{"id":1045729,"date":"2026-06-23T21:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1045729\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T21:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:30:19","slug":"the-poop-emoji-got-gravity-right-physicists-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1045729\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poop Emoji Got Gravity Right, Physicists Find"},"content":{"rendered":"

The poop emoji accurately captures the typical poop shape in nature formed by the downward pull of gravity. According to a new study, exceptions to this rule\u2014antigravitational poop\u2014suggest that physics may play a greater role in waste disposal than we realized.<\/p>\n

While strolling along a beach in France, physicist Daniel Bonn<\/a> noticed \u201cbeautifully coiled heaps of sand\u201d on the ground. These turned out to be piles of lugworm poop. But their exquisite form stuck out to Bonn, an expert in soft matter physics at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Naturally, he decided to sample and investigate their mechanical properties, as they appeared to demonstrate a \u201cnew type of anti-gravitational coiling,\u201d he told Gizmodo. The findings<\/a>, published recently in Nature Communications, establish universal mechanics for the shape of poop, while at the same time highlighting the underappreciated role of physics in biology.<\/p>\n

\"PoopA graphic illustrating the shape difference between poop. According to a university statement, the authors plan to \u201cdesign a second poo emoji and officially propose it to the Unicode Consortium.\u201d Credit: Lukas Kernell\/University of Amsterdam <\/p>\n

\u201cMost animals defecate downward,\u201d explained Bonn. \u201cAs their feces coil, the pile grows higher and the fall height decreases, making each successive coil smaller. This creates the characteristic pointy mound\u2014precisely the shape of the poo emoji. Lugworms, however, defy gravity by extruding their feces upward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing about poop <\/p>\n

To be clear, scientists had long been aware of the odd shape of worm poop. Most famously, Charles Darwin\u2019s 1881 publication<\/a>, \u201cThe Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits,\u201d provided detailed illustrations of tower-like feces from worms. (The entire manuscript is actually a comprehensive overview of worm \u201ccastings,\u201d a.k.a. poop.)<\/p>\n

\"DarwinDrawings of earthworm poop from Darwin\u2019s 1881 publication \u201cThe Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits.\u201d Credit: Charles Darwin via University of Amsterdam <\/p>\n

Notably, Darwin reported that worms defecated \u201ceither upwards or downwards with respect to the slope\u201d of their respective burrows. However, the precise mechanism behind the odd shapes was generally \u201cpoorly understood,\u201d according to the paper. In that sense, lugworms, which live in U-shaped burrows and poop upward, were perfect targets for a \u201cunique natural experiment,\u201d the team added in the study.<\/p>\n

An overarching law <\/p>\n

For the study, Bonn and colleagues examined lugworm poop samples to determine some key mechanical properties. Then, the team tried reconstructing the poop shape using extruded pea dough. In addition to the direction of defecation, the experiments tested how factors such as fall height, extrusion rate, radius of the coil, and more affected the final shape.<\/p>\n

\"LugwormA photo of lugworm castings (a) next to lab replications of the casting using pea dough (b, c). \u00a9 Bonn et al., 2026 <\/p>\n

As a result, the team found that poop\u2014released downward or upward\u2014obeyed the laws of elastic rope-coiling theory<\/a>, a mathematical framework describing how ropes and other materials coil. Surprisingly, the lugworms\u2019 muscular control and extrusion rate didn\u2019t have as much impact as expected, the study noted. The characteristic cone-shaped morphology of the poop emoji is, scientifically speaking, a \u201cdirect consequence of the physics governing elastic coiling in gravitational fields,\u201d according to the paper.<\/p>\n

Just how it is <\/p>\n

The team added in the study that the findings highlight how biological systems \u201cexploit mechanical principles without external control parameters.\u201d That is, there may not necessarily be evolutionary reasons for things like the shape of poop. That\u2019s just how things ended up, given the various physical phenomena present on Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of beauty around us, and very often beautiful structures form due to physics,\u201d Bonn said. \u201cThis is an example, but if one looks carefully, there are many more\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The poop emoji accurately captures the typical poop shape in nature formed by the downward pull of gravity.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1045730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3845],"tags":[1502,22751,7419,74,30021,70,16,15,287630],"class_list":["post-1045729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-biology","tag-fluid-dynamics","tag-material-science","tag-physics","tag-poop","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-worms"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116801558984920066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1045730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}