November 11, 2019

Dutch town smells like poo because of trees

Filed under: Nature,Weird by Orangemaster @ 8:31 pm

It has gone quite wrong with planting gingko biloba trees in Valkenswaard, Noord-Brabant. The female trees are dioecious, with separate sexes, and the female trees produce seeds that contain a type of acid that ‘smells like rancid butter or vomit’, although the residents of the city say it smells like poo.

The goal was to plant male trees that look slightly different and don’t have an odour, but that got messed up, and some streets apparently smell really disgusting. Residents are cleaning up the seeds, but even after putting them in the bins, they continue to stink the place up. The trees will not be replaced, but the seeds will be cleaned up by the city more often.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl, Photo of Ginko biloba tree by BM Begovic Bego, some rights reserved)

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September 5, 2018

Meppel issues many fines for people peeing everywhere

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 6:49 pm

According to RTVDrenthe, Meppel has the most people fined for ‘peeing and pooping in the wild’ of all the cities in the province of Drenthe.

Per 10,000 residents, some 25 fines have been handed out in Meppel, which is more than cities such as Coevorden, the number two (ha, pun) on the list, where 6,2 fines per 10,000 residents have been issued. In what timeframe, that’s not clear.

On the national level, Meppel is in the top list, with places such as Terschelling, Valkenburg aan de Geul, Leeuwarden, Noordwijk, Utrecht and Schouwen-Duiveland out in front of it.

Nope, no idea why, but the amount or lack of public toilets could definitely play a role.

(Link: rtvdrenthe.nl)

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January 17, 2013

Cry babies produce different poo than other babies

Filed under: Health by Orangemaster @ 5:00 am

Boffins from Wageningen University, together with more boffins from the Radboud University Nijmegen have recently published a study showing that cry babies produce different feces than other babies. One to two-week-old cry babies apparently have twice as many proteobacteria in their poo and much less of other types of bacteria as compared to other babies, although the study does not say why. It also says that by giving cry babies probiotics, which are found in baby food, these babies will cry much less.

(Link: opmerkelijk.nieuws.nl, Photo of Crying baby by Chalky Lives, some rights reserved)

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