<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/sep/04/eureka-australian-science-prize-endangered-species-odours>
"Peter Banks’ remarkable road to a prestigious Eureka prize began nearly two
decades ago as he watched rodents escape predators and wondered: why were the
mice peeing everywhere?
“They were just putting their smell everywhere,” the ecologist said. “And I
went, ‘how about if we use that principle of the smell of prey being everywhere
to stop predators from finding their food?’”
After years of experiments, Banks and a team of scientists have shown farmers
and conservationists how they can use smells to confuse predators and protect
endangered species.
The researchers, who now form the University of Sydney’s sensory conservation
team, have won the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research at Australia’s top
science awards for their work on olfactory misinformation.
Just as political actors can use fake news to “flood the zone with shit”, as a
Donald Trump adviser put it, conservationists can use artificial odours as
misinformation for animals who find their food through smell."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
