What Would Happen If Everyone Peed In The Ocean At The Same Time?
When You Gotta Go... One woman finds out what really happens when humans "go" in the water. Wikimedia Commons A thought experiment Lauren Wolf, an associate editor at Chemical & Engineering News and self-described ocean-urinator, recently took it upon herself to find out the scientific truth about what really happens when humans pee in the ocean. She first turned to the internet, of course. As she discovered, though the body excretes urine in order to rid the system of unwanted chemical compounds, it's not necessarily harmful. In fact, the composition of pee isn't that different from that of seawater. The average human's urine is more than 95 percent water and contains 1-2 g/L of sodium and chloride ions. Upon exiting the body, urine from a healthy human is also sterile. Only once it's out does it begin to attract existing colonies of bacteria, but it wouldn't add any to the water. There's...