{"id":23728,"date":"2012-05-05T20:01:21","date_gmt":"2012-05-05T20:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/kimlisagor-today-i-learned-about-a-recent\/"},"modified":"2018-12-05T22:01:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T05:01:40","slug":"kimlisagor-today-i-learned-about-a-recent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/kimlisagor-today-i-learned-about-a-recent\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-23728 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/kimlisagor-today-i-learned-about-a-recent\/attachment\/23729\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/tumblr_m3ip9z1vKA1qzukb1o1_500-100x100.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/kimlisagor.tumblr.com\/post\/22404759632\/today-i-learned-about-a-recent-discovery\">kimlisagor<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Today I learned about a recent discovery that\u00a0has\u00a0the potential to save thousands of lives each day. If you haven\u2019t heard about it, that\u2019s probably because it\u2019s a niche story about water purification (no first-world implications).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s also a story about a scientist who found a simple, affordable solution to a complex problem. It may not have much news value, but I like that kind of story. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the developing world, dirty water and sanitation issues are behind 80 percent of disease.\u00a0The cheapest way to purify drinking water is to put it in plastic bottles and let it bake in the sun. Six hours later, you\u2019ve got pathogen-free (if plasticky) water.\u00a0It\u2019s called the SODIS method, and it\u2019s been critically important to communities that can\u2019t afford other solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Problem is, it requires clear water to begin with. You can\u2019t clean muddy water with sunlight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mse.mtu.edu\/faculty\/pearce.html\">this researcher at MTU<\/a> decided to see if he could come up with solution that was still affordable. He added salt to the muddy water.\u00a0Table salt.\u00a0Then he watched the muddying clay particles sink to the bottom of the container as the water above the sediment became clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dirty water + salt + sunlight = drinking water. That\u2019s it.\u00a0It\u2019s a solution that requires no fancy equipment, no pharmaceuticals, no complicated infrastructure. And it costs almost nothing. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>MTU made <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XF0DNdYASkM\">a nice little video<\/a>\u00a0that explains the process in a little more detail. If you want a lot more detail, you can read the paper <a href=\"http:\/\/mtu.academia.edu\/JoshuaPearce\/Papers\/1590504\/Optimizing_the_solar_water_disinfection_SODIS_method_by_decreasing_turbidity_with_NaCl\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>kimlisagor: Today I learned about a recent discovery that\u00a0has\u00a0the potential to save thousands of lives each day. If you haven\u2019t heard about it, that\u2019s probably because it\u2019s a niche story about water purification (no first-world implications).\u00a0 But it\u2019s also a story about a scientist who found a simple, affordable solution to a complex problem. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-words","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-6aI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23730,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23728\/revisions\/23730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}