Why Pee is Cool - entry #5 - "How Pee Unites You With Rocks"

From around the 2nd century onwards, many people subscribed to the doctrine of vitalism.  For alchemists, vitalism primarily meant that matter from the inorganic, inanimate world (crystals, rocks, etc) was fundamentally different from matter from the organic, living world (us, kittens, pee, etc).  Specifically, they believed that that non-living matter could not be transformed into living matter.  Vitalists held that the matter of life, the chemicals that compose living things, could be synthesized only by living things themselves.

In 1828 a German chemist named Friedrich Wöhler made a discovery that bridged the divide between living and non-living matter, and the story of how he did this starts of course with pee.

Friedrich Wöhler. German chemist/peepee enthusiast and 1828 blower of minds.

Why Pee is Cool - entry #4 - "PeePee Portal to Phosphorus" or "What the Alchemists Did Right"

Travel with me back in time, when humans were first beginning to wonder things like "What the hell is the world around me made of anyhow!?"  Picture yourself as an ancient alchemist, repeatedly trying in vain to figure out a way to turn anything into gold.  You pretty much suck at doing science, but as a result of all your fool-hearty work you do know how to do things like mix, heat, and distill stuff.  The first problem you face as an alchemist is that you need some substance to do experiments on.

Pee

Why Pee is Cool - entry #3 - "Explosive Urination" or "Gunpowder Comes from Pee!!!"

So far we have learned what gives pee its color and smell, and now we will delve into the explosive way pee has changed the course of history.  That's right, pee can be turned into an explosive!

To find out how we have to travel in our minds back to the beginning of human civilization--specifically, the domestication of animals.  One thing that large domesticated animals like horses and cows produce in bulk is urine (pee pee!).  When these animals are kept inside some sort of shelter, their pee seeps into the dry plant-less ground beneath their feet, where microorganisms turn urea into ammonia.  The little pee-digesting organisms don't stop there though, they combine the ammonia with oxygen, eventually giving rise to the nitrate ion, in a process known as nitrification.

Nitrification:

Ammonia + Oxygen →  Nitrates

or

NH₃ + 2 O₂  → NO₃^- + H⁺ + H₂O

or

Nitrification of Ammonia.  Note: animals pee out urea, but  microbes turn urea into ammonia, which then undergoes nitrification.

I blame my lack of productivity on the earth's axial tilt!

The axis of the rotation of the earth relative to that of its rotation around the sun is tilted by 23.5 degrees.  This causes some pretty extreme changes in the climate here at 43 degrees N latitude:

For example, here is what Wisconsin looks like in the winter:

This leads to very productive weekends of staying inside and barfing blog posts out of my brain and into the computer.

Here is what Wisconsin looks like in the summer:

This leads to extreme levels of outdoor awesomeness, but very low levels of indoor blog-post-barfing productivity.

Never fear, Science Minus Details will return to full glory soon.  For now I will leave you with Mike Flores' awesome summer 2010 time-lapse montage.


Have fun in the sun, I will see you soon!

Why Pee is Cool - entry #2 - "Why Does Pee Smell?" or "Aroma of Life"

In Germany, nothing marks the beginning of spring like asparagus!  Running from April through the end of June, asparagus season (spargelzeit) is a big deal in Germany.  Here is me happily participating in this wonderful German tradition:

Me, about to have an asparagus aneurysm

As you may know, after eating asparagus, your pee can smell pretty gross.

Bathroom Safety Tip #1: never inhale bathroom-related vapors directly, always gently waft them

Why Pee is Cool - entry #1 - "Why Is Pee Yellow?" or "Rainbow of Urine"

PeePee!  Jokes about it will never stop being funny, and facts about it will never stop being interesting!

Do not try this at home. via phasezero

In this series of posts we will learn what pee is and discover how it connects us with the rest of life on earth and how humans have used it to learn more about the nature of the universe.  Get ready for a wild ride!

"Barely Bad Bananas" or "Where Does Background Radiation Come From???"

The totally normal banana that this totally normal monkey is eating is radioactive, but so is the monkey!

Radioactive Monkey Eating Radioactive Banana, from Arne Bevaart