There is no need to imagine that. It depends on the country, and your insurance. I've experienced it, not personally, because no need so far (phew!). But when I grew up that was free, for all. Like glasses, too.
Still don't really care, because now it would be covered by my private insurance. If not they'd get sued into oblivion really fast, even if I would be incapacitated somehow.
Finally, a way to turn urine into bones. I’ve been saying “we need to find a way to turn urine into bones” for years and people told me that it couldn’t be done
This is an interesting paper. I had read about recycling cow urine in dairies[1] and I wonder if the yeast would be able to make hydroxypatite out of it. At the time I came across this paper I was looking at people creating financial incentives to produce ammonia (and ammonium nitrate) at scale for farming. We import a bunch of it[2] and making it locally would be a win/win.
Here in the Netherlands the impact of Nitrogen coming from cattle excretions (mostly through ammonia I believe) is paralizing the entire country (due to the impact on the environment, it's now blocking the building of - very much needed - housing. So there could be a win/win/win/win there.
Interesting. First time I've heard of this outside the UK. In my local area, there's a near total moratorium on new-builds. The reasons are complex, but it's a mixture of agriculture having poisoned all the rivers, housing which is not connected to mains waste water (and people just not maintaining their private waste water systems, which are often just tanks of excrement mixed with chemicals, overflowing into nature) and, even if houses connected to mains, those constantly overflow into storm drains and make the rivers and coasts dangerous to swim in.
All of that while it's completely clear that if we need one thing, it's more housing. Quite a predicament we find ourselves in.
California is like this, for different reasons. Mostly the leaders think nature > humanity so the more they cap the knees of civilization, more for nature, and that's a good and meaningful legacy in their minds. Of course this is a politically dangerous thing to speak up about publicly, so it's more along the lines of "uhhh we need to make sure the house you build is safe, so you need 50,000 pages describing how safe it is, must be evaluated by an army of Phds, and rejections take 5 years"
If the Romans had only known, they could've used chewed watermelon seeds which contain urease. Adding this catalyst greatly speeds up the volatilization reaction from 3-5 weeks to overnight,[0] eliminating the need for Roman laundries to buffer weeks worth of urine as they wait for it to turn into ammonia.
There's a reason why Roman laundries were usually located just outside the city, ideally on the downwind side...
Great channel. Quite a shame to hear about Cody's burnout after constant issues getting paid by YouTube, and apparently dating problems with the stigma associated with "youtuber."
But is there enough demand for this to make it economical? I would guess the cost of material would be a very small percentage of the cost pf operations that use hydroxyapatite.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59416-8#Abs1
The valuable materials are artificial bone made from hydroxyapatite produced by yeast, used in bone surgery and dentistry.
Now imagine how big the market would be if people could actually get cosmetic dental work covered under insurance
There is no need to imagine that. It depends on the country, and your insurance. I've experienced it, not personally, because no need so far (phew!). But when I grew up that was free, for all. Like glasses, too.
Still don't really care, because now it would be covered by my private insurance. If not they'd get sued into oblivion really fast, even if I would be incapacitated somehow.
Finally, a way to turn urine into bones. I’ve been saying “we need to find a way to turn urine into bones” for years and people told me that it couldn’t be done
This is an interesting paper. I had read about recycling cow urine in dairies[1] and I wonder if the yeast would be able to make hydroxypatite out of it. At the time I came across this paper I was looking at people creating financial incentives to produce ammonia (and ammonium nitrate) at scale for farming. We import a bunch of it[2] and making it locally would be a win/win.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B97801...
[2] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/USA/yea...
Here in the Netherlands the impact of Nitrogen coming from cattle excretions (mostly through ammonia I believe) is paralizing the entire country (due to the impact on the environment, it's now blocking the building of - very much needed - housing. So there could be a win/win/win/win there.
Interesting. First time I've heard of this outside the UK. In my local area, there's a near total moratorium on new-builds. The reasons are complex, but it's a mixture of agriculture having poisoned all the rivers, housing which is not connected to mains waste water (and people just not maintaining their private waste water systems, which are often just tanks of excrement mixed with chemicals, overflowing into nature) and, even if houses connected to mains, those constantly overflow into storm drains and make the rivers and coasts dangerous to swim in. All of that while it's completely clear that if we need one thing, it's more housing. Quite a predicament we find ourselves in.
California is like this, for different reasons. Mostly the leaders think nature > humanity so the more they cap the knees of civilization, more for nature, and that's a good and meaningful legacy in their minds. Of course this is a politically dangerous thing to speak up about publicly, so it's more along the lines of "uhhh we need to make sure the house you build is safe, so you need 50,000 pages describing how safe it is, must be evaluated by an army of Phds, and rejections take 5 years"
There are startups doing it directly from air (with solar power): e.g., https://www.talusag.com/
There's lots of exciting development in this space and I hope they can thrive in a world owned by fossil fuel companies.
Not the first time that urine has been used as a raw material at scale
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/whats-on/arts-and-entertainm...
Urine has historically been used to create gunpowder.
The Romans used urine as laundry detergent.
If the Romans had only known, they could've used chewed watermelon seeds which contain urease. Adding this catalyst greatly speeds up the volatilization reaction from 3-5 weeks to overnight,[0] eliminating the need for Roman laundries to buffer weeks worth of urine as they wait for it to turn into ammonia.
There's a reason why Roman laundries were usually located just outside the city, ideally on the downwind side...
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291165299_Citrullus...
Even a single seed did the job per that study.
Only problem was that watermelon didn’t hit the European side of the empire until the endish
A city which had shared toilet sponges would be known for being stinky by lots of authors.
Check out the Rich Earth Institute in Vermont. They're doing cool experimentation and research.
https://richearthinstitute.org/
Also check out the CodysLab version of biological urine reuse (aka the giant aquarium filter):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhYW0QVS408
Great channel. Quite a shame to hear about Cody's burnout after constant issues getting paid by YouTube, and apparently dating problems with the stigma associated with "youtuber."
Cool
But is there enough demand for this to make it economical? I would guess the cost of material would be a very small percentage of the cost pf operations that use hydroxyapatite.
So as in the the acient alchemy wisdom describe in Emerald Tablet
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