{"id":32596,"date":"2011-03-13T14:08:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-13T14:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/fondling-swan-butts-for-science-discoblog\/"},"modified":"2011-03-13T14:08:33","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T14:08:33","slug":"fondling-swan-butts-for-science-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/fondling-swan-butts-for-science-discoblog.php","title":{"rendered":"Fondling Swan-Butts For Science | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/c770c_swanbutt.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16669\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/c770c_swanbutt.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"567\" align=\"right\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a>Picture yourself as one of England&rsquo;s majestic <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/cdn1.arkive.org\/media\/78\/78A0AAD8-92B2-4C99-9286-1098515127F7\/Presentation.Medium\/Bewicks-swan-about-to-land-on-water.jpg\">Bewick&rsquo;s swans<\/a>, about to take off on your annual long-distance flight to Arctic Russia, when out of nowhere a scientist grabs you and methodically gropes and measures your butt. It&rsquo;s all for your own good: Researchers are hurriedly sizing up as many round rumps as they can lay their hands on, in a bid to understand what&rsquo;s wiping out their population.<\/p><p>Smaller than the more common mute swans, which stay in Britain yearlong, Bewick&rsquo;s swan has seen its population in Europe decline from 29,000 to 21,000 between 1995 and 2005, and researchers at UK&rsquo;s Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, are willing to fondle the birds to save them.<\/p><p>They&rsquo;re sizing up swans to test whether changes in the their habitat are to blame for their decline: The size of swan keesters indicated whether they have enough fat to survive their over-2,000-mile journey. Basically, if the birds are plump, then that rules out the possibility that they aren&rsquo;t getting enough food, and opens the playing field for other culprits, such as power line collisions, lead poisoning, and hunting.For those of you without ...<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/vT0SUfT1dmj5ei5pca-UA6SVaxA\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cbc51_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/vT0SUfT1dmj5ei5pca-UA6SVaxA\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cbc51_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cbc51_2YtDSaA-c7I\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/cbc51_uRKvN6H-FUA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Picture yourself as one of England&rsquo;s majestic Bewick&rsquo;s swans, about to take off on your annual long-distance flight to Arctic Russia, when out of nowhere a scientist grabs you and methodically gropes and measures your butt. It&rsquo;s all for your &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/fondling-swan-butts-for-science-discoblog.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}