigid surface. Gravity. Inertia. Viscosity.
Lugworms break the rules.
Up Against Gravity
They live in U-shaped burrows. Intertidal sand flats. Low tide comes. The lugworm positions its anus near the entrance. Then it poops upward.
Against gravity.
“This manages to hold its shape despite risk of buckling instabilities.”
Resistance isn’t futile here. The coil radius is determined by material properties. Rope geometry. Not fall height like in animals that poop down. The researchers use heavy math. Rice noodles behave the same. Spaghetti too. The universe isn’t badly designed. Just weird.
The Virtual Standoff
Queueing maths. Efficient? Fair? If a train is late should it wait? Or cause delays? We don’t know. But we know Kelsey Hayes had a bad time with the British Museum.
History buff. Chief subeditor. She pays for membership. Email came in June. The Bayeux tapestry. Coming in September. First time in the UK for 90 years. Early ticket sale for members. Two weeks before the public.
“Register to book.” As Kelsey said it’s a sign-up for a sign-up. She logged on. The virtual line was over 1400 people long. 20 minutes. Just to start.
The real purpose? Getting members to fix login details. Avoid the “register/reset password apocalypse.” Never had to sit in a queue to reset a password before.
Two weeks later. Real booking.
Took her 4 hours. To get a time slot.
She’s going to be mad anyway. Not made in Bayeux. Not even a tapestry. Just embroidery.
The Bag That Wasn’t Leather
Hubris makes good copy. A bag. Sold in Paris. June. Trademarked as “T-Rex Leather.”
Expected $500k. Didn’t sell.
Made from preserved collagen. Tyrannosaurus rex femurs. Stop.
Leather comes from skin. This bag isn’t made of skin. Collagen is one protein in many. You need skin. You need a genome.
Old DNA from Greenland is 2 million years old. T. rex died 66 million years ago.
We don’t have the DNA. No full genome. No cells. You can’t grow skin that never existed. The bag probably failed because the colour was bad. Or maybe people just spotted the lie.
Did the seller really think we’d miss the difference between collagen and leather?
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