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steveSteve Higgins is a psychology graduate student at an online university. He hopes that the three weeks and $29.95 that he is spending on his Ph.D. will get him a job at a Tier 1 research university. Do online universities have postdocs? Ok...just kidding, Steve is a real graduate student at a real school.


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Please do not pee in my mouth

Category: HumorPolicy & Politics
Posted on: August 30, 2007 12:13 PM, by Steve Higgins

piss%20fountain.jpgAccording to Dumb.com (yes I'm avoiding reading for my qualification exams so am procrastinating), in Champaign Illinois (the next town over from where I live) "One may not pee in his neighbor's mouth. " I am very curious as to what the meaning of neighbor is. Does this mean my next-door neighbor, someone else who lives in Champaign, or is this speaking in a broadly humanist manor..i.e. every person is your 'neighbor'?

I'm wonder whether this only applies to peeing into someones mouth or whether I can call the police if someone pees on my back? Also... what happened in this silly town that led to the creation of this law?

According to Go Ask Alice, in response to someone asking if he can drink his own pee,

...Urine is mostly water, and relatively sterile. But this does not mean it qualifies for the recommended 6 - 8 daily glasses of H2O, and here's why: in addition to the water content, urine contains trace elements of hundreds of other things -- from undigested alcohol to nitrogen and potassium, and sodium, which makes it such a salty drink. (By the way, the first pee in the morning is more concentrated; and the more water you drink, the more diluted it will be.) Urine could -- in rare cases -- also have some toxic substances in it, such as lead or arsenic. It can also contain trace amounts of drugs that the urinating person has recently ingested, though probably not enough to actually give the sipper any high or show up on a drug test (in case you were wondering).

"Water sports" or "golden showers" are sexual behaviors in which someone urinates on his or her partner's skin or body in the shower, in bed, at the beach, etc. This is generally harmless, as long as the pee doesn't get into any orifice or wound. If someone does end up urinating in your mouth (or you drink your own urine), s/he could conceivably transmit an infection. Passing on a urinary tract infection (UTI) or HIV could complicate matters. Hepatitis B, chlamydia, and even herpes could be present in the urine and could theoretically be transmitted to the drinker, causing infection. No documented cases of HIV being transmitted through urine have been identified, but again, it's a theoretical possibility. (HIV is present in urine, though in the smallest amounts of any bodily fluid.)

People who have an autoimmune disorder (including HIV/AIDS), kidney problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, or other major medical problems need to shy away from drinking or swallowing urine because of the possibilities for infection.

Perhaps Champaign is onto something!

Then again maybe this monkey is onto something as well:

Which of course leads to the greatest song spoof ever, complements of the Chapelle Show:


Now Urbana (where I live) has a just really really silly law....

It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of Urbana, Illinois.

Really?!

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Comments

#1
Then again maybe this monkey is onto something as well

Methinks it's a chimpanzee, which would make it an ape, not a monkey. I'd forbear to point this out, but this is scienceblogs after all.

Posted by: noncarborundum | August 31, 2007 9:23 PM

#2

right... but THIS is Omni Brain ;) We enjoy being wrong!

Posted by: Steve Higgins | September 1, 2007 11:26 AM

#3

true, noncarborundum, but quantitatively speaking, the word "monkey" is several orders of magnitude funnier than "ape", so it's all good, scientifically.

Posted by: thalarctos | September 1, 2007 12:00 PM

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