Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Liquid gold
Faithful readers of this blog will know that I’ve always been generous in my praise of humans whose discoveries have illuminated the dark corridors of ignorance and superstition, often paving the way for exciting new gadgets available on Amazon.com. Fulsome and frequent are the eulogies I’ve penned for scientific wizards such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Uri Geller. Look in the archives if you don’t believe me.
That’s why I’m devoting this post to a stunning breakthrough in the field of power generation. If the news media aren’t lying (and why would they be?), scientists from the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have found a way of charging up smartphones with urine. The go-to man is Dr Loannis Leropoulos, although it’s not entirely clear whether he invented the procedure or is merely jumping on the bandwagon:
“We are very excited as this is a world first,” he said. “One product that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine,” he added thoughtfully.
It just goes to show what lateral thinking can achieve. I bet no one even imagined they were wasting a valuable energy resource whenever they took a leak. If it’s true, multiple Nobel prizes are in order. Piss power has been the Holy Grail of energy research for many decades. In 1973, President Idi Amin of Uganda claimed to have invented a car which could run on urine:
“Dis car designed to run on anything,” he announced. “Conk out in de middle of nowhere, jus' piss in de tank, you is good for another fifty mile.”
Unfortunately, this boast turned out to be as empty as the petrol tank – nothing but a money-making scam to sell the vehicle for an inflated price. President Amin was later deposed from high office, shortly after attempting to revive cannibalism as a form of gourmet cuisine.
Given this chequered history, perhaps we should exercise a little caution before accepting the technology as proven. It’s a little strange, don’t you think, that it only works for smartphones. I won’t be convinced until they extend it to more humdrum electrical appliances. If I could use my piss to charge up an electric nose-hair trimmer, it would save me a lot of trips to the safari camp.
Sadly, not all scientists are worthy of grovelling adulation. Some are dangerous madmen intent on hideous experiments that defy Nature. One such fiend is Professor George Church of the Harvard Medical School, who is looking for an “adventurous woman” who will agree to be impregnated with Neanderthal jism. Not real jism, mind you, but artificial sperm manufactured from Neanderthal DNA, presumably recovered from an ancient cadaver.
I hope you’ll agree that this insidious scheme is far more repugnant than anything Dr Frankenstein did. His monster was big enough to defend himself, unlike the poor little half-breed who won’t know what to do when people call him names. Perhaps Professor Church should be made up like a Neanderthal and forced to experience it himself for a month. I bet he’d get more wisecracks than he could handle.
Labels: Neanderthal, piss, President Amin, Uri Geller, urine
