Researchers have identified the enzyme that gives urine its yellow hue
phys.org
phys.org
This is actually a common scare for parents when their kids suddenly pee in a different color, and later they find out they had a strong colored food at school, or at a friend's place.
Don't do this, but I read online about some chemist getting pranked by his daughter putting Prussian blue in his coffee, turning his urine blue to blue-green.
It was also a minor plot device in one particular episode of MAS*H
Charge Nurse gets an anguished phone call early morning, at home, from the female overnight staff. She was terrified that she was haemorrhaging.
Charge Nurse asked her to remember what they did yesterday.
"We harvested lots of veg from the garden, we cooked lots of beetroot and we ate lots of beetroot"
Pee went red. No issues.
Between them and watersports enthusiasts, I'm sure there's a sizable market for multicolored piss
It's on Xitter so it must be true https://twitter.com/peterboghossian/status/16032553833507389...
I respect him for finding a business niche, and I'm severely judging his clientele.
It probably goes without saying that you should not do this.
And some folks are highly sensitive to it and can die. So just don't.
The posted article states: "Urobilin has long been linked to urine's yellow hue, but the research team's discovery of the enzyme responsible answers a question that has eluded scientists for over a century."
So what exactly was discovered? It sounds like "what makes urine yellow" was not discovered, but instead "what enzyme makes Urobilin" (or something like that).
The pathway is basically:
Hemoglobin => Heme => Biliverdin => Bilirubin => Urobilinogen => Urobilin
The general pathway has been known for a while and basically got Hans Fischer the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1930. What was not known was the enzyme that converted Bilirubin to Urobilinogen. Previously we said it was just "bacteria."
// TODO: Read comments fully before replying.
To answer the parent comment: The enzyme discovered is what converts bilirubin into urobilinogen, which degrades into urobilin, so your guess was along the correct lines.
1) bilirubin (from red cell breakdown) from bloodstream excreted into the gut
2) gut biota convert it to urobilinogen via bilirubin reductase
3) urobilinogen -> urobilin spontaneous breakdown (still in gut)
4) urobilin reabsorbed into bloodstream, filtered by kidneys, excreted in urine
If so, why not just leave it in gut for excretion with feces?
or perhaps 2.1) urobilinogen reabsorbed into bloodstream first, then 3). Makes a little more sense
Either way, most users appeared highly engaged with the product and attempt repeat use without high churn, albeit with a lower Time on Site than the user generally wishes.
Because it is hard to distinguish it from nutrients?
I can imagine there may be a bacteria that reverses this process. Maybe that’s what’s in the cat spray.
I hope one of the next tech booms will be bio hacking. Once bio hacking components are accessible and commercially available, who knows what will be possible. I find it incredible the human biology can make super accurate, specific, and precise components.
It's not unreasonable to think that we could somehow insert RNA into cells to have them produce medication locally. Or introduce and engineered cell that produces highly specific molecular machines that break down insulin or toxins or repair nerves or all sorts of things.
SciFi authors have been writing for ages about nanobot cultures in your body maintaining your health and physique, modifying the endocrine system, all sorts of things. It's becoming more and more clear to me that these nanobots will most likely not be artificial mechanical machines, but purely biological molecular machines produced and controlled by engineered cells.
When you get down to it, RNA in itself is an absolutely incredible machine. RNA can be formed into structures like proteins that do work on other molecules. RNA can build a machine out of RNA that builds copies of itself!
Biology is just insane on the atomic to molecular scale. Plants manipulate individual protons during photosynthesis! There's a whole active mechanism with rotating parts that pump protons across a membrane. It's incredible that biology can do things like this, and we're only just scratching the surface of what's possible.
Very soon we'll be able to start engineering these molecular machines. The possibilities are nearly endless. How about a self-replicating enzyme that breaks down plastics? Release it into the oceans and eliminate microplastic pollution. Enzymes that convert oils and lipids into hydrocarbon fuel. Maybe we could even produce bacteria that fix CO2 into something inert.
When we gain the ability to manipulate matter on this scale, a whole lot of absolutely incredible things suddenly become easy
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speak...
You need to have high levels of bilirubin being created or a failing liver that can not process it and pass it off into the intestine.
If anything if you’re drinking the same amount of water and your urine turns more yellow, it probably means that you’re producing more bilirubin.
But I don’t know why this is new, I’ve known this intuitively, watching my own body process and health and diet, and noticing that when I excrete more bile, my urine turns more yellow. As does my feces.
If you want to go for a real journey, just look at the short chain fatty acids that the Microbiome produces and their effect on water called g protein coupled receptors.
How is this new?
Bacteria make it. Cool symbiotic relationship.