Stories tagged gross
It's brown and the consistency of motor oil...: But what does it smell like?
Courtesy Jill GreensethHere at Science Buzz, we strive to keep all y’all Buzzketeers surfing on crest of the new wave, sliding down the cutting edge of the razor that is the future, and, um, up to date on new things. With this in mind, I thought it was important to inform you of the latest, greatest craze in dealing with your useless dead body: alkaline hydrolysis. For everyone already in the know, please just put your heads down on your desks, and wait quietly while the rest of us catch up. Thank you.
Alkaline hydrolysis is, if possible, even cooler than it sounds, and as simple as ABC, but I’ll walk you through it from the beginning. So… You’re born (embarrassing!), you go to prom (best night ever), you live your life (boooring), and then you die. And then what? You’ve got this dead body on your hands, and it’s too big for the garbage disposal in the sink, and Goodwill won’t accept them any more, so what are you supposed to do? Bury it? Yeah, if you’re some kind of chump. Oh, hey, why not bury your body? People have only been doing that for, like, thousands of years. Please. You wouldn’t wear sunglasses from a thousand years ago—everybody would know how lame you are—so why bury your lousy body like they would then? What else…a Viking funeral, maybe? Well, I hate to break it to you, but there some things are just too cool, and most people can’t pull them off. For your average dead Joe, trying to go out with a Viking funeral would be like…like wearing an Armani suit to your fish gutting job—not the right fit.
Fortunately, for the rest of us, technology has come through and offered a fancy new way to go: dissolving your body in lye. One minute you’re a sad, dead old man lying on a slab, and a few hours later you’re a “brown, syrupy residue” ready to be dumped out on the street. This is alkaline hydrolysis.
Basically what happens is this: you’re put into a large tank filled with a lye solution, heated up to 300 degrees, and submitted to about 60 pounds of pressure per square inch (about the same as the pressure in a bicycle tire). It’s like being in a pressure cooker, kind of, but a little more intense. What’s left when you’re done cooking are a few little crunchy solids, and a “coffee-colored liquid with the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell,” which can be safely poured down the drain (or toilet, depending on your preference). Or maybe you could have it misted over the guests at your funeral service. Anything’s possible!
Another body prepared in lye: but this one is for eating!
Courtesy hilderbrant
Alkaline hydrolysis is currently only legal—in medical facilities—in Minnesota (yes!) and New Hampshire, but some folks are pushing to have it become a legal process at funeral homes around the country. It’s environmentally cleaner, they argue, than cremation, and doesn’t require the physical space of burial. It would hardly be the grossest thing dumped down our drains, too, as blood and spillover embalming fluid are routinely flushed away at funeral homes. Opponents point out that it’s kind of yucky. Also, some believe that the process is an “undignified” way to treat a human body. To this I say, “True, sir, true, but you know what else is undignified? Belly shirts. And we’ve gotten used to those. Some people even like them.”
So, yeah, get used to it folks. The future is now, and it’s brown, syrupy, and smells like a litter box.
Tags : 
A harmless bot fly: kind of cute, really.
Courtesy Wikimedia CommonsHave you thrown up yet today?
Oh, you haven’t? That’s fine if you haven’t. Not even an issue, really.
Forget that. Let’s go and learn about science!
Have y’all heard of the bot fly? They’re a little gray fly, native to the Americas, and they’ve got the most fascinating life-cycle.
Just a second—it feels like there’s a tiny person with diarrhea camping out in my stomach. Sorry, that was totally unrelated.
Anyway, the bot fly has a remarkable life cycle, especially the bot fly species dermatobia hominis. Pupating in the soil, the adult d. hominis emerges after about a week, and sets out looking for a mate and a mosquito. Once the bot fly finds and catches a mosquito, surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt the captured insect at all. The fly just attaches its own eggs to the mosquito’s body.
Now, I know what you’re thinking—you’re thinking that this is going to be one of those bugs that lays its eggs in another insect and leaves it alive so that when the eggs hatch the new larva can eat the living host. Get that thought out of your head right now; it’s simply not the case.
Oh, man, I feel like I’m salivating a lot. And burping.
Anyway, now we have this mosquito giving bot fly eggs a friendly lift. The mosquito goes about its life, looking for a blood meal. When the mosquito finds a mammal to drink from (usually a monkey or a person in the case of d. hominis), the eggs hatch, and the itty-bitty bot fly larva drop off the mosquito on to its host. The larvas then crawl into the tiny hole conveniently provided by the mosquito, and make a little home for themselves. For the next eight weeks, they feed off the tissue under the skin of their host until they grow into a large grub, about three quarters of an inch long, ringed with strong, hooked barbs, which make extracting the larva quite difficult and painful. Once the eight weeks are up, they chew their way out of the skin, and drop to the ground, where they burrow into the dirt. And about a week later…an adult fly is born once again! Isn’t nature a miracle?
Wait! Don’t leave yet! I have something else for you: a video I like to call The miracle of (bot fly) birth. I can’t make you watch it, but you probably should.
Now I think I have to go lie down and take some deep breaths
No, this isn't it: I just thought this picture was pretty awesome.
Courtesy Lori Oberhofer, National Parks ServiceSee, I always thought I wanted to die from being suffocated by cotton candy, or maybe from a Super Mario Brothers-triggered seizure. Well, Fate, cross that nonsense off the list, because something more than a little bit better came up: I want to die from having a little songbird rip its way out of my chest.
The decision isn’t final, by any means—there are still some details to work out before I really make a commitment. Do I, for instance, want to eat the little bird first (swallow it whole and alive, of course), or would it be better to have a mother bird lay its eggs in my chest, and have the young burst out later (think Alien)? Whatever the specifics, though, I think it’s a pretty good way to go.
Where do you get these genius ideas, JGordon? Well, I can’t take total credit for the death—the basic concept was really Nature’s, and I just built on it. That’s right, somehow, of all the things happening in the world, I found out about a sharp-shinned hawk in California that was found dead last month with the claws of a songbird emerging from its chest. What are the chances? I don’t mean the chances of a hawk eating a songbird, and then of the eaten bird’s clawed foot ripping through the hawk’s body, but the chances that of all the dead birds in the world, this one would find its way onto the Internet, and then to me. It’s fate.
There’s not much of a story to tell, really. An animal rescue worker was driving home and noticed the hawk lying by the road. Hoping to rescue the bird, she pulled over and carefully picked it up. Unfortunately, it had the remains of its last meal, probably a sparrow, spilling out of its chest. Yuckers! And there’s no cure for that! Sharp-shinned hawks usually don’t eat the heads or feet of their avian prey, probably for just this reason, but this sparrow was apparently just too delicious.
It's like a big angel food cake, running right at you: If you've got the right combination of genes. (photo by castle79 on flickr.com)Picture a big mug of some hot, vanilla flavored beverage. Think about how it smells…
Now do the same for a big, hot mug of urine. Now hold that thought.
Androstenone is a testosterone derivative produced in our bodies, and found in our urine and sweat. It is partially responsible for the less than charming smell of these fluids, as it smells like, well, urine and b.o. But it only smells like urine and b.o. to some people – to others it smells a lot like vanilla, and to others still, it smells like nothing at all.
Recently, scientists think they have isolated the gene that determines how people perceive the odor of androstenone. A group of four hundred people were presented with 66 different odors at two concentrations, and asked to evaluate the pleasantness and intensity of each odor. Blood samples were then taken from each participant for genetic testing. The study found that whether a person found androstenone foul or pleasant depended on the combination of “two point mutations called single nucleotide polymorphisms” along a particular odorant receptor gene. Isn’t that something? So, whether a junior high locker room smells like a bakery or an adolescent nightmare all depends the luck of the genetic draw (although I’m not sure that either option is all that great).
Some mammals use androstenone to pass on social and sexual messages. It’s possible that it played some similar role in humans, although, if this is the case, scientists can’t explain why so many people simply lack the ability to smell androstenone at all.
A fun fact: males produce much more androstenone than females. Sorry ladies, but there are some things that we men just do better than you, like producing really stinky chemicals.
Soon to be dinner?: Madagascar hissing cockroach
Courtesy scragz
Okay, file this one under, "stupid human tricks."
CNN is reporting that the Six Flags near Chicago is going to let people cut in line during their Halloween event if they eat a LIVE Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa). While park officials insist its safe the local health officials think differently:
Consuming live roaches might increase risks of gastrointestinal illness and allergies, according to Bill Mays, Lake County Health Department's community health director.
These little bugs are near and dear to many museums and schools. We have a fairly large colony here at the museum in one of our classrooms, I saw a bunch behind the scenes at the Boston Museum of Science just last week, and I know a couple teachers here in town who keep them in their classrooms. Sure would be sad to see a bunch of Six Flags Halloween partygoers hopped up on Mountain Dew eating these fine bugs just to cut the lines. Alas, I doubt a "Save the Roaches" campaign would have much traction either.
Biotherapy is the use of animals to diagnose or treat diseases or to assist the ill or impaired.
A leech: it does a body good?
Courtesy Michael Jefferies
One biotherapy that many of us are familiar with is seeing eye dogs. A less common biotherapy is the use of household pets, such as dogs or cats, in long term care facilities to improve the mood of and provide companionship for the people living there.
But other, less familiar animals have been put to medicinal purposes, too. Leeches have been used for thousands of years for various "medical" uses, and have recently been approved as a medical device by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Doctors use leeches to restore blood circulation after cosmetic or reconstructive surgery.
Maggot therapy has also staged a comeback. Doctors use maggots to treat and clean problematic wounds.
Honey bee therapy (or apitherapy), is the use of honey bee venom—which contains anti-inflammatory substances—to relieve pain in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Apitherapy can also help treat some neurological syndromes, such as multiple sclerosis.
What do you think of biotherapy? How would you react if a doctor told you that they were going to treat you with leeches or maggots?
Want to learn more about biotherapy? The BTER Foundation is an organization dedicated to supporting patient care, education, and research in biotherapy and symbiotic medicine. The International Biotherapy Society is another organization devoted to supporting the use and understanding of living organisms in the treatment of human illnesses.
Recent comments
Woman contemplates a future of urine drinking
You can't hear her
This bunny isn't that cute
Subscribe
I want to learn about
Science Buzz and all related activities
Science Museum of Minnesota, 2004-2008,
except where otherwise noted.
Copyright Information
Add a new comment