What is Digg?110 Comments
- WikiTerra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yes it's there's not much in pee besides water, blah blah blah, yes the distilling thing is done in space blah blah blah...
But did you read the POINT of the article?? Where it says it takes only TWO PERCENT of the energy used in other methods to produce the same results?
Well? Didja?? PUNK? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Oh - and "fresh from the tap", the average urine is probably aroudn 4000 ppm. In other words - you definitely do NOT want to drink it straight. Unless you're into that sort of thing. In which case, there's a world of websites out there for you.
- capn_caveman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"I drink my own urine because it's sterile and I like the taste"
Patches O'Houlihan - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is honestly nothing new. Urine is pretty disgusting and contains a ton of minerals in it. You wouldn't want to drink it "fresh from the tap" so to speak, but you could easily filter it into proper drinking water. It's what astronauts do.
You could buy a home reverse-osmosis system and pump urine into it and what would come out (eventually) would be a technically drinkable liquid. I think bottled water is somewhere around 300 parts per million and pure water is 50 or 100 ppm. The average tap water is something like 300 to 600ppm.
Using a decent reverse-osmosis system, you could run your urine through three or four times and come up with a glass of what would be as drinkable as tap water (as far as ppm goes). It probably will still taste and smell horrid, but you wouldn't die or get sick from it. I imagine you could make it very tolerable to drink if you ran it through a few more times. - Luftwaffle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Urine is actually sterile and usually free of bacteria, viruses, etc. It's also 95% water, so making it "drinkable" is just a matter of removing the other 5% which includes urea, minerals, and some other things.
- michaeljh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dean Kamen is also the founder of FIRST which maintains a program that allows high school students to design, construct, and program a robot. Since my high school is involved in this, this article is interesting especially since I see the guy annually at the robotics kick-off.
>. - Zminus10, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i wonder if people in these 3rd world countries that he's referring to can afford to operate this unit. i mean, there are costs associated with the electricity, maintenance, and filter replacements (the impurities have to go somewhere) needed to run this thing - not ot mention the cost of the unit itself.
is this really a viable option for these people? or would a community-wide plan be more efficient and economical? - blackpage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2we are already drinking recycled pee from each other, from our long line of ancesters, our best friend, our employees and boss, pets, our own - filtered by the sewer, microbes, heat, air, soil and sand, and then - $3.59 for a case of 12 from costco ;P
- Takshaka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's a seriously nice bit of technology - the only possible drawback i can see is the energy required. The article states that it only needs 2% of the energy used by traditional methods, but how much energy is that?
Will it run on 2 AAA cells, or does it need it's own generator? Obviously, given the proposed application, solar would be ideal. Either way, I'm really hoping he can sort this out and bring it to the folks who need it. - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Urine is sterile. You can drink it." - Tyler Durden
- jediboytj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1drinking urine has been known to cure certain diseases.... google it.
- slamm6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, nothing is 100 % efficient, but if there ain't any more volatiles in it (and I don't think urea or protein is volatile), distillation is going to be your best bet, especially with good refluxing. Certainly more efficient than RO. And RO wouldn't work anyway because the volumes are too small.
- em00guy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wanna impress me, Now make my poo into a pastrami sandwich.
- hammerattack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can drink your own urine up to three times before your blood toxicity gets dangerous. Aaah, the crap you learn in survival school.
- ironbear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Distillation isn't new, for cryin out loud. What is cool about this is the super-low energy consumption. Most anyone with one of those home water distiller units knows the pain of the electric bills.
- capn_caveman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As a chemical engineer I will note that there is no such thing as a 100% purification process. In other words he really did drink his own urine. Just diluted.
- jimshady, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool as it sounds, I wouldn't want to own one of these machines. Imagine a faulty filter... And you only find out much later when it gets REALLY salty. :/
- .mark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ok, so the pee goes in all pee-like and everything and comes out like sparkling water. Now, who is going to want to change the filter on that machine?
- dave007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'd recommend the title of this device be:
"Urine Luck" - TheNino85, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0As some have mentioned before, every one of else in civilized society has been drinking filtered urine for decades, yes, even the bottered water fanatics.
But I dugg the article just for the title. Hilarious, I can't even look at it without laughing still. - adrianguru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ur ine the money.
- killerofkiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0urine has the vitamins and minerals that ur body doesnt use so it could be good if u eat alot of vitamins... but it's also the bad stuff that gets filtered out.. Dean Kamen is my hero.. i should of asked him if he washed his hands before shaking my hand at Nationals 2005 *FIRST* :)
- JnOrris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yea FIRST!! w00t Jan. 7!!!
- cool4u2view, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"you don't really think you pee alcohol after a few beers do you?"
I didn't mean with pee, I mean pour alcohol/water in it and try to get water..
For those of you on digg who like to drink pee, please remember that while it is sterile, it is chaulk full for toxic urea. You will do harm to your kidneys. - Bonobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0aah.. how refreshing...
- monzsca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Maybe the could send a demo unit to Kevin and Alex so that they have something new to drink on Diggnation.
- MalDON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is really old though, its cool and all, but it was in some special on tv about two years ago.
- scorwitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh, my! That headline is great!!! I'm peeing my pants laughing. . . and I'm thirsty. I guess that Segway guy really has something :)
- gwjc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So did Jim Morrison; 'cepting he did filter it:
p://digg.com/music/The_Doors:_Did_you_know_Jim_Morrison_drank_his_own_urine_ - notninja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ooo nice.
- Antelope, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The title alone make me laugh... HA-Sounds like an Onion article. Dugg.
- syuusuke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0snickers is poo :
- ScottBookG4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I want one! I wonder how many times I can recycle my urine before the machine stops working, ie, drinking nothing but recycled urine, letting your body process it again, purify, repeat...
- buddha_mjs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i met him before he was famous. i was in the F.I.R.S.T. robotic competition he sponsors back in 99. he is an uber geek at the core of his being so it doesn't surprise me that he would make something like this.
- sotloo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool I would only have to purchase 1 case of Fiji water for the rest of my life, think of the money you’d save
- Aniz-Ansari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Dude I live South Carolina, How the hell did I miss this!
- lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i'm gonna start a minibar with one of these. then other people can drink my pee, ahahaha!
- Arramol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is a much more useful invention than the Segway.
- Cerberus047, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ha ive been doing this for months withought the filter and its great.... j/k but seriously would you seriously drink it or someone elses, and what if it malfunctions........
- Sixcolors, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I just like the sound of Dean Kamen drinks his own pee.
- slurpee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't know what to say...
For all the digger want drink peee lol - spiderland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Urine directly from "the tap" is not sterile.
Funny quotes, though, and interesting article. - dcskate101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Now that is freaking awesome! I don't know if I could keep a straight face drinking it though, even though it is purified.
http://www.h2stats.com - jschaff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You know Ghandi stayed alive during his hunger strike by drinking his own urine. It's sterile but probably not too nutritious.
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"He was participating in a presentation of his latest gadget- a pee-purifying device"
I don't want to drink my Own pee.Who wants a gadget that lets them drink there own pee? - oyourmom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this could be the most disqusting thing ive ever heard of from digg. i bet the headline will be sometime this week, "Man who invents segway dies"
- EliGottlieb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, Deam Kamen is pretty damned crazy. I saw him give a speech at RPI, and he's actually only smart or sensible when it comes to technology. Other than that he might as well be anothe Slashbot.
- yensed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wierd.
- gargamel51, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Seumas
Parts per million of WHAT?!?! -
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