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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren voc Obam, and I've got a

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Speaker 1: classic episode for you today from our former host, Christian Sagar.

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Speaker 1: And it's one of those gross but pressing questions about

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Speaker 1: the world around us. Why is bird poop white? Hey,

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, it's Christian Sager. Today's question is pretty gross. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's give it a go. Have you ever washed a

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Speaker 1: car just to have a bird poop on it a

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Speaker 1: few minutes later? It's sad when you think about it.

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Speaker 1: Despite the wealth of technological and social innovations across the

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Speaker 1: span of human history, we still can't stop birds from

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Speaker 1: flying around crapping on whatever they want anytime anywhere. A

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Speaker 1: bird actually pooped on my dog's head the other day.

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Speaker 1: And look, this is not normal poop. It's white, sometimes

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Speaker 1: with a dark spot in it. But why why is

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Speaker 1: bird poop white? Well, the answer here is it isn't.

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Speaker 1: At least, bird poop isn't all white. It's a mix

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Speaker 1: of colors, and it can vary with the species of

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Speaker 1: the bird or its diet, but there's definitely white stuff

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Speaker 1: in there. Right. Well, it all comes down to streamlining.

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Speaker 1: Birds are like any other animal they take in food,

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Speaker 1: process it for energy and excrete waste. However, where mammals

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Speaker 1: like deer elephants or bill murray have two different excretion

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Speaker 1: systems like urine and feces, bird biology ain't got time

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Speaker 1: for that. Birds don't even have separate exits for their

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Speaker 1: waste and reproductive systems. Instead of the genitalia anous combo

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Speaker 1: so popular in the mammalion world, birds have a one

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Speaker 1: stop shop called the cloaca. It's the entrance exit point

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Speaker 1: for the intestines, urinary tract, and reproductive system. Yep. Think

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Speaker 1: about that for a second. Birds also process the food

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Speaker 1: they eat in a different way. We mammals break down

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Speaker 1: protein and produce nitrogenous waste, but we make it into urrea,

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Speaker 1: which we dissolve into water and excrete as urine. This

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Speaker 1: takes a lot of water, which means we have to

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Speaker 1: drink lots of it and also means we don't do

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Speaker 1: well in places without much water. Birds take a different approach,

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Speaker 1: and one that conserves water. Instead of dissolving that waste

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Speaker 1: into urine, they primarily excrete something called uric acid. It's

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Speaker 1: a solid pasty junk that's the white stuff in a way.

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Speaker 1: Birds aren't just pooping on our cars, statues, buildings, and

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Speaker 1: occasionally very unlucky people looking up with their mouths open.

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Speaker 1: They're also peeing. And here's why. Remember how earlier I

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Speaker 1: mentioned this was all about streamlining. Birds aren't trying to

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Speaker 1: conserve water out of some strange sense of environmental responsibility.

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Speaker 1: They've evolved to reduce their weight and carrying all that

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Speaker 1: extra water around to produce urine. It just doesn't make sense.

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Speaker 1: There are also, and I can't believe I'm saying this,

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Speaker 1: pros and cons to bird poop. Pro it's a great fertilizer. Con,

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Speaker 1: it can carry a wealth of diseases. Also, it's been

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Speaker 1: used as a cosmetic of facial cleanser. True story. Well,

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Speaker 1: if it's a pro or con, that's up to you.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Ben Bolan and produced by

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Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radios

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of

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Speaker 1: other gross but interesting topics, visit our home planet how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Plus for more podcasts for my

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Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.