Taking recycling to a whole new level, the Peepoo bag allows you to, well, pee and poo in a bag, which can then be planted to help your garden grow. For slums in the developing world where human waste is an unregulated nightmare and flying toilets are common practice, the bag provides a means of waterless sewage disposal and organic fertilizer all in one easy, biodegradable step.
The bag is lined with Urea, a common fertilizer that breaks down urine and feces into ammonia and carbonate. Pathogens in the waste, including viruses, bacteria and parasites, are killed within anywhere from a matter of hours to several weeks.
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Bathroom time may not be wasted time after all: A year’s worth of your poop can be turned into 2.1 gallons of useable diesel. And the Norwegian capital of Oslo plans to put all that waste to work powering 80 of its buses with fuel made from the Bekkelaget sewage treatment plant, which houses the waste of 250,000 people.
If all goes as planned, the city’s other waste treatment plant, as well as biofuels made from food waste, will eventually contribute to the total supply—and with serious results: Fueling 400 or so buses this way would reduce 30,000 tons of carbon emissions a year.
While the idea certainly has an “ick factor,” it’s not like gas-station attendants will have to start shoveling sewage directly into a bus’ fuel tank.
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Anyone who’s seen Slumdog Millionaire knows the sorry state of sanitation in many of the world’s biggest slums. And with sewage contaminating more waterways and public spaces every day, the need for effective sanitation measures is dire. To bring the point home, here’s a stat for you: Only 16 percent of people in Cambodia have access to some sort of latrine or toilet, and five million people around the world die from waterborne illnesses every year.
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Astronauts make plenty of sacrifices to stay alive in space—including drinking their own urine if they have to. But when it comes to underwear, they need to change it every few days or else their briefs could turn into a bacterial mess, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Newcomer astronaut Koichi Wakata will pack 45 pairs of underwear for his trip to space, so he can help JAXA make some upgrades to its space under garments—including making it odor-free and bacteria-resistant in zero-g.
JAXA, Japan Women’s University, and five Japanese companies have given Wakata a week’s worth of underwear and other clothing to test in space. The clothes are easier on the skin, fitted for someone crouched in zero gravity, have Velcro to prevent static, and are made of antibacterial threads.
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Roman Catholic bishops have called for a new kind of abstinence this Lent: no text messaging. They have deemed every Friday during Lent “no SMS day,” partly to honor “concrete” rather than “virtual” relationships. But the refrain from phones is also an attempt to bring attention to the ongoing conflict in Congo, which is partly fueled by coltan, a mineral found aplenty in the eastern part of the country and which is crucial for many technologies, including cell phones.
Others, meanwhile, are embracing technology to the fullest—enough to try and turn magic carpet rides into reality. In space, no less. A Japanese astronaut will try to fly on a carpet when he arrives at the International Space Station later this month—he’ll also try 16 other challenges out of the total 1,597 total suggestions submitted.
Over in Italy, a “vampire” skeleton has been exhumed from a mass grave in Venice. It is thought to be from a period during the Middle Ages when vampires were believed to spread the plague by chewing on people’s shrouds after dying—an act that grave-diggers sought to prevent by putting bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires.
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• German twenty-somethings would rather give up sex than the Internet: In an industry survey, 84 percent of 19- to 29-year-olds said they would rather live without their current partner or an automobile than their Internet connection, and 97 percent found it “unthinkable” to live without a cell phone.
• The “Bodies” exhibit has reached Poland, and government officials are investigating whether the human cadavers on display amount to desecration of the human body. Next in the investigation queue: this woman.
• Meanwhile, Mother Russia “disproves” [sic] of the “monopolizing” American control over the Internet. A government official has spoken out against the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which creates top-level domain names (like .com) and manages IP addresses. The goverment reportedly plans to release suggestions for how to “demonopolize” the Internet—like oh, say, put a few crooked billionaires in charge.
• Recycleable toilet paper—not as gross as it sounds, actually (particularly when the alternative is mass deforestation).
• Bad news for…humanity: We judge our leaders on how they look, not on how well they lead.
• Jailbreak! When an octopus executes the great escape.
• Ever wonder who’s driving your subway train? It could very well be a computer.
• And hey, herbs are science: The pot revolution hits Japan.
While the $787 billion stimulus bill has not been without controversy, it has also achieved a rare accomplishment: creating something on which most scientists agree. The new bill will distribute a lot of money, so much so that many of the recipients in the science community are overjoyed—even if they aren’t necessarily prepared to handle it.
The extent to which some offices will be overwhelmed is exemplified by this reporting in The New York Times:
Utah expects that its state energy office will receive $40 million for energy efficiency, renewable energy and related programs—123 times the size of the office’s current budget, said Jason Berry, who manages the four-person unit. He is about to go on a hiring spree.
Equally thrilled with their soon-to-be windfalls, scientists have made some prize comments in the media this week about their good fortunes. Here are a few of our favorites:
“It’s like they finally got to the other side of the desert and it’s pouring rain,” Seth Kaplan, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation. (The New York Times)
“We’re kind of like the dog that caught the car…[though] if we don’t [distribute the money] well, the technical term is: we are toast,” Ernest Moniz, a M.I.T. physicist who served as undersecretary of energy for President Bill Clinton. (Nature News)
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No, the Internet isn’t just for porn—it’s also for downloading programs that simulate human flatulence. CNN reports that a Florida-based company may bring suit in federal court against a Colorado competitor, alleging trademark infringement and unfair business practices over the phrase “Pull My Finger.”
The battle for the lowest common tech denominator began when Apple approved the application “iFart,” which went on to become one of the most popular apps for users. If you’re wondering what it does, the name pretty much says it all—press a button, and the melodic sounds of flatulence ensue.
Of course, things got messy when iFart’s predecessor, an application aptly titled “Pull My Finger,” got, er, wind of its new competition. The throwdown was officially declared when iFart began using the eponymous phrase “Pull my finger” in its ads. IFart, j’accuse!
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We here at Discoblog are just about obsessed with poop stories. But today’s installment isn’t just a laughing matter, it’s record-breaking: Researchers have discovered the oldest human hair ever—between about 200,000 and 250,000 years old—and it was recovered from a white, round fossilized hyena poop in a cave in South Africa.
Getting the hair out of the hard-as-a-rock hyena dung wasn’t easy—the researchers had to use tweezers to pluck the 40 fossilized hairs. Unable to gather any DNA information from the decrepit sample, they were fortunately able to see patterns of wavy, scaly bands on the hair, which is typically seen in modern primates. In this case, the researchers said the strands looked most like human hair.
We’ll have to excuse the researchers for not reporting whether the hair was black or curly or straight or bleached blonde—these details were lost within the guts of the hyena who’d chowed down on the rotting human corpses.
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Image: flickr/ patries71
