Leave it to scientific testing to reveal the cornucopia of exciting things in the Gowanus Canal. Via Green Brooklyn, NYU publication Scienceline examined the efforts to clean up the Gowanus Canal. Decades ago, scientists found "typhoid, typhus and a virulent strain of cholera" in the canal's polluted waters. More recently, things like gonorrhea, cyanide, lead, asbestos, and PCBs have been discovered.

The canal has been "flushed with fresh water for almost eight years," thanks to pumps from the Gowanus Flushing Tunnel, which has help lessen the trademark eau de Gowanus, but there are bigger plans ahead: The city will "give the canal a bigger flush" to "increase water flow and remove the mounds of smelly waste."

The project will cost $70 million and require the pumps to be shut down in the winters of 2008 and 2009, which is a lot more complicated than a regular toilet flush. The next phase of canal cleaning would either be dredging or using sediments, but a plan hasn't been finalized yet.

And but one of many reasons to clean up the Gowanus is that the city wouldn't mind continuing development there.