Science and technology with Bill Bain

DON'T DRINK THE POP...

BOWIE couldn’t figure it out – why did German milk taste so odd? Lying low in Berlin to escape the temptations of 1970s LA, he and Iggy Pop had somehow found themselves cold turkeying in a dingy wee flat near the city’s run-down Schöneberg district.

The story goes that the artist formerly known as Ziggy had been moaning to Iggy for months about the milk – a substance Bowie was binging on in a medically dubious bid to detox his drug-ravaged body. Maybe German cows ate grass saturated with napalm from Second World War bombs, he mused.

The mystery was solved when Bowie sauntered into the kitchen one day and caught Iggy urinating into the cartons. The prankster admitted he’d been relieving himself in the milk since they moved in – just enough that his superstar pal could detect something but not enough for it to be obvious.

Bowie’s sense of humour was understandably put to the test. However, he had to admit – he felt fantastic. Clean and creative. Clearly, taking the p**s was working for him.

It’s a truth long whispered in darkened corners of laboratories – that the rumoured benefits of consuming urine demand serious testing, with previous studies in Japan, China, Switzerland and the USA showing the enzymes, antibodies, amino acids, minerals and hormones contained within can be beneficial if used in moderation.

It might be hard to swallow, but drinking or applying urine to infected skin has been practised by humans since we evolved. Indian yogic texts and ancient Chinese manuscripts describe the family bonding experience of drinking one’s own urine in a time before online streaming. Today, millions of internet searches for “urine therapy” certainly pan out well for Google’s profits, making executives extremely flush.

The alleged perks of urine therapy (ancient and contemporary) are too abundant to list. There is virtually no condition it can’t cure, it seems. Some may literally take the proverbial themselves by suggesting a Big Pharma conspiracy keeping this cure for all ills a secret. The assumption being there is no money to be made from a home-brew elixir.

So let me clear these cloudy waters and zip to the facts. Urine is mostly water and five per cent urea – a waste substance that is also full of discarded minerals and nutrients. It is widely thought to have some degree of diuretic quality, meaning ingestion could possibly lower blood pressure – and even alleviate cirrhosis of the liver. Maybe one day, the phrase “on the p**s” will have the opposite meaning.

One Greek doctor, Evangelos Danopoulos, has even alleged urea has anti-cancerous properties, supposedly disrupting rogue cells’ ability to group together. Approach these claims with caution however – the placebo effect is a very real phenomenon in any research.

Still, the evidence is intriguing. Two doctors from the University of California – Alexander Glazer and Timothy Stocker – recently discovered that the yellow dye in urine which is also responsible for jaundice (bilirubin) appears to lessen damage in tissue affected by ageing, inflammation and heart disease.

“Instead of spending our time getting rid of bilirubin, we should spend time on its possible beneficial roles,” Stocker said.

Even God, it seems, gave drinking urine his blessing. Proverbs 5:15 boldly states: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.”

Who knew Iggy Pop was a Bible scholar? Certainly, Bowie’s experience did him no harm – quite the contrary. The revitalised star also went on to write several huge hits for Iggy, so clearly there were no hard feelings between the pair.

Always a knowledgeable and curious fella, Bowie would have almost certainly been familiar with the theory of urine therapy. It would still have been a bitter truth, however, to accept he was detoxed, renewed – and perhaps saved – not with milk, but by drinking Pop.

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THE EARTH HASN'T MOVED FOR ARRAN

I’VE often wondered if shellsuits possess some kind of sentient intelligence, taking over the mind of the wearer and compelling them to say or do unusual things. Take Scottish neds. Gazza’s untethered emotions. The Caliguan excesses of Elton John. Sutcliffe and Savile. All will be survived by empty shellsuits hanging ominously in their closets.

Not convinced? In the early 1980s, David Icke donned one particularly garish turquoise shellsuit to declare he was the “son of God” to a bemused Terry Wogan, who raised his eyebrows so high that Roger Moore sued.

Icke, the mulleted Messiah, made another proclamation that night – or rather a prediction. Raising his voice above the audience’s guffaws he announced that the end of the world would soon be heralded by an earthquake which would destroy the Scottish island of Arran.

Nearly four decades on, Arran still stands proud off the Ayrshire coast. Scotland in miniature indeed – only without the foodbanks and roadworks.

Icke’s still around too – his theories now more popular than ever, thanks to a collective global distrust of anything resembling the official line. Unless, of course, it chimes with your own beliefs and prejudices – which new research from the University of Nottingham certainly does for Icke.

Scientists there have managed to compile an impressive “moving map” of the UK’s underground fluctuations using state-of-the-art satellite technology – and it seems Scotland is, like Icke suggested, a hotspot for earthquakes. This can be partially blamed on historical coal-mining sites, which have left gaping holes where minor grumbles in the Earth’s crust would once have been silently absorbed.

But before we declare Icke a prophet, note that this map actually reveals nothing new – only confirming that quakes are relatively common here. There was actually a wee one near the Isle of Bute a few days ago, so minor it would barely have caused a ripple in a Rothesay pensioner’s syrup of figs. In 1999, Arran itself felt the shockwaves of a quake that made floors move a little, but it was certainly no Jamiroquai video.

Icke, who makes a tidy living touring and selling books of gibberish to the gullible, claims the world’s monarchies and political leaders are actually reptilian aliens in skin suits, enslaving us all by way of the capitalist system. Perhaps this is merely a smart diversionary tactic from the king of the conspiracy theory. Maybe Icke himself is a cash-hungry extra-terrestrial and his famous skin suits do exist – but have a shiny nylon outer layer, sometimes branded with the mysterious word Kappa.

Taking Icke’s lead, it’s a theory that can perhaps be commercialised with books, talks, conferences, T-shirts, mugs, magnets and keyrings. Maybe I’ll take the Celestial Shellsuit Secret tour to Arran one day – I’m pretty certain it’ll still be there.