Freakonomics: Dog Doo DNA

The two authors that freakishly took the dismal science to the top of the bestseller lists with Freakonomics turn their attention this week to dog doo and DNA:

Twenty-five hundred tons. That’s how much manure was produced every day by the 200,000 horses that moved people and goods around New York City in the late 19th century…Like so many seemingly overwhelming problems, this one was resolved, quite painlessly, by technology. The electric streetcar and then the automobile led to the disappearance of the horses, and with them went their dung.

Most of the animal dung produced in today’s New York comes from our dogs…With horses, the solution was simply to eliminate them.  Might there be away to get rid of dog poop without getting rid of the dogs?  Here’s an idea: DNA sampling…

The authors put some numbers to an idea which has been kicked around this past year by several city officials in Europe.  They estimate it would cost NYC about $30 million to get into the dog doo DNA business.  Excellent read.

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STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT. "Dog-Waste Management: The DNA of Dog Dirt" New York Time Magazine. October 2, 2005.

 

October 4, 2005 | Filed Under forensic 

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