That is certainly the case in Yemen, on the south flank of the Arabian Peninsula, where the desert sands have a new look these days. Satellite images show around 100,000 solar panels glinting in the sun, surrounded by green fields. Hooked to water pumps, the panels provide free energy for farmers to pump out ancient … Read more
It’s no secret that skin and hair care products are a multi-billion-dollar industry that consumers pour their hard-earned dollars into every single day, hoping the next product will deliver glowing skin and silky, manageable hair. But what if the real solution can be found in the hardware store? Have you ever noticed a change in … Read more
.jpg "US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day")
Your city is a scab on the landscape: sidewalks, roads, parking lots, rooftops—the built environment repels water into sewers and then into the environment. Urban planners have been doing it for centuries, treating stormwater as a nuisance to be diverted away as quickly as possible to avoid flooding. Not only is that a waste of … Read more
Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as … Read more
Epic Cleantec’s soil amendment Photograph: Matt Simon Researchers are experimenting with using the same technique for wastewater solids, basically turning sludge into a solid product. “If you do pyrolysis—because it’s thermochemical, it’s a heated process—you kill these bacteria, kill these pathogens, kill these viruses. It’s much cleaner,” says engineer Fengqi You, who studies wastewater at … Read more
Stanley cups can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight. The popular 40-ounce drinking cups have captured the hearts (and wallets) of millennial and Generation Z shoppers, and are famous for selling out in minutes. But concerns over tumblers containing lead, a naturally occurring metal found in the Earth’s crust, have made headlines recently, leaving … Read more
“However, if a system is permanently impaired it is also possible that recovery will not reach former levels,” Montagna said. Studies suggest that systems around Corpus Christi may already be “permanently impaired,” Montagna said, largely due to a sustained lack of fresh water. Similar problems span the lower Texas coast. The Rio Grande hasn’t flowed … Read more
The water that pours out of your tap, or that’s unnecessarily packaged in a single-use bottle, or that helped grow the produce in your fridge—all of it may well have come from aquifers somewhere. These are layers of underground material that hold water, and can be made up of porous rock or sediments like sand … Read more
For the first time in four centuries, it’s good to be a beaver. Long persecuted for their pelts and reviled as pests, the dam-building rodents are today hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the face of drought, filter out pollutants, furnish habitat for endangered species, and fight wildfires. … Read more
Fluids can be roughly divided into two categories: regular ones and weird ones. Regular ones, like water and alcohol, act more or less as expected when pumped through pipes or stirred with a spoon. Lurking among the weird ones—which include substances such as paint, honey, mucus, blood, ketchup, and oobleck—are a vast variety of behavioral … Read more
