A team of scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras has developed a device that can deliver safe drinking water to families living in rural areas of the Developing World for a cost of about $2.50 US per year. That cost includes materials and operation. The research into

If you ever have used a salad spinner to dry out your lettuce then you know the principle behind the GiraDora, loosely meaning “spinning washing machine” in Spanish. GiraDora both washes and spin dries clothes placed in it, and it does it without electricity, just pedal po

There is a finite amount of arable land on which to raise food crops and livestock on our planet. There is only so much freshwater to go around. So if today we are struggling to feed more than 1 billion of the 7 billion on Earth, what do we need to do to ensure that 2.5 billion more m

I don’t know how I missed this gadget which one a design award back in 2010. It is called the DewBank and it is biomimetic device that collects and channels water into a bottle even in a desert climate. Simply place the stainless steel device on a flat, windless area in the even

Last week I finished reading Al Gore’s latest tome, a follow up to his well publicized “An Inconvenient Truth,” probably his most significant contribution to the global climate change debate, although I would think “debate” is an over statement at this st

A veritable cornucopia of gadgets can be found at Open Source Technology, featuring the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), a modular, low-cost technology platform from which you can manufacture 50 different types of machines including: 3D printer 3D scanner 50 Kilowatt wind turbi

In the past couple of weeks there have been several research studies projecting environmental consequences to rising global temperatures. It is an interesting mix of good and bad. Let’s start with the good. Climate change studies of the southern and eastern parts of Africa show

My weekly picks unlike last week are not a single theme but range over many science and technology fields. I hope you find these stories as interesting as I do.   The Universe is 100 Millions Older Than We Thought; Physicists Calculate Doomsday Argument; New 3D Display No Longer

MadiDrop is the name. Water purification is the game. What is it? Who invented it? How does it work? MadiDrop is a small ceramic disk (see image below) containing either silver or copper nanoparticles. It is a product of PureMadi, a non-profit organization associated with the Universi

As I was reading my morning paper today I came across a quote from Robert Friedland, an entrepreneur and mining engineer who in giving a speech to the MineAfrica event of the Prospectors and Developers Association annual conference being held in my hometown of Toronto, talked about th