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Belgian Barrels Reveal History of Human Gut Microbes
sciencehabit writes "700-year-old human feces, preserved in sealed barrels under a town square from the Middle Ages, are shedding new light on the evolution of the bacteria in our guts. Viruses isolated from the ancient poop reveal a growing arms race between our native bacteria and microbial invaders. Such viruses may have been instrumental in helping us digest food, temper inflammation, and fight obesity."
Less frightening news that touches on the same domain: European cities (notably Britain) decided to go with sewers instead of barrels, and now, writes reader
DW100 "An ISP in the UK has come up with an innovative way to deliver broadband around London: its Victorian sewer network. Geo Networks runs the cables along the roof of the sewers, avoiding any 'waste' issues and providing fast, low-latency, high-fibre services to business and other providers."
http://www.google.ca/tisp/
Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.
Installing TiSP
Installing a typical home TiSP system is a quick, easy and largely sanitary process -- provided you follow these step-by-step instructions very, very carefully.
#1 Remove the spindle of fiber-optic cable from your TiSP installation kit.
#2 Attach the sinker to the loose end of the cable, take one safe step backward and drop this weighted end into your toilet.
#3 Grasp both ends of the spindle firmly while a friend or loved one flushes, thus activating the patented GFlush system, which sends the weighted cable surfing through the plumbing system to one of the thousands of TiSP Access Nodes.
#4 When the GFlush is complete, the spindle will (or at least should) have largely unraveled, exposing a connector at the remaining end. Detach the cable from the spindle, taking care not to allow the cable to slip into the toilet.
#5 Plug the fiber-optic cable into your TiSP wireless router, which has a specially designed counterweight to withstand the centripetal force of flushing.
#6 Insert the TiSP installation CD and run the setup utility to install the Google Toolbar (required) and the rest of the TiSP software, which will automatically configure your computer's network settings.
#7 Within sixty minutes -- assuming proper data flow -- the other end of your fiber-optic cable should have reached the nearest TiSP Access Node, where our Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) will remove the sinker and plug the line into our global data networking system.
#8 Congratulations, you're online! (Please wash your hands before surfing.)
Your company's internet service is crap!!!
I remember the proposals for sewer fiber networks at least a decade ago, even saw the robot that did the placement.
As for the gut bacteria, haven't we seen this with species like fruit flies? Their sperm packages are actually toxic(to kill competing sperm), too many generations difference between them though and it'll kill the female.
I don't read AC A human right
really? the only thing I got out of the summary was that barrels don't scale well when used as a sewage system.
maybe you read further than I did.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
what exactly makes it a "hotel" vs say, a motel, or say, a tent-for-rent?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Do they sell this vintage miracle shit at Whole Foods yet?
High fibre!
Excuse me for being anal, but-- 700 year old fossilized/petrified feces that you can extract DNa from? Something's wrong here. If these turds were coprolites they would by definition not contain any of the original organic material. I suspect what they found are paleofeces, not coprolites.
Is that a special cable that keeps the sewers clean? The article doesn't seem to be raw enough on details.
That might be the case, but it might also not be the case.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I read both stories, can't quite figure out why we needed a double header. There's nothing related between the two articles other than, perhaps, the correlations to getting a giggle out of a 13 year old. The story on coprolites is more classically interesting, by the way.
Gently reply
Sufficient fibre in the diet and a regular, open minded sexual partner.
I always knew I god better internet on the throne.
Data closet, water closet what's the difference?
The British Way !!
I get my shit disposal and broadband from the same company, swell!
Although I didnt read the summary, it is easy to extrapolate that, in older times, people got their shit together.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Really? The summary says "ancient Belgian poop found in barrels", followed by "and speaking of poop, an ISP is running cables along the top of sewers in a place where they didn't use barrels for poop".
Absolutely a Slashvertizement.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There was a network of hydraulic pipes around the City of London, originally for powering hydraulically operated lifts (elevators) from a central source of water pressure. The pipes, unused for many decades, were bought up by Mercury Communications as a ready-made conduit for their new fibre network in the 1980s. It was obviously far cheaper than digging up the road for new pipework, as far as it went.
Gives a whole new meaning to "I have a shitty connection".
...what a crock of shit.
Geo Networks runs the cables along the roof of the sewers, avoiding any 'waste' issues ...
The Internet is a series of tubes sending digital crap to your home, that runs through a series of tubes sending physical crap away from your home.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Moreover, the summary of the first part (about gut bacteria) is just an exercise in poor writing. Let me summarize from the linked article, without similarly confusing bacteria, viruses, and microbes. Coprolites from Belgium had different gut bacteria species waging antibiotic warfare on each other. Each made antibiotics to kill other invasive bacterial species, and viruses (of the kind called bacteriophages) moved genetic material between bacteria (of the same kind) thus helping that bacterial species better fight the invasive bacteria.
Then there is some unrelated article, with possibly an equally poor summary, but my attention span was already exhausted.
Looks like you are getting moded informative, not funny. Jokes on them, and April 1, 2014 is just around the corner.
Fiber in the sewers is nothing new. Many operators use it in Paris up to the risible situation where multiple fibers can connect a building.
tracks history of bizarre hoarding.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.