U pharmacy Air as a source of drinking water The idea of tapping nature s resources to develop medications has been around for a while Aspirin for instance is based on a substance with origins in nature whose predecessor salicin is found in wil low bark However since more and more medicines are losing their effi cacy researchers around the world have been exploring what else mother nature s med icine chest may contain Scientists at the University of Illinois in Chicago dove deep into the underwater world seeking sediments at the bottom of lakes and sponges clinging to shipwrecks In the mud of Lake Michigan they found bacteria which kill the bacte rium that causes tuberculosis For millions of years bacteria have fought one another says Professor Brian Murphy from Chicago We re just harnessing that power He and his fellow researchers assume that around 90 percent of oceanic life is microscop ically small which may hold plenty of potential for new drugs Around 785 million people have no basic supply of clean drinking water A group of researchers at the University of Texas is working on a method that might remedy this problem provided that it will be scalable The idea is to use a saline hydrogel to extract water from air Hydrogels consist of a polymer that can bind water In dai ly life they re already being used in diapers In the experiment the gel was left for an hour before being dried in a condenser to col lect the condensed water Afterwards the scientists repeated the process and found that the absorption capacity did not degrade even after several cycles As a result they obtained almost six liters 1 6 gallons of water per day even in arid conditions of just 30 percent relative humidity metric tons 930 000 short tons of highly toxic waste are caused by cigarette butts worldwide every year Some fi ve trillion fi lters consisting of persistent synthetic cellulose acetate end up in our natural environment Via channels and rivers nicotine heavy metals and other harmful substances clinging to them are fl ushed into the ocean where they pose an increasing threat to animals Even at a concentration of just one cigarette butt per liter 34 fl oz the toxic substances are lethal to small fi sh Source sciencefocus com 845 000 Thrift is of great revenue Cicero 106 43 BC Roman statesman and philosopher 63 FUTURE LIFE

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