Space Station Crew Drinks Recycled Urine

An anonymous reader writes "After the astronauts on the International Space Station finished up their communications with Space Shuttle Atlantis yesterday, the crew on the Space Station did something that no other astronaut has ever done before — drank recycled urine and sweat. The previous shuttle crew that recently returned to Earth brought back samples of the recycled water to make sure it was safe to drink, and all tests came back fine. So on Wednesday, the crew took their recycled urine and said 'cheers' together and toasted the researches and scientists that made the Urine Recycler possible. After drinking the water, they said the taste was great! They also said the water came with labels on it that said 'drink this when real water is over 200 miles away.'"

Comments

Snow Signitures not allowed?

[MeNotU]

What a (lack of) drag!

Nonsense.

[John Hasler]

> ...the crew on the Space Station did something that no other astronaut has ever done
> before -- drank recycled urine and sweat.

Everyone drinks recycled urine and sweat every day.

Re:Nonsense.

[Forge]

True. We also drink recycled Blood, vomit, pus and other miscellaneous bodily fluids.

For those who read/watched Dune, the fremins just do in minutes with a machine what nature dose for us in months with sunlight.

Re:Nonsense.

[karmaflux]

This is artificially recycled urine and sweat, you twit.

Re:Nonsense.

[rotide]

Thank you!

Every time a bear, moose, mouse, dog, cat, etc, does its thing, that waste gets filtered and flushed down streams and rivers into lakes and other bodies of water. Some of it is filtered down into Aquifers as well.

Hell, your sewage is merely treated and released back into the environment.

Where did people think all of that went? Into some large holding tank labeled as Biohazard and buried?

Re:Nonsense.

[Sechr Nibw]

It's just another step along the Golden Path.

Re:Nonsense.

[drinkypoo]

Hell, your sewage is merely treated and released back into the environment.

And by "released back into the environment" what you actually mean is "pumped back into the river". Oh sure, it's "treated", but it's still not REALLY safe to put back in there. So what do we do? We take some water out of the river, make it safe to drink, take a shit in it, then make it kind of safe, then dump it back into the river... so that the next town can pump our shitwater out of the river, and repeat the whole process.

Re:Nonsense.

[Cyrano de Maniac]

> Everyone drinks recycled urine and sweat every day.

While a good point, this may not be quite as true in the case of the astronauts aboard ISS.

A large portion of the water delivered to ISS comes from the Space Shuttle as it combusts liquid hydrogen to power itself while docked. Depending on the source of the liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel (i.e. Is it generated from electrolysis of water? Condensed directly from the atmosphere? etc), it's possible a significant portion of their water supply has never been urine or sweat before.

And even if the liquid hydrogen and oxygen was water previously, do water molecules generated from hydrogen combustion really count as "recycled"?

-- CdM

Re:Nonsense.

[x2A]

Is that what inspired your nick? *lol*

Re:Nonsense.

[sh00z]

A large portion of the water delivered to ISS comes from the Space Shuttle as it combusts liquid hydrogen to power itself while docked.

...which is why they now need to start recycling urine and sweat. the Shuttle's only visiting a few more times.

Re:Nonsense.

[laejoh]

True. We also drink recycled Blood, vomit, pus and other miscellaneous bodily fluids.

I don't drink that stuff if it's fluoridated. Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face!

Re:Nonsense.

[Moryath]

Sigh.

Humans actually have one of the weakest immune systems out there, mostly because we've been breeding less and less for hardiness (and worse, in the past ~400 years less for intelligence as well) thanks to the "contributions" of the few bright sparks who come up with things like, say, "the crapper" and make it so that those with downright piss-poor immune systems pass them on to the next generation.

Fish don't care that they live in water in which they, and all the other fish as well as plenty of mammals and birds, have pissed and shit. There are organisms out there that take advantage of it - one animal's waste is another's food.

Greywater systems actually result in better plant growth than irrigating with "cleaned" tap water, because it feeds extra nutrients into the soil that the plants can take advantage of. Proper in-home treatment systems (or even the mere dilution of "blackwater" with greywater) could easily make it possible to clean up "used" home water even further and reduce waste.

What you're talking about - the "not really safe to put back in there" - is industrial contaminants, which we do need to deal with. The rest? Compost. Fertilizer. Eventually, back around to food.

Re:Nonsense.

[Shakrai]

The rest? Compost. Fertilizer. Eventually, back around to food.

That works fine for those of us out in the country but doesn't scale real well when you start talking about an urban area......

Re:Nonsense.

[TheRaven64]

Humans actually have one of the weakest immune systems out there, mostly because we've been breeding less and less for hardiness (and worse, in the past ~400 years less for intelligence as well) thanks to the "contributions" of the few bright sparks who come up with things like, say, "the crapper" and make it so that those with downright piss-poor immune systems pass them on to the next generation.

This needs slapping with a massive [citation needed]. A mere 400 years is not enough time for significant evolutionary changes. Most animals don't foul their own nests either. Ones that have fixed nests just go a distance away from them and ones that don't just move on afterwards. A toilet just allows us to move our waste away from ourselves easily, rather than moving ourselves away from our waste. It's also worth noting that proper sanitation is not available to a large chunk of the human race (who have not, therefore, had this lack of evolutionary pressure away from developing a strong immune system) and that the average lifespan of these people is around half that of people who do.

Re:Nonsense.

[bhsurfer]

I do not avoid the company of astronauts, but I do deny them my essence.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

We must protect our purity of essence!

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

The spice must flow!

Re:Nonsense.

[nurb432]

You beat me to it..

Everything we eat/drink is recycled.

Re:Nonsense.

[mdarksbane]

A change like that in a population doesn't necessarily have to be "evolutionary" yet. Just by allowing more people with "negative" traits to survive we're changing what the population as a whole looks like.

Take caesarean sections, for example. In the US, 31% of births are by caesarian section. That right there is 31% of the future population who would not exist in more primitive times, and who carry genetics that make it at least more likely than average that they themselves will not be able to give birth without modern medical assistance. You can't tell me that doesn't change the overall makeup of a population in terms of its ability to deal with that specific problem.

Not saying that the grandparent poster isn't a kook. Just saying that while 400 years is too short of a time to result in speciation, for example, it is plenty of time to cause significant shifts in a population because of major shifts in selective pressure.

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

Yes, what he said. Life, in it's various forms, has consumed and recycled every drop of water on this earth a myriad of times. It isn't necessary for water to evaporate into the atmosphere and fall again as rain to be "purified".

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

Rural American here. I have a septic tank. Everything we excrete as waste goes into a tank, where bacteria break it down into nutrients again. The overflow goes right back into the ground, percolates through a gravel bed, and the trees and grass take it up. It's eventually evaporated into the atmosphere, from where it falls again as rain.

Hey, cool, I've probably pissed on EVERY CITY IN THE WORLD (indirectly)!!!

Re:Nonsense.

[berashith]

C section is a horrible example. A great many C-sections are done out of convenience. Who can have childbirth interfere with vacation or social requirements?

My wife had an emergency c-section. It turned out the a fall from a horse many years before had damaged her pelvis to a point that natural birth just didnt work. People like her should not be allowed to pass on the genetic trait of broken bones and physical trauma during teen years!

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

400 years is plenty of time for selective breeding to make a big difference in the gene pool. Selective breeding leads to new breeds of dogs, cats, horses, cattle and more in much less than 400 years.

Here, in the US, I consider the draft to have been a form of selective breeding. The services excluded people with flat feet, idiots, insane, weak, etc from duty. The strongest, healthiest, smartest, and most stable were sent into battle, and very often killed, while the undesirables stayed home to breed.

How many people think that this had zero impact on the gene pool?

Just something to think about.........

Re:Nonsense.

[rickb928]

"...Most animals don't foul their own nests either. Ones that have fixed nests just go a distance away from them and ones that don't just move on afterwards."

Yeah, more citations!

Grey Squirrels in the Northeast bail out of their nests when the fleas get too intense. Red Squirrels seem to bail out of their nests in the spring when the crap is too deep. Many bird species leave nests when they are also too infested with vermin and pests to tolerate. We figured out how to avoid this. Just technology.

"A toilet just allows us to move our waste away from ourselves easily, rather than moving ourselves away from our waste. It's also worth noting that proper sanitation is not available to a large chunk of the human race (who have not, therefore, had this lack of evolutionary pressure away from developing a strong immune system) and that the average lifespan of these people is around half that of people who do."

So in America, we die less from Cholera due to our diminished immune system, not because of our advanced santitation? Or is it that people in other countries die from cholera more often because of poor sanitation, not because of their more robust immune responses? Or is it that our lack of 'evolutionary pressure' has resulted in longer lifespans in America due to the decreased pressure on our immune systems? Which is it?

Actually, the point of that last bit escapes me. I thought our increased lifespan was due to better diet, improved sanitation, and modern medicine. Some countries have even longer lifespans due to even better diets, and some because of 'effective' medicine, not necessarily just 'modern'.

Yeah, I sort of agree, I think, though. We seem to be keeling over due to Salmonella and e.Coli more often recently, and I recall quite vividly my younger days when eating potato salad that had been in the sun for a few hours didn't give me the cramps or anything. Handling hamburg, chicken, no big deal. Eating off the floor didn't even slow me down. Today, I'm warned against everything. This problem in the US isn't about our diminished immune systems - it's about very bad practices in the food industry, from abominable sanitation at poultry plants to managing to contaminate spinach with feces. Not rocket science, gang, and not my immunue system.

And true, among the greatest services we can be to the third world is to help them dig wells for fresh water, latrines to segregate waste, and just plain old sleeping nets so they don't contract malaria so easily.

Again, not rocket science.

Re:Nonsense.

[drinkypoo]

The problem with your analysis is that animals that shit and piss where they live get sick, except for fish. And when fish goes bad it goes REALLY, REALLY BAD.

Re:Nonsense.

[DinDaddy]

I don't see anywhere where the GP said or even implied people should not have C sections or that everyone who was the result of one was unfit.

Re:Nonsense.

[camperdave]

There is a certain quantity of water that falls to Earth from comets and meteors. This hasn't been wrung through the kidneys of various lifeforms yet.

Re:Nonsense.

[berashith]

really... it was this part

Take caesarean sections, for example. In the US, 31% of births are by caesarian section. That right there is 31% of the future population who would not exist in more primitive times, and who carry genetics that make it at least more likely than average that they themselves will not be able to give birth without modern medical assistance. You can't tell me that doesn't change the overall makeup of a population in terms of its ability to deal with that specific problem.

That is pretty straightforward... 100% of the 31% of births by c-section should have eliminated the woman therefore strengthening future generations.

Re:Nonsense.

[TheRaven64]

Not to mention the fact that in a number of cases the operation saves the mother; the child was not at risk. The child would have survived anyway, and would have passed on these genes whether the operation took place or not.

Re:Nonsense.

[mdarksbane]

I was born from a C-section as well, to save my mother's life. So I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, or that all children would die, or that all of them were caused directly by genetic issues. But a very high percentage of them do.

Most doctors still do not prefer to do a C-section out of convenience - it's a safe surgery, but what I've read indicates that surgery of any kind is still more dangerous and leads to a longer recovery time than drug-assisted natural birth.

Re:Nonsense.

[GodfatherofSoul]

A mere 400 years is not enough time for significant evolutionary changes.

Heck yes it is, for creatures with a faster reproductive cycle than humans. Large animals with limited food supplies will shrink. Can't recall the name, but there's a moth in England that evolved a reddish color because of all of the brick masonry in one region (the original color stood out and made those moths vulnerable to predation).

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know when fluoridation first began? Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Laejoh. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

FYI, I first became aware of this during the physical act of love.

Re:Nonsense.

[smellsofbikes]

There's an interesting piece on the rise of cesarian section delivery written by New Yorker staff writer and active surgeon Atul Gawande, where he claims and shows evidence that c-section replaced forceps delivery because forceps delivery required experience, skill, and physical dexterity, while c-section could be taught by rote, essentially. His underlying thesis is that a mass-production system of doctoring means everyone will get basically the same level of quality of care, rather than having some superstars and some real duds. But in the meantime, it's become so routine, and so highly practiced, that it's rapidly approaching parity with natural childbirth, as regards complications to mother and child, and he thinks at some point it'll be considered the default method for childbirth.

Re:Nonsense.

[quanticle]

For the draft to have had an impact on the gene pool, a vast majority of the people who went to war would either have had to be killed or mutilated in a way that rendered them unable to reproduce. Even in the American Civil War, that was not the case.

Can you find me even one example of a war that actually affected the reproductive ability of all of the soldiers that fought in it?

Also, lets not forget that the draft only affects men. Women were excluded, and therefore any gene not on the Y chromosome would have been excluded from being affected.

Re:Nonsense.

[geekoid]

In humans? no it's not enough time for anybig changes.

Your example involves selective breeding by an ;outside' source, us.

But in the natural environments, 400 years just isn't a long time.

We are not, or have been the decedents of the big brave people that went to battle, we are the decedents of the little shit that stayed in the cave and fucked all the women.

Your look is way to myopic. I could say all the people smart enough to avoind the draft and stayed home helped the gene pool, but that to is too myopic.
How many people where drafted? what percentage died before having off spring?
Add to the fact after WWII the ones that did survive fucked like rabbits. So the physically able went to war, and the survivors came back an had kids. Wouldn't that be an evolutionary improvement?

Re:Nonsense.

[Changa_MC]

Not to mention the fact that in a number of cases the operation saves the mother; the child was not at risk.

In the majority of cases the mother and child both would have survived.

See Ina May Gaskin for a 99.9% survival rate in over 2000 cases, with zero c-sections. Compare that with 31% c-section rate, and you realize 99.99% of c-sections are unneeded.

Re:Nonsense.

[quanticle]

A large portion of the water delivered to ISS comes from the Space Shuttle as it combusts liquid hydrogen to power itself while docked.

Really? I was under the impression that the ISS got its water along with its food and other consumables as part of the supplies that are delivered by both the Shuttle and the Progress spacecraft. Indeed, I was watching a documentary on the ISS, and they showed Shuttle astronauts unpacking large bags of water as part of a supply run to the ISS.

Re:Nonsense.

[Changa_MC]

Most doctors still do not prefer to do a C-section out of convenience - it's a safe surgery, but what I've read indicates that surgery of any kind is still more dangerous and leads to a longer recovery time than drug-assisted natural birth.

Have you actually met any american doctors? They don't give a shit about you.

Re:Nonsense.

[timeOday]

Here, in the US, I consider the draft to have been a form of selective breeding.

In WWII 0.32% of Americans died, as opposed to 16% in Poland, 13.7% of Soviets. So at the very least, it's much less true in the US than other places.

World War also provided soldiers an unprecedented opportunity to fling their DNA all over the globe, apparently Uncle Sam didn't make troops take a vow of celibacy.

Anyways, (tribal) warfare is nothing new, and certainly the number of strong men who die hunting has taken a big nosedive in civilized times.

Re:Nonsense.

[westlake]

Most animals don't foul their own nests either.

You don't want to leave a scent trail to your nest for every predator to follow. Bonus points for keeping your young free of parasites. Less exposed to the most common disease carriers - fleas, flies and mosquitoes.

What you see before modern medicine is a great many children struck down by disease when their immune system should have been at its strongest. You only need to look at photographs of your own not-so-distant-ancestors. Most will bear the scars of smallpox and other diseases.

Talk of "hardiness" is nonsense. Talk of "intelligence" is nonsense. The frail and senile elder the geek imagines is in his mid-eighties or older. It wasn't so very long ago that anyone alert and active in his mid-sixties was Methuselah.

Re:Nonsense.

[vux984]

Who can have childbirth interfere with vacation or social requirements?

Its actually usually more complicated than that.

The cynic in me notes that natural Childbirth can't be scheduled, and sometimes takes hours.
C-sections can be scheduled and are short, and therefore more efficient business. (They cost 'more' but that cost is borne by the patients and their insurance companies. At any rate there is a business incentive to do c-sections.

But probably the biggest factor is simple obesity. The more obese / less in shape you are the more difficult natural childbirth is. So its no surprise that the genuine need for c-sections is rising in lockstep with our declining fitness.

Re:Nonsense.

[drinkypoo]

I, too, crap (indirectly) into a septic tank. The leach field is in my front yard, which is a fairly barren section of dirt and weeds that hosts the occasional drunken Frisbee(tm) game. I hope that my next residence will be on my own land, and instead of having any sewer system I will have a bason (a type of composting toilet) and a greywater system. Compostables go in the bason. The default configuration for the bason is to allow the methane &c to pass out of a vertical ventilation pipe, but I hope to capture it for re-use.

Re:Nonsense.

[richard.cs]

In all likelihood the oxygen is obtained by fractional distillation of liquid air and the hydrogen by steam reforming natural gas. All of the oxygen is likely to have been urine at some point in history, as is the steam that supplies a third of the hydrogen. The methane which supplies the other two thirds of the hydrogen was certainly involved in biological processes, just not in humans because they had yet to evolve. I'm not going to comment on whether that counts as recycled or not.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife had an emergency c-section. It turned out the a fall from a horse many years before had damaged her pelvis to a point that natural birth just didnt work. People like her should not be allowed to pass on the genetic trait of broken bones and physical trauma during teen years!

I think "broken bones and physical trauma" s/b "falling off horses".

Re:Nonsense.

[moeinvt]

"A mere 400 years is not enough time for significant evolutionary changes."

That all depends on your definition of "significant", and how much politically correct Kool-Aid you've consumed. Assuming you're talking about Homo Sapiens, I think that 8-10 generations of selective breeding to promote the idiot gene is more than enough to have major effects on the population.

Re:Nonsense.

[StikyPad]

Most animals don't foul their own nests either.

You've obviously never heard of pigeons. (The entire floor in that photo is covered in pigeon droppings, with the chair half buried in stool). Most pigeon nests are filthy, infested with toxins and parasites. Many animals shit where they live, and live in their shit. Dogs don't sleep in their feces, but they eat them.

I'm not justifying the GPs paranoia, but we certainly live in much more sterile conditions than ever before, or any other species that shares this planet. There's just no comparison.

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

It doesn't take a study. Just do the math, on say, Vietnam. 50,000 US soldiers killed, I believe? That's 50,000 of America's best. Assuming 2.5 offspring per soldier, that is 125,000 people who MIGHT HAVE inherited the genes of those best and brightest. Yeah, you can run statistics, and tell us that these numbers are negligible. But, statistics don't allow for an Einstein, a Tesla, or even some lesser being such as an Alexander Graham Bell, or George Washington Carver.

Keep in mind, I didn't say that those 50,000 dead were necessarily a major impact on the gene pool - I challenge anyone to say that it had ZERO impact. All those fine genes wasted, while the idiots and other undesirables were allowed to breed.

Doesn't that make you wonder about all the developmental problems children exhibit today? In it's lifetime, (75 years? 80 years?) I say the draft had a detrimental impact on our gene pool.

Re:Nonsense.

[2short]

"Heck yes it is, for creatures with a faster reproductive cycle than humans."

Yet, the topic is humans.

Re:Nonsense.

[mdm-adph]

I'm sorry, I never knew septic tanks could actually work correctly like that, and wouldn't just back up sewage into your house/yard.

Amazing what they can do when you take care of them. >_

Re:Nonsense.

[Tuoqui]

The strongest, healthiest, smartest, and most stable were sent into battle, and very often killed, while the undesirables stayed home to breed.

Actually they didnt pick up the people who were idiots/insane/weak because those people get the strongest, healthiest and smartest killed when they do something stupid.

Re:Nonsense.

[socrplayr813]

Regardless, the filtering process is more than adequate to make the water safe. The fact that astronauts tend to be scientists of at least a reasonable caliber, they'll no doubt understand the science behind it and have no trouble drinking it.

I worked with water filtration in the past and, while I might hesitate slightly on my first sip, I'd have no issue drinking it. I'd bet it's significantly cleaner than most water flowing through pipes on earth.

Re:Nonsense.

[scubamage]

Not true. Do some research on aquaponic gardening. Basically you raise a big container of fish. The fish water gets full of fish waste. Dangling into this water are the roots of hydroponic plants. They take the fish wastes, use them as food, add oxygen to and purify the water. The only thing you need to pay for at that point is fish food - and even that isn't necessary if you use some types of plant material/algae which will keep growing to feed the fish. Its essentially a full ecosystem capable of feeding an entire town come harvest time. Come next season, start over. Further you can set up one breeding pond of fish to be used to supply fingerlings for other ponds. It's pretty awesome stuff. In theory it could run ad-infinitum so long as it was well maintained.

Re:Nonsense.

[Moryath]

Urban greywater - on a building-wide or city-wide level - could be implemented fairly simply, actually.

Re:Nonsense.

[Itninja]

average lifespan of these people is around half that of people who do

This means nothing. All 'average lifespans' numbers are grossly non-representative of the typical lifespan of people in a particular community. The reason being is the infant mortality rate. A nation with minimal access (due to economic or cultural limitations) to ob/gyn facilities will have a higher infant mortality rate, and therefore a much lower 'average lifespan'.

In short, just because the average lifespan is, say, 40 does not mean there isn't a large elderly population. It just means the infant mortality is high.

Re:Nonsense.

[1u3hr]

Take caesarean sections, for example. In the US, 31% of births are by caesarian section. That right there is 31% of the future population who would not exist in more primitive times, and who carry genetics that make it at least more likely than average that they themselves will not be able to give birth without modern medical assistance. You can't tell me that doesn't change the overall makeup of a population in terms of its ability to deal with that specific problem.

I'm a fairly tall person, and my wife is rather short. And when she was pregnant, the baby was overdue by more than a week. At that point the baby was very healthy, but very large (9 lbs). After about 14 hours of labour there was no other option to get it out than Caesarean. Our daughter is extremely healthy and strong. I don't think you can make a case that the population has been weakened by assisting her birth. Now 12, she will soon be taller than her mother, and should not have any problems when and if she eventually has a family.

So I doubt your blithe assertion that 31% of the population are genetically inferior -- or even inferior in the ability to give birth -- because of this mollycoddling has any basis in reality.

Re:Nonsense.

[Chris Burke]

Humans actually have one of the weakest immune systems out there, mostly because we've been breeding less and less for hardiness (and worse, in the past ~400 years less for intelligence as well) thanks to the "contributions" of the few bright sparks who come up with things like, say, "the crapper" and make it so that those with downright piss-poor immune systems pass them on to the next generation.

Are you kidding?

If your ancestors come from a city-based civilization (i.e. most likely), then it's almost a certainty that the #1 thing your genes have been selected for is resistance to communicable diseases. Indoor plumbing is a recent invention, antibiotics even more so. Sanitation in cities, for the vast majority of human history in which cities existed, was terrible. Refuse and waste littering the roads. Rats, insects, and other disease carriers running rampant. They were nasty, unsanitary, filthy places rife with disease. And with many potential hosts in close proximity, even lethal diseases can spread and survive whereas in a small tribe or village if they kill everyone off then the disease dies too. Roads that improved travel between cities only made this worse.

What do you think the Black Death was if not a big selective pressure bottleneck that wiped out a third of the European population with the weakest immune systems in one fell swoop? And this is only the most famous of many, many plagues that have, well, plagued civilization.

No, my friend, you are the result of millenia of selection based largely on the strength of your immune system. You're a bad-ass. Antibiotics are too new an invention to have changed this.

But just to be sure, I don't use anti-bacterial soap. :)

Fish don't care that they live in water in which they, and all the other fish as well as plenty of mammals and birds, have pissed and shit. There are organisms out there that take advantage of it - one animal's waste is another's food.

Nobody cares as long as the concentration is very low. Try not cleaning your fish tank for a month or so and see how much your fish care. Well of course they won't care, they'll be dead.

That some animals are perfectly capable of using other animal's excrement for food is great for them, but should not be used as the metric by which to judge all animals.

Re:Nonsense.

[StikyPad]

Zero impact, maybe not, but it only affect a very narrow range of ages, and so excluded the vast majority of healthy parents with healthy children under 18.

And you're assuming that the majority of draftees were killed, which simply isn't the case. 2.1 Million Americans fought in Vietnam, and 58,000 died. It would be hard to argue that, even if all 2.1M died, it would have affected the population at large (genetically), because most of those people had brothers, sisters, children, etc. Furthermore, the Sole Survivor Policy has long been in place to help ensure entire family lines aren't simply wiped out (although for practical matters, it doesn't cover people with no siblings).

Re:Nonsense.

[Moryath]

This needs slapping with a massive [citation needed].

How about a massive "go away wikitroll."

A mere 400 years is not enough time for significant evolutionary changes.

Oh, really? We have an immense number of people today living through all sorts of illnesses that they would have died from earlier. We have joint replacements for almost every imaginable joint. We have infertility treatments to propagate the genes of those who, normally speaking, wouldn't reproduce.

Selective breeding - and don't kid yourself, humanity is nowhere close to being a "natural population" - produces amazing changes in a species in as little as 4 generations. Given a human generation of ~20 years, 400 years = 20 generations.

Humanity has been pushing in every possible way - environmental control, waging a virtual war on certain pests, "managing" our waste. Further, as a gregarious species, we try to keep members of our particular "tribe" going even when their presence is detrimental. Hell, we try to make sure that those of us who show the worst genetic problems can breed. And this has been going on far longer than the 400 years I allotted to the breeding-for-stupidity problem, this has been going on for millenia.

The saving grace of our species is, and has always been, our brains. We're not, pound for pound, nearly as well equipped for survival as most species. We don't have tough armor, in the form of exoskeleton or thickened hide. We've lost almost all of our protective hair for temperature regulation. We don't have nicely built-in natural weapons like claws or fangs. What did we do? We made knives. We skinned other animals and stitched their hide into clothing for warmth and armor. We worked out how to make slings and bows. We started altering the environment to suit our own needs, rather than adjusting ourselves to the local environment.

The downside of this is that we don't breed for "strength", at least not exclusively. The physical improvement of humanity has not progressed like the physical improvement of other challenged species would seem to. In fact, certain things seem to be atrophying quite regularly - like the shrinking of our teeth, since the need for tougher teeth (to handle the wear and tear of tougher foods) has vanished with the advent of the cooking process and pre-softening everything.

Worst yet now, as more and more countries have entered the "welfare state" model, is that even intelligence isn't a requisite to pass your genes on to the next generation. The intelligent, responsible people have maybe 1-2 kids on average and practice birth control (how ironic, withholding their genes from the next generation) while the dumbshits living on handouts have 10 or so kids, who then spend their lives pissing in the gene pool the same as their parents.

Re:Nonsense.

[RpiMatty]

No where in your quoted section is the OP saying that 31% of US births should have been eliminated.
He said that 31% of US births WOULD NOT have happened in the past.

Big difference between saying something would not have happened in the past, and saying something should have been prevented.

The OP is right in the fact that modern science is changing our overall genetic makeup.

Your wife fell off a horse. Maybe she was taught improperly, maybe horses don't like her.
In the past when riding a horse was a primary mode of transport, your wife would be at a disadvantage. If she fell off a horse and couldn't have kids that removes the can't ride a horse trait from the gene pool. Note that this could be a learned behavior. If your wife didn't learn to ride a horse properly, odds are her child would also learn incorrectly.
Had your wife not broken her pelvis and been able to have a natural birth, then the strong bones / knows how to take a fall trait would have been passed on.

Re:Nonsense.

[Moryath]

Nobody cares as long as the concentration is very low. Try not cleaning your fish tank for a month or so and see how much your fish care.

A fish tank is not a proper natural system. It lacks the balance - the microbes and smaller organisms that would break down, filter, and "clean" the water - that makes the difference in the real world.

The "filter" for the fish tank is replacing real filters - like the oyster population of Chesapeake Bay - that exist in nature, nothing more.

Re:Nonsense.

[iron-kurton]

I seem to remember one Asian country having an ungodly female-to-male ratio because of wars. I can't remember which one though... Anyone got a clue?

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

The services excluded people with flat feet, idiots, insane, weak, etc from duty. The strongest, healthiest, smartest, and most stable were sent into battle...

I think you give the military far too much credit.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

The one that starts with a golden shower?

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

No, I've only attempted to make a case for those killed, who were part of "America's best", not the 2.1 million who were drafted.

But, while you attempt to explain that this only affected a very small age group - I'll point out that the draft was in effect from about 1915 until the end of the Vietnam war, encompassing WW1, WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. That includes about 3 generations, not a small part of a single generation.

The Sole Survivor is something I'm passingly familiar with, and it doesn't really apply to this concept. A family with superior genes might have had 3 or 4 children eligible for the draft, and lost 3 before the 4th was declared ineligible. Going with that 2.5 offspring per individual, that family probably would have contributed 10 grandchildren with superior genes, but instead only contributed 2.5 to the gene pool. Meanwhile, another family with inferior genes, and 3 or 4 children, were allowed to contribute THEIR 10 grandchildren to the breeding pool........

You don't see a kind of ripple effect?

Sacrificing even a very small percentage of the "best", while allowing the "worst" to breed uncontrolled will have a cumulative effect over time.

I know - you'll challenge me to prove it. Heh. You're asking for tens of thousands of hours of research. I'm not sure I have tens of thousands of hours of life left.....

Re:Nonsense.

[dave562]

This is off-topic, but if you're concerned about the strength of your immune system, one of the best things you can do to build it up is to take a full spectrum probiotic supplement. Jarrow Labs has a room temperature stable probiotic called EPS that has all of the major beneficial bacterial strains in it. Taking one of those every couple of days will maintain enough "good" bacteria in your system to make it very inhospitable to the "bad" bacteria that compromises the immune system.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.

Do you know how incredibly pompous you appear when you begin a comment with "Sigh"?

Look asshole, if you're so tired of trying to educate us dimwits then fucking give it up. If you want to have a discussion with someone and make an intelligent point then the way to do it is not to start off by making a condescending "sigh" at them. Do you do that in your day to day life?

Look - feel free to dismiss me as a troll or a moron as I am not really replying to the content of your comment. That's fine. I think a much better solution would be to make a little examination of your behavior and see if perhaps between the "fucks", I've made a valid point.

Sigh, sigh, sigh...

Re:Nonsense.

[Chris Burke]

Yes, the fish depend upon natural filters (and simple dilution) to enable them to live where they shit.

Has nothing to do with superior immune systems. That's just bologna.

Re:Nonsense.

[BrokenHalo]

People like her should not be allowed to pass on the genetic trait of broken bones and physical trauma during teen years!

Ummm, wtf? I do hope you're joking. [Whoosh?]

Re:Nonsense.

[Kral_Blbec]

No where in your quoted section is the OP saying that 31% of US births should have been eliminated.
He said that 31% of US births WOULD NOT have happened in the past.

Big difference between saying something would not have happened in the past, and saying something should have been prevented.

The OP is right in the fact that modern science is changing our overall genetic makeup.

Your wife fell off a horse. Maybe she was taught improperly, maybe horses don't like her.
In the past when riding a horse was a primary mode of transport, your wife would be at a disadvantage. If she fell off a horse and couldn't have kids that removes the can't ride a horse trait from the gene pool. Note that this could be a learned behavior. If your wife didn't learn to ride a horse properly, odds are her child would also learn incorrectly.
Had your wife not broken her pelvis and been able to have a natural birth, then the strong bones / knows how to take a fall trait would have been passed on.

and who carry genetics that make it at least more likely than average that they themselves will not be able to give birth without modern medical assistance

Riding a horse is not genetic. That argument is just stupid.

Re:Nonsense.

[sjames]

But it didn't get the smartest, a more significant portion of those figured out how to flunk the physical or get deferred.

It wouldn't be a great evolutionary filter though since any inbred waste of oxygen with a rich dad could get out of it.

Re:Nonsense.

[digitalsolo]

You're making the assumption that the soldiers that were killed were the best of the best. In reality, say 500,000 soldiers (the best and the brightest, I'll go with you here, I have a lot of respect for the military) go overseas. 50,000 are killed (10%, obviously high vs. total sent, but this is an example, so go with me here...

Following your logic, those that were most likely to be killed would be the lowest of those 500,000, so yes, 50,000 of the "best and brightest" were killed, but it was the lowest 10% of that 500,000 (as the best and brightest of the best and brightest sent would have avoided death, as they are the best and brightest after all). Giving your estimates, that's still 1,125,000 offspring, which are from the best 90% of the best and the brightest that were sent over in the first place.

Re:Nonsense.

[Kral_Blbec]

That is false logic. I have no idea who Ina May Gaskin is, but I assume she is some registered midwife and has to screen clients to make sure they are healthy and everything is going okay, otherwise she is obligated to pass them on to the doctors.

Re:Nonsense.

[StikyPad]

* No disrespect to anyone who lost a loved one here, but it's a non-sequitur to claim that the most-fit would be killed off. If anything, it was either random distribution (SCUD missile hitting barracks), or else those least-fit to survive combat (not good at hiding, or shooting, or whatever).

* The draft is and was not unavoidable. From college, to conscientious objection, to hiding in Canada, there's a whole range of methods and reasons to avoid the draft. I would assume that those who tried and succeeded in avoiding the draft were better survivors than those who tried and failed.

* You're predetermining which traits are useful, and which are not. In the modern world, is it better to have arched feet, or a BS in EE? Both are useful, but I would wager that, on average, the income of people who can dunk a ball is lower than those who can design a microchip. If society collapses, then obviously physical traits gain importance -- it's going to be rough surviving the Thunderdome if you're blind. If society advances, then physical traits become less important -- a consciousness is transferred to silicon probably doesn't have much use for human appendages. (Although we'll probably be able to grow replacement limbs by that time anyway, again thanks to engineers).

Re:Nonsense.

[PRMan]

I have flat feet and I'm weak, you insensitve clod!

Re:Nonsense.

[Khashishi]

Did you factor in rape? It's happened by soldiers in all wars since war was invented.

Re:Nonsense.

[mdarksbane]

Fuck you, too, asshole. I have several friends who are doctors, and they do in fact "give a shit" or they wouldn't have gone into medicine. There are always jerks in any profession, but that doesn't set the rule.

Re:Nonsense.

[Kral_Blbec]

As someone who also works in surgery, I call bs on that claim. A c section is a very invasive surgery and just as complicated as traditional delivery, if not more.

Sounds to me more like someone is looking to make a splash by saying something to make others in his own carier look bad. Wouldn't be the first time that there has been a fake whistleblower.

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

Your assumption that the best would choose to evade the draft, and duties related to it, is noted. I make no such assumption - in fact, I judge the "duty bound" to be the superior creature.

And, the inbred waste of oxygen with a rich dad just helps to make my case. HE stayed home to breed, while his betters died on the battlefields.

Re:Nonsense.

[mdarksbane]

I'm really sorry that I forgot to write "up to" and apparently ticked off so many people. The point was that some significant percentage would not, and this changes the population. This is something you are not disproving by the way, just because I didn't add every possible caveat to my statement.

Re:Nonsense.

[Kral_Blbec]

I see your point, but I dont think it was as much of an effect. There were also passes for people in school, so it wasnt just the idiots and undesireables that stayed home. In fact, I would say it was more the idiots and jocks that got sent, and the nerds inherit the earth.

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

Insensitive clod? Is that what it's called when someone just doesn't give a damn? Alright, you got me. I'll be changing my nick now..........

Re:Nonsense.

[berashith]

[Whoosh?]

yes

Re:Nonsense.

[Changa_MC]

you assume incorrectly.

Re:Nonsense.

[Runaway1956]

Actually, no. I could make excuses, I could cite statistics, I could cite the UCMJ, or I could even make things up.

I'll just go with personal experience. In 8 years of service, 5 of those years sea duty, I was only remotely concerned with one single rape. No other rapes ever came to my attention. That single instance couldn't have resulted in any offspring, as it was a homosexual rape, driven by a violent temper and racial hatred more than any need/want for sex. The perpetrator spent some years at Leavenworth, the victim spent some months in therapy, and life went on.

As for nonviolent, extracurricular activities of a sexual nature - you have a point. We spread our DNA around the globe......

Re:Nonsense.

[Changa_MC]

Look, I'm sure your friends are very nice guys and all, but that'd be the exception rather than the rule.

American doctors are heavily pressured not to take the time to treat patients properly. Since that's the reality, most either give up or get out.

This careful weeding process leads to doctors that don't give a shit. Not all doctors, just the ones who perform c-sections so they can get to a golf game on time. Y'know - the majority.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww, did someone miss his medication this morning?

Re:Nonsense.

[Foobar of Borg]

I don't drink that stuff if it's fluoridated. Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face!

The sad thing is, the John Birch Society really believes this.

"Don't contaminate our water with flouridation!" - Maj. Frank Burns

Re:Nonsense.

[shutdown -p now]

For the draft to have had an impact on the gene pool, a vast majority of the people who went to war would either have had to be killed or mutilated in a way that rendered them unable to reproduce. Even in the American Civil War, that was not the case.

"Even" in the American Civil War? It's not an extreme sample point by any measure...

How about WW2, with millions of dead on all sides (but especially Germany and USSR)? USSR alone lost 10 million - which is several times more than the size of its army at the beginning of the war.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should check on the IQ drop in Scotland after WW2. There are studies which attribute this to officers both having a higher IQ and also a much higher casualty rate. A single war can make a statistically important change in a breeding population.

Re:Nonsense.

[mea37]

"Women were excluded, and therefore any gene not on the Y chromosome would have been excluded from being affected."

Yet another case of a perfectly good post, soiled by over-reaching in the last paragraph.

Men have an X chromoxome as well. They pass the information on this chromosome on to any daughters they might have. The impact on genes from the Y chromosome would be greater, but not exclusive.

You might think it doesn't matter because negative traits tend to be recessive, so the unaffected pool of women's X chromosomes would keep things in balance. Even if this tendency were absolute, it wouldn't eliminate the impact of the men's X chromosomes; it could delay it (at most) 1 generation. A disproportionate number of females in the next generation would be carriers for the recessive trait.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

50,000 of America's best and brightest?!? If you were talking WWII, I might almost agree. But the Vietnam War (especially those dying on the front lines) was largely a conscript army (ie DRAFTED), and it doesn't take the best and brightest to be drafted, just those unfortunate enough to get their number picked out of a box, not to get into grad school for a deferrment, or have a wealthy/connected family to get them out of it.

I respect those that did go over there, but it's stupid to blindly say being in the military automatically makes you the "brightest".

Re:Nonsense.

[bitt3n]

True. We also drink recycled Blood, vomit, pus and other miscellaneous bodily fluids. For those who read/watched Dune, the fremins just do in minutes with a machine what nature dose for us in months with sunlight.

sunlight hell. just give me a decent strainer and a fifth of vodka.

Re:Nonsense.

[camperdave]

It is a pressure on the gene pool. It does not have to affect everyone. It does not even have to affect the majority. It does not have to affect both males and females. All it has to do is alter the percentage of breeding stock bearing certain traits. If five percent of the healthy male population were rendered unable to reproduce, that would give an additional percentage of unhealthy males the opportunity to breed. The subsequent generations would manifest a higher percentage of those traits that made the draftees "unfit for combat". In other words, you may have two percent more nearsighted, flatfooted males becoming parents than you did before the draft. That means more children carrying the genes for nearsightedness and flatfootedness.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.

Couldn't take some constructive criticism, huh?

Re:Nonsense.

[Cyrano de Maniac]

I know that some of the water comes up from the ground on Progress vehicles, so you are correct on that front. However I've watched the NASA TV channel quite a bit over the past year, and during the recent missions where the urine processing system was installed and fixed, it was definitely stated that water generated from the Shuttle engines is transferred to the ISS. The other poster is correct as well, in that NASA TV stated that the end of shuttle flights was part of the motivation behind installing the water recycling system.

I don't believe water transfer is done via a umbilical, instead bags of water are filled on the Shuttle and transferred oto the ISS. However, I could well be wrong regarding this point.

Re:Nonsense.

[sjames]

Do understand, I consider valor, loyalty, and duty important. I also consider choosing carefully who those are granted to as important. A great many brave people simply couldn't stand behind the Vietnam war but would have supported a more worthy cause.

Re:Nonsense.

[drinkypoo]

If five percent of the healthy male population were rendered unable to reproduce, that would give an additional percentage of unhealthy males the opportunity to breed.

But probably not five percent. More of the healthy males would just do more breeding. Good times...

Re:Nonsense.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

On the surface, your logic is good. (It was in fact explored most thoroughly in the movie Idiocracy several years ago.) But here's the problem: you're looking in the short term. In the long term, assuming you're 100% correct, it won't matter.

Assuming we don't blow ourselves up, following your model humanity will get collectively dumber and dumber. Okay, fair enough. But eventually, we'll start dying off in huge numbers because of that stupidity. What happens then? Why, survival through natural selection. The trend reverses, and again intelligence and physical ability both determine who survives and who doesn't.

The other thing is this: there's nothing special about humans. If you take away all concept of external intelligence behind the creation and evolution of our species, we have no more right to live than any other species. If we kill ourselves off through stupidity, then ... well, so what? Nothing - absolutely nothing - is lost.

Re:Nonsense.

[PachmanP]

sunlight hell. just give me a decent strainer and a fifth of vodka.

Forget the strainer and the urine. Just give me the fifth of vodka.

Re:Nonsense.

[camperdave]

No, he assumes correctly. Ina May Gaskin is a Certified Professional Midwife.

Re:Nonsense.

[conspirator57]

and the next space tourist will *pay* to drink it.

at least the astronauts / cosmonauts are getting paid.

Re:Nonsense.

[PachmanP]

I seem to remember one Asian country having an ungodly female-to-male ratio because of wars. I can't remember which one though... Anyone got a clue?

Well China has a very low female to male ratio because of the one child policy combined with the cultural value of sons. Not quite what you were going for, but it's the only thing I've heard of.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anpheus]

But a number of skills necessary to riding a horse have heritable factors. Athleticism, balance, coordination all have very large numbers of genes that contribute to them. There likely is no one "proprioception" gene, but that doesn't mean proprioception can't be selected for.

Re:Nonsense.

[GWBasic]

A change like that in a population doesn't necessarily have to be "evolutionary" yet. Just by allowing more people with "negative" traits to survive we're changing what the population as a whole looks like.

So, a few weeks ago the same thoughts went through my head... Then I learned that I need some serious plastic surgery in order to sleep correctly.

Because of my bias, I no longer agree with you.

Furthermore: Do you brush your teeth? Our dental hygiene is now so good that some people who had extra teeth to compensate for rotting ones falling out now have to get the extras pulled.

Do you cut your hair? Wear clothes? Plan on living over the age of 25? The human race is now an animal that uses its knowledge to survive and evolve. We haven't relied on our genes since Adam and Eve realized that they were naked and had to quickly find clothes*.

What bugs me on an almost daily basis is that I feel very young, and in my career; I'm very young. On the other hand, if I was born prior to civilization; I'd most likely be dying of "old age."

*It's too bad the fundamentalist Christians are so anti-evolution, because it distracts people from the true value of the Adam and Eve story. The themes explored in the Adam and Eve story effectively are our ancestors communicating to us that we're no longer "natural" like the animals.

Re:Nonsense.

[Oktober Sunset]

Actually, in most developed countries, the sewage outfall water is cleaner than the river it's going into.

Of course, the US is usually the exception when the phrase 'in most developed countries' is used...

Re:Nonsense.

[biovoid]

We've been doing it in Sydney since 2001. And we're using the same amount of water as we did in the 70s despite the fact that our population has double since then. Of course, the fact that 60% of our state is drought affected gives us a bit of an incentive, but there's no reason the same policies couldn't be implemented elsewhere.

Re:Nonsense.

[tyrus568]

C'mon, everybody's had that episode at some point or another in their childhood where they were dared to drink their own urine and tried it... uh, right?

Uh.. ok, it tasted bad. Really bad. Wasn't the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth, though....

(don't every try to scarf ground peruvian torch with a spoon. It's like eating someone's diseased vomit.)

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! it is amazing how a discussion about drinking pee can turn into a discussion about C-sections

Re:Nonsense.

[dominious]

Shuttle Atlantis yesterday, the crew on the Space Station did something that no other astronaut has ever done before

F1rst p1ss?

Re:Nonsense.

[maxume]

Ocean big. Biomass small. It is a more interesting question than 'is likely', but it isn't one that I have been able to answer (I haven't come anywhere near figuring out how fast the oceans mix, which has a huge impact on it).

Re:Nonsense.

[maxume]

What else would you compare eating diseased vomit to?

That's one baseline for comparison that I'm glad I don't have.

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm one of your doctor friends and i don't even give a shit about you - let alone the walking talking dollar signs that show up at my office.

Re:Nonsense.

[smellsofbikes]

He works as a pure surgeon, not in ob/gyn, so he personally has little to gain from it, although it does support a broader thesis he's been talking about for the last couple of years.
However, with that said, it's not like he's just making a claim. As I said, "shows evidence": he has, on a couple of occasions, cited widespread studies and statistics to support his claim that c-section (and gastric bypass surgery) when performed by experts who only do that specific surgery and do many, many of them per year, have extremely low rates of complications and side-effects. No obstruction, no breech birth, no episiotomy, no child asphyxiation during a prolonged delivery.
As per the article, in the 1930's more women died during natural childbirth with doctors attending, than died on their own or with midwives. That was the point at which pressure within the profession turned to routine c-sections. Instead of learning one technique for a breech birth, another for a stuck shoulder, another yet for head sideways and jammed against pelvis, they just learn one technique and learn it well.

Re:Nonsense.

[akayani]

"Fluoridation paranoia"

They invented Proxatine for people who suffered from that.

Re:Nonsense.

[Magada]

Excessive risk-taking behaviour is inheritable. So are bad eyesight, poor proprioception and lousy motor co-ordination (to name just a few of the many factors which may have contributed to that accident).

Re:Nonsense.

[Magada]

The strongest, healthiest, smartest, and most stable were sent into battle

Not the smartest, actually. It was the stupid and the unlucky who got sent. The US had a draft-dodger president a while ago, no?

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you birthed some disgusting giant. What's your point?

Re:Nonsense.

[JasterBobaMereel]

...in a closed system it would work forever, but if you harvest the crops you will need to add some essential minerals to the system (fish food?) to replace the ones taken out

Re:Nonsense.

[JasterBobaMereel]

..except the sex ratio in China is approximately 1:1 the same as the rest of the world

The policy does affect the survival of Girls and their quality of life (because so many end up in orphanages) but the number born is unaffected

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL ^^

Re:Nonsense.

[mdarksbane]

Someone had a very good point that, in the cave man days, what probably killed a lot of people was something as simple as a sprained ankle or a bad scrape. You can't catch food for a week, maybe it gets infected or you start running a fever... so even simple things could really cull a population.

Re:Nonsense.

[amilo100]

A mere 400 years is not enough time for significant evolutionary changes.

You will be surprised how fast evolution happens. A good example is fishermen who threw back small fish and kept larger fish.

Most fishing records will never be repeated â" because fish has become genetically smaller. This can happen in a few years. One fish shrinkage article from many - http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/41407/title/Fish_shrinkage_reversible,_but_better_hurry

Re:Nonsense.

[Kral_Blbec]

There are just as many techniques for a c section as there are for vaginal delivery. That makes no sense.

How does that make it not "real water"?

[Lumpy]

If it's 2 hydrogen bonded to 1 oxygen in the right form it's "real water"

Honestly, the Astronauts should be some that would not have the silly reaction to drinking treated water.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[caffeinemessiah]

If it's 2 hydrogen bonded to 1 oxygen in the right form it's "real water" Honestly, the Astronauts should be some that would not have the silly reaction to drinking treated water.

Certainly, but 2 hydrogen bonded to 1 oxygen exists in ripe form in your toilet as well, it's more a question of the additives. And if we did NOT feel an instinctive revulsion towards our own excrement, we would have been wiped out as a species a long time ago after eating our own toxic feces (that rhymes, too). So give those space monkey a break, eh?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was your age, we drank un-recycled urine and sweat and we liked it!

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Morphine007]

I have this... Increadible feeling of... Deja vu...

Apparently so did the mods who modded you redundant... twice...

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Sockatume]

If someone takes a piss in the vat at the Coca-Cola plant, it's still "real Coca-Cola" to a high empirical degree, but I think you'd still appreciate the psychological distinction between that Coca-Cola and the stuff that came out beforehand. Likewise there's a strong innate (unlearned) notion of contamination in humans that makes this "purified urine" rather than "ever so slightly contaminated water" from the astronauts' perspective.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[L4t3r4lu5]

But the point was not less true.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise there's a strong innate (unlearned) notion of contamination in humans

I'd like to see some evidence for that.

If you you have little kids, or have spent any time with them, you'd know that they'll happily put anything in their mouths if you don't stop them. The idea of contamination is deliberately taught to children, using words like "icky," "yucky," and "ohmigodwhatisthatinyourhand."

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[mark-t]

Is there a "wrong form" for 2 hydrogen bonded to 1 oxygen? I mean, unless you are adding more elements into the mix, I'm pretty sure that as a discrete molecule, 2 hydrogen and one oxygen bonded together is always water. And, afaik, it always happens the same way.... at an angle of about 104 degrees, if I remember correctly.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Sockatume]

I think it's still an open question as to whether disgust is innate, but once a child it, the idea of a disgusting object "contaminating" another is obtained more or less immediately. That's not something we teach kids particularly early, and it's actually a rather abstract notion. I don't have access to sociology journals from here unfortunately and it's been a while since I read much about it, so things could've moved on.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Lumpy]

Additives? Whats in the toilet are additives. Water is NO additives. filtration is rather simple, the PITA is the getting rid of the nasties like http://www.water-research.net/Giardia.htm those.

Honestly, Water filtration is very simple. Extracting all the water from a turd is the hard part.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[qoncept]

After I read "real" I was surprised how far I could scroll down without reading such a "look what I caught!" comment. "Real" just rolls off the tongue so much better than "purified urine." Get a life.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Shakrai]

If someone takes a piss in the vat

What does Budweiser have to do with the ISS?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[revlayle]

"Additives? Whats in the toilet are additives."

Um... POO comes to mind.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[x2A]

"Likewise there's a strong innate (unlearned) notion of contamination in humans that..."

Oh, no, we learnt it, not even that long ago in the grand scheme of things. I think the British lead the way in many respects, I recall seeing a thing on tv saying how Britian went through a period of winning many battles simply by pushing out standards of cleanliness to their soldiers which meant they were no longer suffering the extremes of diarrhea as enemy soldiers were... but at this moment, I struggle to find any clear details on timeline etc, anyone with any insight may wish to share.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[nicodoggie]

The Japanese still drink un-recycled urine to this day, you know. There's an entire genre of porn dedicated to it.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Jason Levine]

If you you have little kids, or have spent any time with them, you'd know that they'll happily put anything in their mouths if you don't stop them. The idea of contamination is deliberately taught to children, using words like "icky," "yucky," and "ohmigodwhatisthatinyourhand."

Which is ironic when you consider that parents frequently have to overcome previously decided upon levels of contamination to function as a parent. To use myself as an example, during my wife's first pregnancy test, my job was to hold the filled urine cup and dip the test strip in. I didn't even have to touch the urine, but the thought of it being in a cup so close to me made me nauseous.

Now, after being a parent to two boys, I can eat lunch, stop to change a poop-filled diaper, and then resume eating lunch (after washing my hands of course!). The idea of changing a poop-filled diaper or wiping the bottom of a young child does not make me nauseous at all. Sometimes I'll forget the different parent-nonparent revulsion levels and tell stories that are perfectly ok by parent standards but make non-parents run to the nearest bathroom to hurl. This can be useful if your coworker brought in something that you'd like. "Hey, that's a nice pudding cup... Though it kind of reminds me of my son's diaper yesterday. I opened it up and stuff just spilled out everywhere and... what's that? You don't feel like pudding anymore? I guess I can eat it."

Just don't ask to hear my mustard story!

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[OglinTatas]

many animals, and that includes apes, eat their own feces. The only thing that makes ours toxic is after curry night. Not that I'd advocate eating feces, but it is useful for instance to cure c. difficile infections.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[berend botje]

It brings the 'P' to the ISS...

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you you have little kids, or have spent any time with them, you'd know that they'll happily put anything in their mouths if you don't stop them

Except their vegetables.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[camperdave]

Is there a "wrong form" for 2 hydrogen bonded to 1 oxygen?

You bet there is. It could form into the dreaded dihydrogen monoxide molecule. Also known as hydroxic acid, this is a greenhouse gas, and a major component in acid rain. It also plays a significant role in the corrosion of metals. When this chemical crystalizes in a human cell, it can rupture the cell wall, killing the cell. Dihydrogen monoxide has been found in all major US rivers and lakes. It has also been found in lakes and streams in various parts of the world. Even core samples of the Antarctic ice show significant quantities of this dangerous chemical compound.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[coolsnowmen]

Perhaps because they arn't intouch with their senses yet? I don't know.

But I do know I did not have to learn to not eat things that tasted/smelled badly. And urine/poop/and rotting foods do not smell good so I would not eat them with out someone having to tell me not to.
The relationship between taste/smell and "is it 'healthy'" is an evolutionary trait that does not have to be taught. In fact, it has to be unlearned these days with Food manufactures exploiting the humans addiction to fat/sugar/salt.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[MagicM]

There is no such thing as "real Coca-Cola". Or if there is, the majority of what goes for "Coca-Cola" isn't "real Coca-Cola".

Coca-Cola is created from concentrate or syrup. This concentrate is shipped to bottlers who add their own sweetners and other additives, which causes local variations. Then it is combined with water from different sources, causing even more variations. Coca-Cola, even in a can or bottle, tastes differently all over the place.

Then add to that the abomination that is fountain-based Coca-Cola, which is syrup mixed with carbonated tap water. This means that the Coca-Cola from your local city-water-fed McDonald's tastes differently from the Coca-Cola served in the well-water-fed McDonald's just out of town.

You should count yourself lucky if you've ever had two servings of Coca-Cola that tasted the same.

</rant type="pet peeve">

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[dmatos]

Can I hear your mustard story?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[BattleApple]

it's actually necessary for rabbits to eat some of their own feces for proper nutrition. Its similar to a cow chewing its cud

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Anonymous Coward]

A number of interesting theses
conclude, on consumption of feces:
If you go to the loo
and eat your own poo
you'll soon be wiped out as a species.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[PopeRatzo]

We all drink recycled urine.

I love people who in 2009 still think that all waste, human and otherwise, just somehow disappears when we flush the toilet, pour motor oil down the sewer or dump PCBs in the environment.

Oh and remember...all odors are particulate.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[PopeRatzo]

Extracting all the water from a turd is the hard part.

Thank you, Lumpy.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[gnick]

What does Budweiser have to do with the ISS?

Off-topic, but I've always wondered - Why does Bud want their brand associated with Clydesdales? I can't look at a can of Bud without picturing a giant horse whizzing into a vat. I don't care if it's pure-bred or not, it still tastes like piss.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[gnick]

Maybe so, but if you stack them together wrong, you're asking for real trouble.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Fantom42]

"Additives? Whats in the toilet are additives."

Um... POO comes to mind.

Only on slashdot does a comment that says "Poo is in toilets" get moderated Informative.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[swillden]

parents frequently have to overcome previously decided upon levels of contamination to function as a parent

No doubt. Two of my kids have thrown up into my mouth, and one son actually managed to pee in my mouth. Yuck! But you deal with it.

The puke was arguably my own fault. I was lying on my back and tossing the kid to make him giggle. He laughed so hard he spit up and I was laughing, too, so my mouth was open. You'd think after this happened once I'd have learned my lesson, but a few years later I repeated the performance with a second child.

The pee was the fault of a clueless niece who didn't know how to change a baby boy's diaper. Those with experience know that you do NOT leave the penis uncovered. Cool, fresh air seems to trigger urination. I was actually just opening my mouth to explain this fact when I got hit right in the face. Like any experienced parent, my automatic reaction was to block the stream with one hand while getting a diaper over it with the other. Then I rinsed my mouth.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[idontgno]

Obvious crap is obviously highly moderated. Welcome to /.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[mdielmann]

All people are different, including tolerance for cleanliness. This includes infants. My oldest would refuse to eat another bite until his face was cleaned. My second child would have food on his face from chin to eyes after eating, and we'd have to stop him from running off like that after eating.
This is not dissimilar to other evolutionary pressures - sometimes it's more advantageous to be able to tolerate poor conditions in order to pass on your genes. That probably explains the bar life I've seen on occasion.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[GodfatherofSoul]

That's because babies are stupid.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[GodfatherofSoul]

My 2 year old nephew started dry heaving and my sister put down her dinner plate and put her hands in front of his mouth and told him to "go ahead." Most disgusting thing I ever saw.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[geekoid]

And they don't. This is PR. The technology that they use for this will hopefully go to making more efficient water purifiers. AS well as allow vessels to be at sea longer.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Changa_MC]

Since it all tastes like piss, the variations don't matter much.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's still an open question as to whether disgust is innate, but once a child it, the idea of a disgusting object "contaminating" another is obtained more or less immediately. That's not something we teach kids particularly early, and it's actually a rather abstract notion.

It's been a while since I read up on this aspect of child cognitive development, but IIRC, there is a phase where the child begins to grasp that a contaminant can be transmissible.

For example, at a certain age, a child won't care about a bug in her milk. At a later age, she will be distressed to find the bug but will happily drink the milk if you remove the bug. Older still, she will throw out the milk if she finds a bug in it.

This isn't universal, either, the standards and threshold ages vary with the culture.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[geekoid]

Wow, you are really mistaken. The tastes of the water going into the mix is heavily controlled for taste. Even to the point where some plants have there won water treatment system on top of a cities water treatment system.
So like most people on /, while technically true, not practically an issue.
Save fountain drinks; which really to heavily on the min. wage worker remembering to check the mix.

"You should count yourself lucky if you've ever had two servings of Coca-Cola that tasted the same."
That is just stupid. even if what you said was true to a high degree of practicality, most people drink coke from the same location. It's not like every can in an 8 pack came from a different part of the world.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[geekoid]

Yes, infuse the hydrogen with another neutrino.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[sexconker]

?
Fountain drinks are:
Water
CO2
Syrup

The syrup BiB (Beverage in a Bag/Box) is always the same.
The CO2 is always the same.
The water is always supposed to be filtered at least decently well.

Companies like Coca Cola make HUGE efforts to ensure that their product tastes the same no matter where you get it (lets ignore HFCS/sugar variations for now). To be able to sell Coke - either as a bottler or through a fountain - you have to get contracted with them or a local distributor. They have schemes in place to ensure proper branding, proper maintenance, proper temperature, etc.

You may go to a fountain that's low on syrup, or has the CO2 cranked too high. You notice it.

You might buy mexican/passover coke (sugar, not HFCS). You notice it.

But if you buy a Coke in New York or one in Miami or one in LA, it's going to be the same 99.999% of the time.

In various countries, the taste will be different due to marketing deciding that different markets (countries) have different tastes, due to a difference in available ingredients, and due to various differences in food regulations/definitions.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[canonymous]

changing a poop-filled diaper or wiping the bottom of a young child does not make me nauseous at all

I think you mean "nauseated". Nauseous means that you make other people feel nausea... oh wait, never mind!

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[sexconker]

Someone should start a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. Why do we waste our time banning shit that's nowhere near as bad as this, while we have almost zero regulation on such a hazardous chemical?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[sexconker]

Smells like SCIENCE.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Sockatume]

Well, that's that knocked on the head. I had thought it was innate, but didn't present until a certain developmental stage. If that stage varies with culture then that definitely points to outside learning.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Coca-Cola in Tijuana, Mexico tastes sweeter, like the "New Coke" was.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[jayspec462]

Oh, Lord. My son did the exact same throwing up in my mouth, in very much the same circumstances. Now he's 2 1/2, and we're pondering having another child. Are you telling me that that's going to happen to me again!?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[fair_n_hite_451]

... fo' shISSle my nISSle!

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I would prefer the comment "Poo is in toilets" to be modded Interesting.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Jason Levine]

Sure. Caveat, this didn't happen to me or my wife but to a member of a "mommy board" she belonged to. This mother was sitting down to eat when she realized her baby needed a change. So she gets up, changes her baby's poop-filled diaper, washes her hands, and sits back down to eat her hot dog. She sees some mustard on her wrist so she licks it off.... that's when she discovers that it's not actually mustard. Yes, little baby poop can look a lot like mustard in both color and consistency!

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Xandar01]

Someone should start a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. Why do we waste our time banning shit that's nowhere near as bad as this, while we have almost zero regulation on such a hazardous chemical?

someone already has

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Jason Levine]

I do that all the time, though it seems to be an instinctual reaction to contain the mess. I don't know why, though, it never works. Last time it happened, my kids were in a shopping cart I was pushing through the dairy aisle of our local supermarket. My son wasn't acting quite right the entire trip and then he suddenly, violently, hurls over the edge of the cart. Luckily, he faced *away* from our little one or we'd have had two kids to clean up. Unfortunately, though, my "catch the puke" reflex took over and I put my hands into the stream. Then my wife had to get paper towels from the supermarket staff for both my son *AND* for me while I stood around like an idiot with puke-filled hands.

When our oldest son was a baby, he had projectile poops and I had no problem dodging those (unlike my wife). Don't know why my instinct is to contain the puke when it hasn't worked ever.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[sexconker]

You know that link was in the post I replied to, right?
You know I was referencing their petition gags and the resulting comments that made people look like morans, right?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Xandar01]

yeah dhmo is good for making people look like idiots. To bad I didn't read the whole thread first. oh well.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[mog007]

Yes, little baby poop can look a lot like mustard in both color and consistency!

But I assume the taste was a bit off...

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Jason Levine]

I think that's safe to say, but I feel no urge to test this particular theory myself.

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[ArsenneLupin]

Hehe, a colleague of mine is ambulance nurse, and he loves to "entertain" us during lunchtime with his very graphic descriptions of accident victims and other yucky stuff. Has occasionally netted him an extra desert too :-)

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[coxymla]

} catch (XmlException e) { log.Exception("0001", e, "You can't just put an attribute in a closing tag! You will regret this!"); }

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[mark-t]

And that's supposed to do what, exactly?

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[bemymonkey]

That's it, I'm never having kids. Maybe I'll adopt a 5-year-old...

Re:How does that make it not "real water"?

[Jason Levine]

I have a 5 year old. Trust me, you want to start with a baby. They're relatively easy. Sure, they can't tell you what's wrong when they hurt (man is that frustrating as a parent), but they really don't move much and don't get into much trouble in the beginning. By 5, children will actively seek out trouble (mainly testing to see what they can get away with). Forget "The Terrible Twos." Two is bad, but by three the child has a better idea of how to misbehave. By four or five, the kid refines their misbehaving skills to grey-hair inducing levels.

This isn't to say that I don't love my kids. They can just be really trying sometimes. Parenting is tough. I can see why some people "check out" and let the TV be their babysitter, though I don't agree with the practice.

Living in a desert

[mc1138]

While it may not seem like it the space station is essentially a desert with very little water. This sort of situation really makes it important to loose as little water as possible, and as the astronauts even said when properly treated it tastes great!

Re:Living in a desert

[Sechr Nibw]

I would think it would make it important to loose your water into the proper receptacle, actually. It doesn't matter if you loose a lot or loose a little, just as long as you loose it into the right place!

Re:Living in a desert

[drinkypoo]

Humidity must be a problem on space stations; people lose water due to respiration, let alone perspiration. Presumably there is somewhere a dehumidifier. Perhaps the atmosphere recycler does that job? Hmm, no, looks like there's purpose-built modules.

Re:Living in a desert

[mc1138]

Well they said the water included recycled sweat, so I'm guessing something is sucking it out of the air and condensing it.

Re:Living in a desert

[x2A]

"Humidity must be a problem on space stations; people loose water due to respiration"

There ya go, broke that for ya

Re:Living in a desert

[RichardJenkins]

Slightly tangy? like lemonade

Re:Living in a desert

[gnick]

Humidity must be a problem on space stations; people loose water due to respiration.

Actually in that context, either verb (lose/loose) is perfectly appropriate. Cool - Flexible pedantry. That's tough to find.

Re:Living in a desert

[x2A]

"Actually in that context, either verb (lose/loose) is perfectly appropriate"

Loose is an adjective, it'd become loosen or loosened etc to be a verb.

Re:Living in a desert

[gnick]

Try again...

[Citation
cited]

Re:Living in a desert

[Anonymous Coward]

GP has just managed to effect a response from you. This may affect your future grammar nazi behaviour.

http://www.xkcd.com/326/

Re:Living in a desert

[PhxBlue]

While it may not seem like it the space station is essentially a desert with very little water.

As opposed to, say, a desert that has lots of water? :)

Re:Living in a desert

[mc1138]

Antarctica is technically a desert even though its full of ice because of its low precipitation. :P

Re:Living in a desert

[x2A]

Their example usages of the word follow a verb ("to make loose", "to let loose"), without another verb it becomes inflected ("I'm going to loosen it", not "I'm going to loose it") or as oxford english dictionary says ("His speech loosed a tide of nationalist sentiment", "He loosed the straps that bound her arms")... although American dictionary entries do look different... but I'm not American... and anyway I was making a joke where I was uncorrecting somebody's perfectly correct spelling and usage, with the inverted slashdot mantra "there, I broke that for you"... what I wrote as 'loose' wasn't what the guy meant which remains primary reason why it's wrong, whatever various english variation dictionaries state.

Re:Living in a desert

[x2A]

Firstly, no, within the context of the perfectly correct message that I broke in joke form, it's plainly obvious that the word that was meant, is the word that was said.

Perhaps it is you who should reconsider your joke lead grammer debate nazi behaviour?

See, I can put 'nazi' on the end of things to make them seem worse than they are too!

Re:Living in a desert

[gnick]

OK, OK, I give.

There's no need to loose the full armament of pedantic weapons - Don't go Oxford on me.

Re:Living in a desert

[x2A]

"OK, OK, I give"

You're making that up, aren't you?

"There's no need to let loose the full armament of pedantic weapons"

There ya go, fixed it :-p

*lol* (sorry, but I am giggling my ass off here! At least I didn't comment on the capital D... oh crap... nevermind, feel free to hate me now ;-) )

Stillsuits next?

[IlluminatedOne]

Hmmmm. The pee levels seem good, needs more sweat. Preferably of the ball variety... Seriously though, this seems like it will have major implications for the future of space travel. One less thing to lug. Its still a closed system, so it won't completely eliminate the need to carry [i]some[/i] water, but still...

200 miles away...

[MeNotU]

Little do they know the earth killer comet is only 198 miles away and it is full of recycled alien pee.

Belly up to the bar?

[monkeyboythom]

Or is that belly below the bar?

Whatever though, ur in e right place.

You gotta be taking the piss outta me!

[Philip K Dickhead]

That's not Gatorade, mate!

Re:You gotta be taking the piss outta me!

[foniksonik]

here they are, I found them

Re:You gotta be taking the piss outta me!

[cayenne8]

Hey, they should come up with a name for that apparatus...something catchy and new like the concept.

I know...a Still Suit!!

Re:You gotta be taking the piss outta me!

[davidsyes]

MPP? Magic Piss Pot?

When the water machine goes haywire, they lack of water will give rise to a new definition of pissing contest... If the machine clogs up, it could be attributed to "piss-poor-performance"...

Re:You gotta be taking the piss outta me!

[cartertown]

I for one am not that squeamish about this stuff, trust the chemistry. But, it is loads of fun to make fun of. This video came out when the machine was launched to the station: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e7286d6d84/thats-not-tang-from-fod-team cheers.

Fuck that

[Anonymous Coward]

toss in a olive and drink it straight. there's no room for your pussy drinks here.

Re:Fuck that

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no room for your pussy drinks here.

Quite to the contrary, thanks to this there is indeed a place for daily drinks 200 miles up. What's next? Non-golden showers?

Jarate

[Anonymous Coward]

And this on the day of Jarate. Coincidence?

One step closer

[COMON$]

To my Stillsuit...bring on the worms...

Re:One step closer

[Anonymous Coward]

If you dance without rhythm, you won't attract the worms! Christopher Walken FTW!

Re:One step closer

[GodfatherofSoul]

If your Stillsuit is good enough, you hopefully won't get worms.

'waterhasnotaste' tag

[sirkazuo]

Water does have a taste - it tastes like... water!

All water that isn't pure hydrogen and oxygen also has a flavor derived from the levels of various trace minerals and additives in it. Just because you can't taste something doesn't mean I can't!

Re:'waterhasnotaste' tag

[idontgno]

Could I interest you in some 100% oxygen-free virgin-silicon fiber HDMI cables with gold-plated connectors? A bargain at $750 per meter! It'll improve the sound of your iPod to no end! Warmer, richer, more spacial sound from your genuine Apple-brand earbuds!

Re:'waterhasnotaste' tag

[RiotingPacifist]

so your not actually tasting the water, just the minerals

Re:'waterhasnotaste' tag

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think that all drinking water is the same and doesn't have any flavor are the sort of cretins who don't understand 'Vi vs Emacs' because they think that a text editor is a just text editor. And they're usually ignorant enough to think that money is a factor so they drag out comparisons to crap like Monster cables.

Re:'waterhasnotaste' tag

[Hatta]

Try drinking some Milli-Q purified water sometime. It definitely has a taste.

Re:'waterhasnotaste' tag

[x2A]

I hate the taste of water, makes me feel sick... anything to take the taste away (bit of squash or anythin) and no problem, but on its own... yeah, it most certainly does have a taste!

Re:'waterhasnotaste' tag

[geekoid]

But since the discussion is pure H2O, your whine^H^H^H^H^H complaint is irrelevant.

another angle

[Tim4444]

it's probably cleaner than the water in the Hudson...

Re:another angle

[Experiment 626]

Yes, and then they ran it through a machine to make it even more so.

Re:another angle

[uberjoe]

especially with that airplane it it.

Re:another angle

[Khashishi]

:s/probably/certainly

Re:another angle

[DNS-and-BIND]

Sorry, what is "the Hudson"? Is it some sort of common drinking fountain where you live? Or is it some sort of shared idea, unknown outside your own tiny world? I did a Google search and just found a bunch of consulting companies and a school district. Nothing involving a brand of drinking water or anything involving human health.

An old debate now renewed....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Tastes Great!

Less Filling!

3, Funny

[MillionthMonkey]

...as of right now. You know, there's probably another mod point waiting for you in this same spot upstairs.

Taste's great and is less filling?

[ae1294]

Well this will probably get modded down but frak it.. I got karma to burn...

I for one support our new pee drinking over...........lords.

ae

Re:Taste's great and is less filling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's spelled "fuck", not "frak". We all know you're saying fuck. So quit being a little sissy! Battlestar Gallactica sucked anyways...

Re:Taste's great and is less filling?

[ae1294]

Ok then just for you i shall now sing a little song.. in violation of copyright, RIAA trolls get out your lawsuit script(s)...

fuck fuck fuck fuck
mother mother mothefucker
mother mother mothefucker
fuck mothefucker mothefucker
noinch noinch noinch
1. 2. 3, 1 2 3 4
noinch noinch noinch
smoking weed
smoking weed
doin coke
drinking beers
drinking beers beers beers
rolling fatties
smoking blunts
Who smoke blunts?
We smoke blunts!
rollin blunts

Plus I was trying to be extra funny by including the secret slashdot +5 mod directive - ", I got karma to burn" but it did not work. And for the record NO BTG 2008 did not suck... It had everything needed not to suck.. explosions, space travel, && sex crazed alien doppelgangers plus orbital nuk-u-la bombardment...

I mean damn ,
ae

Re:Taste's great and is less filling?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to like it, honestly I did. But it just didn't do it for me, sorry. I enjoyed Buck Rogers waaaay more. Now that show they should bring back.

You think?

[kulakovich]

You think that at this point no one in the Astronaut program, yet alone living in a metropolitan region, has drank water recycled from urine?

Be real. This happens all the time.

kulakovich

Re:You think?

[geekoid]

Show my a metropolitan system that takes urine, distills it to water and the serves it in one machine automated process?

Drinks up to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Up to what? Five gallons a day?

Big deal! we all do

[petes_PoV]

Water abstracted from rivers that are fed from treatment plants. That contains water from recycled urine. As does rainwater, when urine evapourates into clouds, which then condense into rainfall.

Sadly this story has all the self conscious immaturity you'd expect from a 12 year-old, sniggering because it's about pee. Whatever happened to the grown-ups section of Slashdot?

Re:Big deal! we all do

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to the grown-ups section of Slashdot?"

whats that?

Re:Big deal! we all do

[MyNymWasTaken]

Whatever happened to the grown-ups section of Slashdot?

It disappeared a long time ago. I came back out of a fit of procrastination and had the reason I left confirmed by an article about "OMFG, they drank urine! LOL".

Re:Big deal! we all do

[vwjeff]

Whatever happened to the grown-ups section of Slashdot?

You must be new here.

Water World

[bamboo7]

Kevin Costner paves the way for technological innovation. I'd quote the movie but for some reason no good lines spring to mind.

Re:Water World

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feel bad. Most people are trying to forget that movie even exists. I know I am.

Natural water

[DarrenBaker]

I refuse to drink nature's water... Fish fuck in it.

Re:Natural water

[infinite9]

It's worse than that. Just move to Chicago. Lake Michigan is both our water supply and our sewer. It's also our "beach". :-/

Re:Natural water

[VisceralLogic]

It's alright, though... they close the beach when there's too much E. Coli!

Re:Natural water

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a fishstick in your mouth?

Re:Natural water

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, some kind of gay fish?

not sure...

[ilblissli]

I'm really not sure why this is news worthy. Recycled water has been around forever. When I was a little kid I was first introduced to recycled water when my city decided to start a reclaimed water system to be used or lawn irrigation. This was to help stop our aquifer from being depleted so quickly for frivolous stuff like watering the grass. When they proposed this new system one of the water treatment people drank a glass of recycled water to prove to everyone that it was completely safe and would not pose any heath risks to kids playing in sprinklers or drinking from a hose. I'd also like to ask, how do people think submarines stay down for so long without coming back up for 10,000 new bottles of Evian bottled water every few days? (yes we have distilling plants on board most ships to convert salt water to fresh but many also have water treatment/recycling plants as well)

Re:not sure...

[DerekLyons]

I'd also like to ask, how do people think submarines stay down for so long without coming back up for 10,000 new bottles of Evian bottled water every few days? (yes we have distilling plants on board most ships to convert salt water to fresh but many also have water treatment/recycling plants as well)

US submarines depend 100% on distilling plants, they have no recycling capability. After the primary distilling plant and the backup distilling plant (actually reverse osmosis nowadays) - there isn't room for a sewage treatment and recycling system.
 
Additionally, I see a lot commentators/karma whores making the obvious comments that "we all drink recycled pee". This is true, but there are a lot of steps between you and the pee. Psychologically there's a big difference. (Plus NASA is rightly concerned about making sure there is 100% separation between the sewage side and the clean side.)

Re:not sure...

[Jeian]

When they proposed this new system one of the water treatment people drank a glass of recycled water to prove to everyone that it was completely safe and would not pose any heath risks to kids playing in sprinklers or drinking from a hose.

Hm. Around here, any place that uses recycled water for irrigation has signs posted everywhere warning you not to drink the water.

Re:not sure...

[ilblissli]

it is true not all recycled water plants are created equal, and some areas do post signs like the ones you speak of. it really just boils down to how much water is available in your area, and how much money is in that city's budget as to whether or not they will recycle the water as a nonpotable or a safe to drink resource. As you'll find in other posts around here, there are several well known places that drink recycled water such as Singapore and orange county CA. :)

Oblig Hollywood Knights reference

[Anonymous Coward]

It does have a little wang to it.

Re:Not Modded Down!

[TaoPhoenix]

You get the reply sir, because your quadratic pun better not be modded down.

(Space Station - OVER-lords, got it gang?)

I'll see your meme and raise you this one:

In the ONLY story to be ABOUT Drinking the First Frosty Piss, how come it's the only one without that troll?

Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld waste

[Heartz]

All about New Water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater . Singaporeans have been drinking from Malaysian waste for years...

Tastes like chicken

[Anonymous Coward]

Should that be "Tastes like chicken soup" ?

drink this when real water is over 200 miles away?

[DigitalReverend]

Is the water obtained from recycled urine and sweat fake water?

its worse than that

[circletimessquare]

fish don't fuck

the females just crap all their eggs in your water

then the males come along and just jizz all over the eggs, in your water

you're not drinking fish fucked water

you're drinking fish circlejerked water

Re:its worse than that

[dunkelfalke]

Uhm, actually you are wrong, some fish (poecilidae like guppys or swordtails) do fuck.

Re:its worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love it when someone puts the fuck in education. :)

Re:its worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, actually you are wrong, some fish (poecilidae like guppys or swordtails) do fuck.

So we get a circlejerk and an orgy? MMM. procoital fish broth.

(captcha:romantic)

Nothing new

[mbone]

I've been doing that on this planet for years !

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[mbone]

Basically every city that gets its water from a river drinks the recycled urine etc. from the folks upstream.

And, that is most cities located on rivers.

The way nature intended

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough guys don't need to even recycle it, we just take them "au naturel"...

Re:Not Modded Down!

[ae1294]

Sorry we evoke the state secret's act and can not comment on that...

So was it distilled/purified or "drinking" water?

[macraig]

I would think providing simple pure water would be easier than trying to stock extra supplies to re-mineralize it and, frankly, I prefer the taste of distilled or purified water myself. So-called "drinking" water tastes rather flat and unappealing to me.

Better than eating Slashdot garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot Comments = Pure Censorship

I hear Heston

[bobdotorg]

It's pee. Soylent Yellow is made out of pee. They're making our drink out of pee. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for poo. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!

Re:I hear Heston

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Soylent Yellow is chicken, Soylent Blue is tidybowl. Get your facts straight.

we also fertilize our food with shit

[circletimessquare]

but i think you'd have a problem if someone gave you a shit pancake to eat, saying it was ok, it was chemically treated to be nutritious and delicious

there is meaning in the massive amount of time and the massive natural filtration that goes into the process you describe, and the artificial tiny distance described in the article between what comes out your ass or your dick, and what winds up in your cup and on your plate

when that distance is reduced via technology, the squeamishness you haughtily assume to be superior to is really just a basic and simple form of empathetic discomfort. its intrinsic to the way your mind works. its simple psychology and its real, and you are in fact not superior or immune to it, unless you are a cyborg

what you describe is not self-conscious immaturity, its basic human symbolic thinking. and you need to understand it (and know your own mind better), if you ever hope to remain meaningful to the human society around you

Where Do You Think It Goes???

[gpronger]

Wastewater "sludge" often goes to Land Ap meaning it's spread on farmer's fields.

The wastewater enters the local stream or river to go and "visit" the town downstream.

In the Chicago area you need to be be well outside the general Metro area where the local river flow isn't above 90% "wastewater impacted" or the flow is basically 90% wasterwater or higher.

My perspective would be that I'm surprised that recycling water didn't already happen.

Unless you've been synthesizing your water, that's all you've been drinking.

Re:Where Do You Think It Goes???

[Anonymous Coward]

Our area (lower Michigan) has a similar, but less pleasant related problem. We don't have much Land Ap but we do have a lot of hicks who are keen on just running their toilet water thru a tile straight into the local river, but the big problem from my understanding is sewage treatment plants (especially the big city ones) have an allotted amount of raw sewage they can dump into the rivers a year(it of course has some technical term to obsuficate what's going on, but it basically amounts to them turning a valve from "treat" to "dump in river"), and they make sure to use it. Never drink from or fish the Raisin River, I never will.

Re:Where Do You Think It Goes???

[gpronger]

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "A Poo by any other name would smell as sweet."

How to make it "taste" better?

[Alzheimers]

Put it in a can labeled 'Coors'

Most people wouldn't be able to taste the difference anyway.

Re:How to make it "taste" better?

[Anonymous Coward]

s/Coors/Budweiser/

Re:How to make it "taste" better?

[vaporland]

"tastes great - less filling"...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

i was going to say no one drinks from the hudson

[circletimessquare]

but then i remembered poughkeepsie:

http://www.pokwater.com/new/history.html

poughkeepsie is the only city on the hudson that gets its water straight from the hudson, and they have done this for generations. everyone else uses reservoirs along the hudson

they in fact have problems during droughts not because there's no water, but because the salinity increases as the salt line moves further up the river from new york city and the ocean. but otherwise, a major city getting their water from the same place municipal sewage gets dumped into from huge cities upriver and downriver, and has been polluted horribly for decades by industry like of GE with its PCBs, not to mention all the agricultural runoff with its fertilizers and insecticides, doesn't seem like it is doing so bad:

http://www.pokwater.com/new/watercompare.htm

don't choke/ laugh. water shortages our are future. we are all going to be poughkeepsies soon enough, and poughkeepsie doesn't seem worse for the wear

http://www.pokwater.com/new/

No need to recycle, astronauts!

[Provocateur]

The Japanese have been packing htem the right way for YEARS http://images.google.co.jp/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Pocari_Sweat_(Otsuka_Pharmaceutical).jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pocari_Sweat_(Otsuka_Pharmaceutical).jpg&usg=__tTIn0ZxNc7-9bECAc9-XC4pzBT8=&h=1200&w=714&sz=174&hl=ja&start=3&tbnid=fUcXtwDhbp0FjM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=89&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPocari%2Bsweat%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dja%26sa%3DG

Possibly a Side Benefit?

[LifesABeach]

Just a thought; their teeth may become more whiter for it?

Asparagus

[cryfreedomlove]

Does this mean they'll stop serving asparagus on the Space Station? I doubt this fancy pants purification process could get rid of that smell from the urine.

It's in the water!

[snspdaarf]

So, now we go from Bear Whiz Beer to Astronaut Whiz Beer?

absolutely

[circletimessquare]

we all know what water tastes like

but that taste is actually mouthfeel + the taste of various anions and cations (calcium, magnesium, chloride, etc)

steam distilled water actually doesn't taste like "water"

and high end spring water, especially the naturally carbonated variety, tastes like "soda"

It's faux!

[XDirtypunkX]

That's not real Jarate!

FUD

[Thaelon]

"Recycled sweat & urine" is basically FUD.

Sweat is just water with salt, some oils and trace amounts of other chemicals. Urine is just water with urea, salt, and trace amounts of other chemicals.

If you thoroughly remove these other ingredients it's not really appropriate to call it "recycled urine/sweat" because it no longer contains the chemicals that make it those things. It would be like taking some kool-aid, boiling it, extracting the steam and calling it recycled kool-aid or de-kool-aided-water. It's just water.

And I suspect its cleaner than your average tap water given NASA's propensity to do things very carefully (with a few exceptions) and the taboos associated with drinking urine or sweat.

Re:i was going to say no one drinks from the hudso

[baKanale]

I dunno. Have you ever lived in Poughkeepsie? PCBs and agrichem runoff in the water supply would certainly explain a few things about the people around here.

Either way, nothing's worse than the East River. There's a joke that one year they dyed the river green for St. Patrick's Day, and nobody noticed.

Real men....

[puppetman]

drink unrecycled urine.

Recycled Urine...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it's got what astronauts crave.

Keeping it safe

[westlake]

The previous shuttle crew that recently returned to Earth brought back samples of the recycled water to make sure it was safe to drink, and all tests came back fine

The right question to ask is whether the water can be tested on board.

The case against recycling in long-duration spaceflight is that you don't have a lot of options if something goes wrong.

The crew becomes ill.

There is a mechanical problem that can't be fixed.

poughkeepsie has its problems

[circletimessquare]

mostly its the urban crime. it seems new york city cleaned up its crime act from the 80s and 90s but the hudson river cities have lagged, and are still stuck in that crime wave. but poughkeepsie is not as bad as newburgh. newburgh is scary. newburgh in fact just knocked one out of the ballpark in the sad state of urban crime in hudson river cities by giving us homegrown terrorists:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/nyregion/22terror.html

plus poughkeepsie has that big beautiful old railroad bridge they're opening this year to pedestrians for the 400 year celebration of henry hudson's arrival in 1609. pouhgkeepsie will have its renaissance soon enough

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/nyregion/25metjournal.html

What's more nauseating?

[kaizendojo]

Astronauts drinking pee and sweat or the fact that this story has almost as many comments as the "Battery fueled by air" story?

Space station nomenclature

[Anonymous Coward]

So if the ISS ever needs to name their water tank module, I guess they can name it "Cytherea" now.

Please pass the...

[bodland]

"So on Wednesday, the crew took their recycled urine and said "cheers" together and toasted the researches and scientists that made the Urine Recycler possible."

Later that day NASA announced it would no longer include asparagus on space flight menus.

Bear Grylls

[BigGar']

He's drank his own urine after storing it in a snake skin for a few hours in the desert. One of the most horrifying moments I've seen on television really. If he can do that, the I suspect that drinking highly filtered urine, is just fine. I suppose though if you were drinking it on a daily basis then one might want to have it slightly more purified than what Bear drank.

Re:Bear Grylls

[Hatta]

Bear Grylls fakes his shit. If the camera cut, there's no reason to believe he actually drank his own urine. Drinking your own urine in a survival situation is a bad idea anyway. If you're dehydrated, your urine will be hyperosmotic and do more harm than good.

To be fair though, Bear did eat a live fish on camera, which is one of the coolest things I've seen on TV. Too bad the rest is fake.

Re:Bear Grylls

[GodfatherofSoul]

Bear Grylls is an idiot. Urine is toxic, why drink it in a survival situation? Survivorman actually made a urine still to purify his urine in the desert. Classic example of the difference between the two. Bear acts like he's on a frat boy dare. Les Stroud tries to make his show educational.

Re:Bear Grylls

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about?
We're talking about how Coors is just urine.
Is that TV or something your referring to?

Re:Bear Grylls

[Colourspace]

If he fakes his shit, probably fakes his own urine too. Mountain Dew?

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[berashith]

and this is the reason that the nice parts of town are more likely to be found north of the city, and the airports and industry are likely to be on the south. The affluent people throughout history have moved to the cleanest water.

Tastes Great!

[Muros]

Blackadder: There was one thing ma'am, a fine WINE from the far east. A most delicious beverage.
Queenie: Have a taste, boys; tell us what you think.
Sir Walter: It certainly has plenty of nose.
Melchett: Oh yes, this is very familiar.
Blackadder: You'll be delighted to hear there's an inexhaustible supply of the stuff.

Huh?

[the_one(2)]

Where did they get their water from before? I thought this had always been standard practice in space...

so can

[Pvt_Ryan]

urine be recycled indefinatly or is there a limit on the number of times it can be processed.

If there is no limit then travelling to the outreaches of the galaxy just got one step closer. We just need to sort out food and aging (or speed)..

Oblig. Quote

[NevermindPhreak]

"Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No, but I do it anyway, because it's sterile and I like the taste."

THAT'S NOT TANG!!

[deft]

Here's a video chad carter did on the development of this system Chads a trained physicist and a improv actor here in LA... brilliant. I laugh every time.

That's Not Tang: The NASA Urine Recycler took 10 years to develop. Watch the testing videos.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e7286d6d84/thats-not-tang-from-fod-team

Re:THAT'S NOT TANG!!

[Ezrymyrh]

Hey! back in my day you whippersnappers we all drank our Tang and liked it! Now get off my orbit

When asked about how they felt about the new tech.

[Tetsujin]

As the astronauts had their first drink of recycled urine, the guys on the ground asked them how they felt about the new toilet's ability to reclaim pure, fresh water from crewmembers' urine:

"Wait, is that what you guys just sent up here? We haven't installed it yet..."

Water? Never touch the stuff!

[OrangeTide]

"Water? Never touch the stuff! Fish fuck in it." -- W. C. Fields

Sir, you don't want to do that

[Anonymous Coward]

Tic-tac, sir?

I, for one

[krimhum]

welcome our stilsuit-wearing Overlords.

never let real scientific fact

[circletimessquare]

get in the way of a stupid throwaway joke ;-)

Re:never let real scientific fact

[dunkelfalke]

Aw come on. Fish reproduction is actually quite fascinating. There are for example some fish (corydoras) which reproduce through oral sex. That's right, the corydoras females give the corydoras males a blowjob and then fertilise their eggs with the collected sperm.

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[djcapelis]

> and this is the reason that the nice parts of
> town are more likely to be found north of the
> city, and the airports and industry are likely to
> be on the south.

Because all rivers flow north/south? Are you kidding me?

The only trend I've seen is more affluent people live *closer* to a coast which means they're further down the major rivers.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe that nobody noticed this same headline happened on the LAST shuttle mission. Make some real news, people.

It's safe water!

[The Redster!]

But I still don't like the foam moustache it leaves.

Re:So was it distilled/purified or "drinking" wate

[Changa_MC]

distilled water lacks essential minerals and will cause health problems eventually. Unless you eat, of course. Sometimes that'll help.

What si wrong with you people?

[geekoid]

"All water is recycled by nature!"
No shit Sherlock.

This is about a single contained system. IN space, by the way, and all that implies.

Re:i was going to say no one drinks from the hudso

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

water shortages our are future

What makes you think so?

actually not if you live in new york city

[circletimessquare]

new york city has a solid, huge aquifer

but there's a lot of human populations that are exploding in regions which are not going to get more rainfall according to any climate model

"recycled"?

[Tired and Emotional]

Strictly speaking, to be recycled urine, wouldn't you have to wait until the Astronauts urinated after drinking the processed water. Seems like the story is premature.

A "cute" children's song about 'recycling'...

[antispam_ben]

http://jimscottmusic.com/publications/cd/big-and-little.html
Scroll to the bottom and check out the lyrics to the song named "Eliminate." I've had the distinct, um, experience of seeing Jim Scott perform it live.

Now they can sing it in outer space!

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

and this is the reason that the nice parts of town are more likely to be found north of the city

Haven't been to Las Vegas, Saint Louis, or New York City, have you?

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[mattwarden]

> Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld waste

No, actually /. was posting dupes way before that

Re:So was it distilled/purified or "drinking" wate

[macraig]

Hey, what a coincidence... I happen to eat most every day! I suck down all sorts of chemicals and compounds and minerals when I do that, so maybe I can afford to drink the pure water, eh?

Those "essential minerals" you mention are only essential for plants: they're basically PLANT FOOD, not in a form the human body can directly metabolize, from what I've read. Of course the experts hired by the bottled-water industry would no doubt beg to differ, as they've been doing in decades of marketing hype now.

Re:So was it distilled/purified or "drinking" wate

[macraig]

BTW, I live in a town where a woman DIED (radio stunt) from drinking too much of that water stuff, WITH the "essential" minerals included. I'd say that's kinda the ultimate health problem....

Never learned

[PPH]

On road trips, we all learned really fast not to grab just any opened beer bottle.

Cheers to the golden elixir!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this is great!, just imagine how many Australians will want to be astronauts thinking they will be on the piss the whole time.

It's not Beer!

[elkto]

I keep trying to tell them it's not recycled Beer but...well...maybe it is....

Nothing New Here

[rfc1394]

Maybe I'm jaded, but this issue was already settled by science fiction more than 20 years ago. In space, you can't be disposing water and importing it - other than the amounts needed to startup the facility - would be ruinously expensive. If you're going to be staying there for any period of time you have to do the same thing to water that the earth has been doing for four billion years: recycle it.

You're most likely going to run the urine, plus possibly sweat and shower water, through activated charcoal or ordinary sand to capture solids. But on second thought, you might not even need to filter the water. You've got plenty of heat from direct exposure to the sun, so you boil the water and recapture the steam, which will be pure water and sterilized. You can cool it through a radiator to bring it down to room temperature.

Not true

[Corson]

"something that no other astronaut has ever done before" -- this is not true; human urine and sweat have been recycled aboard manned spacecrafts from the very beginning of spaceflight.

Re:Not true

[Jerry Rivers]

"...this is not true; human urine and sweat have been recycled aboard manned spacecrafts from the very beginning of spaceflight."

Citation needed.

Re:Not true

[Corson]

grad a dictionary of astronomy and astronautics and you'll find the info.

When I grow up...

[Anonymous Struct]

I'm going to be an astronaut^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fireman!!

Um, it's just water...

[J'raxis]

That this is even an event, let alone a bloody news story, demonstrates the sorry state of science knowledge and education in this country nowadays.

You know what urine is? Water with a few impurities in it.
You know what sweat is? Water with a few impurities in it.
You know what you get when you remove these impurities?
Anyone?

Water.

H2O is H2O. Big damned deal that it came from urine or sweat.

Windhoek

[flyingfsck]

The capital of Namibia has been recycling sewage for decades. It is also done to a lesser degree in other Southern African cities, e.g. Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[Anonymous Coward]

Most rivers flow north/south. It's actually because of this reason that the civilization of the ancient Egyptians prospered so well. The Nile flows south/north, so traders could go up north to trade by riding the water, then let loose a sail, and the south-blowing winds would carry them back home.

What, no Frost Piss post?

[davidwr]

You got first post and you passed up on this Golden Opportunity?

Obligatory Simpsons Response

[GargamelSpaceman]

HA HA.

Gross

[Terrorwrist]

That's one disgusting thing to drink for man; one stupidity leap for mankind.

i like the mouth brooders

[circletimessquare]

or the male seahorse getting pregnant

but my favorite is the deep sea anglerfish, where the males become nothing more than warts with eyeballs that embed in the female's flesh, nothing more than a pair of testes pushing sperm into her bloodstream ;-P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish#Reproduction

Thoughts to ponder.

[Allnighterking]

Yah know 10k years ago (last week in biblical time) there was a cave man peeing in the forest. That pee is the glass of watter in your hand now. Second thought. That water you are drinking, it's a whales toilet water.

Wrong title.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not "drinking recycled urine", they're drinking recycled water, water recycled from urine. It would be "Recycled urine" if their urine was accidentally mixed by someone with orange juice and they were trying to distillate the precious urine back from that mixture.

earth to major tom

[Device666]

Earth to Major Tom: "we've trying to contact you whole day, to tell you the urine and sweat recycler has been broken whole day, please fix it'

Perhaps more importantly...

[Trogre]

How did they manage to get rid of the foam moustache afterwards? Did they need turps?

Oh, you mean like here on earth?

[Anonymous Coward]

People pee into toilets, right? The pee goes through the water treatment plant to the river, right (it goes through a plant before I drink it, and also through a plant before going back to the river)? In the history of the human race, there are millions of people drinking millions of gallons of water per year. At some point, someone will be drinking someone else's urine. So the process is sped up in space, and this is a radical cycle how?

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, you do realise that our only supply of water isn't from a river that flows from Malaysia to Singapore right?

You do realise that the entire fucking country is surrounded by water right?

You do realise that we have water-catchment areas (we call them reservoirs) right?

You do realise that our OWN waste gets treated by NEWater technology right?

Finally, you do realise that NEWater is later on mixed with water in the reservoirs as well and not directly consumed right?

To say that Singaporeans have been drinking from Malaysian waste is an ignorant comment because it does not show the entire picture.

In fact, waste from probably anyone who has visited Singapore is mixed with the water supply, but on top of waste water, water from other sources such as these reservoirs, desalination and even sometimes direct water supply from Indonesia/Malaysia is used.

Water in Singapore is not a trivial issue and is one that is taken very seriously because we do not have quick natural natural potable water resources and we do have to make use of what we have (Such as sea-water, rain-water and waste-water) to get by.

Also, we don't really have a direct river from Malaysia. See: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Sn-map.gif

Sometimes I'll forget the different parent-nonpare

[Anonymous Coward]

So my daughter was at preschool the other day, and the teacher was reading a story that she was really enjoying.

My daugher really had to poo, but she did not want to miss the story. So she just went in her pants. She realized of course that she would have to hide this, so she tried to cover it with her hand. Then she realized that her hand was dirty, and if discovered she would have to go wash her hands.

So she simply wiped her hands off in the hair of the kid sitting next to her. Ultimately, this child's sobs forced the teacher to stop reading and wash both of the children.

Then she resumed the story where she had left off. My daughter ended up with what she wanted.

Re:Singaporeans were the first to drink recycld wa

[djcapelis]

The Amazon, Yangtze and Yellow rivers would like a word with you.

I just stared at a list of the longest rivers in the world and was thoroughly unable to find a significant correlation that would indicate most rivers flow north/south. You can cite the Nile which happens to flow north/south and has some benefits from that all you want, that doesn't really have anything to do with what most rivers do.

If you were to claim wind patterns were biased in a certain direction though, that would be a claim one could support with evidence: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Earth_Global_Circulation.jpg

Happen to have any concrete reason to say that rivers tend to go north/south?