South African Students Create Eco-Friendly Urine Bricks (REAL)
Students from the University of Cape Town in South Africa have come up with a way to create eco-friendly bricks at room temperature… using urine. While bricks usually need to be fired up in a 2,500-degree-plus kiln that produces tons of carbon dioxide, they’ve used a more natural process using sand and bacteria that’s reportedly similar to the way the ocean makes coral.
To make the “bio-bricks,” the students have been taking urine from men’s toilets, then producing an enzyme to break it down and bind it with sand so it can solidify. They need around six to eight gallons of the fluid for each brick, which is the same as about 100 trips to the bathroom. But it’s worth mentioning most of the fluid is actually used to produce a little more than two pounds of fertilizer necessary for the process.
The bricks are grown between four and six days, but leaving it for longer produces a stronger brick. At first, the students were able to create bricks as strong as a “40% limestone brick,” but they doubled the strength within just a few months, all without any heat or harmful carbon dioxide. The only downside is the probably the ammonia smell produced by the process – but luckily it reportedly goes away after about 48 hours.
Source: BBC
Drunken Bet Gets Spoon Stuck In Man's Wind Pipe For A Year (REAL)
A man from China, Zhang, landed in the hospital complaining of chest pains after being punched in the chest. After getting an x-ray, doctors discovered there was an eight-inch spoon stuck in his windpipe.
It turns out it was all because of a drunken bet gone wrong. A year before, Zhang reportedly drunkenly bet his friends he could swallow a stainless steel spoon and then pull it back out with a string. Even though things took a weird turn when he couldn’t actually get it back out, he never went to the doctor about it until just recently because he was still able to breathe and eat normally.
But after being punched in the chest, Zhang started suffering chest pains and having trouble breathing. So, doctors removed the spoon from his infected esophagus in a two-hour procedure. Now, he’s recovering and is due to be discharged within a few days.
Source: Daily Mail