You ever looked at your own poo and thought, “Christ on a bike, what on earth have I been eating?!”?
While we’ve all seen the stock standard bog brown, the slight bark-like tone of light brown and, in rare instances, the deep sea green, I bet you’ve never seen your dingleberries GLOW IN THE DANG DARK.
hehe
Well, some nutty bioengineers at Rice University want this to be a reality, so they’ve started tinting turds with rainbow colours in an effort to better detect problems in your colon.
Working on mice, researchers wanted to determine if elevated levels of a molecule called thiosulfate contributed to a condition called colitis, which is basically inflammation of the inner lining of the colon (ya poo tube).
Only problem was, it’s very hard to measure these levels in live animals (colonoscopy tools don’t come that small) so the scientists developed a unique technique.
To break it down, when you’ve got too much thiosulfate, you’ll also have an increased level of sulfur-containing compounds. So, the researchers engineered special E. coli that glows fluorescent green in the presence of these dangerous compounds.
Of course, the luminous glow of the fecal matter isn’t detectable to the naked eye, but it’s visible under one of those UV lab lights. The scientists could easily diagnose the severity of the problem according to how violently the crap glowed.
Whether or not this can be applied to humans is currently unknown, but researchers reckon we’re looking at a future where you eat some pro-biotic yogurt, do a poo, flick on a special light and see what you’re working with. It’d save a hell of a lot of time and effort spent in and out of the doc’s office.
And there’s nothing shit about that.
Source: Gizmodo.
Photo: Bob’s Burgers.
