Originally published September 8 2005
Hippopotamus sweat may be the next big sunscreen ingredient, researchers say
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Hippopotamus sweat has been found to protect against sun rays, bugs and skin infections, according to a group of scientists at the University of California at Merced, which, The Nashua Telegraph reports, are now trying to chemically reproduce the animal's sweat.
Some day, you might smear gooey hippo sweat all over your body, and it won't be for a bizarre ritual or a television reality show.
You'll be using a sunscreen with the chemically manufactured sweat of a hippopotamus.
Not only will it prevent sunburn, but it will ward off bugs and protect you from skin infection.
As creepy as it sounds, slippery hippo sweat could become the toast of the skin-care industry.
But before hippo sunscreen is hip -- or even invented -- science must unlock the secret of this massive mammal's secretions: What makes them work?
In that vein, research on hippo sweat marches forward at the University of California at Merced.
Professor Christopher Viney soon will publish what could be a key study on the molecular structure of the secretions.
He studied samples of the reddish fluid over the past year after locating the most logical sweat donor: Bulgy, the hippo at Fresno's Chaffee Zoo.
"Here's an animal that spends its whole life in a pool not getting sunburned," Viney says.
"Hippos are ferocious and territorial," says Viney, a University of Cambridge-educated engineer who specializes in bioengineering and material science.
"The zookeepers at Chaffee hosed down his indoor enclosure and let him stand on the clean floor for a while.
It was not difficult to lure mellow Bulgy outside for a dip in his pool while Viney and his assistant, Amber Zielinski, 16, a Merced High School student, collected the droplets with special instruments.
He has taken many photographs of the enlarged images in the microscope so he can see the way the secretion is formed.
"We need to understand the molecular organization in the secretion," Viney says.
"Hippos are not the cleanest animals, yet their injuries don't get infected.
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