And why is bird poop white? I've asked myself this and many other questions about poop like why is there corn in poop.
I found the answers to these and many more questions at the following web site:
http://www.heptune.com/poop.html
Why is poop brown?
[SIZE=+1]The color comes mainly from bilirubin, a pigment that arises from the breakdown of red blood cells in the liver and bone marrow. The actual metabolic pathway of bilirubin and its byproducts in the body is very complicated, so we will simply say that a lot of it ends up in the intestine, where it is further modified by bacterial action. But the color itself comes from iron. Iron in hemoglobin in red blood cells gives blood its red color, and iron in the waste product bilirubin gives rise to its brown color.[/SIZE]
Why is bird poop white?
[SIZE=+1]Unlike mammals, birds don't urinate. Their kidneys extract nitrogenous wastes from the bloodstream, but instead of excreting it as urea dissolved in urine as we do, they excrete it in the form of uric acid. Uric acid has a very low solubility in water, so it emerges as a white paste. This material, as well as the output of the intestines, emerges from the bird's cloaca. The cloaca is a multi-purpose hole for birds: their wastes come out of it, they have sex by putting their cloacas together, and females lay eggs out of it.[/SIZE]
How come when you eat corn, no matter how much you chew it, you poop it out in whole kernels?
[SIZE=+1]Corn poop is one of the greatest mysteries in life. I grew up pondering the same question. This is what I think is happening:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]When we chew corn, the outer coating slips off the inner kernel. This outer yellow coating is almost entirely cellulose, and is indigestible. It passes through the gut untouched, and emerges looking like a whole kernel, although it is mostly just the outer skin. The inside of the kernel is starchy and digestible, and that is the part that we succeed in chewing up.[/SIZE]
I found the answers to these and many more questions at the following web site:
http://www.heptune.com/poop.html
Why is poop brown?
[SIZE=+1]The color comes mainly from bilirubin, a pigment that arises from the breakdown of red blood cells in the liver and bone marrow. The actual metabolic pathway of bilirubin and its byproducts in the body is very complicated, so we will simply say that a lot of it ends up in the intestine, where it is further modified by bacterial action. But the color itself comes from iron. Iron in hemoglobin in red blood cells gives blood its red color, and iron in the waste product bilirubin gives rise to its brown color.[/SIZE]
Why is bird poop white?
[SIZE=+1]Unlike mammals, birds don't urinate. Their kidneys extract nitrogenous wastes from the bloodstream, but instead of excreting it as urea dissolved in urine as we do, they excrete it in the form of uric acid. Uric acid has a very low solubility in water, so it emerges as a white paste. This material, as well as the output of the intestines, emerges from the bird's cloaca. The cloaca is a multi-purpose hole for birds: their wastes come out of it, they have sex by putting their cloacas together, and females lay eggs out of it.[/SIZE]
How come when you eat corn, no matter how much you chew it, you poop it out in whole kernels?
[SIZE=+1]Corn poop is one of the greatest mysteries in life. I grew up pondering the same question. This is what I think is happening:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]When we chew corn, the outer coating slips off the inner kernel. This outer yellow coating is almost entirely cellulose, and is indigestible. It passes through the gut untouched, and emerges looking like a whole kernel, although it is mostly just the outer skin. The inside of the kernel is starchy and digestible, and that is the part that we succeed in chewing up.[/SIZE]
uppy:
