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Oceanic Water Vapor As The New Source of Fresh Water
With the demand for water increasing every year, a lot of people don’t have access to clean and safe drinking water. At our estimate, over one billion people have this issue.Easy access to water is one of the most basic rights we should have. The lack of accessibility to this need moved experts to find alternative sources of water. While the option of obtaining seawater is there, the costs of removing the salt from them are expensive and energy-intensive. It will require specially-made desalination plants for people to constantly access drinkable seawater.A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports has proposed a potential water source: the air above our oceans. This is because oceanic water vapor is usually there as long as the sun shines above the oceans. University of Illinois’ civil and environmental engineering professor Praveen Kumar and his colleagues proposed capturing the moisture via towering structures offshore. Once these buildings have successfully obtained the vapor, it will then be sent onshore where it can be condensed to become freshwater.As a proof of concept, the researchers analyzed the amount of oceanic water vapor available at 14 different locations around the globe from the year 1990 to 2019. Their calculations showed that their proposed towering structures could extract enough to meet the daily needs of around 500,000 people.Image credit: Kumar et.al via Scientific Reports#research #water #seawater #freshwater #desalination #alternative #ScientificReports
Water on the Moon May have Come from Earth
There is some icy frost on the moon, and scientists believe there might be substantial liquid water under the lunar surface. Where did it come from? It could have come from the impact of comets and asteroids, but there's another possibility, one that would hold a lot more water, so to speak. It could have been spewed onto the moon from earth. Sure, earth is 240,000 miles away from the moon, give or take, but some very large forces are at work. The earth has a magnetic field around it, which is affected by solar winds, resulting in a teardrop-shaped magnetosphere. The "tail" of this magnetosphere is long enough so that the moon will pass through it. Hydrogen and oxygen ions from the earth are contained in the magnetosphere, and when the moon gets smacked by its tail, the ions become part of the moon. Over 3.5 billion years, that could mean a good amount of water. This is all spelled out in greater details at ScienceAlert. -via Damn Interesting(Image credit: NASA)#moon #water #magnetosphere
Leidenfrost Effect: Why Water Droplets Bounce Around on a Hot Surface ... and How to Stop It
Sprinkling some water on the pan is a trick that cooks use to know if the pan is hot enough for cooking. If the water bounces on the pan, then the pan is up to temperature. This phenomenon of water skittering on a hot surface is called the Leidenfrost effect. Water droplets exhibit this behavior when the surface temperature is around 200°C or higher. At this temperature, when a water droplet hits the pan, its bottom instantly evaporates and turns into vapor, which could serve as a cushion and an insulating barrier for the droplet. And so, the water droplet just bounces around.While the Leidenfrost effect is worth noting when cooking, it is a problem for liquid-based cooling systems which depend on evaporation to remove excess heat. For decades, scientists have been looking for solutions to this problem, but no one has been able to stop the phenomenon when surfaces reach extremely high temperatures. Researchers in Hong Kong may have finally found a way to prevent water from bouncing and skittering through a special membrane they call a "Structured Thermal Armour." This membrane can efficiently absorb the water, and the water evaporates quickly.(Image Credit: nature video/ YouTube)#CoolingSystems #LeidenfrostEffect #Water
Winners of the Nature Conservancy Photo Contest 2021
Nature is full of beauty and perfection. Being with nature is like looking at a masterpiece. It's a good thing that a camera exists so that we can capture nature's artwork.Photographers from all over the world share their views of nature for the Nature Conservancy Photo Contest 2021. The photos are breathtaking, inspiring, and even moving. The grand prize winner of the contest catches a western lowland female gorilla 'Malui' walking through a cloud of butterflies. This was captured by Anup Shah in December 2011 at Bai Hokou, Dzanga Sangha Special Dense Forest Reserve, Central African Republic.Check out all the images that won by category over at The Nature Conservancy.Image above: Anup Shah/TNC Photo Contest 2021#nature #photocontest #gorilla
This Is Lab-Made Metallic Water
Under normal circumstances, pure, distilled water (water removed of impurities such as salt) cannot conduct electricity due to its loosely linked molecules and bound valence electrons. But put water in an environment of extreme pressure, such as in the cores of giant planets like Jupiter, and it goes into a metallic phase, with its electrons behaving like free electrons in a conduction band. This fact on its own is already amazing. However, recreating this phase transition of water is more amazing, and this just happened for the first time ever.Using the electron storage ring BESSY II, a group of 15 scientists from 11 research institutions have successfully produced a aqueous solution with metallic properties, but with a different method. Instead, the scientists experimented with alkali metals, putting a tiny amount of water into a sodium-potassium alloy (which is liquid in room temperature.) According to the report by Dr. Robert Seidel, the scientist who supervised the experiments at BESSY II, this phase transition of water could even be seen by the naked eye.Siedel states that their study proves that metallic water can be produced here on Earth, and that their study “characterises the spectroscopic properties associated with its beautiful golden metallic luster.”Truly magnificent.(Images Credit: HZB)#Water #MetallicWater #BESSYII #Electrons #ConductionBand #AlkaliMetals #Chemistry
Scientists Created Tiny Self-Powered Swimming Robots Powered by Oil and Water
Stoyan Smoukov of Queen Mary University of London noted that “In biology, research shows that to create even the simplest artificial cells we need over 470 genes.” However, he and his international team has created a new type of artificial microswimmer with only 3 simple ingredients: oil, water, and detergent-like substance.The microswimmer droplets are able to use fluctuating changes in their surrounding environment to store energy and to use that energy to swim. When cooled, the droplets release a thin tail-like filament into the surrounding environment. The friction generated between the tails and the fluid pushes the microswimmers to move. When heated, the droplets retract their tails to their original state and harness the heat to recharge.The researchers were able to show that the droplets could recharge multiple times and swim for a period of up to 12 minutes each time.#robot #oil #water #flagella #microswimmer #biology #swim
Man Built AI-Powered Sprinkler to Spray People with Water so They'll Get Off His Lawn
Waiving your fist in the air and yelling "get off my lawn" is for old and grumpy people. Technologically savvy young people do it with AI.YouTuber Ryder Calm Down was sick and tired of people walking on his front lawn and trampling the grass that he's trying to regrow. So Ryder decided to build a sprinkler system with artificial intelligence that can detect people and dogs walking on the lawn, and spray them with water.Ryder took a Wyze security camera with custom firmware and paired it with a Raspberry Pi computer, an electronic valve to control water flow in a hose.Using a YOLOv3 machine learning model for computer vision and pattern recognition, Ryder could automate the detection of people and turn on a spray of water to get them off his lawn!Before you get all angry about the watery attack, please note that Ryder had subsequently updated all of us that the people in the video were actually all his friends, who knew what would happen if they walked on his lawn before agreeing to do it in camera. It's all just for fun, folks!#water #sprinkler #AI #artificialintelligence #lawn #grass #RyderCalmDown #getoffmylawn
Scientists Created Bendy, Flexible Ice
You don't usually think of ice as "bendy" or flexible - in fact, it's usually quite the opposite: ice is brittle and rigid, and is prone to fracturing and breaking (think of an ice cube shattering when you drop it on the floor).So I'm sure you're as surprised as I was when scientists from the Zhejiang University in China developed ice so bendy and flexible that you can bend it into a nearly circular shape.From Science Alert:Ice doesn't always behave the way we expect, and its elasticity – or rather, lack thereof – is a perfect example. Theoretically, it should have a maximum elastic strain of around 15 percent. In the real world, the maximum elastic strain ever measured was less than 0.3 percent. The reason for this discrepancy is that ice crystals have structural imperfections that drive up their brittleness.So a team of researchers led by nanoscientist Peizhen Xu of Zhejiang University in China sought to create ice with as few structural imperfections as possible....At minus 150 degrees Celsius, they found that a microfiber 4.4 micrometers across was able to bend into a nearly circular shape, with a radius of 20 micrometers. This suggests a maximum elastic strain of 10.9 percent – much closer to the theoretical limit than previous attempts.Even better, when the researchers released the ice, it sprang back into its previous shape.#water #ice #physics #elasticity
Life is Possible in the Clouds of Jupiter
A new study by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, published in Nature Astronomy, showed that while life is not possible in Venus, it is possible in the clouds of Jupiter.Recent space exploration missions have looked for evidence of life in space by trying to identify the existence of water, but these new findings show that it's not the quantity of water that matters for viable life, but the effective concentration of water molecules or "water activity.""Our research shows that the sulphuric acid clouds in Venus have too little water for active life to exist, based on what we know of life on Earth," said John E. Hallsworth, lead author of the study. "We have also found that the conditions of water and temperature within Jupiter’s clouds could allow microbial-type life to subsist, assuming that other requirements such as nutrients are present."Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Heidi N. Becker/Koji Kuramura#water #jupiter #ExtraTerrestrialLife #venus
New Device Harvests Water From the Air 24/7 Without Any Energy Input
Researchers at ETH Zurich have created a new device that harvests water from the air around the clock, with no energy input and even during hot days with blazing sun.From The Brighter Side of News:The new device essentially consists of a specially coated glass pane, which both reflects solar radiation and also radiates away its own heat through the atmosphere to the outer space. It thus cools itself down to as much as 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) below the ambient temperature. On the underside of this pane, water vapour from the air condenses into water.As tests of the new device under real-world conditions on the roof of an ETH building in Zurich showed, the new technology can produce at least twice as much water per area per day as the best current passive technologies based on foils: the small pilot system with a pane diameter of 10 centimetres delivered 4.6 millilitres of water per day under real-world conditions. Larger devices with larger panes would produce more water accordingly. The scientists were able to show that, under ideal conditions, they could harvest up to 0.53 decilitres (approximately 1.8 fluid ounces) of water per square metre of pane surface per hour.#water #waterharvester #watervapor
Realistic Glass Sculptures of Bags of Water by Dylan Martinez
These aren't plastic bags filled with water!Instead, they're glass sculptures of plastic bags filled with water by artist Dylan Martinez. The lifelike sculptures are titled "H2O/SiO2" (SiO2 is silicon dioxide or silica, which is used to make glass):Our vision has the greatest effect on our understanding of the world. Through Dylan’s artwork, he often creates scenarios in which the viewer must question their capacity to discern between reality and illusion. Martinez’s curiosity of perception is driven by the fact that he is red-green colorblind. Having a deficit in his color vision provides an alternative way of experiencing his environment. Inspired by Trompe L’oeil, H2O/SiO2 is entirely hot sculpted glass, which appear as plastic bags of water. The trapped movement of the rising bubbles and the gesture of the forms convince the eye that the sculptures are just as they seem. What is fascinating is that our desires often override the true perception of reality and you often believe what you think you see as the truth.#sculpture #GlassSculpture #water #plasticbag #trompeloeil
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