Turtle farts raise a stink

whatwhatturtlebutt.jpg

Fact: The Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre in Norfolk, England, gives its Green turtles brussels sprouts as a Christmas treat.

Fact: Brussels sprouts kind of make you gassy.

Fact: In 2008, the bubbles produced by sprout-induced turtle farts triggered overflow alarms in the middle of the night.

Now the Yarmouth turtle tank—12 feet in depth and width holding 250,000 litres of water along with George the 3-ft-long green turtle—has been partially emptied for the festive season. Thousands of litres have been removed to lower the water by a six inches and keep the sensitive alarms clear.

Phew.

The Telegraph: Aquarium lowers water levels after feeding turtles brussel sprouts

(Thanks, Marc Abrahams!)

Image courtesy Flickr user pauljill, via CC

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Maggie Koerth-Baker

I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.

Books
Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.

Upcoming Appearances
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• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
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