This kind of emphasizes that to drink urine, it would have to be a last resort. Nothing ever good comes from a waste byproduct, even if most of it is water, it only takes a PPB (Part Per Billion) of a toxin to screw you up.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_as/china_miners_escape

BEIJING - The Meng brothers felt pretty good about their chances of making it out of the collapsed coal mine, until the sound of digging from outside stopped.
With no food or water, they were forced to eat coal and drink their own urine from discarded bottles.
Doctors have said the Mengs had kidney damage from lack of water but no other major injuries after being trapped for more than 130 hours.

Both coal and urine contain toxins, he said, and there is some debate about whether the benefits of recapturing some of the water in urine outweighs the risks of reabsorbing the toxins, which could lead to kidney damage or an altered mental state.

Amazing story of determination, again illustrating how the will to live plays a huge role in survival.

And we think we've got it rough: "...a rare tale of survival in China's coal mines, the world's deadliest, where an average of 13 workers are killed every day ... they said they made only about $265 a month for working 12 hours a day."

Guess a sense of humor helps too: "I said my wife could find a rich man in Shenyang. But then I thought, I have two children and my wife is ugly, so it'd be hard for her to remarry."

130 hours is only five days. Thirst is one thing, but eating coal???

Sue

I don't think that even Tabasco could make coal go down easy...

The choices are

1. die in a few days from dehydration
2. die in a few weeks from urine drinking-induced kidney damage or high ammonia levels

Which would you chose? I'm not sure on how long it would take to cause problems from drinking urine, but several people have lived long enough to be saved.

I think that if I worked in a mine I would start carrying a water purification system (portable.) Though I doubt the chinese workers could afford one. Could one be cobbled together, & could such a system (or even a professional grade purifier) remove the toxins from urine?

Tim

Yep, kinda sounds like the US about 125 years ago, when we went through our own industrial revolution, and kids were working 60+ hours a week for a nickel an hour. I guess not everyone in the world is able to keep up with us technologically.

Still, I am not happy with how China is trying to catch up. It looks pretty ugly, and I don't understand why we are tolerating it, except that maybe our administration is still feeling guilty about all that happened in our past. Or maybe it is all that lobbying the Chinese are doing to keep our politicians' mouths shut...

"...I don't understand why we are tolerating it..."

Money.

We not only tolerate it, we encourage it.

Sue

Between Arab oil and everything made in china and most of our food as well, we have been setting us up for a big fall for decades. Our greedy society and simple minds have just about chopped all the trees down for condos, houses and malls and the worlds population is so far out of control that our drinking water will be in jeopardy within a few decades, it amazes me how people sit blindly trying to make a buck here or there rather than trying to solve the real problems ahead. It will get interesting when down the road when all the animals have been killed and we have to clone our food to survive. Lets see the millionaires and billionaires eat there money when the food is gone and the money is no use but to use as a napkin. One of our greatest enemies will end up being China in the end, the Arabs are definitely a problem as well but China is the bigger threat right now.

Sue, as usual, goes succinctly to the heart of the issue.



Consider these facts (from Congressional Research Reports), current as of January 2007:

• In 2003, China replaced Mexico as the second largest source of imports for the United States.

• In 2004, China replaced Germany and the United Kingdom to become the fourth largest market for U.S. goods and remains the fastest growing major U.S. export market.

• In the past decade, the most dramatic increases in U.S. imports from China have been not in labor-intensive sectors but in some advanced technology sectors, such as office and data processing machines, telecommunications and sound equipment, and electrical machinery and appliances.

But to not "play" puts any country – not only the U.S. – at risk of becoming isolated in an increasingly interdependent world. It's a complicated world we live in.

My .02.

Dan