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You Could One Day Take A Pill Containing Human Feces
We're all ostensibly adults here, so let's just come out and say it: Eating the feces of strangers, as dogs have apparently long known, can be good for you in certain contexts. And we swear that none of those contexts are related to fetish videos.
Infections can wipe out the bacteria that normally live in your stomach and intestines, and this leads to colon inflammation, cramping, severe diarrhea, and in the worst cases, death. This problem can be fixed by restoring your gut bacteria, but how do you do that? Well, the easiest solution is to provide an outside source, and the best source of bacteria is feces. Because we poop the bacteria. Out of our butts. Just so we're clear.
Fecal transplants have been around for a while now, but while they aren't quite as gross as they sound, they can be a pain in the, uh, you know to execute. But poop science marches ever onward, and tests of gelatin capsules containing feces that have been frozen and processed to isolate bacteria have been found to be just as effective at restoring the balance between good and evil in your tummy. Pills are much simpler because you naturally digest them, sending the bacteria downstream -- as opposed to what a transplant does, which is to send the bacteria, ahem, upstream. You do have to take 40 mercifully flavorless pills within an hour, but it's a one-time treatment, and there's hope that future developments will bring that number down.
Cumming School of MedicineWe can only hope that making opaque pills are a priority.
This is predicted to become a common treatment, because all jokes aside, this is the simplest way to deliver bacteria to your body. We know it sounds disgusting, but half the planet goes nuts for probiotic yogurt, so why not go straight to the best source available? Anyway, look forward to your doctor recommending this to you one day soon.
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Crickets Are Good For You, So Eat Up
We've all heard that we'll eat bugs in the future. Raising crickets is far less of a strain on the environment than cows or pigs, and it's really hard to make a cricket look cute in guilt-inducing PETA posters. But will we still be getting all of the nutrition that the animals we currently eat provide us, or will our future wizened arms struggle to shovel enough crickets in our mouths before we pass out from exhaustion? Science wanted to know.
Thomas Schoch/Wikimedia Commons"OK, we're ready to conduct the experiment. Get me a dozen interns and a really big bottle of ranch."
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