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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The Power of Poop

Poop is nasty. No one really likes to think about poop and to be fair, it’s gross and disgusting. The emotions we get when we come across poop make sense. Poop can really be dangerous. If a human comes into contact with feces through something like contaminated water or food, the result be life threatening. Giardia, tapeworms, and other nasty things can all result from coming into contact with feces. By sampling some feces and drinking from ground water nearby, we did put ourselves at risk for some of these problems.
There is actually more to the subject than meets the eye. One example of this is a new medical procedure known as a fecal microbiota transplant or an FMT for short. The process involves taking the fecal bacteria from a healthy human and giving to another human with any number of diseases. So far, FMT has been mostly used to treat Clostridium difficle, a bacterial infection that kills around 14,000 people a year.  Your poop can actually help someone else stay alive.
Cow manure and manure from other animals can be used for so many things. In some areas of Africa attacks from insects can be particularly devastating as they can carry many fatal diseases. In order to combat these insects, some people actually burn cow dung to ward off the insects. In just about every corner of the world, farmers use manure from a whole host of animals to fertilize their fields. This practices returns nutrients to the land and makes it more suitable for growing. Another use of manure is as biofuel. Some nations such as Denmark use the animals’ waste to power their homes. This helps to counter the large impact raising animals has on the environment. Basically, by sampling the cow manure, I wasted it. There are just so many uses for it and feces in general. Waste doesn’t need to be so wasteful after all.



Manure can be combined with soil in order to increase the amount of nutrients in the soil.

Sources:

http://www.greenfingers.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Mulch-Hands.jpg

1 comment:

  1. Having experienced Giardia first-hand, I can attest that it is not something that you want to contract, especially if you are not near modern medicine. I was so surprised when Mr. Kendall reached down and tasted some poop! And then again with the water in the field! That is actually potentially a very dangerous act! However, it is good to hear about the positive uses of feces around the globe. It is something that we often don't think about.

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