The multimillion dollar water recycler recently installed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station is still experiencing some minor issues this evening, meaning crew members will just have to wait to have their first peetinis, Long Island Iced Pees, Whiskpee Sours and other lame pee-themed drinks I have yet to think of. The prototype recycler, which separates waste from water using a centrifuge system, was brought to the station aboard the latest shuttle mission. It malfunctioned two hours after installation, although a separate sweat and waste water recycler is working as expected. Phew!

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The Home Chare—yes, that's chare, not chair—is a combination wheelchair for the disabled and for Jabba the Hutts. This device not only can be adjusted into a bed and standing aid, but also can double as a toilet via a replaceable seatless cushion. We can't see how this toilet design is convenient though, unless, of course, you rode around in this wheelchair pantless or in a pair of asschaps. Since the Home Chare is currently not on the market, we hope this will give them time to fix the restroom-accessibility situation. [Product Page via Yanko]

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Johnny Henry of Laurel, Mississippi claims that the vibrating toilet seat he has concocted "is designed to stimulate," he said. "It's to make you feel good while you are there." In other words, it seduces and stimulates stubborn bowels into action. Mmmm...sounds like how I would like to spend part of my morning between 8 and 9 am (right after two cups of coffee and something with bran in it). The good news is that Henry has developed a prototype and is already pitching it to investors. With any luck, we will all be chillin' in the bathroom with a vibrating seat and a whole pack of 3 ply sometime soon. [Leader Call via Boing Boing]

A much-needed second toilet is on its way to the International Space Station, but that's not all, not nearly. NASA is gifting the crew with a new waste recycling system, which will be able to reclaim 'used' water. In other words, it will process astronauts' urine and return it to the station's water supply to, as one of the current inhabitants of the stations cheerily put it, "take yesterday's coffee and make it into today's coffee."

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Jettisoned over a year ago and expected to reenter the Earth's atmosphere on its own time somewhere in the beginning of November, one of the ISS's retired coolant tanks has careened through the Earth's atmosphere in the skies off the coast of Australia. Two lucky things happened here: the reentry took place — and this was completely up to chance — over water, and the atmosphere broke the 635kg tank into lots of small pieces.

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You might want to stay inside today, folks, because there's some space junk the size of a Buick set to reenter Earth's atmosphere and land, well, somewhere later today. After the spectacular disintegration of the Jules Verne earlier this year, this is the second time our earthbound space agencies have purposefully burned something up in the atmosphere. The trouble is, the Verne was carefully controlled and tracked by two planes (hence, the spectacular video). When this puppy breaks up in the atmo, at least 15 chunks of ammonia-soaked metal and other space station goodness are going to reach the surface. "If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it," said a NASA spokesman.

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No matter who you are pulling for in this election, the popularity polls indicate that the vast majority of Americans are ready to see Bush pack up his things and get the hell out of the White House. While there is tons of anti-Bush paraphernalia out there, few things capture our disdain as well as "George W. Flush"—a design by famed urinal sculptor Clark Sorensen.

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Here's a piece of advice: when riding a high-speed train with a toilet that uses super-high powered suction to flush, keep your hand out of there. One unlucky Frenchman learned the value of this advice the hard way when he dropped his phone into the toilet of a TGV train. When he reached in to retrieve it, the suction kicked in, and it all went downhill from there.

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Okay, not really, my desktop won't fit in my bathroom, but you people really are disgusting. At least according to a survey sponsored by Nokia, 53 percent of Americans have taken a work-related call or email in the bathroom. (Our own results were actually worse.) It doesn't reveal exactly what else they were doing in the bathroom at the time, but it's probably better that way. I mean, just thinking about it makes me wanna wash my hands. So the next time somebody hands you their phone to check out this amazing new app, you better make sure it's amazing first. [Gadget Lab]

You know how awesome it feels to make it to the bathroom after holding it for a really long time? Not just the standard "I gotta go," but somehow enduring the definite, palpable feeling that the thin membrane called your bladder is so full it's going to burst at any second for a considerable length of time, maintaining control until you finally reach the appropriate vessel to relieve yourself into.

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