Body & Mind

SHART Machines Can Detect Your Defecation

- Adam Clare

The next time you go to the doctor they may want to know the sounds you make while using the toilet. You may even get a S.H.A.R.T. detector in your home. This AI powered device monitors the sounds people make on the toilet to determine if their toilet time is a sign of something bigger. The Synthetic Human Acoustic Reproduction Machine has been revealed to the world recently and we may all be better for it.

“Self-reporting is not very reliable,” Ancalle says. “We’re trying to find a non-invasive way where people can get a notification on whether or not they should go get checked out. Like ‘Hey, your urine is not flowing at the rate that it should. Your farts are not sounding the way they should. You should check it out.’” They propose that changes in the tract — from cancer or another condition — would manifest in these acoustics.

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People Who Ditched Their Car Are Happier

- Adam Clare
small car

There’s are individuals who advocate against making our cities better places to live because they fear losing their dependence on their automobile (car marketers encourage this too). We need to let car-brained individuals know that their lives will be better if they have more transportation options and that they will be happier too. People who got rid of their car for non-monetary reasons increased their happiness!

to reduce energy and resource consumption beyond technological modifications. One way to do this is to forgo ownership of certain consumer goods, such as cars. Although proponents of sufficiency claim that car shedding (i.e., giving away a vehicle so that the household no longer has its own car) might increase subjective well-being (SWB), there is little empirical evidence supporting this. This paper aims to help fill this gap by adding empirical evidence on the relationship between car shedding and SWB. Data from the Swiss Household Panel is used (2006–2017) with a fixed-effects model assessing the year-to-year changes in evaluative and affective well-being (life satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, joy, and anger) before and after car shedding. Separate analyses for non-affordability-driven and affordability-driven car shedders were conducted. Results show that non-affordability-driven car shedding has a positive effect on feelings of joy one to three years after the event. Affordability-driven car shedding, in contrast, is associated with a decrease in leisure satisfaction and feelings of joy up to three years later. Levels of positive affective wellbeing already decrease in anticipation of affordability-driven car shedding. A sufficiency measure like non-affordability-driven car shedding is not associated with reducing SWB, and this may have policy implications.

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The Future of Food is Algae

- Adam Clare
cooking prep

In the coming years we’ll be eating more algae if we’re lucky. Amazing algae already accounts for biofuel production and can be used to make bioplastics too, so why not keep looking for other ways to use it? At Cornell, that’s exactly what some researchers did. They discovered that coastal places are ideal places to operate onshore algae farms to grow food, ironically deserts are the some of the most efficient places to do so. With arable land being destroyed for unsustainable low density housing and meat production we need to find other ways to grow nutrients.

With wild fish stocks already heavily exploited, and with constraints on marine finfish, shellfish, and seaweed aquaculture in the coastal ocean, Greene and colleagues argue for growing algae in onshore aquaculture facilities. GIS-based models, developed by former Cornell graduate student, Celina Scott-Buechler ’18, M.S. ’21, predict yields based on annual sunlight, topography, and other environmental and logistical factors. The model results reveal that the best locations for onshore algae farming facilities lie along the coasts of the Global South, including desert environments.

“Algae can actually become the breadbasket for the Global South,” Greene said. “In that narrow strip of land, we can produce more than all the protein that the world will need.”

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The Ultimate Happiness Guide

- Adam Clare

work and smile

Happiness isn’t the goal of life, but it sure is important. If you’re not feeling happy it isn’t because you don’t have enough stuff or not watching enough TV. According to experts you should join a club (doesn’t matter what it is just that you’re with others), walk outside in nature, sleep more, and spend time with friends and family.

This happiness advice comes from a survey of the world’s top happiness scholars. It’s a fun article which also has suggestions for policy makers to increase everyone’s happiness.

Connect

Experts advise in the first place to focus social bonds, such as by (a) investing in friends and family, (b) joining a club, (c) acting nicely (d) marrying and (e) socialize with colleagues. They see more gain in social contact when (f) the focus is on the happiness of others and that advice fits the strategy recommended below.

Seek meaning

Experts think that living a meaningful life will make that life more satisfying. They recommend the following ways to seek meaning: (a) live up to your values, and if you are religious, practice your religion, (b) be generous and (c) volunteer, and (d) do not focus on your own happiness in the first place and (e) seek a purpose in life, which (f) you may clarify by writing a personal missionstatement.

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Farm Fields of Solar Produce Bonuses

- Adam Clare
Solar panels on grass

In the UK the average person wants to get off fossil fuels, but the Conservatives in power want the opposite. Obviously this is not good, and it gets worse: the new PM Liz Truss wants to ban solar panels on farms, Conservatives clearly don’t understand how the world works.

The good news comes from research proving that agrivoltaics (agriculture + solar voltaic panels) are a boon to farmers. Solar panels on farms are good for revenue for farms, renewable energy, and the very crops farms are growing. Yes, solar panels on farm increase crop production!

“One study found certain peppers will have three times the production,” said Bousselot. “That’s a shocking number.”

As global temperatures rise, the panels can also help to conserve dwindling freshwater supplies by reducing evaporation from both plants and soil.

What evaporation does occur underneath the panels has the added benefit of cooling the PVs and boosting their electricity production, according to Randle-Boggis, a research associate at the University of Sheffield.

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