Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
Speaker 1: it's actually a funny story. We were originally going to
Speaker 1: come in here and do a podcast having to do
Speaker 1: with knee eating and vegetarianism, and I actually done a
Speaker 1: fair amount of research about it. And then last night
Speaker 1: I went to a restaurant named Abatoire which specializes in meats,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's is French for slaughter house. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so now I find myself at work actually podcasting about toilets.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a natural progression. Yeah, absolutely, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about toilets, and why not because everybody
Speaker 1: uses something right there, there are a couple of things
Speaker 1: you cannot escape in life. Right You've got to eat,
Speaker 1: you've got to sleep, and you have got to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. Right yeah, pooping, peeing, these these basic actions. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's a part of life. And it's it's so
Speaker 1: weird that it is an area of technology. Um, that
Speaker 1: physics and physics and health that often is just overlooked
Speaker 1: because we just don't want to think about it, or
Speaker 1: a lot of us do. Some of us may think
Speaker 1: about it too much. But but but it's it's there,
Speaker 1: it's important, and we'll end up, like say, you know,
Speaker 1: spending a whole decade or more, not innovating the toilet,
Speaker 1: not making changes to it, and certainly not rethinking it
Speaker 1: in any drastic way. Um. You know, in the same
Speaker 1: way that a person will choose to ignore, um some
Speaker 1: you know, dire health concerns relating their toiletry encounters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's what I'm thinking though, I mean, technology has
Speaker 1: has touched us on every level of our existence, and
Speaker 1: certainly it is happening in the toilet sphere. We were
Speaker 1: just maybe not as aware of it because you and
Speaker 1: I are here. We we don't live in Japan, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's like where the toilet plosion is going on.
Speaker 1: If I can coin a new term. Um, but you
Speaker 1: know we've talked to is a new term. I think
Speaker 1: it may have been used before, but not what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Explosions of ideas and yeah, right right, rather
Speaker 1: than that the more chatological explosions, yes, which are important too,
Speaker 1: but um, but you know, we've talked about what life
Speaker 1: might look like in fifty years, particularly if we end
Speaker 1: up living in vertical cities. And we've talked about the
Speaker 1: scarcity of land um, and we now know that um,
Speaker 1: something like two thirds of the popular population in will
Speaker 1: live in cities. Right. We know that we use a
Speaker 1: land mass the size of South America right now to
Speaker 1: fill our our food needs so UM, and we don't
Speaker 1: have that available to us in the future, right, especially
Speaker 1: when we have nine point five billion people living in
Speaker 1: so we started to think, like, how does that affect
Speaker 1: us waste wise? Yeah? Also water right now, especially in
Speaker 1: the United States, we and enjoy clean water pretty much
Speaker 1: as much as we want, whether we're drinking it or
Speaker 1: washing the dog with it. And I found an estimate
Speaker 1: that the average American uses somewhere in the neighborhood of
Speaker 1: seven thousand, six hundred sixty five gallons of water each
Speaker 1: year just to flush the toilet. Well, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: even count agriculture, right, UM. I mean that there's an
Speaker 1: immense amount of water used in agriculture UM, whether or
Speaker 1: not you're talking about livestock or crops UM. And again,
Speaker 1: you know you've you've got this um, this massive demand
Speaker 1: for food, particularly now for for meat and livestock. Um.
Speaker 1: But we just don't have the area. So we talked
Speaker 1: about this in life on the five hundred floor a
Speaker 1: little bit. We talked about vertical cities. Is possibility that
Speaker 1: you have vertical farming and and the sort of runoff
Speaker 1: that would happen there and you end up living in
Speaker 1: Pooh Town right down wind of you know, these stacks,
Speaker 1: these five floors of of livestock roaming around and all
Speaker 1: the sort of excrement that they produce, which is quite
Speaker 1: a lot, really much much more than humans. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: cant used to the zoo? I did? I I worked
Speaker 1: for a zoo and um, wow, elephants, that's all I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say. Amazing creatures. Um. So right now we know
Speaker 1: what happens to to our sewer waste. Right there's something
Speaker 1: called sewer sludge UM and this is actually at its best,
Speaker 1: it's actually the end product of our sewer treatment systems
Speaker 1: UM and it would be like a nutrient rich fertilizer
Speaker 1: that we could use on crops. And again, and it's
Speaker 1: actually used in the U. S. And Canada as such,
Speaker 1: but it's actually been banned in some countries because at
Speaker 1: its worst, which is the more likely scenario. It's a
Speaker 1: highly toxic waste composed of humans and industrialized waste. Um,
Speaker 1: So we have this problem right now, like what happens
Speaker 1: to our pooh pooh? Um? How was it used? I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a good idea to try to use on crops,
Speaker 1: but knowing all this sorts of nasty stuff that goes
Speaker 1: into it, now it's not necessarily the type of stuff
Speaker 1: that I want growing my tomatoes. We should probably talk
Speaker 1: about the technology that we have right now. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned the idea of your tomatoes and your
Speaker 1: toilet instead of having a huge sewage infrastructure between your
Speaker 1: toilet and your tomatoes. Uh, that we have this technology
Speaker 1: for composting toilets, which is pretty basic technology and it's
Speaker 1: more simpler form. So there are different models you can
Speaker 1: get these really remarkable looking like it basically looks like
Speaker 1: a toilet, like a big square toilet that you just unpack,
Speaker 1: stick in your bathroom and it and there's I think
Speaker 1: you add like peat mix and a microbe mix and
Speaker 1: uh it basically evaporation takes place because solid waste is
Speaker 1: only like it's only like ten percent solid and the
Speaker 1: rest is all water water, So tons of bacteria by
Speaker 1: the way, right in tons of bacteria, so the water
Speaker 1: evaporates and uh, and then you have that peat mix
Speaker 1: and the micro mix and they are there's like a
Speaker 1: little crank on the side of the toilet um you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like how they would start and start the
Speaker 1: old airplanes, and so you'd crank the toilet to to
Speaker 1: rotate the drum. You know, you'll see people with a
Speaker 1: composting been in their backyard that hasn't a rotation system.
Speaker 1: It's the same concept in your toilet right right. And
Speaker 1: then eventually you're going to have a drawer at the bottom,
Speaker 1: a finishing drawer that you open up in there is
Speaker 1: compost in there. It's like basically dirt and you take
Speaker 1: that out and you can dump that on your garden.
Speaker 1: And then there there are models that are a little
Speaker 1: more complicated that are electric or involve an external tank,
Speaker 1: uh collection tank for this to take place in an
Speaker 1: automated um drum that rolls. But but the the the
Speaker 1: technology of it is pretty pretty cool. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very cool. I actually um used one in a yurt once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I shared this other editorial meeting, and there are
Speaker 1: lots of titters by the way. Oh yeah, when was this,
Speaker 1: um that I shared it? Yeah, it was this like
Speaker 1: a year ago or yes, yes, that they weren't ready.
Speaker 1: They weren't ready. But I'm telling you this is pretty
Speaker 1: cool technology. But like you said, on an individual basis,
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense, right, if you're trying
Speaker 1: to institute it system wide, it might be a little
Speaker 1: bit more difficult as a as a solution for all
Speaker 1: of us, right, And those guys that laugh, they're gonna
Speaker 1: think they're gonna look back on their their laughter and
Speaker 1: they're gonna feel really stupid. Once we get all the
Speaker 1: toilets in this building change to composting, that's right, and
Speaker 1: we all get your housing. Yeah. Yes, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I've used them as well, because you see them popping
Speaker 1: up like at state parks. Yeah, yeah, they're they're really
Speaker 1: Because the other cool thing is it is more or
Speaker 1: less self contained. You don't have to be hooked into
Speaker 1: a grid or a system to operate. You don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to have the electricity coming in, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have the sewage system going out. Yeah, right, and
Speaker 1: it makes total sense. It's uh, it's definitely sustainable. It's
Speaker 1: a solution. Um One of the things that you wrote
Speaker 1: about recently in a blog post was what I like
Speaker 1: to call them, that Satan's toilet perhaps the oh yes,
Speaker 1: the incinerating toilet and incineration toilets or fired toilets that
Speaker 1: I like to think of them, Oh yes, these This
Speaker 1: was something I did not know existed until until just, yeah,
Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks ago, when I forget what
Speaker 1: made me think of this, but I was suddenly an
Speaker 1: into my mind, Hey, I wonder if there are any
Speaker 1: toilets that burn everything up, because that you were thinking, like,
Speaker 1: what's my worst nightmare? Sitting on a toilet with flame,
Speaker 1: isn't it? Well, no, that's not my worst nightmare, but
Speaker 1: but it just I kind of figured, we'll, surely someone
Speaker 1: has thought of this, and lo and behold they have.
Speaker 1: They've been around for decades. Uh And in fact, I
Speaker 1: think there were some early designs that you know, showed
Speaker 1: up like sort of the when the you know, in
Speaker 1: the steam age, when everyone is getting excited about, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the technology changing our lives. And sure enough
Speaker 1: there are some people that are like, we can we
Speaker 1: can take these, uh our toilets and basically turn them
Speaker 1: into a little furnaces that we pooped into, and and
Speaker 1: that's kind of the idea of incineration toilet. Um. I
Speaker 1: would if you do a Google search for poop into
Speaker 1: the fire, uh, sort of a play on the horus
Speaker 1: to the Duran Duran song. Yes, I thought that was
Speaker 1: what you were doing for best blog title ever. By
Speaker 1: the way, Yeah, if you do that search, you'll find
Speaker 1: this blog post, and in it there's a video that
Speaker 1: actually does a great job of showing how these things work,
Speaker 1: even though it's the weirdest video you've ever seen promong
Speaker 1: a commercially available product, because it's like, there's for one thing,
Speaker 1: the the incineration toilet in the promo video is padlock shut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean basically, whatever you put in there, you
Speaker 1: pull a trigger and it is incinerated, So you don't
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want a child to play with this, and
Speaker 1: if you were leaving one of these in a remote,
Speaker 1: remote location, you wouldn't want just anybody coming in and
Speaker 1: burning stuff in your toilet. Well, it's it starts very ominously,
Speaker 1: right because you see this woman and she's got like
Speaker 1: this key chain of like a thousand janitors, just like
Speaker 1: a thousand keys on there and you know it's to
Speaker 1: a different incineration toilet and this strange underground Commox's an
Speaker 1: eastern block underground bunker. And she starts talking about the
Speaker 1: toilet and um, as you point out, and actually UM
Speaker 1: editor Alison Laddermilt pointed out to at some point her
Speaker 1: shoes go missing during this video. I don't know how
Speaker 1: that happened. Yeah, she starts, you see her on the toilet,
Speaker 1: she's got shoes on, and then you know they cut
Speaker 1: to like later on. It's a very graphic video, by
Speaker 1: the way, not with her, but actually the contents of
Speaker 1: the Yeah, I mean, yeah, there is flaming poo in
Speaker 1: the video because it's i mean, the product itself flames pooh.
Speaker 1: And there's no there's no there's there's no, there's no
Speaker 1: faking that. I guess they couldn't just put in something
Speaker 1: some facts similar of poo. It might have been effects
Speaker 1: some way of poon and just a really good one.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but at any rate, Um, Yeah, she
Speaker 1: unlocks the toilet, uses it. Then they do this cool
Speaker 1: animation where they show exactly how it works and all
Speaker 1: and uh, and it incinerates at all, I mean all
Speaker 1: the water evaporates all all everything. It just turned to ash.
Speaker 1: And then you'll have an ashtray at the bottom that
Speaker 1: you remove and then dump. Right. And if you are
Speaker 1: in the military and you've ever been in a military
Speaker 1: campath these you're familiar with them or they they were
Speaker 1: found on trains as well. Um, and they are solution.
Speaker 1: But the problem is is that you can't you still
Speaker 1: have it's a waste product that you have to get
Speaker 1: rid of. Now the volume has been greatly decreased, but
Speaker 1: you still have this ash and you cannot. Um, Well,
Speaker 1: they don't advise you to use in crops and you
Speaker 1: have to throw it away. Yeah, and then there are
Speaker 1: there are a few. I mean, obviously the advantages are
Speaker 1: you don't again, you don't have to be hooked into
Speaker 1: well you need to be hooked into slightly into the
Speaker 1: grid on this one, because you need you need to
Speaker 1: either need to be electronically powered or gas powered, so
Speaker 1: you'll need that, but you don't need water. Um, you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about freezing temperatures. There's nothing in
Speaker 1: here that's gonna freeze up. But incineration destroys nutrients in
Speaker 1: the waste, making the ash inadequate. For replenishing soil. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's the energy usage, but then there are
Speaker 1: disadvantages as well. Um, the incineration destroys waste nutrients um
Speaker 1: in in the waste, making the ash inadequate for soil replenishment.
Speaker 1: And and again generally it's just gonna require energy. You
Speaker 1: gotta be hooked into gas or you have to be
Speaker 1: poked into you know, some sort of electrical grid or
Speaker 1: battery operated in order to power the flame. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: some models can't be used while insideration cycle is in process.
Speaker 1: So this is probably not going to work for a
Speaker 1: household with like ten people in it in one bathroom, right,
Speaker 1: and the sites I was looking also really advise the
Speaker 1: child should never use one of these things. Yeah, fire
Speaker 1: children poo really bad combo. We should probably really talk
Speaker 1: very quickly about vacuum toilets. Oh, yes, these are the
Speaker 1: Everyone who's ever flown on an airplane and has been
Speaker 1: brave enough to use the restroom has encountered these because
Speaker 1: basically basically how it works. Again, as you use the
Speaker 1: restroom and then you awkwardly get up out of your
Speaker 1: seat and struggle to position yourself around so you can
Speaker 1: look down in the toilet, because we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a second. Because you if you're a male, no, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. If you're if you're sitting well oh never mind, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: so you're trying to get yourself on the toilet. Yes,
Speaker 1: you have to get on the toilet, use the toilet,
Speaker 1: then get up, turn around, look down in the toilet,
Speaker 1: and then you have to flush it. And then when
Speaker 1: you flush it, you feel like all the air around
Speaker 1: your head it's like sucked out. And there's this moment
Speaker 1: where you can imagine yourself like pitching forward and just
Speaker 1: being taken down through the tubes and ejected from the
Speaker 1: outside of the air plant. Well, I was want to say,
Speaker 1: and it really plays into the rational fear you've got
Speaker 1: clowns and you've got the toilet that's going to suck
Speaker 1: you out into the other. Yeah, we'll see. With me,
Speaker 1: I was more, always, more afraid of things coming up
Speaker 1: from the toilet. I guess it was because I remember
Speaker 1: being a kid, not renting horror movies, but walking down
Speaker 1: the aisle and seeing um like like VHS covers for
Speaker 1: I think it was like Googley's was the was the series,
Speaker 1: and the cover always had like some really cheap looking
Speaker 1: like monster puppet coming out of a toilet, and uh
Speaker 1: and and I think I've subsequently seen like a cliff
Speaker 1: and then it's just horrible, poorly made films. But but
Speaker 1: at the time it's like, yeah, I don't want something
Speaker 1: to come up out of the toilet at me. And
Speaker 1: then a few years ago it happened something came up
Speaker 1: with the out of the toilet when I was not
Speaker 1: in there using it. It was suage, it was sewage
Speaker 1: backing up, but it was horrifying. I thought you're gonna
Speaker 1: say it was a rat or an alligator. No, but
Speaker 1: I have heard of rats, and that's as an entirely
Speaker 1: different podcast, I think, Um, because rats, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: they're gonna outlive us, right, Um, But I want to
Speaker 1: talk really quickly about that. Why you would want to
Speaker 1: use vacuum toilet outside of the airplane if you could, right,
Speaker 1: you'd have to have the right conditions, you'd have to
Speaker 1: have the section. But they use very little water, which
Speaker 1: is very important, right, especially if we're talking about the
Speaker 1: year and there's perhaps not a lot of water to
Speaker 1: go around. Um, they can flush in any direction, including upward.
Speaker 1: And because they don't have a lot of pipes that
Speaker 1: they have to you know, draw down the waist. You
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about the infrastructure um of placing
Speaker 1: a toilet somewhere. I mean, you can't just place one anywhere.
Speaker 1: You still have to have the right technology, but it's
Speaker 1: a lot more mobile. Yeah, So all you would need
Speaker 1: is some sort of vacuum device, air air pumps, etcetera
Speaker 1: to make this right right. Um, so those are that's
Speaker 1: what we have right now. But we've got some really
Speaker 1: cool things that are in the works right now that
Speaker 1: we could possibly have in the near future. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we will get to be right after this breat This
Speaker 1: presentation is brought to you by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and we're back all right to the future. To the
Speaker 1: future here we are. Okay, So the future holds some
Speaker 1: really cool stuff. And one of the one of the
Speaker 1: things I wanted to talk about is NASA, Right, Okay, NASA,
Speaker 1: we we are benefits, whether or not beneficiaries of their technology.
Speaker 1: It always trickles down to us. So I just want
Speaker 1: to start with that point. I mean, invisible braces, memory, foam,
Speaker 1: ear thermometers, cordless tools. These are all things that started
Speaker 1: with NASA Research and Development, and Velko yes, eventually came
Speaker 1: to the marketplace. So it stands to reason that some
Speaker 1: of their solutions for getting rid of waste may come
Speaker 1: to us very soon, and in fact, some of them
Speaker 1: actually in use in various ways right now, right. And
Speaker 1: they will spend a lot of money on the space
Speaker 1: toilets because because again, everyone has to use the restroom,
Speaker 1: especially astronauts. Yeah, International Space Station. That toilet nineteen million
Speaker 1: dollars and oddly enough that is only the second uh
Speaker 1: most expensive toilet in the world. Oh, because there's probably
Speaker 1: one made out of gold somewhere. Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah, yeah, jeopardy,
Speaker 1: you just run um. So what they're really good though about,
Speaker 1: is trying to figure out how to do uh do
Speaker 1: more with less, right, and how to actually reuse materials
Speaker 1: and recycle. So they have been converting waste into water,
Speaker 1: and they've been doing this by desalinating urine biosmotic pressure
Speaker 1: and then running it through a charcoal filter and then
Speaker 1: sort of like voila, you've got your tab water. And
Speaker 1: this is really magic for anyone like myself who grew
Speaker 1: up reading the Dune books because in the of course,
Speaker 1: in the Dune books. They are the the freemen have
Speaker 1: these still suits that converts their their waste water back
Speaker 1: into drinkable water, which they slip through a straw in
Speaker 1: their in their suit. And so they're you know, lots
Speaker 1: of sci fi geeks like myself have been just craving
Speaker 1: to drink urine out of our own still suit for ages,
Speaker 1: and and this is now we're just a little closer. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very possible right now. And in fact, in Orange County, California,
Speaker 1: they are using this process, but they're doing it underground,
Speaker 1: and they're having the water hang out a little bit
Speaker 1: longer underground so that people don't psychologically they can sort
Speaker 1: of cotton to the idea better that they're drinking they're
Speaker 1: clean urine. Well, I think we should all get used
Speaker 1: to the idea that water we're drinking may have at
Speaker 1: some point in urine, you know. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: just a sort of a modern effective life. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: whether or not you know it, right, Um, so, right now,
Speaker 1: that's this is a technology that they're using, and it's
Speaker 1: very possible that this is going to be used in
Speaker 1: toilets in the future, right, I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: that could be easily retrofitted into toilet technology. The technology
Speaker 1: is out there, it's it's it's it's gonna streamline in
Speaker 1: the future, and we're going to need it as our
Speaker 1: water demands increase, exactly. Yeah. So I mean in a way,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you have your water cooler in
Speaker 1: your bathroom. I mean, this is this. You know, we
Speaker 1: could even have very low tech versions of this, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there's some d I wire out there
Speaker 1: who has already done this, So email us because we
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. Um, but there are so
Speaker 1: many different toilets on the mark here right now. Is
Speaker 1: we had talked about in the beginning of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Japan is really running with this, right they They have
Speaker 1: a number of models that are just amazing and then
Speaker 1: also just kind of weird odd to us culturally, right
Speaker 1: well yeah, but then also but they also sort of
Speaker 1: tie into our general weirdness about toilets. You know that
Speaker 1: there's certainly this idea that let's not think about toilets,
Speaker 1: and by not thinking about it, we don't innovate it.
Speaker 1: But then there's also this this reality where it's like
Speaker 1: I want to think less about toilets. So let's make
Speaker 1: toilets more amazing till eventually we just have robots that
Speaker 1: we poop into in the future. It's very possible. And yeah,
Speaker 1: Japanese are pretty uh at what we would think is
Speaker 1: is hypersensitive about hygiene, So it makes sense that they
Speaker 1: put a lot of thought into this so that they
Speaker 1: can have, so to speak, a better outcome on the
Speaker 1: other end. Um. And one of these really cool innovations though,
Speaker 1: is what I like to call a doctor in your toilet.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, which, um, but before we we talk about
Speaker 1: the advanced version of this, I'm reminded of uh my
Speaker 1: wife was telling me about like once when she was
Speaker 1: doing a study of broad Thing and Prague, she encountered
Speaker 1: these her whole group and accounting these toilets that had
Speaker 1: like this little shelf. Like there's this little shelf that
Speaker 1: you do your business onto and then when you flush,
Speaker 1: the water washes everything off the shelf in a way,
Speaker 1: and so it's almost like a callander for your for
Speaker 1: the solids. No, well, no, it's like a like a
Speaker 1: little shelf like imagine that you it's like a little
Speaker 1: platform it's sorting out I guess it's it's it's like
Speaker 1: the center stage, like you know at the met and
Speaker 1: uh and and the waist goes on to that stage
Speaker 1: and then you know, everybody watches it. But then when
Speaker 1: the curtain closes, the water flushes everything away. And so
Speaker 1: I looked into it, and they're they're called washout toilets,
Speaker 1: and informally they're called German toilets because you still find
Speaker 1: them sometimes in Germany and Austria. And uh, it's a
Speaker 1: little sketchy on the reasoning for this, but it seems
Speaker 1: it seems like the idea is that as humans, well,
Speaker 1: we have this need to look at what we've done
Speaker 1: in the toilet. But we think, well, this is a
Speaker 1: whole Fortian idea, that we've created this thing right, and
Speaker 1: we're really proud of it. Well, but on a very
Speaker 1: basic level, I mean, your stool tells you a lot
Speaker 1: about what's happening inside your body. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we've all I don't know if we all have, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people who have have had different health
Speaker 1: diagnognostics done where you've had to supply a stool sample.
Speaker 1: And that's why they're not just you know, they're not
Speaker 1: just weird. They need to analyze it. And on a
Speaker 1: very on a very basic level, we can look at
Speaker 1: our stool and say like, well, I'm not doing too hot,
Speaker 1: because that is that is embarrassing, you know. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: anybody who's familiar with Dr Oz knows that he is
Speaker 1: a big proponent of examining your excrement and has even
Speaker 1: talked about not just examining it, but why you're doing it,
Speaker 1: assessing it. And in his his idea of the best
Speaker 1: exprement that you could how do I say you could
Speaker 1: give your toilet is one that would dive into the water,
Speaker 1: like Greg lan lucanis that's him, not me. See this
Speaker 1: makes me think of the Road to Welville, Yes, with
Speaker 1: the Anthony Hopkins awesome portrayal of of of Yeah, where
Speaker 1: he's talking about his diet is such that his stool
Speaker 1: comes out like a like a hard biscuit with its
Speaker 1: odorless and and and perfect. Yes, I mean this is
Speaker 1: the there it turns out that there is an ideal poop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it would go into the water, like Greg lucanis
Speaker 1: very little splash. So everybody wants to know, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but Dr Oz is really big about that, and he
Speaker 1: says like you can look your your experment and you
Speaker 1: can assess your health just like you're talking about, right,
Speaker 1: So it makes sense then to design a robot that
Speaker 1: you poop into the analyzes the poop for you so
Speaker 1: you don't have to look at it, which is essentially
Speaker 1: we're talking about in the intelligent toilet. This is made
Speaker 1: by a Japanese company called dioa House and actually Toto,
Speaker 1: which is big in the toilet industry, helped with the technology.
Speaker 1: But it provides urine analysis. It takes the user's blood
Speaker 1: pressure and body temperature and measures their weight with an
Speaker 1: in built floor skill. Yeah, so this is really cool because, um,
Speaker 1: this is a great way to get or read out
Speaker 1: of what's going on in your body at that time. Um.
Speaker 1: Toto's engineers actually developed a receptacle inside the basin and
Speaker 1: that's what collects the urine for sugar content and temperature
Speaker 1: checks and um there's also an arm band that monsitors
Speaker 1: your blood pressure. So obviously that's how you're you're getting
Speaker 1: your blood pressure, not from your waste. But you know,
Speaker 1: just the little ad on there, I could very well
Speaker 1: see this technology, uh uh you know spreading through you know, uh,
Speaker 1: medical clinics around the States, you know, instead of going
Speaker 1: in and having this awkward thing where it's all right,
Speaker 1: here are a few different cups, fill these up with
Speaker 1: your UM, your your leavings, and then stick them in
Speaker 1: a bag for us. You could just have this smart
Speaker 1: toilet that'll do you know, They'll just say, hey, come prepared,
Speaker 1: use our toilet and we're good. Well, the current model,
Speaker 1: actually your data is sent automatically to your personal computer
Speaker 1: and then you can email it to your doctor. But
Speaker 1: the next generation model, and this is according to phiz
Speaker 1: org dot com article Japan high toilet high tech toilet
Speaker 1: makers flush with success, nice pun, the next generation model
Speaker 1: will UM actually automatically send your results to family members
Speaker 1: and two doctors via the Internet. And it's actually capable
Speaker 1: of storing the data of up to five people. Wow.
Speaker 1: And you could probably get some sort of Twitter at
Speaker 1: put on that as well. Well. There's there's actually a
Speaker 1: website that was just tracks the number of tweets that
Speaker 1: relate to UM Toiletry activity. Really, and I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: like a hashtag right now, like lucanis yeah UM success
Speaker 1: or something like that. This podcast really is a mine
Speaker 1: field of potential jokes. They keep passing me by, and
Speaker 1: I just know that we don't have time. I know
Speaker 1: we don't. It's not fair. We can't give them um
Speaker 1: their due. But this toilet, in case you're interested in it,
Speaker 1: retails for about four to five thousand dollars. Yeah. Now
Speaker 1: a Toto is also involved in a few other really
Speaker 1: um classy toilets that I mean, these are really should
Speaker 1: be the toilets of the stars. If you're using something
Speaker 1: that out of gold, you're just wasting your time. They
Speaker 1: are the toilet stars. Who is it Ryan Seacrest who
Speaker 1: got one for his birthday And it's a six thousand
Speaker 1: dollar toilet that has all sorts of bells and whistles. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's this the the wash washlet S four hundred by Toto.
Speaker 1: I don't know which model it is, but it's pretty fancy,
Speaker 1: all right. Well, yeah, this is the one that has
Speaker 1: it has built in massage or seed heater. But day yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, like I guess it's like if you need
Speaker 1: your butt massage while you're on the toilet, warm air
Speaker 1: drawing settings, air purifier, um self cleaning. The there's a
Speaker 1: sensor that that sees that you're coming and it will
Speaker 1: go ahead and open and close the lid. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know a lot of the the the the wives and
Speaker 1: significant others out there. Really, I was about to say,
Speaker 1: if it returns it to the horizontal position, that really
Speaker 1: I think would improve a lot of relationships out there.
Speaker 1: There's there's also Kohler's new me toilet is. It is
Speaker 1: really impressive. It also has self opening, closing lid, self
Speaker 1: cleaning bidat which biday. Of course, anyone that doesn't know
Speaker 1: this is like a water hose that cleans you after,
Speaker 1: not really one of those you're himing, yeah, um, And
Speaker 1: actually if you go to Thailand, um you'll find that
Speaker 1: and probably other places as well. The most toilets have
Speaker 1: a vegetable sprayer like from your kitchen. That's sort of
Speaker 1: part of the set up there. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: form of a biday more of a manual bay um
Speaker 1: showery sort of, which makes sense. It really makes the
Speaker 1: you know, not having one seem kind of crude. But
Speaker 1: now this model also has uh uh adjustable biday with
Speaker 1: controls for temperature and water pressure, heating elements, illuminated panel
Speaker 1: for nighttime visits, a built in speaker system that connects
Speaker 1: to a remote docking station. So I guess so you
Speaker 1: can bring your your your iPhone or your iPod in
Speaker 1: with you and just plug it in so you can
Speaker 1: you can have your own music. Um, you never have
Speaker 1: to leave your bathroom essentially, Yeah, deodorizing element that sucks
Speaker 1: air from the bowl through a charcoal filter, and of
Speaker 1: course everything's tied into a touch screen. So yeah. And
Speaker 1: there's actually it's something called a function called otahimi, which
Speaker 1: literally means princess of sound, and it produces a flushing
Speaker 1: sound to cover bodiling noises. So again there's this preoccupation,
Speaker 1: preoccupation with our our body and what it does in
Speaker 1: the Japanese culture. And how best to obstute ate that
Speaker 1: I went to high school with this uh grown name
Speaker 1: Sarah who who may or may not be listening, uh
Speaker 1: but uh Sarah went did some sort of a like
Speaker 1: teach teach English as a second language deal in Japan,
Speaker 1: and she encountered one of these fancy toys. And this
Speaker 1: was like, I guess seven years ago more I don't know,
Speaker 1: but but you know, she didn't know what all the
Speaker 1: buttons were. Like a few were like clearly low flush
Speaker 1: versus high flush, which is another nice innovation that we've
Speaker 1: seen become more and more dominant even here in the States,
Speaker 1: choosing how much how much water you need per um
Speaker 1: you know, what needs to flush down. But then there
Speaker 1: were other buttons. One of them produced the artificial flushing sound.
Speaker 1: And the idea here is so instead of wasting the
Speaker 1: water to create a flush sound to hide the sound
Speaker 1: of your your excretion, then you know, you just push
Speaker 1: this button and it will play the sound. But then
Speaker 1: there was also a button that she pushed and the
Speaker 1: police showed up while she was in the restaurant. I
Speaker 1: think it was like, you know, an emergency button in
Speaker 1: case there's some something wrong. Okay, so that that would
Speaker 1: be the for me, okay, clowns um the second irrational
Speaker 1: fear getting sucked out of the airplane through the toilet,
Speaker 1: and third being arrested on the toilet. That's a problem there. Um.
Speaker 1: So I mean, there you go. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: some very interesting innovations. Yeah, I should add that I
Speaker 1: don't think she was caught on the toy I think
Speaker 1: she was leaving the toilet when the police came in. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes me feel so much better. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is hardly much of an innovation. Um, I think it's
Speaker 1: an innovation, But it isn't really it's not game changing,
Speaker 1: even though it is a game. Sega has been installing
Speaker 1: this toilet that's t o y l et game in
Speaker 1: Japanese journals, which is basically, um, I guess the idea
Speaker 1: is like little boys especially will just pee everywhere unless
Speaker 1: you make them focus, and one way to make them
Speaker 1: focus is via a video game where the you know,
Speaker 1: the way that you're you sort of pee into a
Speaker 1: little video game controller and it I'm just thinking for
Speaker 1: all the gamers out there, including yourself, it's got to
Speaker 1: be probably actually a good solution for when you don't
Speaker 1: want to get up and uh and pause the game,
Speaker 1: like if you're in a moment, right, well, I think
Speaker 1: that's called just winning a diaper Again. NASA, thank you
Speaker 1: the the adult super absorbent typer. But this has been
Speaker 1: around for a while because I think they've had like there.
Speaker 1: Their readers will have to know, I mean listeners will
Speaker 1: have to write in. But but I believe there have
Speaker 1: been a number of cruder versions of urinal games where
Speaker 1: you you pe on something and it makes a ball
Speaker 1: go up in the urinals. Yeah, and of course our advertisements,
Speaker 1: so that's that's the impetus there really for having that
Speaker 1: technology is you can get whatever you're selling out there
Speaker 1: in front of um a captive audience, so to speak. Now,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about innovations, um modern approaches to the toilet.
Speaker 1: But but what's really interesting is that some of the
Speaker 1: best ideas we might be able to employ regarding our
Speaker 1: toilets are old ideas well. I mean, not actually thinking
Speaker 1: about this. Okay, you've got these great things, especially with
Speaker 1: the medical toilet that can tell you you know, what's
Speaker 1: happening in your body, so on and so forth. You've
Speaker 1: got all the different innovations, but it turns out that
Speaker 1: we've been doing it all wrong regardless. And what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about here is popping a squad, which is the
Speaker 1: most natural thing in the world because we did not
Speaker 1: evolve to set on little chairs with holes in them.
Speaker 1: It's very victorian if you think about it, right, I'm
Speaker 1: conscious sit here and pretend like I'm not going to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Um, but yeah, you're right. The popping a
Speaker 1: squad is really what we are supposed to be and
Speaker 1: what we're engineered to do. And there's a great article
Speaker 1: on sleep dot com by Daniel Lamenti called don't just
Speaker 1: sit there, and he actually goes into this the reasons
Speaker 1: why it points out that the modern chair based flushing
Speaker 1: toill and it really dates that dates back to the
Speaker 1: late fifteen hundreds and and back before that. You just
Speaker 1: have generations upon generations of people, as you say, popping
Speaker 1: a squat. Uh and to this day, I mean most
Speaker 1: you definitely have that. If anyone has ever traveled to
Speaker 1: the into the East, if you've if you've got to
Speaker 1: you know, Thailand, um, and throughout Europe. Throughout Europe, you'll
Speaker 1: encounter these the squad toilets, which are well describe out
Speaker 1: and describe one for us the hole in the ground, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's some porcelain added? Well, there's a tile work usually,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it's pretty amazing. I mean it
Speaker 1: makes you realize that there are eight year olds that
Speaker 1: are using all their muscles in their thighs to to
Speaker 1: do this act and who are probably a lot more
Speaker 1: stronger than than some of us, um, some of us
Speaker 1: thirtysome things in America here and there are a number
Speaker 1: of arguments too that this is the again, we evolved
Speaker 1: a squat and used the rest him. We didn't evolve
Speaker 1: to set on a chair and do it. So so
Speaker 1: there are all these arguments for for different different ways
Speaker 1: that squatting is is a healthier option, right, Like hemorrhoids
Speaker 1: is a really good example. This is a very modern thing, hemorrhoids,
Speaker 1: because if you're squatting, you're not straining as much. Straining
Speaker 1: is one of the key uh causes of hemorrhoids. You'll see. Also,
Speaker 1: people will get into whole arguments about the removal of impurities,
Speaker 1: about you know, even tying it in with cancer, and
Speaker 1: some of those claims are are are less explored. But
Speaker 1: but there's and and then there's also the idea that
Speaker 1: that when our thighs press against our our gut, that's
Speaker 1: also aiding an excretion. And I believe they did some
Speaker 1: some timing and this one uh one bit of research
Speaker 1: that Lametti sites here, which which found that it's like
Speaker 1: if you're if you're squatting, you can go in about
Speaker 1: like fifty seconds, yeah and uh seconds something like that.
Speaker 1: But if you're using a traditional Western toilet, then it's
Speaker 1: going to be like twice that, right, And it makes
Speaker 1: sense too. I mean, I was actually thinking about the
Speaker 1: yoga pose Happy Baby, which stimulates your digestion and it's
Speaker 1: the same thing, right, and you're just doing it on
Speaker 1: your back. I always fall over on my side when
Speaker 1: I do happy Baby, Yeah, and it makes my spine
Speaker 1: feel weird. I don't know. It's an odd post. You're
Speaker 1: happy babies, crazy baby, I think, but it points back
Speaker 1: to this whole fact that the matter is is that
Speaker 1: we do have against certain engineering that helps us with us.
Speaker 1: Um So, I don't know, what do you do? Do
Speaker 1: you retrofit your toilet? It's very possible. You can actually
Speaker 1: put a platform on your toilet, but this is called
Speaker 1: the East West toilet. Um. Well, no, this is the
Speaker 1: There are a number of different devices out there. There's
Speaker 1: one that basically looks like a little ladder that you
Speaker 1: you kind of clamp on and it gives you like
Speaker 1: kind of a squat plate on top of the traditional toilet.
Speaker 1: But then there are are also more expensive models that
Speaker 1: are kind of an s east meets West toilet, which
Speaker 1: can be sat upon but can also be squatted upon.
Speaker 1: So you're really you're yeah, but you're asking the person
Speaker 1: who's squatting on it to like squat on an elevation.
Speaker 1: So it looks kind of it still is kind of tricky.
Speaker 1: I'd feel a little um, you know, put out if
Speaker 1: I was having to squat up there on top of
Speaker 1: so I was going to say, it's not something i'd
Speaker 1: won after three beers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's um and
Speaker 1: it's it's also worth noting when we're looking back the
Speaker 1: history of toilets uh. People often look at the Roman toilets,
Speaker 1: which we still see remains of, and they look like
Speaker 1: thrown style toilets uh. And it's apparently unclear whether or
Speaker 1: not they sat on these. That's one of the traditional idea.
Speaker 1: It's possible they squatted on them, but but they were
Speaker 1: basically elevated, they think, because you have like a latrine
Speaker 1: of raw suwage down there, and they just that makes
Speaker 1: sense yea, and be elevated above that the chamber pot two. Right,
Speaker 1: we said that that would evolve into something that became
Speaker 1: something you sat on, the squatted over. So there you go.
Speaker 1: That's that's the scoop on the Pooh and the toilets
Speaker 1: and innovations. It's a lot to think about. Yeah, there's um,
Speaker 1: if nothing else. Yeah, hopefully we've we've just stirred up
Speaker 1: some conversation about this, about this this idea and U
Speaker 1: and what is the toilet, how we've we've gotten to
Speaker 1: the point that we've we've arrived at with it, and
Speaker 1: where do we go within the future, How can we
Speaker 1: improve on it? How can we fix the errors that
Speaker 1: we've made, order the possible errors that we've made, and
Speaker 1: come out on the other side with something that's sustainable, healthy, etcetera.
Speaker 1: That's right, Well, let's bring up mail on. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have one quickiemel since we went a little long on
Speaker 1: this um mostly because it was funny, I think, um.
Speaker 1: But reader by the name of Richard writes in. Richard says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just sending a message to say I love the podcast
Speaker 1: and keep them coming. I also have one small correction
Speaker 1: for you. I can't remember exactly which podcasts. I think
Speaker 1: it may have been lying robots in the lives they tell. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I believe Robert said that to Devon was a town
Speaker 1: in the UK. Uh. It's not a town, it's a
Speaker 1: It's a county, which is similar to your states, except
Speaker 1: not as big. I'm not sure if this has been
Speaker 1: corrected or not, as I'm a bit behind in your
Speaker 1: podcast and I'm trying to get up to speed to
Speaker 1: keep up the good work. Richard P. S. I'm from
Speaker 1: Surrey in the UK, which is which is another county. Um, yes,
Speaker 1: I believe I wrongfully um identified the spot. But basically
Speaker 1: I think what I've meant to say was it was Marlow,
Speaker 1: because I look this up it's the town of Marlow.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got Devin and Marlow confusedly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Marlow is a little town on the Thames that's really
Speaker 1: gorgeous and has this one or old church in the
Speaker 1: cemetery right down there by the water. So so yes, Marlow,
Speaker 1: not Devon. Cool there we go. So hey, if you
Speaker 1: want to discuss anything with us, if you want to
Speaker 1: share links to cool toilet innovations that you've discovered, come
Speaker 1: to our Facebook page and do just that. We are
Speaker 1: Blow the Mind on Facebook and you also find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter as Blow the Mind, and we update both
Speaker 1: those feet pretty regularly and uh, you know, populate them
Speaker 1: with all sorts of cool links and comments. And you
Speaker 1: can also email us any sort of toilet shenanigans you've
Speaker 1: run into with your own toilet innovations at Below the
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future
Speaker 1: join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.