Check out the press release, "Ancient animal urine provides insight into climate change"
As absurd as this may sound, and when I'm done describing it, it may even sound more absurd because I'm kind of a jackass and like to laugh at pretty much everything, but this is actually pretty cool research. So apparently scientists are able to garner important knowledge about climate change by studying the extracted organic material from multiple generations of crystallized urine in ancient communal outhouses of the Rock Hyrax.
The Hyrax is, an apparent weird hybrid of guinea pig and elephant. Actually, as described in the press release, the animal, found in regions of Namibia and Botswana, is not quite a hybrid, it just looks like a cute guinea pig or rodent-like creature. In reality is more closely related to the elephant.
By identifying individual organic molecules from the urine, clues can be ascertained about important changes in the diet of the Hyrax species, which can provide insight into regional climate change over several millenia. These findings may provide an understanding of long-term climate change that has never been seen before, at least not in arid regions.
The answers the scientists achieve can be really exciting. You must also respect the dangerous mountain climbing that they have to do to collect the urine.
Who knows this might be the next biggest thing in the X-games.
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