Drew Wilson
January 13th, 2011, 12:32 AM
There's nothing quite like a day at the beach with a few thousand penguins.
Every year about this time, penguins congregate in the far Southern Hemisphere to build nests and raise families. You'll also find biologists there, wrapping tags on the penguins' flippers so they can follow those birds for life.
But some scientists now say tagging is too harmful because it undercuts a penguin's most important skill: swimming.
I was lucky enough to watch penguins swimming from a cliff overlooking an Argentine beach where thousands of Magellanic penguins had gathered. Like awkward mannequins, they waddled down to the water. But when they dived in, they were transformed into black and white torpedoes.
Rory Wilson has watched penguins for 30 years.
"Even people who work on penguins don't appreciate how stunning they are underwater, how maneuverable and how fast," he says. "You know, they are just — it's hard to describe it."
Slowing Down The Penguins
Wilson and other scientists have shown that penguins have a very, very low coefficient of drag, which is a mathematical measure of how well a body moves through air or water.
"If you were shaped like a penguin," Wilson says, "you could kick off the side of a swimming pool and just go yards and yards and yards." But Wilson and other biologists say some tags seemed to increase drag and slow down penguins.
More... (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132859946/flipper-bands-can-harm-king-penguin-population)
Isn't there a scientific theory that suggests that you can't observe something without affecting its outcome?
Every year about this time, penguins congregate in the far Southern Hemisphere to build nests and raise families. You'll also find biologists there, wrapping tags on the penguins' flippers so they can follow those birds for life.
But some scientists now say tagging is too harmful because it undercuts a penguin's most important skill: swimming.
I was lucky enough to watch penguins swimming from a cliff overlooking an Argentine beach where thousands of Magellanic penguins had gathered. Like awkward mannequins, they waddled down to the water. But when they dived in, they were transformed into black and white torpedoes.
Rory Wilson has watched penguins for 30 years.
"Even people who work on penguins don't appreciate how stunning they are underwater, how maneuverable and how fast," he says. "You know, they are just — it's hard to describe it."
Slowing Down The Penguins
Wilson and other scientists have shown that penguins have a very, very low coefficient of drag, which is a mathematical measure of how well a body moves through air or water.
"If you were shaped like a penguin," Wilson says, "you could kick off the side of a swimming pool and just go yards and yards and yards." But Wilson and other biologists say some tags seemed to increase drag and slow down penguins.
More... (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132859946/flipper-bands-can-harm-king-penguin-population)
Isn't there a scientific theory that suggests that you can't observe something without affecting its outcome?