WaterMill: Making Water As Common As Air

I don’t understand why I can’t spend three hours in the shower or courtesy flush twice during a massive number two. Why is water such a precious and conserved commodity when we have devices like the WaterMill which extracts the water from air? This glorified dehumidifier is placed on the outside of your house and brings fresh water in to your home all day long. It will draw in up to 12 liters of water each day and distribute the extracted and purified water to your fridge, to a tap on your kitchen sink, to a water cooler or to its own dispenser.

So, the next time you consider getting out of the shower early or you hold off on flushing just so you can save water, think twice because water is easy to find.

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A World’s First: Solar Submarine

When one thinks of a submarine, solar energy is the furthest thing from their mind. After all, submarines dive down deep below the ocean’s surface where the sun does not shine. The Swiss energy company, BKW is a little more optimistic than myself. It’s unveiled the GOLDFISH project, which will feature the world’s first solar powered submarine.

How will they do it? How could they possibly get the sun to energize solar panels underneath the sea? The answer is quite simple: bring the solar panels to the surface. Duh! A floating solar array that takes on the appearance of a water lily will be capable of producing 30 kilowatts of electricity. Currently, BKW is still looking for investors for this project so that it may begin building it. The project is estimated to cost about $8.85 million. If you’ve got more money than you know what to do with, here’s an investment that could help save the planet and make you look good while doing it.

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Phoenix Mars Lander Ends Mission

Filed under: Robots, Science

The Phoenix Mars Lander has given NASA and scientists an unimaginable amount of information. It discovered both water and snow on Mars and has helped paved the way for exploring for life in outer space. But all good things must come to an end and after a Martian dust storm, combined with the harsh winter conditions on the surface of the planet, the time has come for the Phoenix to shut down and die. NASA has declared the mission officially over and the lander is now shut off and dead.

If you’ll recall, the mission cost about $475 million. I think you’ll have to agree that it was money well spent considering what we discovered. I call dibs on the lander wheels when we all move to Mars in 2056.

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Unfortunately, iSnow Is Not Colombian Cocaine

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Live in Arizona? How about Texas? Florida?

If you live somewhere where it doesn’t snow, consider iSnow. For $4 and a feeling of embarrassment, you can open the package, mix in a little water and have some snow to play with. It’s made in China though, so make sure your kids aren’t playing with this shit. It’s probably packed to the jam with GHB, like many of the other unsafe toys to come out of China.

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Carnival Fun In Your Own Home

Remember that one summer in Coney Island where you sat down at a boardwalk game, trying to win a prize for your girlfriend? You had to shoot the water into a dude’s face until it a bell went off and little did you know it but you actually had a knack for this game.

Now fast forward to today. You’re divorced, lonely and you’re smoking entirely too much pot. Due to recent investments in GFSE stock, you’ve got $11,000 to play with. What do you do?

Easy. You spend it on this authentic Water Blast machine. It’ll allow you and your buddies to spend countless hours shooting jets of water at a target, just like you did that one special summer.

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You Better Have A Lead Belly For RainDrops

I can see how drinking rain water would be a life saver when you’re out in the middle of nowhere and your options are limited. On the other hand, drinking rain water that’s collected from your gutter doesn’t sound too refreshing. That’s what Rain Drops, the cheap rainwater harvesting system, proposes.

It’s essentially a series of two liter cola bottles connected to your gutters. Which means, all of that fine bacteria that not only pollutes the skies but also builds up in your gutters, will now be in your drinking water. That’s not to say that tap water is much better than rain water, but if you’re going to be drinking it, you might want to add some sort of sterilization procedure in to the whole design.

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GE Develops Water-Repelling Metals

Filed under: Science

Scientists at General Electric’s Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY have developed a way to repel water off of metals through a treatment using superhydrophobicity properties. This is big news and is set to change the way we develop new products.

Superhydrophobic metals open up many new applications, says Jeffrey Youngblood, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University. “Metallic structures are more robust and can survive in harsher environments, allowing for their use in applications where plastic is infeasible, [such as in] planes, trains, automobiles, heavy machinery, and engines,” Youngblood says.

So essentially, you could keep water off a ship, out of an airplane’s engines and so on with this new superhydrophobic metal. GE will no doubt profit to no end from this discovery.

Bonus: Did you notice “hydro” and “phobic”? Super afraid of water, essentially. I suppose those six Latin classes I took paid off.

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DIY: A Water Bottle Chandelier

Filed under: Design, Eco-tech

When you’re in the market for a new chandelier to decorate your home, style is everything. Sometimes style is outweighed by design, which is the case with this water bottle chandelier designed by Michelle Brand. We’ve seen chandeliers made of all sorts of recycled junk. Ballpoint pens, CD cases and even milk crates can be used to make impressive-looking household decor and the creativity doesn’t stop there.

Artist Michelle Brand uses cut-off plastic bottle bases to shower interiors with light.  So not only is she resourcefully recycling plastic, she’s also making a bitchin’ light source for your living room.

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First Water, Now Snow? Go Figure

Filed under: Science

The Phoenix Lander is still hard at work discovering various hints of life on Mars. NASA had originally believed there was ice on Mars, but weren’t able to prove it at the time. Then, NASA found water.  Now, Philip Christensen, the principal investigator for the Mars Odyssey THEMIS camera system and a professor from Arizona State University says melting snow in Martian craters may have created a system of gullies that have potentially formed life.

“I think we have discovered remnants of snow packs on Mars that in the recent past have melted,” says Christensen. “I think if you were to land on one of those and stick a shovel in the ground, you’d be shoveling snow. And if life ever existed on Mars, I can’t think of a more exciting place to possibly go and look.”

Mars is a cold place, but just because it’s as cold as a witches tit doesn’t mean it can’t sustain lifeforms. After all, there are organisms on Earth that can withstand the temperature of Mars. Is mankind ready to take that giant leap into the final frontier and colonize a planet? Probably not. Regardless, Mars is proving itself to be the perfect candidate and has been proving it for quite some time.

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Water-powered Snakebot Firefighter Looks Like My Junk

Filed under: Design, Robots, Science

We don’t get the chance to see many snakebots. There’s the Japanese M-Tran, a shape shifting robot, but that hardly counts as a snakebot. Anna Konda, however, is very much a snakebot. Despite looking and acting very similarly to a penis, Anna is really a firefighter.

Anna has 20 joints, each with 33 degrees of freedom, giving it an extensive range of movement. What makes Anna such a stalwart firefighter is not only does it shoot water, it’s powered by water. Each joint module contains hydraulic valves and cylinders capable of handling up to 1450 PSI of water pressure. The downside is, Anna will never go wireless. Fire hoses aren’t wireless, are they?

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