Scientist of the week: Brady Barr

Well done Dr Brady Barr…

In between the laughing, I guess we should remember that this is a very serious topic – better products for protection against the sun would mean less skin cancer – but when the poor chap ends up stuck in the mud…

The intrepid zoologist needed a sample of “super sweat” from a wild hippopotamus, but how to get it? Sweat had been taken from captive hippos but never from a wild, unsedated beast.

If he could sneak a sample from a two-tonne giant, he hoped to understand the unique molecular structure of its secretion, which not only gives the hippos protection from Africa’s searing sun but contains a powerful antiseptic. The potential benefits to humankind were immense…

Over 40 days he designed a 90-kilogram hippopotamus suit in which he could infiltrate a herd.

The decoy suit was made from a protective metal cage covered with canvas and Kevlar, a material fives times stronger than steel.

The head, cast from a real hippo, was made of fibreglass. It was deliberately fashioned facing down in a non-dominant posture…

Armed with his suit, Dr Barr ventured deep into Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, which is home to 9000 hippos, the world’s largest population.

To disguise his scent, he lathered the suit in hippo dung before beginning a series of stake-outs…

In one sweltering six-hour stint the only sweat samples he conjured up were his own. Once he got close enough to the herd, but they passed by him on the opposite side to the one where he was waving his sweat stick.

The final indignity came when his hippo armour sunk fast in the mud in elephant footprints and he had to be rescued by a ranger who, armed with a rifle, crept up beside the decoy hippopotamus to free the scientist from a potentially disastrous situation.