On September 14th, the Ig Nobel Awards for 2023 were announced, recognizing various research topics that brought laughter to the scientific community. Among the awarded research topics was a direct connection to AI: public health. Seung-min Park, a South Korean researcher, developed the Stanford Toilet, a toilet accessory equipped with various sensors and even a camera to analyze health data from feces.
The Stanford Toilet utilizes video analysis of waste material discharged from the body to gather different characteristics such as flow rate, duration, and volume 🤢. Additionally, it incorporates additional sensors to detect other properties like the presence of white blood cells, red blood cells, proteins, and various types of bacteria, enabling rapid disease analysis.
Installing the Stanford Toilet follows a similar process to installing a bidet with a flushing mechanism.
Other awards at this year’s Ig Nobel included studying people’s emotional reactions to excessively repetitive words, reviving cockroaches through external mechanisms, analyzing the mental state of people who speak in reverse, examining boredom levels in teachers and students, and determining the number of people looking up at the sky when someone else is looking up.
TLDR: The Ig Nobel Awards for 2023 recognized South Korean researcher Seung-min Park’s development of the Stanford Toilet, a toilet accessory equipped with sensors and a camera to analyze health data from feces. Other awards included studying people’s emotional reactions to repetitive words and reviving cockroaches through external mechanisms.
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