Bug Mac!

Did you know you'll be able to buy the "commercially available bug sandwich" soon? Sweet!

I learned that while reading this NPR piece about a Dutch restaurant that serves dishes like the delicious insect crumble shown here.

Let's all poop in a bucket!

Great work, Ric Sternberg!

"My child drinks out of the toilet"

Nice work with the bumpers stickers, Humane Society of Pagosa Springs!

Why is this woman so happy?

She just flushed a toilet. YES!

Well, not just ANY toilet. Emerson School principal Tara O'Neill gave a flush to the latest public Portland Loo. As part of the dedication ceremony, Emerson students sang:

When you're on the playground, what can you do?
If you need a bathroom, where can you—?
We have an answer, built just for you
Slip to the loo, my darling.
Loo, loo, skip to the loo...

Then you can hear a teacher insert: "Don't run!" But if you need to get to the loo quickly and you don't want to attract attention ("Timmy's got to bust a grumpy!"), isn't skipping a little conspicuous?

Headline of the Day

Yes, sea cucumber poo can save the Barrier Reef. This Australian Geographic article spells it out, but the basic message is that sea cucumber poo is awesome.

In other news, this website has a post up about books that were bound with human skin. It ends like this: 

“If you didn’t know better, you would think it was suede.”

Sheesh!

Enter, the Toilet Keeper

Here in Portland, we have outdoor toilets. w00t!

More amazingly, our outdoor toilet program works. That is, when other U.S. cities have tried using these, they fall prey to vandalism and crime. Why don’t ours? There’s a number of reasons, but maybe the most important one is that the toilets are outdoors. That is, they keep the rain off your head, but that’s about it.

This article from Atlantic Cities gives more details. My favorite part is in the comments section, where Daniel Kim writes:

I wonder, given the price, if it would be better to have a small residence with, say, four or so toilets. A toilet keeper could be contracted to live in the residence and do maintenance and cleaning in exchange for rent and basic utilities. The resident keeper could provide some security by being able to call police using a hot button if there's any 'nefarious' activity.

I love that idea: Hire a toilet keeper! His business card would read:

BART KING

Toilet Keeper

How many people can fit in your underwear?

I don't really care what the cause is, there's really no good reason for more than one person to wear a pair of underwear at a time. Am I right, people? (Via.)

"Born to Poop Wild"!

Behold the eco-friendly motorcycle "Toilet Bike Neo"! It uses bio-fuel from discharges of livestocks or waste water.

In other words, this motorcycle runs on poop! (The toilet paper roll sure seems oversized.) Via.

There's gold in them there hills of poop!

By Derek A.

New Taipei City is in Taiwan. And city officials there say that more than 4,000 people have collected 14,500 bags of dog dookie.

Why are so many people scooping grumpies? Because for each bag turned in, they get a lottery ticket. And if you win the lottery, you get a gold ingot.

Gold! Gold for poop!

That’s the idea. See, the Taiwanese are crummy about picking up their dog poop, so the scheme is to get people to be more responsible. By bribing them!

What’s awesome is that people who don’t own dogs have been running around looking for dog poop. That makes this the best story of the week!

I want to be an entomophagist when I grow up!

Photo by Matthew Krisiloff

Do you like honey? How about bacon? If you answered yes to those questions, then you would LOVE eating some male bee larvae. It’s apparently delicious, according to a guy named Matthew Krisiloff, president of Entom Foods.

Of course, he has a reason for saying that. “Entomology” is the study of insects, and Entom Foods will sell insects that you can eat. (Eating bugs is called entomophagy, BTW.)

The key to the company's success will be removing the crunchy bits from crickets and grasshoppers like this big green critter and just feeding you the good parts, sort of like how we eat lobster or crab.

Why eat bugs? Well, it’s much better for the environment if you farm bugs, not cows. And grasshopper meat has as much protein and way more calcium as beef.

Of course, just because it’s logical doesn’t mean people will actually DO it. As for me, I’d be happy to try some male bee larvae!

"Dog-Doogity" in Seattle!

Cuz that's how WE roll in the 

Pacific Northwest!

Sit or Squat?

When you're out and about, it can be frustrating if you need to bust a grumpy but there's no bathrooms around. And that's where Sit or Squat comes in!

You just tell the website where you are, and it will show you what public restrooms are nearby. For kicks, I chose Sebastopol, California, as a location . . . and it looks like we need to crowd-source more restrooms for this website!

I mean, hospitals (like Palm Drive) are GREAT places to use restrooms (as long as you don't mind picking up germs the size of your fist), and Ives Park has restrooms too. Still, my hat is off to the good people at Sit or Squat.

Ever wonder what a hedgehog tastes like?

Daily Mail

There’s no easy way to say this: A guy named Jonathan McGowan has been eating roadkill for the past 30 years.

When I say roadkill, I mean mice, moles, hedgehogs, squirrels, rats, foxes, badgers, hares, rabbits, deer, stoats, weasels, polecats, otters, wildcats, pheasants, finches, ducks, geese, pigeons, owls, crows, and so forth.

In this article, Jonathan describes the flavors of some of the animals he's dined on:

• Foxes – Delicious . . . It is a lean meat and there is never any fat. Young foxes . . . taste slightly like chicken.
• Mice - They taste weird - there is no other food quite like them. They aren't particularly nice and have a very bitter flavor. They are of course so small that they are almost worthless.
• Rats - They are most delicious . . . They are quite like pork but quite salty. They are delicious and the meat is great on its own.
• Moles – They are horrible and have a rancid taste. They have an unpleasant taste in their skin to ward off predators. Wild animals don't eat them. I've only had one once and never again.
• Hedgehogs - When you get in it's all fatty meat. It's not nice but okay if you like eating fatty foods.
• Squirrels - They are most delicious. They provide a good firm white meat which is quite similar to rabbit but not as overpowering. Not many animals taste like what they eat but squirrels do have a nutty flavour. It's fantastic stuff.

You may be wondering what Jonathan does for a living. He’s a taxidermist. Surprised? Me neither. But even so, WHY does this man do this? His answer actually makes sense. To find out what he says, go to this Daily Mail article!

"Big wheels keep on turning/Brown poop keeps on burning…”

This is the coolest story I’ve seen in a while: A Japanese toilet maker named Toto has released a hybrid toilet-motorcycle that runs on poop!

Yes, that is a toilet seat ON the motorcycle. You can poop right into the motorcycle while you’re driving it, and your poop will be converted to fuel to keep you rolling. Okay, that’d be pretty weird, so you could also just poop on the motorcycle while parked in the privacy of your garage.

Just put a roll of toilet paper on your handlebars!

Story from here (via), photos from here.

Nuclear Boy's Poop Is Dangerous

Have you seen this Japanese cartoon yet? The idea is that explains Japan's current problems with a character named Nuclear Boy. To put it simply, he has toxic farts and poo.

As you can see, Nuclear Boy has had a bad stomach ache since the earthquake. His poop is VERY stinky, and everyone’s afraid that Nuclear Boy will make a stinky poop if he doesn’t get medicine soon.

And he is already farting . . . which is a bad sign! (I think we all hope Nuclear Boy is feeling better soon.)

"You poop more than anyone!"

Many countries don't have enough toilets. Not good! So an group called International Development Enterprises (IDE) helps by installing new sewage systems in these places.

That IS good! After all, in places like Cambodia, only one person in five has access to a toilet. But I still felt bad for a man there who got a new toilet and started using it right away.

Then during a village meeting, it was announced that he'd done something special:

"Congratulations! 

You produce more poop 

than anyone in the village."

Yay!

This news story from the BBC also has this photo of an aid worker explaining that if people always poop in the woods outside of their village, they are surrounding themselves with grumpies!

Stinky Sock Spiders!

Some people think spiders are gross, and EVERYBODY hates stinky socks. So you’d think that a spider who is attracted to sweaty, stinky socks would be revolting. But it’s not!

Here’s the deal: Mosquitoes are attracted to human smells, so sweaty socks are like mosquito magnets. And since the East African jumping spider (Evarcha culicivora) eats mosquitoes, it’s learned that sweaty socks are good places to pounce on its prey.

In the tropics, blood-sucking mosquitoes can carry diseases like malaria. So folks there should encourage the jumping spider to hang out in their dirty laundry! As this BBC article says, the spider “may be a rather ugly, bloodthirsty little creature, but it could help in the ongoing and complex battle against malaria.”

Mr. Toilet House!

Pretty nice house, huh? It’s located near Seoul in South Korea. But you may be wondering, “What’s so gross about it?”

Well, the World Toilet Association built this to publicize the fact that over 2,000,000,000 people in the world have no toilets. And to drive the point home, this place is shaped like a toilet!

When you leave, put the lid down, please.

The Koreans had a number of names for this place. One was Mr. Toilet House! 

But since it's really a toilet museum, another one is Haewoojae, which means “a place of refuge to solve problems.” And since the Haewoojae has four custom bathrooms, it can host a whole lot of problem-solving. (And pooping, too!)

More here.

Gross Question for the New Year!

dee & tula monstah

Here's another good question that's come up: Do seeing-eye dogs poop in public?

My family used to train Guide Dogs for the Blind, and yet I don’t know the answer! In fact, I have never seen ANY service dog pooping in public. So do the dogs hold it until breaktime? 

And when it’s time to go, does a seeing-eye dog guide its blind master to a lawn? If so, does its master understand what’s going on, and somehow pick up the poop?

Good questions all. And good dogs, too!

Track That Flush!

Have you ever wondered where your poop goes after you flush? You SHOULD. And if you live in the United Kingdom, Poland, Ireland, or South Africa, now you can!

Flush Tracker has a map that allows you to enter a bathroom location. You can then track where flushes go from that spot! Just for kicks, I did a trial flush from 10 Downing Street, London, which is where the Prime Minister lives. And right now, my hypothetical poop has gone a half-mile at a speed of five miles-per-hour on its way to a sewage treatment plant. 

But what do we call this poo trips? Maybe...

• excrement excursions
• turd trajectories
• plop journeys
• scat scootings

Anyway, this is a fascinating thing to watch, but it’s also done to highlight World Toilet Day…which is TODAY!

Article on Flush Tracker here (via).