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July 11 2011
Avian Airways: Snails Get Around in Birds’ Bellies
The Japanese white-eye is one of the most
popular airplane models for snails.
The airplane is, arguably, one of the greatest inventions of humankind, shortening travel times and bringing disparate cultures together. But it turns out that we’re not the only ones to take advantage of flying vehicles. Researchers in Japan have now learned that a certain land snail, Tornatellides boeningi, can quickly travel great distances by hitching a ride in the guts of birds.
The surprising discovery all began a few years ago. Knowing that seeds are often dispersed by fruit-eating birds, scientists from Tohoku University wondered in 2008 if the same could happen with snails. So, naturally, they took a close look at the feces of birds in the Bonin Islands. They found snail remains—unbroken shells and melted bodies—in the poop of Japanese white-eyes and brown-eared bulbuls, and hypothesized that the snails could survive bird digestion under the right conditions.
They were right. In their recent study, published in the Journal of Biogeography, the researchers fed 119 adult snails to Japanese white-eyes and 55 snails to brown-eared bulbuls, and roughly 15 percent of the snails came out alive. (Covered ...
January 19 2011
January 06 2011
Potty Trained Piggies Help Keep Taiwanese Rivers Clean
Toddlers can learn, cats can be taught–so why not take the next step and potty-train our livestock? Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration is encouraging its pig farmers to do just that with the countries’ six million pigs. The move will clean up the farms and help prevent water pollution, they say.
To keep the pig waste from flowing into the rivers (and to save water on cleaning up farms), the pigs are trained to relieve themselves in a trough. The “toilets” are smeared with feces and urine to attract the pigs–kinda like that spot on the carpet where the dog keeps relieving itself. All it took to start the porcine potty-training revolution was one genius farmer in 2009 trying to avoid the Taiwanese government’s “water pollution fee.” He noticed the difference immediately, he told the Mail and Guardian Online:
“The pig toilets on my farm help me collect about 95% of all pig waste, making cleaning much, much easier,” Chang Chung-tou, a pig farmer in Yunlin county, said.
After a trial of 10,000 pigs by Chung-tou and others in 2009, the Taiwanese ...
November 18 2010
In the Glorious Future, Could Space Travel Be Poop-Powered?
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.
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Discoblog: Could Poop Fuel Our Future? New Sewage-Powered Buses Hint at Yes
Discoblog: This Poop Mobile Could Get All Its Energy From 70 Homes’ Worth of Methane
80beats: Thrifty Brits Make Natural Gas out of Sewage and Beer-Brewing Leftovers
80beats: Meet the Genetically Engineered Pig With Earth-Friendly Poop
80beats: New Plasma Thruster Powers a Coke Can Rocket—and Could Power Satellites
Image: UNESCO
August 05 2010
This Poop Mobile Could Get All Its Energy From 70 Homes’ Worth of Methane
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.
The process starts with anaerobic digestion: Microbes eat through waste in an airtight, oxygen-free container. They leave behind only digestate, which works as a fertilizer, and a gas mixture that is mostly carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is combustible in the modified car’s engine. So, after removing the carbon dioxide, the company has poop power.
Mohammed Saddiq, GENeco’s general manager, says on the company’s site, that human waste is only the beginning.
“Waste flushed down the toilets in homes in the city provides power for the Bio-Bug, but it won’t be long before further energy is produced when food waste is recycled at our sewage works. . . It will mean that both human waste and food waste will be put to good use . . .”
The company told the BBC that Bio-Bug operates (and smells) the same as the fossil fuel-burning alternative, and that waste from 70 homes could generate enough methane to drive the car, assuming it drives about 10,000 miles a year.
Related content:
Discoblog: Finally! A Self-Sustaining, Sewage-Processing, Poop-Powered Rocket
Discoblog: Buzz Aldrin Explains: How to Take a Whiz on the Moon
Discoblog: A Novel Geoengineering Idea: Increase the Ocean’s Quotient of Whale Poop
Discoblog: The Coolest Carnivorous Plant/Toilet Plant You’ll See This Week
Image: flickr / Stephen Sullivan Sr.
June 02 2010
Mozart’s Glorious Music Wasted on Waste-Eating Microbes
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 Online reports, 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.
Related content:
Discoblog: Will Watching Videos of the Great Outdoors Make Cows “Happy and Productive”?
Discoblog: Mozart Won’t Make Your Baby Smarter, But the Right Food Might
Discoblog: Will Computer Programs Replace Mozart?
DISCOVER: No Smarts in Mozart
Image: flickr / gruntzooki
April 23 2010
A Novel Geoengineering Idea: Increase the Ocean’s Quotient of Whale Poop
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