Why drinking urine can be good for you

From the archive, first published Tuesday 3rd Aug 2004.Drinking or applying your own urine to the skin may seem like a disgusting and smelly prospect but during the last 20 years there has been a revival of the ancient medical treatment.

Our waste fluid has been used to treat or even cure conditions from eczema, dermatitis, leg ulcers, sore throats, ear and eye infections, fungus infections and athlete's foot to more serious diseases and conditions such as cancer, tuberculosis, asthma, ME and HIV and Aids. It is also a remedy for jellyfish stings.

Sonja Vanderdol, a nutritionist in Hove has recommended the use of urine therapy to treat conditions such as eczema and leg ulcers and has even used it herself both by drinking it and applying it to her skin. She said: "Nobody really knows how it works. "Some people say when using it externally it may be because it is germicidal and it is alkaline rather than acid.

"For using it internally, some people say it is similar to how homeopathy works in that you are getting a little bit of the illness back inside you. "Some people say it is because you are getting vitamins, minerals, amino acid and hormones which can be reused."

Urine has been recommended in religious scriptures, including the Bible. In the world of yoga, using urine is known as amaroli and it was originally a spiritual practice rather than treatment. About 70 years ago Englishman John Armstrong wrote his book, The Water Of Life, having been cured of tuberculosis which had been declared incurable.

In his book he reports on the success stories of people suffering from illnesses such as cancer who were treated with urine by fasting and drinking it, although there is no scientific proof it worked. It is often recommended urine which is a few days old is used for applying to the skin but Sonja said fresh urine can be applied.

The urine should be taken mid-stream. For children it can be mixed with vegetable glycerine to take out the sting but can be applied neat on adults. British actress Sarah Miles was famous for drinking her urine. Fresh urine should be used if it is to be drunk. The best urine is from the morning and taken mid-stream. It can be topped up with apple juice.

People should seek expert advice before using urine as a treatment.

Sonja said: "With babies, always, always check everything with a doctor. Especially with children, I never advise it is taken internally. "Even with adults I would still advise them to see their doctor. If taking any medication do not take it all." However, GP Dr David Delvin, a columnist for The Argus, said: "It is very definitely not recommended by the medical profession in this country because of all the waste products it contains."

Roland's DT-HD1 drum tutorial software will teach you to play the drums

Having the discipline to practice a real instrument for the long hours required to reach proficiency (and mastery) is much harder. Roland's Drum Tutorial DT-HD1 is the first of many products we've seen at CES 2009 that will help change this.

While the software is designed to go hand in hand with Roland's entry-level HD-1 electronic drum kit, it will talk to any electronic drum kit with a MIDI output using the included USB-MIDI interface.

The software starts off at a beginners pace, teaching you basic drum patterns and following the whole way through to playing full length songs with a backing track. What's really cool is the ability to load your own MIDI files into the software to play along with, so your track selection will never grow stale and you're not stuck paying $2 a pop for additional songs.

The Game Screen will be familiar to anyone who has played drums in Guitar Hero World Tour or Rock Band, with sequenced blocks falling down the screen that correspond to the different drums, and will give you a score at the end of the song.

Once you're comfortable here, you can move to the Notation Screen which will teach you to read real drum notation by visually displaying which pads to hit and which hands to use for fills. This mode has the advantage of showing you whether you're late, early, or on time for each note, so you can identify which sections you're having trouble with - and with the ability to set your own tempo, loop difficult sections, and learn difficult beats one pad at a time, you have everything you need to turn the trickiest beat into something you can play without breaking a sweat.

Roland DT-HD1 will be available in February 2009 with an MSRP of US$99 for Windows XP and Vista platforms. Needless to say, we're quite eager to get our hands on this one - stay tuned for a full review.

Power Gig game uses real guitar controller

There's a Battle of the Bands scenario brewing now that a new contender has arrived on the "play along to your favorite tunes with a game controller instrument" scene. Seven45 Studios has just released details of its new gaming system called PowerGig where the buttoned and plunger interface of the familiar Guitar Hero and Rock Band gaming interface ha s been tossed out in favor of a real six-string guitar.

Seven45 Studios has taken a more hands-on approach to its game and interface development than most other gaming companies in that it will develop and publish the software and manufacture the hardware. The game is to be called "Power Gig: Rise of the SixString" and will "transport players to an entirely new universe, with its own mythology, politics, settings, heroes and villains, where music rules all".

In response to requests for a more realistic approach to gameplay, Seven45 Studios has designed and manufactured a new gaming interface which is not only shaped like a guitar but also has six strings straddled atop 20 frets and a genuine guitar pickup to allow players to plug into an external amplifier and hear themselves rock out. There will be two modes of play on offer - the familiar beat matching kind of thing where players follow color-coded onscreen prompts and a chord play option.

Adding a more challenging aspect to the game, power chord finger placement prior to striking a note will be a new requirement, offering users a more realistic tactile experience as well as providing fundamental playing knowledge. In other words - as well as playing along to your favorite tune, by the time the song is mastered a user should actually be able to play it for real.

The company's Bernard Chui said of the development: "We believe that there is something unmatchable about the feeling of an authentic guitar in your hands, and Power Gig brings that excitement to all gamers with an instrument that absolutely anyone can pick up and play." The fact that Seven45 Studios is partnered with instrument manufacturer First Act should ensure that any instrument interface released will be of decent build quality.

Power Gig: Rise of the SixString is penciled in for a Fall 2010 release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 but made its alpha debut at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier in the week. As a guitarist I will be looking forward to actually getting some degree of satisfaction from the band game genre and welcoming TV interviews of the future where noted players proudly lay claim to learning to play thanks to a video game.

Have your guitar teach you how to play

If you’ve always hankered to learn to play the guitar, there’s a new product from Yamaha that looks ideal for removing all the obstacles – it’s a digital teaching guitar with guide lights so you can learn chords and how to play just by following the lights. The good news is it’s from Yamaha, the very same company that developed the piano teaching methodology that revived the world piano industry, so it ain’t just a toy. Further incentive is that because the whole thing is digital, it comes with a bunch of built-in songs and riffs and from the moment you begin playing you can play along with the whole band (also built-in).

The EZ-EG features 12 lighted frets that show beginners the actual hand positions for all the chords they’ll need to know before they take off on their own, and six “strings” that emulate strumming or finger-picking. In addition to an onboard selection of 36 songs, songs can be downloaded in the guitar’s Flash ROM via MIDI IN/OUT connections and a quick connection to a computer. The EZ-EG will also reproduce nine realistic guitar sounds, eight bass guitar sounds and the timbres of a banjo, piano and the traditional Japanese shamisen through its built-in speaker.

Selectable play modes include: Strumming Practice for the right hand, where chords change automatically during a strumming practice; Chord Training for the left hand, where the user simply makes the chord changes while it strums; and Full Play, which shows chord changes by lighting the frets, while the user strums and plays chords.

Standard “guitar” features include volume, tempo, and balance controls, standard tuning plus open tuning options and a tremolo bar. A unique electronic capo allows pitch adjustment. Users may plug the EZ-EG into a standard guitar amplifier, or use the mini-headphone jack for private practice. The EZ-EG operates on six “AA” cells, and includes a power adapter, pick and strap.

The EZ-EG Tutorial Electric Guitar retails for around US$300

BOSS eBand Player For Guitarists

For the budding guitarist one of the best ways to learn music is to play along with familiar tunes, and for more experienced axemeisters, the ability to build songs using loops and backing tracks is an important writing tool. The BOSS eBand JS-8 Audio Player is a versatile solution that suits both scenarios. Designed for guitarists who play and practice at home, the portable eBand has a built-in speaker stereo system and offers preset guitar sounds and effects, functions to change tempo and pitch and the ability to record sessions.

eBand is marketed for guitarists who want to learn songs, solos and riffs, practice new songs outside of band practice, or create new songs while jamming with audio tracks. If a user prefers to play along to a song from their own music collection, it can be loaded onto the audio player via USB memory stick or a SDHC memory card up to 32GB. eBand also has the ability to import songs from any audio CD using the included utility software.
The audio player allows the user to mix things up and create new sounds. It features COSM preamp technology, which works by using multiple modeling methods to accurately emulate the existing sound, and guitar effects derived from the BOSS GT-10 pedal. Pre-recorded vocals or guitar parts can be minimized and there's 300 audio-loop phrases onboard for backing tracks and rhythms.
To help keep guitarists on time and in key, tuner and metronome functions are built in. eBand also has a record function which is capable of saving an entire performance. After all, jamming alone wouldn’t be much fun if you couldn’t show off your creations to your band.
More details on the product page.