It’s hard out there for a hippo. An international medical team was in the process of castrating Lieber, a five-year-old hippopotamus, as part of an effort to control population growth in the zoo where he lived. But his heart stopped after his second dose of anesthetic, given to repair a torn suture. A veterinarian tried jumping up and down on the animal to restart his heartbeat, but was unsuccessful.
Posts Tagged ‘hippos’
Animal Tragedy of the Day: Hippo Castration Gone Terribly Wrong
Lather Up: New Sunscreen Could Be Inspired By Hippo Sweat
If researchers can figure out how to replicate hippo sweat, they may bring the quest for the perfect sunscreen—and for magic tricks like sunburn indicators—to an end.
A California-based research team has discovered that hippos produce an oily red secretion that contains microscopic structures that scatter light and protect the hippos from burning. The researchers, who specialize in biomimicry, hope to develop a product inspired by the sweat that will serve as a four-in-one: sunscreen, sunblock, antiseptic, and insect repellent.
The team collected sweat from hippos at a zoo and found that it contained two types of liquid crystalline structures. The banded structure, characterized by concentric rings that are comparable to wavelengths of visible light, makes it effective at scattering light, and the non-banded structure reduces the sweat’s viscosity and allows it to spread more easily over the surface of the animal.
