Stanford scientists designed a smart toilet that can ID you just with a picture of your butt to monitor the health of your poop and pee

Hollis Johnson / Business Insider

• Stanford researchers are developing a smart toilet that uses biometrics to identify people's butts and analyze their poop.
• The toilet is meant to detect "a range of disease markers in stool and urine" including multiple types of cancer.
• It's been tested on 21 people. Researchers also surveyed 300 prospective users, and roughly half said they were comfortable with the idea.
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If you're looking for very, very personalized data about your bathroom habits, look no further.

Scientists at Stanford University have developed a smart toilet that can identify people based on their butt and monitor the health of their poop and pee.

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The smart toilet, which the Stanford team published an article about this week in Nature Biomedical Engineering, was designed as a continuous health monitoring device, like a smart watch. It uses cameras and motion sensors to identify "a range of disease markers in stool and urine," including colon cancer and prostate cancer.

"When I'd bring it up, people would sort of laugh because it seemed like an interesting idea, but also a bit odd," lead researcher Sanjiv Gambhir said in a press release. "Everyone uses the bathroom - there's really no avoiding it - and that enhances its value as a disease-detecting device."

It also has a built-in identification system. The smart toilet's flush lever is equipped a fingerprint reader, and cameras in the toilet bowl can identify people's butts.

"We know it seems weird, but as it turns out, your anal print is unique," Gambhir said.

The toilet's still in early stages and isn't meant to replace a doctor or diagnosis, but rather to alert users to red flags that could warrant medical attention.

Here's how it works.

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