The Best Job Ever: Panda Bear Scientist
Want to get your kids to do their science homework? Show them these pictures. Let the record show that in 2010, scientists get to dress up in giant Panda Bear costumes and hold baby pandas. This is not a furry convention or a union meeting for people who pass out flyers for Panda Express. This is science, people!
In China, researchers are work to preserve the endangered panda population by nurturing the youngest animals to health and then releasing them to the wild. In order to keep the living, breathing Gund stuffed animals, from getting too used to human contact, scientists dress up in Panda costumes when tending directly to the animals. Then they release them into a protected wildlife area where they monitor their adaptability with hidden video cameras. It's a radical effort to preserve the dwindling population, estimated at just 3000 in existence. It's also radical, in the '80s sense.
"It is not yet clear if the Pandas are fooled by the disguises, but researchers at China's Wolong Panda reserve in Sichuan Province, say that captive-bred cubs must live devoid of all human contact if they are to have any chance of survival," reports London's Daily Telegraph.
So basically, someone with a lot of academic credentials had to suggest in a 'Save-the-Pandas' brainstorming session: "What if we ordered 5 panda suits from Halloween Express and wore them to the office?" And then someone else had to say "It's so crazy, it just might work!"
Science rules, kids.
