{"644043":{"#nid":"644043","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Wombats Poop Cubes, and Scientists Finally Got to the Bottom of It","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBurrowed beneath Australian forests, grasslands, and mountainous regions, the bare-nosed wombat (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/animals\/mammals\/c\/common-wombat\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EVombatus ursinus\u003C\/a\u003E) feeds primarily on grasses\u0026mdash;and poops cubes. But how the bare-nosed wombat excretes poop in the shape of cubes has mystified scientists until now. A study published last month in \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pubs.rsc.org\/en\/content\/articlelanding\/2021\/sm\/d0sm01230k#!divAbstract\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ESoft Matter\u003C\/a\u003E, with co-author David Hu, a professor of fluid mechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology,\u0026nbsp;reveals how the wombat\u0026rsquo;s intestines constrict to shape the scat.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"35185","created_gmt":"2021-02-09 20:47:45","changed_gmt":"2021-02-09 20:47:45","author":"kpietkiewicz3","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"Pranav Kulkarni","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/scientists-have-solved-mystery-how-wombats-poop-cubes-180976898\/","dateline":{"date":"2021-02-08T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2021-02-08T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}