Technabob » urine

Illuminated Micro Toilets Make a Loud Statement About Peeing in Public

Hazel Chua — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:00:01 +0000

One reason why some alleys or street corners stink so badly is because some people pee on them. (Okay, so dogs also pee anywhere they want to, but humans should know better.) Aside from the stink, it’s also very unsightly.

In a clever way of protesting this, Spanish street art collective Luzinterruptus set up eighty of these illuminated, micro toilets at the Plaza de San Ildefonso in downtown Madrid. Each micro toilet was filled with a yellow liquid (for obvious reasons, they didn’t use urine) and attached with a LED light.

Luzinterruptus explained the reason for their art intervention: “During the day and at night time, people urinate anywhere in the streets without any embarrassment. They just walk along, turn round, zip down and, even in crowded places, seen by passers-by, let go. Through our installation, public toilets, we have tried to attract attention -in a comical manner- about the problem we encounter when walking in centric streets and squares.”

At first glance, the plastic urinals they used look like oddly shaped socks for people with giant feet. But they’re actually plastic containers that are used for male patients to urinate into at hospitals. Who knew?

[via Pop Up City]

Headphone Plugs Take a Leak on Your Gadgets

Technabob — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:00:20 +0000

Oh, Japan. Not only can we count on you to innovate, but to constantly keep us amused with strange and silly gadgets. The latest in a long line of wacky Japanese goods has to be these headphone plugs designed to keep crap from falling into your headphone jacks. Oh, and they look like a little boy taking a whiz.

Presumably inspired by the famous Manneken Pis statue, these silly things plug into your headphone jack, and pee all over your fancy new gadgets. They’re the perfect complement to those urine-powered batteries I know you’re running all your devices with.

They’re available from Strapya (JP) for just ¥399 (~$5 USD) each, but I don’t see them on their international website yet. What a tragedy.

e-Urinal Gives You a Check-up While You Pee

Hazel Chua — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:00:25 +0000

We’re all strapped for time these days. A good illustration of just how valuable time is was shown in that bomb of a movie that starred Justin Timberlake, In Time. In the movie, time had become the currency which was used to pay for stuff, aside from making sure that you were still, well, alive.

I doubt we’ll ever reach that stage, but the point is, time is valuable. Time is money. And time is something we all probably don’t have enough of.

So for the guys, there’s the e-Urinal. This thing will speed you up by checking your urinary health as you pee. The touchscreen fires up as you go, and you can just browse through the different menu and options by tapping (preferably after washing your hands.) So maybe it might also be a good idea to stick a mini sink in there somewhere.

The e-Urinal concept would measure the PH, SG, URO, BLO, WBC, PRO, GLI, BIL, & KET in your pee. That’s a whole lot of stuff, but basically, those are measures of your sugar levels, PH, and red/white blood cell count, among others. It could also store your history so you could check up on your trends over time (assuming you can remember which urinal you used.)

The e-Urinal was designed by Royce Zhang. It seems pretty cool, though it would be much cooler if he also came up with a female version. Hmmm.

[via Yanko Design]

Researchers Try to Turn Urine into Biofuel, Destined to Celebrate with a Urinal Cake

Conner Flynn — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:00:14 +0000

Fuel cells. Where are they? They still have not hit the market and replaced batteries. It would be nice to see them in daily use since we would just need to refill them with liquids instead of wasting so many batteries and having them end up in landfills.

Part of the problem is having an infrastructure and supply chain for such liquid refills. That’s where urine comes in handy. We all produce it everyday, so it is widely available and cheap. Researchers at the University of the West of England in Bristol have started experimenting with urine as the fuel for a microbial fuel cell.

Microbial fuel cells generate their power from bacteria feeding on the sugars and give off electrons. Did you know that humans produce 6.4 trillion liters of urine every year? That’s just humans. If you include farm animals there’s 38 billion liters every day right there.

So far, tests have produced a very small amount of power (peaking at whopping 8 milliamps). By miniaturizing and stacking microbial fuel cells, they hope to increase the power significantly. It’s fascinating stuff. Just think – one day our toilets could power our homes.

[via BBC News via geek]

Drought Stricken Texas Town to Recycle Pee for Drinking Water

Shane McGlaun — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:05:35 +0000

You might think its hot where you are. However, you don’t know hot until you visit Texas in the summer. We are going on 40 consecutive days of temperatures in the 104-107°F range in many areas, and on top of the heat, we are having our annual drought and it is one of the worst ever. The heat and the lack of rain means that local lakes where many cities get their water are drying up and water is running out.

A little town called Big Spring, Texas has found that the water supply is in such crisis that it is taking to extreme measures to ensure that residents have water for drinking and cooking. The city has started laying out plans to create massive sewage filtration system that would convert urine and wastewater into drinkable water for the residents.

The process would be hygienic and use technology that is similar to what NASA uses on the ISS. Still the thought of drinking your neighbor’s urine no matter how many times it is filtered seems very disgusting. The 27,000 residents of the city typically get their water from the Colorado River Municipal Water District.

[via Discovery News]

Nasa Urine Recycler is Good to Go. Unfortunately.

Lambert Varias — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:52:17 +0000

“Houston, we have a problem.”

Eagle this is Houston, what’s poppin? Over?

“Yeah, so.. I float over to where the cooler’s supposed to be, but in it’s place there’s this…I’m looking at this machine labeled “Urine Recycler”. Over.”

Don’t tell me it’s broken again! Dammit Timmy, I thought I told you to fix the Urine Recycler on the Endeavour!

“Houston, Houston: I don’t think it’s broken.”

What? So what’s the problem?

“The concept is the problem Houston. I have a problem with the whole freaking concept behind this machine.”

Eagle we spent $154 million on the Urine Recycler –

“And I spent half of my life training to do what? Drink my own — Jeebus Houston! How much does Gatorade cost nowadays?! How much for tap water?! What is this, Jackass? Am I being Punk’d or something?”

Eagle it’s not always urine; it also recycles moisture and sweat–

“I’m crashing the ISS on your ass in 3-2-1 you sadists.”

[via Scientific American]