For years, NASA has tinkered with creative ways to use in-situ materials to minimize launch costs and also prepare for extended missions. And it looks like the agency may have found an unlikely and ubiquitous space resource to work with: Astronaut urine. Based on new research, NASA could one day use astronaut pee for everything from 3D-printer plastics to a source of nutrients.
NASA has been repurposing astronaut urine on the International Space Station for years. In fact, nearly 93 percent of all water on the ISS is reclaimed from sweat, breath, shower runoff, and urine (from both astronauts and animals on board). A fun fact: Cosmonauts don’t drink water reclaimed from urine. However, the American astronauts recycle cosmonaut urine for a portion of their hydration needs.
The project, presented at the American Chemical Society annual conference, is focused on fine-tuning clever ways to repurpose human waste in orbit. The team hopes to one day use strains of Yarrowia lipolytica- — a yeast often found in certain cheeses — fed human urine to create a series of useful byproducts including plastics for 3D printing and even food supplements. The urea in urine provides nitrogen for the yeast cultures. Earlier research has already illustrated how genetically modified yeast can be used to produce essential nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, plastics, and also polyesters. All of which will be crucial supply elements on longer missions (say to Mars, for example) where resupply missions could take months.
“Astronauts will need to be able to produce nutrients and materials they need during Earth-independent long-term space travel,” noted lead researcher Mark Blenner, a synthetic biologist at Clemson University in South Carolina. “They simply don’t have the space to transport all possible needs — and certain nutrients, drugs, and materials can degrade over the course of three-plus year mission.”
NASA has made great leaps in the past few years when it comes to testing support systems crucial to any extended, self-sufficient mission. These projects include everything from growing food in an onboard space garden to 3D-printing tools and even satellites in orbit. This latest effort is still in its preliminary phase, however, Blenner is optimistic the project will eventually have practical applications in due time.
Blenner’s team is also considering the possibility of another process that uses human fecal matter to support yeast growth. The best method for extracting plastics from said yeasts as well as how well the organisms will grow in microgravity and a host of other variables are currently still unknown. That said, not everyone in the scientific community is equally amped about the potential of this new pee-fed Franken-yeast.
“I can’t help feeling in most cases it is a lot lighter just to carry the spares than a giant piece of machinery that produces a rather crappy piece of plastic that might not be the best for the tool in the first place,” explained Mark Hempsell, president of the British Interplanetary Society.
Whether this project ever comes to fruition or is simply money down the drain is anyone’s guess.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.
Platforms tend to shrug off AI clutter until it threatens what they sell. For Etsy, that thing is trust in the maker.
To protect that, Etsy has banned AI-generated how-to guides and listings made entirely by bots. Most sellers must show at least one unretouched photo of the item (via Etsy Seller Handbook).