Are you ready for smart underwear?

Some researchers have invented smart underwear that monitors your flatulence. Side note: This conversation could go a couple of different ways, so let’s explore both! 🙂

On the serious side, this is actually helpful. Scientists can learn a lot about people’s gut health based on their flatulence, and up until now it was difficult to study. It has been attempted, but it involved “extremely invasive techniques”, and the less said about that the better! Now, with smart underwear, people can easily submit information about their microbiomes to scientists. It contributes to a research study called the Human Flatus Atlas. It tracks the amount of farts per day and the hydrogen content. Did you know your toots are made of mostly hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen? Methane is also in the mix, but less common.

The first group test with this new underwear included 19 healthy participants, and it found that the average number of farts per day was 32, ranging from 4 to a maximum of 59. While 59 is a rather large number of farts for one day, I had a college roommate who once passed gas over 100 times in a day. It was so excessive that he actually counted them. And I believe him, because I unfortunately had to witness some of that. I don’t know what he ate to enable that superpower.

Someone had told me about this smart underwear, so I searched for info on it, and one headline said, “Everyone does this. But how much is too much? Scientists want to know.” The article started out with: “Whether you call it breaking wind, sounding the trumpet, or cutting the cheese, everyone farts. But how much gas is too much? The short answer: no one knows – yet.” It’s safe to say that 100+ is too much for one day. Not only was something unusual going on with their health, but probably everyone around them!

Is this topic gross? To some, yes. But as another article said:

Whether you’re breaking wind, farting hard or just letting out a quick toot, flatulence is — whether you want to admit it or not — as much a daily necessity as breathing.

So while it is necessary, some people don’t like to talk about it. That’s fine. If you are one of those, you should probably not finish the rest of this post. You have been warned. 🙂

On the lighter side, this invention could be used for fun! For people who enjoy farting, there could be a competition setting. Someone could create a way for friends to have a leaderboard. The results could be uploaded to a shared site or sent via text. The smart underwear could track the number of times, the loudest volume, and the most stank. Obviously this isn’t for everyone, but I guarantee there are some people who would enjoy making it competitive.

the dangers of selling farts

You might think the title said “the dangers of smelling farts”, which would be a more expected post, but that’s a different subject entirely, and one I don’t care to dig into. This is actually about selling farts.

Before I get into the details here, let me warn you that this is dumpster fire type material. So if you really don’t want to know, you should stop here. I’ll even provide a link to take you to a random post here (which is also in the sidebar): Random Randomness.

The story starts with a 31-year-old reality star who had a side-business of selling her farts in a jar. I’m not too surprised that someone had the idea, but I am surprised that someone actually followed through with the idea, and I’m shocked that she has made over $200,000 somehow with this “job”. Apparently she was selling them for $100 to $500 each, and she was selling a lot. I don’t get it. I figured this was satire / parody / fiction / fake news. But a search has it showing up on legit news sources. So I just don’t know… Who pays that much for stank?!? I have no idea how famous she is — I don’t follow “reality TV” at all — but it really doesn’t matter. Why would you pay money to smell anybody’s farts? Perhaps if a jar was a dollar or two, I could see a few people buying one for a prank gift or a “dirty Santa” party, but not at hundreds of dollars. (BTW, some people have “dirty Santa” parties where they expect legitimate gifts around a certain dollar value, so it’s good to know the expectations.) I’ve seen prank gifts of candles that smell like poop, but they were $20, which is beyond prank gift budget for me. But I digress…

So far we’ve discussed how this is gross and/or silly, but it gets worse — hence the dangerous part. Demand for these fart jars increased to over 50 per week, and this woman switched her diet to beans and eggs. Those foods are good and healthy in moderation, but there was no moderation here. At one point the gas pains got so intense that she thought she was having a heart attack or stroke and went to the hospital. Fortunately for her it was “just a very, very severe case of gas”. It was enough to make her retire… somewhat… (Yeah, there’s more…)

The self-described “fartrepreneur” has decided to sell digital fart jars in the form of NFTs. (If you don’t know, an NFT is basically a digital item like a picture or video that is registered in the blockchain; it’s a trendy concept right now, with many people trying to cash in with dumb stuff, looking to get-rich-quick.) Anyway, I don’t know why anyone would buy a photo of a fart jar, so I reckon I’m not the intended audience.

This isn’t the first “fart art” I’ve heard of, though… there is actually some music that has flatulence in it, in a funny way. I’ll provide a link, since if you’re still reading you must have at least some interest in laughing at flatulence (or perhaps in being grossed out by it). 🙂

I hope this doesn’t make you lose too much faith in humanity… But it is a weird world out there…

new music that’s funny and random

I recently heard about a new music album that is both funny and random, so naturally it’s a good fit for this blog.  The album is called “Bringin’ da Phat”, by DJ Turbo-Lax and MC Refried Breeze.  That should tell you something about it right there.  (I tell ya, you can find anything on the Internet!)  As you might surmise by the artist names, the songs have random acts of flatulence in them.  So that automatically divides the audience.  If you get offended by such things, you’ve been forewarned.  But if you can laugh at farting, you might hurt yourself laughing at these songs.

I listen to a lot of music, but I must admit I’ve never heard anything like this before.  The beat changes often, jumping between genres at will.  You will be surprised.  The vocal phrases and utterings combined with the sound effects are hilarious.  So perhaps it’s “toilet humor”, but it’s clean, other than the resulting skid marks.  Some of the beats jam, too.

You can listen to it for free at Spotify, although you have to install the player if you haven’t already.  It’s also available for purchase at eMusic, Amazon, and iTunes.  Of course you can listen to samples of the tracks on those last 3 sites.

Regarding the album art, yeah, it might be a low-budget production, but the sound quality is good, and in addition to hearing a cornucopia of beats, it will make you laugh.  Not many songs can say that.

So if you can stomach this kind of humor, I recommend checking it out.

Are dinosaurs extinct because of their farting?

In the news recently, British scientists (“boffins”) have announced that dinosaurs’ reckless farting might have led to their extinction.  Read for yourself:

Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction, according to a new study from British scientists.

The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520 million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a year — enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise.

Until now, an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction. …

“Our calculations suggest these dinosaurs may have produced more methane than all the modern sources, natural and human, put together.”

“Not the momma!”

Yeah, I called it reckless farting.  (Have you ever heard those two words together before?)  It’s bad enough to just fart whenever you want, but when the air becomes unsuitable for life, it’s time to change policy.  I realize they’re just animals, but you’d think they could’ve figured it out.  Even animals can learn by conditioning (like Pavlov’s dogs).  Here, you’d think after millions of years, they’d figure out a disturbing pattern.  Por ejemplo: [fart]  “Whew, that stinks.”  [fart again]  “That’s some stank-terribleness.”  [fart again]  “I can hardly breathe…”  [fart again]  “I’m about to die!”  The pattern is obvious.

Doesn’t it seem odd that there are people who get paid to calculate how much dinosaurs passed gas?  Imagine meeting new people and they ask you what you do — “I study dinosaur farts.”  You’d get some weird reactions, I’m sure.  But you’d be a hit at the elementary school on bring-your-parent-to-school day.  🙂