You read that right.  Last week, I took my nerdiness to a whole new level when I willingly joined my friend Jessica for a lecture about whale poop.

Yes, it’s a thing.  It’s orange, it floats, and it stinks to high heaven (when it comes from a right back whale).  And it’s freaking amazing.

I never thought I could sit for an hour to hear someone talk about poop, but the scientist who spoke to us (Dr. Kathleen Hunt) was incredible.  Here’s a strong, smart woman, leading the way in scientific discoveries via POOP.  Can it get any better than that?  Here’s a crash course on why whale poop is so fabulous:

• Mammal poop carries a ton of hormone information, and can tell scientists all about estrogen, testosterone, an animal’s reproductive status, and their stress levels.
• Poop is a much better indicator of stress levels than blood samples, because taking blood always stresses animals out (how could it not?) while poop gives you an indicator of how what an animal’s hormone levels were like 1-2 days earlier.  This rocked my world.  Because of this, poop is better than blood.
• Another earth-shaker – blood tests aren’t even an option for whales, since no great whales live in captivity (and you can’t trap a live whale for tests).  This is obviously true, but still crazy to think about.
• The whale poop we talked about (from the right back whale) is actually collected by going near where the whale surfaced and scooping it up with a net.  Dogs can help with the search, as they can smell the foul stuff a nautical mile away.
• Some animals are always a little bit high-strung (just like people!).  More on this later…
• Not all stress is bad.  Mating is stressful, and being pregnant is stressful on your body, but you can adapt to those and other natural stress.  It’s the unexplained stress that you have to be careful about.

Dr. Hunt has been working on fecal testing since 1999, and started this process on animals where she could test blood and poop (elephants, grizzly bears, baboons, etc.) which is how she confirmed that they carry the same information.  Now, this process is being used all over the animal world (especially in zoos).  It’s being used to find when animals are fertile, confirm when they’re pregnant, and see if they’re stressed out.  One group of scientists has a grant to study every single elephant in North America to see their stress levels, and see how they correlate to diet, environment, peers, etc.

As promised, Dr. Hunt also delivered on “the meaning of life.”  I thought it would relate to the beginning of the lecture, where she talked about all the things that could stress whales out:

• Sonar testing (underwater, especially in the Caribbean)
• Nearby nets (they may not trap whales in tuna nets, but it’s still not great to be around them all the time)
• Shipping operations (same)