Worth noting that this study was partially funded by the university of Waterloo
Ig nobel prizes were just a few days ago:<p><a href="https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2026" rel="nofollow">https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2026</a><p><i>Edit:</i> The splash free urinal was the winner for physics!<p>I once joked that these do more for science than Nobel prizes. Now I don't think it's a joke: "wacky but interesting" awards are more important for the advancement of science than "everyone agrees this these people should be even more famous" awards.
The recent introduction, in the UK at least, of splash-back reducing urinal … mats (?) has basically solved the problem in my opinion. They’re a disposable (but not single use…) plastic freshening insert with loads of short rubber strands, closely packed.<p>You can pee on one of these mats and the stream almost aerates itself on impact and you get basically no splashback, I guess with a similar mechanism to how an aerating tap produces a stream of water that doesn’t splash off whatever it hits.
We've had those in the US for several years now, and they work really well.<p>I did encounter an upside-down one yesterday. That was... counterproductive.
I was on a work trip to Indianapolis last week and encountered two separate urinals with plastic screens branded by the same supplier. One screen was branded so that the plastic fingers point towards the user, one was branded so that the plastic fingers pointed towards the drain (i.e. the wrong way).<p>Makes me wonder why. Was that a misprint? Did someone get confused about the correct direction for the fingers?
And those, when they have a target on them (like football theme often seen in pubs in Europe) kinda combine the igNobel prize with the "Nobel" [0] prize on nudge !<p>[0] not a nobel prize but the prize of the swedish bank in memory of ...
Yes this is the best solution I've seen. And every male pretty quickly figures out that the angle of the stream greatly affects splashback. Seems rather wasteful to spend money on this study for a solved/non-problem.
The worst urinal which I used was in Brussels about 15 years ago, and with that "splash-back reducing" mat. And it covered every part of the inner wall of the urinal. The mat caused the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do. It made it worse, and I had to wash my shorts, because it started to smell disgusting the next day.
I remember being annoyed by splash back in sixth grade. I mocked up an alternative design (essentially, a urinal that tilted away from you), and emailed some friends. They never responded, and I never followed up.<p>Looking back I feel sad - that's the kind of curiosity to nurture in a kid. But peers are rarely the best group, it would've been better to tell my parents or the right kind of teacher. My friends also could've said something: " I don't know what to do about this but you should tell ms blah blah blah", in a serious way not mocking way.<p>I'm glad someone else has finally looked at this sticky situation
You would have been an excellent splash sputter scientist.<p>> I'm glad someone else has finally looked at this sticky situation<p>Wait ... your splash variants are sticky???
I mean you're sad about a hypothetical. Why not consider the alternative where even your parents and teachers will probably not care because who wants to hear about a splash free uniral design from a kid in sixth grade. Like if some kid walked up to me with that, I would ignore them too sorry.
Global sustainability and accessibility seems a bit grandiose lol. It’s just a urinal after all. That being said, it’s been 4 years since Waterloo first determined this and it’s still unavailable to purchase. I’ve been patiently waiting for one to install in my shop but it seems like it’s not all that important for the globe if it’s still unavailable 4 years later.
Things we take for granted, like washing hands, were pivotal in reducing illness in hospitals.<p>If 50% of the population walk out of a public bathroom without tracking urine on their feet or anything else that touched the floor and custodians have 99% less bodily fluids to deal with, that seems like positive progress. Maybe it will move the needle in ways that are unexpected.
There are performant urinals in the market and have been for many years.<p>Talk to a local mechanical engineer who does plumbing design for recommendations that are available in your market and their probable cost.<p>If you are getting noticeable splashback, you have a very poorly designed urinal. The kind that gets architects angry calls from clients.<p>——<p>I used to work in architecture.
I would love to see some Nautilus style urinals because--as a self-interested adult--splashback also hits <i>me</i> if the angle is bad enough. Sometimes I even use the stalls to avoid those porcelain tricksters entirely.
Same attitude that prevents the urinal manufacturers from switching I reckon
There are a lot of reasons why something could get picked up, and sustainability is very low on the list. The manufacturers don't care; they get paid the same regardless of the amount of splashback. Most businesses won't care unless it significantly reduces maintenance overhead, and that's only going to happen if splashed urine is the determining factor in how frequently a bathroom gets cleaned. (As opposed to paper towels littering the floor, supplies running out, or the various disgusting things that happen in stalls.) Even if it <i>were</i> the determining factor, there would likely be pushback when people realize that better urinals lead to less frequent cleanings, and I wouldn't want to be the one having to justify the switch to people. And of course, if you already have a urinal, nobody's eager to buy a new one, and nobody's eager to discuss this particular topic.<p>The way I would see this happening is if users insist on it. And we likely won't until we experience one of these in real life, which makes it a chicken and egg problem.<p>There's also the argument that splash mats are a cheaper and even superior approach. That argument is unconvincing to me, because the ones I have experienced have been mostly ineffective, but it sounds like others' experience has been better. Maybe here in the US we just don't have very good ones? As a country, we've always been pretty bad at anything that seems gross. (Not that it's all that different in the rest of the West.) We have this naive faith in the ability of dry toilet paper to clean that which it can not, and disgust at alternative approaches that actually work. But that's a different topic. (Specifically, solids not liquids!)
Design through physics and differential equations.<p>This paper is Ig® Nobel Physics Prize Winner 2026
<a href="https://improbable.com/ig/winners/" rel="nofollow">https://improbable.com/ig/winners/</a>
Sometimes i am using an urinal and i feel like no engineers were involved in the design. Glad to see someone is actually approaching this with proper science.<p>There is more to it than the splashback tho. Sometimes it seems that the surfaces that already have splashes on them are not angled properly to lead the water to the drain. This seems to create need to have sharp edge/lip rather than round one, which might be tricky to make resilient in porcelain. But the rounded lip certainly allows for droplet flow towards the user rather than the drain hole.
No amount of engineering can solve the problem that no matter how much you jiggle, you shake, or you dance, the very last drop always falls in your pants.
> The “urine-no,” a hostile antiurination surface:<p>> Instead of minimising splash, it can instead be maximized by setting […], see Fig. 7a. Although not suitable as a commonly practical urinal, it showcases the design philosophy. Such a surface could be installed outdoors to deter public urination as the offender would fall prey to enhanced splash-back. This hostile surface may be dubbed as “urine-no,” as shown in Fig. 7b.<p>Love it!
I was in a Costco one, and the men's room urinal was a trough, a strainless steel trough! I thought it was 'cool'.<p>What they need to do with urinal design is to make one that can catch the wide-spray of someone who sports a PA.<p>I worked as a temp once in a stae government building. It didn't have enough bathrooms. The toilets were of the type that drained/fastened to the wall instead of the floor. One day, someone big sat down and broke it. There was an angry announcement on the rarely-used building-wide speaker. Nobody owned-up to it.
Even if a urinal doesn't splash, there's usually (always?) a decent amount of fine droplets that eject out from the stream since the flow is rather turbulent. On top of that, the fleshy opening is never completely stable.<p>What we really need is laminar flow!
I really like the inverted version, where it's almost guaranteed to splash yourself as a deterrent.
There are historical examples of this in some alleys in central London (<a href="https://www.exploringgb.co.uk/blog/9th-century-urine-deflectors-in-london" rel="nofollow">https://www.exploringgb.co.uk/blog/9th-century-urine-deflect...</a>).<p>I remember being unpleasantly surprised by one after a particularly heavy New Year's as a student.
> The “urine-no,” a hostile antiurination surface
it is hilarious that they include Marcel Duchamp in this discussion! <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)</a>
> droplets which travel back onto the floor and user<p>I suppose this disproves Tufte's "There are only two industries that call their customers 'users': illegal drugs and software."
The Cornucopia looks like the cybertruck of urinals.
The discussions section describes a solution to the opposite problem, where you optimise a surface for high splashback to deter people from peeing on it. Whether this makes the authors Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good is a matter of personal opinion, but they're definitely one or the other.
a surprising paragraph in the middle of the article "The “urine-no,” a hostile antiurination surface"
"Canadian who helped design splash-free urinal is proud of his weird science award"<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/2026-ig-nobels-9.7331408" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/2026-ig-nobels-9.733140...</a>
Just aim at the sweet spot where your stream smoothly swirls into the plughole. No spray, minimal sound. Most toilets and all urinals have this spot you can hit. In Amsterdam airport they even mark it for you with a crosshairs!
I simply use a catheter and avoid such problems.
As men, can we just sit down? For the last 10 years or so I have been doing exactly that and it’s been wonderful. Cleaner toilets, cleaner hands, cleaner clothing and no more annoying drips of pee in the boxers after the act because it relaxes the muscles more.
Traditional urinals [1] are very effective. As are the steel variants [2]. The latter tend to become very grim over time.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.hlwashrooms.co.uk/healey--lord-niagara-urinals---floor-standing-161-c.asp" rel="nofollow">https://www.hlwashrooms.co.uk/healey--lord-niagara-urinals--...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://acornthorn.co.uk/urinals-wcs-cubicles/urinals/ur068-floor-standing-trough-urinal" rel="nofollow">https://acornthorn.co.uk/urinals-wcs-cubicles/urinals/ur068-...</a>
Direct link to the designs (c and d, with d being practical). Great paper honestly.<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/512223725/pgaf087f4.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/512223725/pgaf087...</a>
I love that La Fontaine is named in tribute to Marcel Duchamp[0], even if calling a splash-free urinal a fountain would seem a bit confusing on the surface.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)</a>
C looks challenging to clean
It’s not much help if the aim is off
European closets have the same issue. Indian closets does not. Actually Indian closets are superior in every way if you have good knees...
In practice a user will find the squat toilet to be superior until the user count increases above a dozen per hour. Then a single user will carelessly engage the spray hose and saturate the entire area. The area around the pit will be inundated with muddy water. Remediation requires a mop and bucket, which is likely only performed once daily.<p>An anatomically inferior sitting toilet in similar settings will often be soiled by careless users. However, a conscientious user can tidy their contact surfaces with toilet paper.<p>This has been my observation from my travels in the three continents I have been able to observe squat toilets in use.
They have had these in Japan for a while now it feels like.
Nice, but does it takes into account that some droplets are directly issued from the hose itself ? Not to mention the double stream problem ^u^
Cool paper nonetheless.
> High-speed images of splash events generated by flow from an anatomically accurate nozzle<p>They had some fun writing this.
The secret to splash free male urination is..sitting down.
In a public toilet? Not happening. Back to square one.
At home? 100%. Out in the world? Very much depends.<p>I was just in a stall where the inside of door had a pictogram forbidding users from standing on the edge of the bowl and squatting. I assume this might be for visitors from countries where squatting is common.<p>Point being, you just never know what random members of the public will do with a door to hide behind.
Even women won't consistently sit down on public toilets
This reminded me of some scenes in the videogame Dispatch [1]<p>[1] : <a href="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dispatch/images/c/ca/Dispatch_capsuleArt.png" rel="nofollow">https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dispatch/images/c/ca/Dispa...</a>
it includes an anti-urination idea for outdoors, which may be worth noting.
Somebody tell Larry David about this
That takes all the fun out of using public toilets.<p>One of the more interesting scientific studies was the behavioural change
of when you put down the image of a fly on an urinal. These flies are
suddenly targeted by strong streams as if there is no tomorrow ...
Sustainability?<p>What resource will we run out of if we continue to piss in traditional urinals?<p>Has bullshit marketing terms invaded scientific papers now as well?
There was a trend for a while for waterless/flushless urinals to save water. Though I would guess those have higher cleaning costs so not sure how that worked out in the end.
Water and chemicals spent on cleaning. Less splash means less cleaning.
not so long ago it was very fashionable to include DEI/ESG/etc lip service in those things, regardless of whether it made sense. for example, I've read a study comparing leather tanning compounds and it had a completely out of place paragraph babbling about climate change. the author wasn't even American, it's a global cargo cult.
Just pee in the sink
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinal_target" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinal_target</a>
The previous design was piss-poor
Honestly not a bad idea
> At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, the use of fly stickers to change aiming behavior resulted in a reportedly 50–80% reduction (not elimination) in splashback observed and an 8% reduction in cleaning costs<p>It's surprising it's that high (8%). I would imagine it takes as long to mop a floor that has pee droplets or mop a floor that doesn’t. And someone still needs to mop the bathroom floor anyway and go into the bathroom anyway. Unless you pay the cleaners by hour instead of having them on payroll, monetarily I don't see the difference.<p>I expect cleaning costs to be dominated by the long tail, ie every bathroom cleanup job being the same except for the odd time when someone threw up on the floor or sprayed poop on the walls or what have you.<p>Still nice to not get pee on yourself though, that part is good.
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TLDR: The "Cornucopia" has the least amount of splashback, however the "Nautilus" is the recommendation of choice, to accommodate ease of cleaning and variations in the height of the user.<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/4/pgaf087/8098745#512223725" rel="nofollow">https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/4/pgaf087/80987...</a>