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New Scientific Test Finds Up To 75 Liters of Urine In Public Pools (theguardian.com)
Scientists have developed a test designed to estimate how much urine has been covertly added to a large volume of water. "The test works by measuring the concentration of an artificial sweetener, acesulfame potassium (ACE), that is commonly found in processed food and passed through the body unaltered," reports The Guardian. The findings are published in the American Chemical Society journal. From the report: After tracking the levels of the sweetener in two public pools in Canada over a three-week period they calculated that swimmers had released 75 liters of urine -- enough to fill a medium-sized dustbin -- into a large pool (about 830,000 liters, one-third the size of an Olympic pool) and 30 liters into a second pool, around half the size of the first. Although the researchers were unable to confirm exactly what fraction of visitors were choosing to quietly relieve themselves in the water rather than making the shivery trip to the changing rooms, the results suggest that the urine content was being topped up several times each day. The findings make for unwelcome reading, but swimmers might find some comfort in the measurements from eight hot tubs, which were found to have far higher urine levels. One hotel Jacuzzi had more than three times the concentration of sweetener than in the worst swimming pool. In total, the team sampled 31 different pools and tubs in two Canadian cities and found ACE to be present in 100% of the samples, with concentrations up to 570 times the background level in tap water samples. They used the average ACE concentration in Canadian urine to convert their measurements into approximate volumes of urine.
nope, no shit, just pee
They don't have piss poor swimming pools in Canada.
That works out to around 0.009% urine content.
I can live with that.
Captcha: "manure"
First - this is a copy/paste from Soylent. I thought they were supposed to be trying to be like Slashdot, not the other way around? We're used to mainstream news beating Slashdot to the punch by days, but when our own RIPOFF site has news before we do, that Slashdot copies...WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK?!?
Also...this test only works for people who are using one particular artificial sweetener. Since the discussion started around Olympic swimmers - and this test probably wouldn't work in Olympic pools since those swimmers are on rigorous diets...
Welp, I guess we just shift it to try being more topical.
Sometimes. I would prefer to enjoy life and be a total ignorant. Yet slashdot remind me that reality is not always good to know. That said, once you learn it, you never forget it! Happy swimming!
What the fuck is a "medium-sized dustbin"? That's a truly bizarre comparison to make in order to describe a volume of liquid.
I don't respond to AC's.
...The human tongue cannot taste salt until the PPM is around 5000.
..it's 5 hundredths of a percent of the water volume. And since urine is 95% water, you're talking about less than 4 liters out of nearly a million liters of water. It wouldn't surprise me if the mass of dead skin or even hair was greater than non-aqueous urine components.
And since our swimsuits aren't hermetically sealed against our bodies, I'd wager there's some measurable amount of fecal matter in the pool too. Maybe some vaginal discharge and/or menstrual fluid, too. And you can't discount the amount of mucus and other sinus discharges along with some saliva from the people who like all of the above so much they get water in their mouths.
But in spite of all this (assuming the filtration and chlorination systems are working), the water in the pool is still way cleaner than most other bodies of water people swim in.
I've seen pictures of the Ganges that make me retch and people *bathe* in that water.
At least it's outside your body. Think of what happens when you go to a public bathroom that smells bad: what you're breathing was previously inside someone. I mean, the actual molecules that are entering your nose used to be part of someone else digestive system. Maybe even more than one person.
That's a lot worse than a bucket of piss diluted in a big pool filled with chlorine.
lucm, indeed.
It's nonsensical fear-mongering, nothing more. (That's something of a Slashdot specialty, these days.)
75 liters of urine in an 830,000-liter pool is 90 parts per million. Even at the tripled concentration of the hotel jacuzzi, that's still only 271 parts per million. Choosing a random model (the J-335, which fits five people and has a typical fill capacity of 1,249 liters, that's a grand total of 1.4 cups of pee in the entire jacuzzi, and that's the worst sample they could find, mind you.
It's extremely diluted, to the point where even if you drank the water it would almost certainly have no effect on you.
You do know that stuff doesn't actually exist, right?
It's extremely diluted, to the point where even if you drank the water it would almost certainly have no effect on you.
True, but don't forget the other additions, like spit, snot, semen, blood, sebum, pus, fecal matter, dandruff, pubic hairs and dead skin. The biomass that gets caught by filters is not insignificant, and it has generally been in the pool for a while before it gets sucked into the filters.
It's relatively safe with chlorination and good immune systems, but still something to remember before opening your mouth in a pool.
Clearly you don't know anything about homeopathic medicine! Water has a memory, so if someone pees in the hot tub, even if you drain all but a teaspoon of the water and refill the tub it will still contain the essence of that person's urine.
Sometimes. I would prefer to enjoy life and be a total ignorant. Yet slashdot remind me that reality is not always good to know. That said, once you learn it, you never forget it! Happy swimming!
At least it's outside your body. Think of what happens when you go to a public bathroom that smells bad: what you're breathing was previously inside someone. I mean, the actual molecules that are entering your nose used to be part of someone else digestive system. Maybe even more than one person.
That's a lot worse than a bucket of piss diluted in a big pool filled with chlorine.
Seriously? In the case cited 75 liters of urine in a pool containing 830.000 liters of water we have an urine percentage of (75/830.000)*100 = 0.009036145% where 95% of that 0.009036145% urine is sterile water assuming they are talking about 75 liters of factory standard piss as it can be obtained from the manufacturer. The average human being accidentally ingests about 1kg of insect parts each year. That's 1 kg of critters, some of which crawled round on, and fed off of, faecal matter and rotting tissue!!! Ever wondered how delicacies like mouldy cheese and escargot were invented? I'll let you in on a secret, your ancestors fed off of things like rotting meat, ergot infested and otherwise spoiled grain, cats, dogs, insects, rats, mice, insects, slugs, soup made of bones dissolved in sour whey, the list goes on... If you two continue on this trajectory you'll both turn into Howard Hughes.
I can see this research scoring a nomination for an Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year. For comparison, last year's prize went to Volkswagen AG for their innovative vehicle pollution control measures.
(this is not a
I like to go to the public bath, or onsen, in Japan. You wash thoroughly, then get into a bath with other people of the same gender, completely naked. Even nudists usually carry a towel or something to sit on because, you know, sweat and all that. In fact the baths are usually pretty hot and you can't help sweating a lot.
They don't use chlorine or anything like that in the pools. Often it's natural spring water. Somehow it's not a health hazard, although etiquette says you shouldn't drink that water.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Sorry.
You'd much rather sit in a bath with thin, muscular young men? Tell us more.