Can A Giraffe Swim and Does HR and Recruiting Care?

*From the dusty archive…

Ever wondered if giraffes can swim and float?  No?  Well, I haven’t thought about it either actually.  Thank goodness there are some highly educated scientists out there who are thinking about it.  I was reading  ScienceBlogs.com the other day and came across the article ‘Testing the flotation dynamics and swimming abilities of giraffes by way of computational analysis‘ by Darren Naish.

Now, as I started reading, my mind quickly went to questions like:

• Do my tax dollars pay for this type of nonsensical research?
• Who in their right mind would want to research this?  Shouldn’t they be researching cures for diseases?
• Why am I still reading this article?
• Wait, can giraffes float?
• When would a giraffe need to swim?
• How does this relate to HR?  (Seriously, I did NOT think that)

As I got deeper into the article though, I was fascinated to learn why scientists think it is important to study the giraffe and its ability to swim or not.  I was also thrilled to know that the group of people working on this project are doing it for the pure love of science, at no cost to us.  This reminds me of our HR and recruiting community and how we tend to create work, that we all do for free, just for the relationship building and collaboration opportunities it brings.  That, and to further our knowledge about our industry. 

So, the important question is…..Can a giraffe swim?  Well, to find out, you’ll have to click through and read the article.  I guarantee it will be time well spent and you will learn something.  Happy Friday my fellow scientists!

*On a side note, I was happy to learn that Darren Naish is formerly from the University  of Portsmouth, UK.  Small world when so many things link back to Pompey!