For you men, peeing has become complicated these days: You have to deal with everything from tests judging your ability to pick a urinal to pictures of women laughing at you. It’s about time someone put the fun back in pee time, and SEGA thinks they have just the thing: urinal gaming. As Pocket Lint describes:
This wacky video (filmed in Japan, where else?) shows off the pee-based game in which the speed and accuracy of your urine stream is judged and converted to a cartoon-like mini-game display on the LCD.
Games to play with you pee include a graffiti cleaning task, a Marilyn Monroe-esque trick that blows wind up a lady’s skirt, and a game that asks you to shoot milk from your character’s nose. You control the game by hitting the sensor in the urinal, which rates you on how long and hard you can pee. The aim of the game is to help dudes stay on target, Popular Science explains:
If you can’t go standing up, perhaps Toirettsu isn’t for you (sorry ladies, but your hands-free method allows you to play Angry Birds on the can anyhow). Toirettsu targets restaurant and retail environments, ostensibly in hopes that by giving users goal-oriented mini-games to focus on, their men’s room floors might stay a bit cleaner as gents have somewhere to aim. And, of course, it gives establishments (and Sega) somewhere to place an ad.
Intestinal parasites might turn most people’s stomachs, but for some people suffering from ulcerative colitis, the creepy crawlies might actually reverse intestinal discomfort and symptoms. A new study found that infestation with whipworms, aka Trichuris trichiura, can ease the symptoms of an inflammatory bowel disorder, possibly by stimulating mucus production in the intestines.
Ulcerative colitis is an intestinal auto-immune disease causing inflammation and ulcers, which can bleed. Patients can either take immune-suppressing steroids (with lots of side effects), or have parts of their intestines and bowel removed to reduce symptoms.
One colitis patient, on a lone voyage to cure his bowel problems, went in search of worms after hearing about a researcher, Joel Weinstock, who believes that intestinal parasites like whipworms and hookworms can cure autoimmune diseases. In 2004 he was able to get his hands on a batch of human whipworm eggs from Thailand. He ingested 500 of them, and the eggs hatched inside him and set up shop in his intestines (want to see a picture? Beware: linked photo may make you revisit your lunch). Three months later, he downed 1,000 more eggs.
None of this was done under doctor supervision, of course, since the only kind of whipworm approved for medical testing in the United States don’t live very long in humans. After the patient has filled his bowels with worms, he contacted parasite immunologist P’ng Loke. The man allowed doctors to take a gander at his colon and track the worms and his symptoms, Loke explained to LiveScience:
Since we’re experimenting with using human excrement to power all kinds of things on earth, from buses and cars to natural gas for our homes, why not try renewable poop power in space?
That’s the mission adopted by a team at the Florida Institute of Technology–they hope to bring the flexibility and sustainability of poop power to space. As a first step towards that goal, they’re testing the ability of a special hydrogen-creating bacteria, called Shewanella MR-1, to live aboard a UN satellite, says Fast Company:
The goal is, to put it bluntly, to see if Shewanella can convert astronaut feces into hydrogen for use in onboard fuel cells. “The bacteria generates hydrogen. If we give waste to bacteria, it converts to hydrogen that could be used in a fuel cell. We’re looking at how reliable the bacteria are,” explains Donald Platt, the Program Director for the Space Sciences and Space Systems Program at the Florida Institute of Technology.
The bacteria will be going up on the UN’s first satellite, a $5 million project by the UN’s Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that will stay in space for five years. The satellite is scheduled for launch in the first half of 2011. If the bacteria are able to successfully grow in space, this project might lead the way to recycling the astronaut waste of the future, instead of freeze drying the excrement and turning it into a shooting star.
Instead of going to the doctor’s office for simple health tests, some Japanese can now go to the bathroom. The “Intelligence Toilet” can measure blood pressure, body temperature, weight, and urine sugar levels, all while you… well.
The toilet is the latest in a family of smart loos called “washlets.” Other toilets in manufacturer Toto‘s fleet feature water jets for cleaning, warmers for comfort, driers for after the water jet, and “otohime” or “princess of sound” speakers for drowning out any unpleasant user noises.
The toilets also have automatically opening and closing lids, resetting after every use to keep his and her bathrooms in bliss and to help young children or elderly people who may have trouble reaching or bending down. In Japan, the toilets run for around 400,000 yen, about $5,000.
The bigger the fossilized feces the more ancient rain. A team of paleontologists has uncovered this apparent correlation during a study of chinchilla scat at nine sites in South America’s Atacama Desert.
Claudio Latorre Hidalgo of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago presented his findings on this rainfall metric at a talk held yesterday during the ongoing American Geophysical Union’s Meeting of the Americas. Science News, where we found the story, reports that Latorre Hidaglo looked at fossilized feces from middens–shared rodent poop piles that contain “fecal pellets cemented together by crystallized urine.”
Latorre Hidaglo’s team carbon dated organic bits from the largest twenty percent of the chinchilla pellets (so as to exclude pellets from rodent youth). Given information on rainfall from other sources, they correlated the larger feces with periods of greater rainfall. According to Science News,Latorre Hidaglo suggests that the more rain, the better the environment to support bigger chinchillas; the bigger the chinchillas, the bigger the chinchilla poop. The poop test, the researchers say, may provide a way to estimate past rainfall when other tests aren’t available.
The American Geophysical Union talk announcement advises researchers to keep digging into the middens for more information:
A correlation between the size of rodent droppings and rainfall quantities is enabling researchers to establish a new paleoclimate record. Plus, a study of the contents of middens accumulated long ago by rodents offers further insights into the Atacama’s past.
Last week, we discussed a poop-powered rocket. Now a new car promises we’ll see human waste’s potential closer to home–or further from home, but not as far as space. The Bio-Bug, a modified Volkswagen Beetle, can run on fuel made from raw sewage.
“Biogas upgrading” has allowed GENeco, Bio-Bug’s developer and part of the British waste-processing companies that make up Wessex Water, to create methane from human waste.
Today’s sewage is tomorrow’s rocket fuel–at least, according to Stanford researchers. Raw sewage has long posed a problem for scientists who aim to get rid of it. That’s because the chemical byproduct of the bacteria that break down waste is nitrous oxide–a greenhouse gas also known as laughing gas.
The proposed solution? Using the nitrous oxide produced by waste as rocket fuel, of course, according to Popular Science:
“[The] rocket thruster, which was designed for use in spacecraft, can consume the excess nitrous oxide to produce heat. In a Stanford press release, [researcher] Cantwell says the nitrous oxide can heat an engine to almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and expel nitrogen and oxygen at 5,000 feet per second.”
Hot oxygen and nitrogen are far less harmful to the environment than nitrous oxide, and the methane that also is produced can help power other wastewater plants, the researchers say. This method, in which bacteria break down the waste in the absence of oxygen, is faster and cheaper than letting sewage decompose in an oxygenated environment, in which “wastewater treatment plants pump oxygen into a roiling mix of raw sewage, to encourage good bacteria to break down organic matter.”
So the next time you head to the bathroom, remember that your contribution could one day prove valuable to rocket scientists. Just another reason to flush with pride.
They were perfectly lovely, the beets Surendra Pradhan and Helvi Heinonen-Tanski grew: round and hefty, a rich burgundy, their flavor sweet and faintly earthy like the dirt from which they came. Unless someone told you, you’d never know the beets were grown with human urine.
Pradhan and Heinonen-Tanski, environmental scientists at the University of Kuopio in Finland, grew the beets as an experiment in sustainable fertilization. They nourished them with a combination of urine and wood ash, which they found worked as well as traditional mineral fertilizer.
“It is totally possible to use human urine as a fertilizer instead of industrial fertilizer,” said Heinonen-Tanski, whose research group has also used urine to cultivate cucumbers, cabbage and tomatoes. Recycling urine as fertilizer could not only make agriculture and wastewater treatment more sustainable in industrialized countries, the researchers say, but also bolster food production and improve sanitation in developing countries.
Urine is chock full of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, which are the nutrients plants need to thrive—and the main ingredients in common mineral fertilizers. There is, of course, a steady supply of this man-made plant food: An adult on a typical Western diet urinates about 130 gallons a year, enough to fill three standard bathtubs. And despite the gross-out potential, urine is practically sterile when it leaves the body, Heinonen-Tanski pointed out. (more…)
Charged with writing to an astronaut, a five-year-old boy asked a burning question: How do you pee and poop in your astronaut suit?
In an interview with Buzz Aldrin just published in Vanity Fair, contributing reporter Eric Spitznagel finally got this answer:
“We were well skilled in the art of disposal waste. There was such a thing called a ‘blue bag,’ which was kind of messy. There was a stickum on it, and you could stick it around your posterior. For urinating we had an ego-buster, which was like a condom catheter. We were cautioned not to overestimate our size. (Laughs.) Because if the condom was too big, there might be a little leakage.”
The story continues: Aldrin describes in full detail what happens if you *do* have a little “leakage” (wiggle it out into a larger bag) and where astronauts flush those blue baggies. Aldrin tells Spitznagel about a newbie mistake of tossing the bags (during extra-vehicular activity) in a trajectory that brought them straight back at their capsule.
“We looked out the window and there were three bags in a row, heading straight for us.”
In case, Spitznagel isn’t the only one wondering about space crap, you should know that taking care of business has come a long way since blue bags. Astronauts potty train using simulators before their travels. The Space Shuttles and International Space Station both have air-flushing toilets, and the International Space Station recycles pee.
An hour southwest of Berlin, in the town of Treuenbrietzen, Mozart has played non-stop for two months. The classical composer’s audience? Waste-eating microbes.
As Spiegel Onlinereports, the German waste-facility’s owners believe the music, coupled with more oxygen, will make their microbes eat biosolids more efficiently, saving money and leaving less residual waste. Their idea comes from the German firm Mundus, headquartered in Wiesenburg, whose founder cites Mozart’s “very good effect on people.”
It’s fairly easy to poo-poo this experiment, especially given other wildly-marketed but later refuted claims attributed to the man’s music. Many of these Mozart miracles first surfaced after Frances Rauscher at the University of California, Irvine questioned in a 1993 paper (pdf) in Nature if listening to classical music could increase adolescent performance on IQ tests. Though Rauscher found that the music did seem to increase performance, later studies showed no effect.
Though the waste-facility spent hundreds on fancy stereo equipment, management hopes the scheme will save them thousands in expenses each year. One only hopes that the music will make their human employees a bit happier at a job that might otherwise stink.
Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.
Last week, we 
Today’s sewage is tomorrow’s rocket fuel–at least, according to Stanford researchers. Raw sewage has long posed a problem for scientists who aim to get rid of it. That’s because the chemical byproduct of the bacteria that break down waste is nitrous oxide–a greenhouse gas also known as laughing gas.
By 
An hour southwest of Berlin, in the town of Treuenbrietzen, Mozart has played non-stop for two months. The classical composer’s audience? Waste-eating microbes.
