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Mammals, such as wolves, bears, apes and cats use their wee to communicate to other animals.
They can use their wee to mark their territory, by urinating on the boundaries of their garden, or the area they live in the wild.
Animals can also use their urine to advertise that they are ready for mating.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes your wee smells like something you’ve just eaten? Many people find that asparagus can make this happen.
This is because asparagus contains a sulphurous compound called mercaptan. Other people find that puffed wheat cereal (like Sugar Puffs) has the same effect, but we’re not sure why!
You might have heard a rumour that there’s a chemical in swimming pool that turns purple if you wee in the water?
We think this is an urban myth, because the chemical makeup of wee and human sweat is very similar, which would mean the pool water would be purple most of the time.
Whether it’s true or not, urinating in a swimming pool is pretty yucky – imagine if everyone did it? Rather scarily, experts reckon that 50% of people that use public pools wee in them, please don’t be one of them!
Did you know cat wee glows in the dark? It’s because the chemicals in the urine react with black (or UV) light.
In fact all animal urine glows to some extent, rat urine can be particularly bright, and even human wee can glow a little.
The yellow colour of urine comes from a chemical in our bodies which breaks down worn out red blood cells.
In the Middle Ages (around the 5th to 16th Century) people thought that the yellow colour meant there was gold in urine, which is of course nonsense, but led to lots of crazy experiments.
If you’ve ever eaten lots of beetroot you’ll know that it can make your wee pink.
NASA has spent decades developing a system to cope with the problem of what to do with wee in space. Now they have something called the ‘toilet to tap’ system, which means astronauts’ urine is recycled into drinking water.
The system can supply astronauts with half the water they need, which means they don’t have to weigh down the space shuttle with water all of the water they need for their missions.
It might seem like a good idea for a trip to space, but how would you feel if this system was introduced in your house? A town in California is already trialling the system – yuk!
Doctors use urine to work out lots of things about our bodies. They can tell if someone has taken drugs, or if they have a problem with their kidneys or bladder.
The colour of your urine is also a good way of knowing if you are dehydrated, if it’s very dark you’re probably not drinking enough. Athletes often use this method to make sure they stay hydrated while they train.
The amount of urine produced by our bodies depends on things such as how much liquid we’ve drunk, how active we’ve been and how healthy we are.
Generally, average amount of wee a human produces each day is about one to two litres.
We don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a wee in the shower as the water will wash all the urine away.
However, having a wee in the bath means that you are sitting in it, and even though urine is sterile, we think that’s pretty gross – save it for the loo!
We might just flush it away and not think about it, but urine is amazingly useful stuff. Animal urine is used as a fertiliser for lots of crops – it works because it contains lots of nitrogen.
You can even use wee in your own garden, although it’s recommended to dilute it first, around 10 and 20 parts water, to one part urine should do the trick.
Throughout history people have thought that urine could be used as a medicine, although there’s not enough scientific evidence to support this today.
talk about taking the p1ss, slightly off topic but…
Feces are normally removed from the body one or two times a day. About 100 to 250 grams (3 to 8 ounces) of feces are excreted by a human adult daily.
Normally, feces are made up of 75 percent water and 25 percent solid matter. About 30 percent of the solid matter consists of dead bacteria; about 30 percent consists of indigestible food matter such as cellulose; 10 to 20 percent is cholesterol and other fats; 10 to 20 percent is inorganic substances such as calcium phosphate and iron phosphate; and 2 to 3 percent is protein. Cell debris shed from the mucous membrane of the intestinal tract also passes in the waste material, as do bile pigments (bilirubin) and dead leukocytes (white blood cells). The brown colour of feces is dueto the action of bacteria on bilirubin, which is the end product of the breakdown of hemoglobin (red blood cells). The odour of feces is caused by the chemicals indole, skatole, hydrogen sulfide, and mercaptans, which are produced by bacterial action.
Many diseases and disorders can affect bowel function and produce abnormalities in the feces. Constipation is characterized by infrequent evacuations and the production of excessively hard and dry feces, while diarrhea results in frequent defecation and excessively soft, watery feces. Bleeding in the stomach or intestines may result in the passage of blood with the stool, which appears dark red, tarry, or black. Fatty or greasy stools usually indicate pancreatic or small-intestine afflictions. Typhoid, cholera, and amoebic dysentery are among diseases spread by the contamination of food with the feces of infected persons.
why oh why did I post this response? (or am I talking crap)
Can’t lick your elbow… did you say that? I couldn’t be arsed to wade my way through it all.
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