India's army builds a high tech toilet
Over the years, America's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has yielded a number of practical technologies, most famously, these here Internets. India's equivalent to DARPA, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has also gotten into the game:
The "bio-digester" toilet conceived by a DRDO unit in the city of Gwalior, works by mixing self-multiplying bacteria with human waste in specially-made tanks, resulting in the production of methane gas and water.It was meant for Indian combat troops deployed on Siachen, a 6,300-metre-high (20,800-feet-high) glacier in disputed Kashmir where temperatures can fall up to to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit).
According to AFP, a number of these units are already slated for use in a housing development and a "tropical" unit for warmer climes is also in train. Then, we have this:
The DRDO also has high hopes for its "Heat Stabilised Narrow Fabrics and Cordages for Improved Elastic Recovery Property" which military boffins believe could be used in bras."The technology is a heat-stablised narrow fabric and the elastic in it is more robust than materials used in commercial brassieres," a DRDO official added.
Progress marches on.
