All posts tagged: Pee

Pee changes how some mushrooms ‘talk’

Pee changes how some mushrooms ‘talk’

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Mushrooms are social butterflies. Seemingly small communities of fungi separated by hundreds of feet are frequently connected via vast underground webs known as mycelial networks. While these allow the fungi to share vital information about their surroundings and environmental conditions, researchers still know very little about how these networks truly function. A team of mycologists in Japan recently highlighted one fungi group’s remarkable, highly dynamic communications. Their particularly unique type of mushroom chatter that can be easily influenced by one thing that all animals release—urine. Their findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports. Ectomycorrhizal fungi belong to a larger group known as ammonia fungi. As their name implies, they heavily depend on soil ammonia levels to grow and spread. Urine contains large amounts of urea, a chemical predecessor to ammonia. With this in mind, researchers led by Yu Fukasawa at Tohoku University in Sendai attached electrodes to 37 ectomycorrhizal mushrooms growing on the floor of an oak forest. …

Humans’ pull toward alcohol may have ancient origins (according to chimp pee) : NPR

Humans’ pull toward alcohol may have ancient origins (according to chimp pee) : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Scientists learned that wild African chimpanzees consume alcohol by eating fermented fruit, suggesting that human attraction to alcohol may have ancient evolutionary origins. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Ever wonder why people are so drawn to alcohol? Where does that attraction come from? Science reporter Ari Daniel says perhaps we should look to our primate relatives. ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: Late last summer, Aleksey Maro was in the Ugandan rainforest collecting chimpanzee urine. ALEKSEY MARO: The most consistent predictable time is in the morning. Just like people, the first thing they do when they wake up is they go pee. DANIEL: Maro, a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley, had a few collection techniques. One involved catching urine droplets from the chimps overhead in a plastic bag stretched over a forked branch. Sharifah Namaganda is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan who assisted in the field. SHARIFAH NAMAGANDA: You need to make sure that you are not going to be splashed. But plastic bag pee is the best pee you can get, and it is also the …

Having to pee makes you scientifically better at video games

Having to pee makes you scientifically better at video games

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show. FACTS: Atomic Priesthood, Space Smells Like Beef, the Power of Pee Fuel By: Jess Boddy I’m back with another solo-hosted episode! This week, I bring on two of my closest friends who love to go on a science deep dive. Lindsey, known around the internet as ohlindsey, was inspired to find out what space smells like.  Many people cite the oft-repeated “raspberries” scent, but as Lindsey points out, that is a bit of a misconception. She …

Chimpanzees love alcohol and their pee proves it

Chimpanzees love alcohol and their pee proves it

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Chimpanzees love their alcohol. Among our closest primate relatives, they frequently feast on fermented fruit in the wild. So much so that the drunken monkey hypothesis posits that chimps and potentially many other animals will ingest alcohol as part of their diet and even seek it out. And as descendants of boozy, fruit-eating apes ourselves, humans likely evolved the same tendency. Now, some more proof of their intoxicating habits is in their urine. After University of California, Berkeley graduate student Aleksey Maro and integrative biologist Robert Dudley discovered that the boozy fruits chimpanzees eat is the equivalent of two standard alcoholic drinks (14 grams), they needed to confirm the full amount of  alcohol consumed by the monkeys. Since breathalyzers are not really practical for wild chimpanzees, they turned to their urine. Staying clear of the spray zone In August 2025, Maro worked with Sharifah Namaganda, a Ugandan graduate student at the University of Michigan who had prior experience collecting …

The Newest Health Trend Is Tracking Your Pee

The Newest Health Trend Is Tracking Your Pee

Published by skeptic

When my dog sniffs at certain spots on our morning walk, my daughter calls it “checking her pee-mails.” Yes, the animal kingdom has it right: Urine conveys a wealth of health information, and by analyzing it, you can access critical data about your body without having to wear a fitness tracker 24/7 or get stuck with needles. Over the past few months, I’ve been inundated by a steady stream of urine trackers, of which Vivoo’s smart toilet is the latest. The smart sensor debuted at CES 2026 and went on sale this week. It costs a relatively affordable $99 and clips inside the basin of any toilet. When you’re ready to do your business, connect the sensor to its companion mobile app using Bluetooth. The sensor collects a sample for testing and uses optical sensors that measure your pee’s specific gravity. An onboard processing unit then uses proprietary algorithms to let you know if you’re hydrated or not. Most importantly, the gadget uses antibacterial components, has antifungal nanotechnology, is designed for more than 1,000 uses, …