Weird Science Weekly: Fake poop helps cure nasty infections

Weird science happens all around us, every day. I didn't think it would happen two weeks in a row, but in this installment of Weird Science Weekly, we're starting off with poop again — fake poop that is — used to cure potentially life-threatening illness, plus 'foot orgasm syndrome', another great reason to drink hot chocolate, and the science of liking art.

Robogut makes fake poop, helps cure nasty infections

They're making poo out at Moo U. Researchers at the University of Guelph, led by microbiologist Emma Allen-Vercoe, have designed the first synthetic poop for use in fecal transplants. The transplants, which work wonders in curing people with C. difficile infections, are usually done using a donor's feces — usually someone in the family. A transplant lets the healthy donor's gut critters kill off the invading bacteria and boost healthy gut flora back to proper levels.

Helping to make the process a little less gross, and even more effective, Allen-Vercoe's team has created a fake substitute teeming with good bacteria called, appropriately, 'Repoopulate', made using Robogut — a mock-intestinal system.

Allen-Vercoe says the worst part of working with the fake poo is that, ironically, they can't just flush it when they're done. It must be sterilized by cooking at high temperatures before it's tossed in the garbage, a process she told PopSci makes "the whole building start to smell like poop."

However bad your workplace might be, that probably makes it look a little better, doesn't it?

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Woman cured of Foot Orgasm Syndrome

Yep, that's a real thing.

The only recorded sufferer so far, a woman in the Netherlands, has now been successfully cured of the condition. It seems her healing process after complications from gallbladder surgery went awry in a unique way. Somehow the wiring of her nervous system got tangled, and her brain started registering pressure on her left foot as stimulus to a much more delicate area. The result? Five to six spontaneous orgasms a day, caused by simple activities like walking or even just standing still.

Doctors stopped the unwanted climaxes by strategically dosing her back with anesthetic. They're now looking for other victims of the bizarre ailment in hopes of being able to spread the cure.

I'm not one to make light of someone's suffering, but I must admit, as far as nerve damage goes this seems like one of the better kinds to have.

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Your brain is Team Coco(a)

Harvard Medical School researchers published a study this week that suggests your brain may crave chocolate as much as your mouth does, especially as you get older.

Seniors that drank two cups of hot cocoa a day not only improved their times on memory tests, they saw an increase in blood flow to the brains of some of the participants who'd had decreased flow to start. Decreased blood flow is one of the hallmarks of a variety of cognitive diseases, such as Alzheimer's; reversing it can only mean good things for your grey matter.

Unfortunately the exact link between brain health and chocolate needs a lot more study before we'll get the green light from our doctors to go on a hot cocoa binge. Until then, cocoa flavanols — the primary suspect in chocolate's brain boosting ability — have already been demonstrated to help control blood pressure and improve cardiovascular health.

That'll have to satisfy our cravings for justification for now.

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Science confirms Thomas Kinkade made bad paintings

If you have an artist in your life, they might have already shared this opinion with you, but now they have scientific backing for their bashing.

A recently-published study in the British Journal of Aesthetics sought the truth behind the sentiment "I don't know art, but I know what I like." A previous study showed that art students liked rarer art the more they were exposed to it. This study wanted to show that students would like bad art the more they were exposed to it, too.

Except it backfired.

While the students liked works of an artist like Millais the more they looked at them, their dislike of Kincade's work increased the more they had to look at it. The study authors suspect this might be due to the lack of mystery in Kincade's images, which tend to be blandly simplistic, despite their popularity in decorating.

Or maybe there is a scientific 'accounting for taste' after all.

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As always, keep your eyes on the wonders of science, and if you spot anything particularly strange you'd like me to check out for next week, comment below or drop me a line on Twitter!

(Images courtesy: Canadian Press, )

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