Why It's Cool: Poop

Ew. Poop. how disgusting, right? Maybe on smell and appearances, but once you start looking into what poop does for both you and the environment, you may look at poop in a whole new way.

Let's start on a broad scale. What is poop? Well, it's a wonderful paste made of digested food, bile, and bacteria corpses. Of course, this paste hardens over time to become the (hopefully) solid finished product. So, first things first. You eat food. This is cool too because somewhere along the line, that food was associated with poop. Maybe an animal pooped out a seed that became the apple you're enjoying. Anyway, you eat the food and it goes down your esophagus and plops into your belly, which is a nightmarish hell filled with convulsions and acid waves and mucus. Lovely things. After your stomach is through torturing your already mangled breakfast with a little help from your pancreas, it shoves the food into your small intestine.

Here the food is sucked dry. Nearly 95% of all the food's nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine and circulated through your body via the circulatory system. Once the small intestine is done with its stuff, the food is transported over to the big intestine where it is officially poop, waiting patiently for your butt to open up and let it free like a long sausage.

So, there's one reason why poop is cool: it's one of the most time and energy consuming processes your body completes. But it's also one of the most complicated. Let me explain in one word:

BACTERIA

In the lower inch or so of your colon, there are more bacteria than people who have ever lived on this planet.  In fact, your intestines are lined with bacteria. Disgusting and gross and awesome microbial life living inside you. A little off topic here, but 90% of 'you' isn't you, it's microbial life! Back on track, this cocktail of bacteria includes none other than our lovely friends E.Coli and even Staph. But don't worry about it because they are too busy munching on your poop to even worry about you. 

Okay, but how does this make poop cool? In a sense, this is how poop makes YOU cool. The fact that you produce a life source for billions upon billions of bacteria pretty much makes you a planet. Think about that. In a metaphorical sense, you do revolve around something in life, you can be terraformed by nematodes (worms that we'll get to in a bit), and you have cities of bacteria throughout your body. So, when you look at poop, you see the whole picture, which is pretty awesome.

Now, another thing that's cool about poop is the fact that it is home to worms. Yes, I said worms. Not necessarily hookworms or tapeworms, but worms nonetheless. And these worms make poop cool. Most of these worms are microscopic or just millimeters in length. While some can grow and cause problems, most of the worm societies in your body are regulated by normal bowel movements. 

Farts are fun, just ask anybody with a sense of humor. Farts are methane gas that is produced by the bacteria that feed on your poop. Farts often smell funny because they can either take on what you ate (the odors, that is) or the food was digested by a certain group of bacteria.

So there you have it. Poop. The nastiest stuff around. It comes in many shapes and sizes, colors and odors, and states of solidity. But now, every time this brown muck crosses your mind, you can think of how awesome and amazing poop is, and how cool it is that you are a poop factory. The final word? Poop is cool.