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Weird Science Weekly: Poop-powered vehicles come to California

Scott Sutherland

In this week's installment of Weird Science Weekly, we're looking at some of the strangest science, such as powering vehicles using human waste, using soothing music to get more milk from cows and robot drones that learn to make decisions for themselves...

Orange County makes hydrogen fuel from human waste

According to the UK Daily Mail, California's Orange County is turning to a new source of fuel to power vehicles — human poop.

When human waste is treated by the Fountain Valley waste facility, the water is cleaned and recycled while the solid wastes are pumped into a tank where bacteria can feed on it. The gases produced by the bacteria as waste (a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide) are then pumped out to act as fuel for the facility's power plant. Some, though, is going towards a new project that will provide free fuel to anyone who can use it. The gases are put into a fuel cell where it produces hydrogen, which is then pumped to nearby public refueling stations. Enough of this hydrogen is produced to refuel 200 vehicles every day!

Alright, that's not exactly 'poop-powered' as much as 'powered by hydrogen gas that's derived from bacteria eating human poop,' but the latter just doesn't roll off the tongue as well.

While there are still plenty of gasoline-powered cars on the roads in California, the number of hydrogen fuel cell cars is on the rise, and car manufacturers are helping this along. Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and GM are all putting out hydrogen-fuel versions of their cars soon, and there are already around a dozen refueling centres that have opened up around the state. Hyundai is even prepared to offer leases on the Tuscon crossover, shown in the video above, that will include the hydrogen refueling from these stations for free!

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Cows give more milk when treated to slow jams

A recent study showed that cows tend to give more milk when they listen to soothing, rhythmic music.

According to Modern Farmer:

Stress can inhibit the release of oxytocin — a hormone key to the milk-releasing process. So the happiness of cows is very much on the minds of farmers. The California dairy industry even declared “Happy cheese comes from happy cows” as part of their Real California Milk Campaign. So how is a farmer to balance the needs of the herd with that of her business? The answer may be as simple as switching on the radio.

Here's a sample of the music that won the British Columbia Dairy Association's 'Music Makes More Milk' contest:

It's definitely strange, but it works — either by directly calming the cows (although they're not savage beasts by any means), or by acting in a way similar to 'white noise', reducing the potentially-stressful sounds of machinery and vehicles to give the cows a more consistent environment.

[ Related: Weird Science Weekly: Penis museum wants human donation ]

Flock of robot drones flies all by itself

By studying how flocks of birds fly, a team of Hungarian researchers have designed a flock of quadracopters that can fly autonomously, making decisions among themselves on how to respond to commands and how to deal with obstacles.

The researchers make an excellent point that when the word 'drone' comes up these days, people usually think of their use in violent or sinister programs. However, there are plenty of peaceful applications of this kind of technology. Personally, I'm more worried about how this might step up plans for the robot uprising!

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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!

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