I actually donate on a regular basis (not part of OpenBiome) and can answer any questions people have (a sort of AMA). Edit - this isn't a joke comment, I actually donate stool weekly.

I'm curious about the... Logistics of it? Do you store it, somewhere till the end of the week? Sit on a bucket, or use a ziplock bag? Scoop it out of the bowl every time? Do you have to make sure it doesn't get contaminated with urine?

Do they care about the consistency, color, smell, etc? Or is it just pretty much anything goes? Do they request that you eat a specific diet?

For me I work in the same building as the laboratory, therefore I use a collection container and deliver it "fresh" to the lab. I'm lucky because I'm fairly regular and donate around the same time everyday (9am) therefore I just walk down to the lab. A fellow donor is more of a night person, so they store it overnight in a container and bring it in the next day.

The containers are just plastic containers (like a margarine container)m, single use. You place it in a trapezoid shape holder. Then place it on the toilet. If you place it one direction it collects stool, if you place it the other direction it collects urine. So yes, we do keep them separate.

If I have a bout of diarrhea, I stop donating and wait for it to clear. I then collect samples and send to the lab for testing (ova and parasite, regular fecal culture, norovirus, hepatitis and some other viral testing). If I'm clear, I can continue to donate. This same process happens if I go on antibiotics or if I travel out of country. So anything goes, minus liquid stool.

As for diet, I'm actually encouraged not to change my diet. My flora has shown to work well for recipients, and therefore if I change my diet I might change my flora.

From the article it seems the donors are required to go to the office and do their business there.

It would be nice to have a dedicated bathroom. I work in a large public building and therefore donate in a public bathroom. Can be awkward carrying a bag into the stall with me. I get some weird looks, but then I remember why I donate and it's all ok.

The article describes the selection process as setting a very high bar - "You don't just have to be healthy. You have to be really healthy."

What sort of requirements are they talking here? General health, physical fitness, proper diet, all of the above, or something else?

I can't speak to OpenBiome specifically, but you are correct, they look for generally well people. I'm active, but they don't expect me to spend 1hr in the gym everyday. There is also research showing that the microbiome of obese and overweight people differ from healthy weight people, I'm of the latter group.

Diet wasn't so much of a concern. I once switched to gluten free on request from the recipients family, however, as both myself and the physician said, gluten is probably broken down before it comes out the other end.

What sort of poop do they prefer? I mean here the raw physical consistency, and do you prepare yourself to donate this specific kind? Or do they just take any old shit you give them? This is very interesting to me, thanks for answering questions.

I don't donate for OpenBiome so I don't know about their process, but for me they take my normal stool. I don't change my diet (you can see my other comment for that reasoning). As for preparation, there isn't much that changes from what I give them and what the patient takes (we mostly do pills). They want it as close to my flora as possible.

"my flora" - such a nice way to put it. I'm going to use that next time I need to talk my deuces.

Does sound nice eh. I often type "floral" instead of "flora", it's definitely not floral.

The really crazy part is that once some pharmaceuticals push their own versions of fecal transplants through clinical trials, they'll try to raise the price patients pay for the treatment by 10x or so to make a profit. Of course...

> Since they have to come into the Medford, Mass. office, lots of them are Tufts University students. And plenty are recruited from the gym next door. "It's great to have a healthy contingent of regular gym goers right there," Smith said.

PoopDate.io has potential. DISRUPT that bathroom!

The problem with that is that it will push people back to DIY transplants. The same thing happened when the FDA changed the rules for FMT and the number of people doing it at home surged again. The FDA doesn't really know what to do about FMT and it's pushing people to complete at home transplants with untested donors and therefore putting themself at increase risk of adverse outcomes.

Oh, I agree -- I don't know how to handle the problem either, and since the majority of our cells aren't human, there are plenty more microbiomes waiting to be transplanted (e.g. skin, underarms, feet). The incentives are incredibly perverse, with drug companies wanting to spend as little money as possible to develop drugs that appeal to the richest consumers, e.g. copycat drugs for old men who still want to get it up for their young mistresses.

This reminds of one of the greatest april fool jokes I've ever witnessed. In one of the papers there was an announcement by the parks department or some such about an effort to clean up the Vigeland park. The public was encouraged to pick up dog crap in the park and hand them in to attendants for a few bucks a pop.

The turnout was great and the park was cleared of dog crap, but unfortunately no great fortunes were made :)

Why can't they just grow the desired types of bacteria?

On a related note, how can the bacteria survive in "pro-biotic" pills that you can buy? I'm suspicious.

Not every type of bacteria in your gut microbiome is known and/or able to be grown in culture.

As per your question regarding pro-biotics, some bacteria such as Lactobacilli can be dried and remain viable when reintroduced to a liquid medium.

Yes - we can only culture a very small minority of wild bacteria.

For example, the recent antibiotic discovery that made the news came from learning how to culture soil bacteria. No, we didn't learn what it needs. We just grew it in it's natural environment: dirt.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852487

Revolutionary. (seriously).

I was wondering that myself. One guess- the proportions are important and they don't know what culture medium to use. The gut is a complex environment. What if they grow it in a lab and some unknown minor microbe is selected out?

On the other hand, I bet they're working on it.

Anaerobic bacteria are incredibly difficult to culture, especially if the specie is one that doesn't spore or last long in aerobic conditions. Those are most likely what are in the probiotic pills, but I do not know and am only speculating.

From the donation benefits section:

"Win competitions like biggest single donation of the month, or most donations in a month for bonuses and prizes!"

Not what I thought it would be before clicking (too much internet for me, I suppose).

One would imagine that testing would need to be fairly regular (no pun intended), so I'm not sure what the $5000 figure is meant to represent.

A bit off-topic, but: for an incredibly over-the-top violent-but-funny animated movie whose plot revolves around profitable poo, give Aachi & Ssipak a try: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachi_%26_Ssipak

That is a crap load of cash :-) Interesting concept though.

> poop

It's a brave new world where vulgar and scientific words are replaced with baby talk.

This is the Washington Post, not some scientific journal.

Why should "feces" be used only in scientific journals?

"fecal matter" is used later in the article. They probably just used "poop" in the title to catch more eyes.

Astute observation. Much care is taken when writing headlines and in the case of news organizations with print editions in addition to their web presence, the web headline isn't necessarily the same as what runs in print because of different concerns, e.g. SEO vs journalistic standards.

It was a "Poop Culture" article.

And more clicks.

I'm not saying they should - my point was that you shouldn't expect "scientific" terminology and language from the Washington Post.

I expect the author has children. Before mine arrived saying "piss" and "shit" was the most natural thing in the world, now I say "wee" and "poo" (I live in Ireland) instead, just out of habit.

You could say 'urine' and 'feces' or 'bowel movement.'

Or you could teach your kids to count, starting with #1 and #2.

I could, but how would that be better?

I doubt it, it's a mainstream phenomenon that has been going on for years. Hip adults talk like children and replace "bad" words with [initial]-word all over the place. It's some sort of voluntary linguistic regression.

It's equally plausible that, as you age, you have more contact with people who have contact with children, and therefore use childrens' words. It's not regression, it's effective communication

Just curious, what's wrong with this?

What's wrong with regression? Adults that speak like children might find it easier to also think like children, accept institutional father figures more easily, do what they're told without talking back, etc.

Language is what we use to think so it is very important to what and how we think.

I used to cuss like a sailor until I started gaming with a group of Mormons. Very nice guys and very intelligent. Instead of saying 'fuck' they say 'frick', instead of 'shit' they so 'shoot', instead of 'damn' they say 'dang'. Next thing I knew I started noticing other people swearing, and just how juvenile it sounded. One could argue that truly speaking like a child is to have no restraint over what comes out of your mouth, not the other way around.

It's not a very intelligent thing to change the form of the curse words but not their content. It's the kind of solution that a child's intellect might come up with - I can't call my sister "fat"? It's OK, I'll just call her "taf" instead.

I think a better comparison would be instead of calling your sister fat, you tell her you are upset with her. The point I was making was practicing restraint. If you go around calling people 'fat' to insult them, you are obviously very child like and I don't think the analogy helps your point.

Maybe you should read again what you wrote:

> Instead of saying 'fuck' they say 'frick', instead of 'shit' they so 'shoot', instead of 'damn' they say 'dang'.

And focus on the logic, not the implied naughtiness of my fictional example that's got your panties in a bunch.

You want to practice restraint? Then don't say anything instead of swearing. It's as simple as that.

Lol, 'my panties in a bunch'. While it feels good to express oneself, it shows maturity to not shout out 'SHIT!', if even to substitute it with 'SHOOT!', and therein lies the logic. It demonstrates a certain level of restraint, while not absolute restraint, but at least a base level of it. You may not agree. You might also be a self-righteous prick, but since you advocate lack of restraint, there you have it.

Edit: and to clarify,

"It's not a very intelligent thing to change the form of the curse words but not their content." - I never said it was intelligent, I said it made me realize how juvenile people sound when they curse non stop.

"And focus on the logic, not the implied naughtiness of my fictional example" - You are missing the point here, which I stated plainly in my first post: One could argue that speaking like a child is to have no restraint over what comes out of your mouth, not the other way around.

"You want to practice restraint? Then don't say anything instead of swearing. It's as simple as that." - Oversimplifying, a sign of immaturity, i'm concerned about you...

Whew, you should rest after taking a leap like that!

Don't you mean "go beddy-bye"?

Neoteny is posited as one of the key factors in differentiating humans in evolution[0]....

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#Human_evolution

An extraordinary claim in search of an extraordinary proof.

WashPo kept it from the original story headline:

http://www.freeenterprise.com/story/the-key-to-a-stunning-me...

My poop is worth every penny. Trust me.