The non-death of non-existent chickens
Oct 20th 2006Wallabynerd alert
And the winner for most amusing article in this month’s issue of Applied Spectroscopy — a journal not generally noted for its humor value — is undoubtedly
“Fluorescence Characteristics of Wholesome and Unwholesome Chicken Carcasses”, by Moon S. Kim et al.
which includes the surprising observation that “Chickens with infectious conditions (to humans) exist at the time of slaughter.” Presumably there are already careful safeguards to ensure that non-existent chickens are not slaughtered; that is, that all chickens which are slaughtered do in fact exist. (It’s like “Monty Python Does Science”.)
Actually, it’s a very nice paper, describing the basis for what could become a very reliable automated screening process for sorting out healthy chickens from diseased ones (post mortem). Current US regulations require (according to the article) each chicken carcass to be manually inspected for signs of disease. An automated system sounds like it’ll be at least as reliable and far more pleasant for the inspectors.
Full citation and abstract are online, assuming Ingenta is feeling responsive today.