Wednesday, Lafayette, Indiana

Living in a University town gives us a first hand glimpse into the cutting edge of emerging science. This week is no exception. Dr. Abert Heber, an eminent engineering professor at Purdue University is working on a way to reduce the of odors that emanate from animal farms and make life barfo for neighbors. This is analogous to the research I’m certain being done in places like Rutgers and University of Texas to address the pukey fumes from refineries in their states.

In the Midwest where the population is growing steadily, we have upscale home divisions being built closer to the farms. And there are agricultural entrepreneurs wanting to expand hog and beef operations to satisfy the exploding demand for steaks and bratwurst by those very same neighbors.

What to do? Well, hopefully Purdue science is coming to the rescue.

But just how does someone go about eliminating the radiation of manure? Well, you start with volunteers on the low end of the status totem pole at a University: graduate students. Heber is paying students $30 dollars to endure a “session” of smelling various farm odors. According to doctoral student Anuj Sharma the paid volunteers are whiffing bottled air samples of manure and other pungent farm stench.

The research aims to determine how far away someone needs to be before a bad stink dissipates. For instance, one idea is to have conveyor belts run underneath the chickens to immediately carry away their droppings. The bottom line is that if they can dilute the odor enough, the putrefication stays on the farm and doesn’t drift into the local elementary school (which has plenty of its own odor problems, by the way!).

After he resolves the farm odor problem, I’m hoping Professor Heber starts working on developing a non-pooping dog!

For more CLICK HERE