The Sweet Smell of Silence

Sufferers of parcopresis, the inability to defecate for fear of privacy, can now budge their issues easier. Hotoa Industries of Quebec have released a new design of toilet bowl that will muffle the sound of falling faeces and the resulting sonics of the splash.

The bowl uses a patented design involving a sophisticated set of baffles designed to disperse, muffle and reflect the sound of all goings-on within the bowl, resulting in a more private poop.

“This is ground-breaking,” says Marius Ferrare, Senior Engineer and designer of the Shhpoop Toilet Bowl, “This invention will reduce the rates of constipation and subsequently save industry many millions of dollars in time off and time wasted waiting for others to vacate a shared toilet area.”

Statistics show that more than one in ten people suffer from “toilet shyness”, a condition that can be exacerbated by echoing cubicles and toilets located close to high foot-traffic areas. As a result, Marius explains, people who have parcopresis often take a long time to finish their business, or hold on until they can return to the privacy of their own home.

“It’s a real concern. We toyed with introducing a sound reduction system inside the cubicle but this was both ineffective and hard to standardise. Since most cubicles are open at the top and bottom, there was no way to ensure the sound would not propagate. The bowl, however, presents an almost entirely closed and much more predictable system,” he says, “Based on this, we focused our attentions on redesigning the bowl.”

The resulting product, looking similar to a toilet with turbo-chargers attached, costs only a tenth more than a standard ceramic issue and can reduce the overall noise by thirteen decibels on average, depending on the posture of the patron.

“This is a significant reduction. It’s like the difference between someone talking and someone mumbling. Combined with ambient background noise, this device would eliminate the need to cough to cover up tell-tale signs,” he says, “We shall see that the Shpoop will become the new normal for offices and shopping malls.”

The company is expected to release the bowl to the market later this year and is already making plans to design a similar device that would retrofit existing bowls.

Sweet Dreams

The quality of chocolate one consumes before bedtime is linked to the quality of one’s dreams, according to new research by Doctor Fiusse Moore, Director of Nocturnal Studies at Pennsylvania Institute of Health and Wellbeing.

It has been known for quite some time that chocolate induces endorphin, a chemical messenger that acts to calm and instill state of happiness. Now Doctor Moore’s research reveals that this translates into better dreams.

“We engaged a batch of subjects over the course of two months, one on a cheaper chocolate, one on an expensive brand and one on a chocolate scented placebo. The results were consistent that those who consumed chocolate had more positive dreams than those who did not, and those who consumed the higher grade chocolate had a a higher number and quality of dream overall,” he says, “We’re looking at an overall rate, on our scale, of 34% better dreams for those who eat chocolate, with a 12% difference between high quality and low quality chocolate.”

The determination of ‘quality’ is broken down into points for satisfaction, persistence, emotional response, relevance, vividness and excitement. Each category was assessed individually, along with combining the weighted scores into an overall ranking.

“Yes, it is subjective, which is why we took such a large testing sample. I would not call (the results) conclusive, not without further analysis on variables like the subject’s occupation and family situation, but overall I think there is merit in prescribing chocolate, even in pill form, for those suffering from chronic sleep ailments,” he explains, “We have a lot of information regarding quality of sleep, but not so much in terms of quality of dreams. Considering REM makes up about 25%, or one quarter, of our normal sleep activity, I contest that the quality of dreams will affect the quality of sleep.”

Subjects were given a diary to record their dreams, and encouraged to rate them as soon as possible. While the quality of dreams was shown, overall, to rise for chocolate consumers, the rate of actually remembering dreams (persistence) along with the vividness remained constant.

His next studies will focus on how the quality of dreams affects daily activity, and also to investigate foods that have the opposite affect in a bid to see exactly how one’s diet affects their dreams.ChesterLogoSmall