More Poop Technology!

I'm a huge fan of Marginal Revolution.  I scan all of Tyler's "Assorted Links" and very occasionally have contributed to the list.  I ran across this story in the Washington Post about using canine DNA to catch poop offenders.

The basic story is that some condos and apartment buildings are requiring dog owners to register their DNA such that if any offending poop is found on the property, it can be properly linked back to the owner who did not clean up such poop.  The author of the article lamented that:

Yes, it has come to this: We live in a society where, rather than speaking to one another and gingerly asking neighbors to clean up their dogs’ messes, we mail a portion of said messes to Tennessee in a small bottle so that, using genetic sequencing and mathematical logarithms, the canine hooligan can be identified. Another case of technology taking the place of human interaction.

I don't know if I fully agree; this feels like the worst possible way to take this.  Also, I think that logarithms don't factor prominently into the equation.  I think this concern is over-wrought.  My thoughts:

• The author laments that we don't talk to each other any more.  This supposes that we can always be around to keep track of other people's business.  Dog walking (and therefore pooping) takes place at all times.  It's silly to think that more than one person will be there to observe.
• This is a fantastic use of technology!  Seriously, a company is making a profit from sequencing DNA found in and separated out of dog poop for ~$65.  This is a much more cost-effective solution than surveillance cameras.  And the costs scale perfectly with the problem (and is ultimately of no cost to the apartment owner or condo associations).
• I find the incentive for dog owners to behave to be perfectly constructed.  The costs that they pay are related to the infraction (identification of the offender).  And non-dog owning residents are not affected at all.
• People truly suck.  It takes this sort of incentive to stop the bad behavior.  That is sad.  And not a commentary on technology, but of people.  The only major repeat offender cited in this story (admittedly anecdotal) is one who avoided the pet registration in the first place. 
• I'm glad that I'm not the one collecting the samples.

Tracking Your Critters

It has been said that over half of the genetic material in or on our bodies is not human in origin.  One area where there has been a lot of study in the last five years has been on the flora in our guts.  The bacteria in our guts has been linked to various problems - ulcers, obesity, stupidity (ok, maybe not the last one).  There is now a start-up out there looking to help you understand your very own flora.  They call themselves uBiome.  I think that they should be call uPoop and then you can have an iPhone app called (obviously) iPoop where they deliver the results of your most recent stool sample.

Joking aside, this looks super interesting to me and when the prices drop to something less than $89 per sample, I might dive in (so to speak).  I do have some concern that the FDA will shut them down in a way similar to 23andMe, so I'll wait until that gets sorted out, too.