Lizard Dung Collection Of 7 Years Mistakenly Thrown Out By University

LONDON — A British university has apologized to a Ph.D. student for throwing away his treasured, seven-year collection of lizard dung. Daniel Bennett has told Times Higher Education magazine that he had collected the dung in the Philippines while studying the rare butaan lizard, a relative of the Komodo dragon. The material was to be studied as part of his doctoral research.

Bennett said the 77-pound bag was thrown away by cleaners at his lab at Leeds University in northern England. He says the dung represented seven years' worth of field work, and its loss "left me reeling."

The university said Friday it had apologized.

Bennett says he rejected the university's compensation offer of 500 pounds ($750) and will "see them in court."

Comments

[Oxonian2001]

01:28 AM on 02/10/2009

Brings new meaning to the phrase "Your research is full of Sh!*" (OK, gotta admit it...anything involving dung is almost always funny!) Having said that, I feel extremely sorry for the student: having spent 6 years on a Ph.D. with notes from rare primary sources and drafts filling up more than 4 large cartons, I can only imagine how painful it feels to have a precious portion of your materials dumped, never to be retrieved in any fashion.

At the moment, I am wondering if the bag was carefully tagged and stored. Or perhaps there was new cleaning staff that didn't know about it and just dumped it judging by the contents (and/or smell emanating from it)? Although given the fact that the university has offered substantial compensation (yet not quite enough for 7 years of work), I'm guessing that it's admitting some culpability. At any rate, I would certainly sue.

[konflikt]

08:52 AM on 02/09/2009

hmm, there must be more to this story. being a research grad student, neither the maintenance nor janitorial staff enter our laboratory without one of my research group being there to say "hey, that's a $100,000 piece of instrumentation, kindly don't touch it".