SciTechBits – Interesting Bits of Science & Technoglogy Served For You!

Can a toilet save your life? It might be able to if you have health problems. From Japan, the land of high-tech toilets, a new toilet provides the benefits of a doctor’s visit every time you use it.

According to ChinaDaily, the newest Japanese high-tech toilet “offers its users an instant health check-up every time they answer the call of nature.” The “Intelligent Toilet” was designed by Daiwa House with the elderly in mind. It “provides urine analysis, takes the user’s blood pressure and body temperature, and measures their weight with an inbuilt floor scale.” The readout comes up on a wall-mounted computer screen next to the smart toilet. It also has an armband to monitor blood pressure.

Erica Goldson graduated from Coxsackie-Athens High School (Coxsackie, NY). Like a very few others, she got an opportunity to make a valedictorian speech. She understood the power of the opportunity in front of her and made a fabulous speech — filled with passion, lashing the whip against the whole educational system, which is a fine mess.

Embedded below is the video of her speech, followed by the full transcript.

Catnip a member of the mint family popular for getting cats high, much like medical marijuana is often confused with marijuana. Big Cat Rescue, a non profit has recently released a video which shows how Tigers, Lions and the like respond to catnip.



Catnip reaction consists primarily of a unique combination of body rolling and face rubbing and is found to be independent of sex. Cats are usually found to return to the source of catnip about once every two hours to get a new dose. While not every cat reacts, interestingly reacting cats show an increase in attention paid to catnip while showing a decrease to rats. Research has shown that the chemosensory stimulus evoking the catnip reaction is mediated through the main olfactory system. Catnip activates behavioral elements associated with several species-specific behaviors, including sniffing and chewing as associated with oral appetitive behavior, rolling and rubbing characteristic of female sexual behavior, batting the catnip source characteristic of play behavior, and a type of kicking associated with predatory behavior. These behavioral reactions have been said to occur randomly and intermittently.

While it has been documented at several sources that most members of the cat family react to catnip, this is the first time there is a single video (embedded below) which shows the reaction of several members of the cat family reacting to catnip.

The horrible teachings these kids are exposed to – does damages well beyond many generations to come. The ending question posed by a student “How can an African American person evolve from a white person… we are different skin?” shows how messed up their thought lines are. They can’t even agree to evolution between different races of human beings.

So how long will Bing take to catch up? Bing you are not new, you are just a renamed search engine.
UPDATE: To people denying this, visit www.bing.com/?cc=de and enter world cup as you query.

An oldie, but a goodie. Here is an amazing video which lets you visualize sounds; yes much like winamp visualizations. But then, it is just really cool to see it in real life and anything explained with fire is for sure awesome.

One of the most popular and recognizable foods in the world, pizza is both delicious and affordable. Traditionally,pizza pies were oven-baked, oval shaped and topped with just tomatoes and cheese, but modern variations use ingredients like egg, potatoes and coconut. Not matter what pizza is your favorite, the following facts are sure to spike you interest in this classic cuisine.



Via: Online Schools

The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull caused drastic interference to air travel across most of Europe. The second eruption of the year on April 14th produced massive ash plume that made it impossible for pilots to travel to their destinations. Here is a recap of the details and its effects on the travel industry.

You need to solve a physics problem. You first draw a simple sketch of the given situation and write a bunch of formulae or equations and proceed to arrive at a solution which is either a number or a function. How awesome would it be if the sketch you drew earlier animates itself to visually show the validity of the solution you just developed?


Dr. Joseph Laviola and team from UCF have developed a piece of software to be used on tablet PCs which could really make learning math and physics fun. The system allows users to draw using a stylus and recognizes various shapes such as polygons, circles, springs and wires. Users can also write mathematical equations in free hand style and the system recognizes them as well. At any point, if the recognition done is not right, using a simple scribble-erase gesture, the user could fix any recent recognition. Users are able to select the math equations and/or sketches by a lasso gesture (circling the item to select) and if followed by a tap gesture, the equations & the data contained in them get assigned to the sketches. The recognized data is then fed to a physics engine, which enables animations. The system inferences any missing data and thus enables a great level of flexibility. For example, the system always assumes regular gravitational force, even when not given.

Dr.Tunnacliffe from Cambridge University shows that rotifers, tiny wheeled animals – can survive extreme hard conditions of being depleted of 90% of their water content, exposure to extreme heat and cold. All that they need to resuscitate themselves is some water.


About 60% of our bodies are filled with water. Should we loose more than 20% of our body’s water content, we face a painful death. That is how important water is for most of the living beings. However, there are some exceptions and rotifers are one among them. These amazing micro creatures which have not had sex for 80 million years are able to handle extreme conditions as shown in the video below. These organisms show that life in the space could be possible.