Cookie Monster Stainless Steel Water Bottle - $11.95

The New Year is here! The resolutions are made! Will 2012 be the year you get your inner cookie loving monster under control? Get inspired to stay hydrated and get active with the Cookie Monster Stainless Steel Water Bottle from the NeatoShop.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Water Bottles! Oh, and once you are over all the exercising be sure to come back and check out all the exciting Food & Drinks!

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No, it’s not really a rose being liquified. It’s a composite photograph of 17 different images of a crystal rose with colored water being poured down the surface. My hat goes off to Anthony Chang for having the patience to put together this gorgeous art project.

Link Via Laughing Squid

From spiders who can live underwater for a whole day at a time to underwater rivers with their own wave systems, it’s simply amazing what can happen below the surface.

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“I have already advised my children. I got four daughters and one only son. … They’ve been well educated, and now they all got jobs in the government. Well that’d be okay for their life at the moment but … I have advised them — it is better to migrate.”

This sentiment is not held by all. Though encouraging his children to migrate, Malologa himself wants to stay in Tuvalu. While most Tuvaluans have family living abroad, largely in New Zealand and Fiji, many people I met there wanted to stay in Tuvalu as long as possible. But in a country where land is precious and scarce, coastal erosion, flooding, and increasingly severe weather patterns, eking out a living here is now difficult.

Read more and see a gallery of photos at The Atlantic. Link -via Look At This

(Image credit: Amelia Holowaty Krales)

The title of this picture from redditor theroboticdan is “My cousin’s entire Bridal Party sank into a lake this weekend. Awesome picture…. ” but the top-voted comment gave it the above title. There are plenty more puns in the comments. Link

(Image credit: Jeff Hayford)

With waterborne illnesses affecting 40 million Indians each year, Sarvarjal has targeted a way to meet the need for clean water. The water “ATMs” are solar powered and franchised throughout villages. A liter of water on the average Indian’s income of $.60 a day is $.006 or less.

Link -via Gizmodo

The train station in Osaka, Japan has a computerized fountain that spells out the time, announcements, and pictures in falling water. If you spend too much time waiting for the clock to display, you’ll realize what time it really is …time to find a restroom! See more pictures and video at the uploader’s site. Link -via Everlasting Blort

The Tropism Well bows as you approach it, filling a pitcher with water and pouring it into your cup. UK-based Poietic Studio is looking into creating permanent installations of the fountain for public places.

Link -via Laughing Squid

“Dealing with arsenic contamination of drinking water in the developing world requires simple technology based on locally available materials,” said study leader Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., professor of analytical and environmental chemistry at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, N.J. “Our process uses pieces of plastic water, soda pop and other beverage bottles. Coat the pieces with cysteine — that’s an amino acid found in dietary supplements and foods — and stir the plastic in arsenic-contaminated water. This works like a magnet. The cysteine binds up the arsenic. Remove the plastic and you have drinkable water.”

Tongesayi described laboratory tests of the plastic bottle arsenic removal method on water containing 20 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic, which is two times the safe standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water. It produced drinkable water with 0.2 ppb of arsenic that more than meets the federal standard.

Link -via Fast Company | Photo Credit: Warrenski

Hyeona Yang and Joshua Noble, two students at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, built the “Raincatch.” It’s a suit that collects rainwater and filters it into drinking water.

If Joshua Noble’s name seems familiar to you, it may be because he’s one of the people responsible for the playable receipt printer.

Link -via DVICE

Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.

“The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. McEwen is the principal investigator for the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) and lead author of a report about the recurring flows published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.

Some aspects of the observations still puzzle researchers, but flows of liquid brine fit the features’ characteristics better than alternate hypotheses. Saltiness lowers the freezing temperature of water. Sites with active flows get warm enough, even in the shallow subsurface, to sustain liquid water that is about as salty as Earth’s oceans, while pure water would freeze at the observed temperatures.

“These dark lineations are different from other types of features on Martian slopes,” said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Richard Zurek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Repeated observations show they extend ever farther downhill with time during the warm season.”

NASA has a multimedia presentation in which you can see how the images change over time. Link

Star Trek Enterprise Stainless Steel Water Bottle – $11.95

Attention Star Trek fans! Behold the Star Trek Enterprise Stainless Steel Water Bottle from the NeatoShop.  Now it is time to boldly go to the gym.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Star Trek items!

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]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/08/02/star-trek-enterprise-stainless-steel-water-bottle/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/23/10-crazy-underwater-events/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/23/10-crazy-underwater-events/#comments Sat, 23 Jul 2011 07:57:25 +0000 Jill Harness http://www.neatorama.com/2011/07/23/10-crazy-underwater-events/

From pumpkin carving to fine dining to a music festival, you’d be amazed just how much stuff can happen underwater when you get a few expert scuba divers together for a good time. Oddee has a collection of some of the wackiest underwater events to have ever been posted on the web.

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Greg In the Desert shot this photo of pier in Ohio where the water stains formed a sunset-styled western scene complete with a cowboy on his horse. Sometimes it’s amazing what coincidence can do.

Link Via BoingBoing

Elmo Stainless Steel Water Bottle – $11.95

Boy is it hot out there! Are you looking for a new beverage container to help you beat the heat?  You need the Elmo Stainless Steel Water Bottle from the NeatoShop. This handy dandy portable container comes with a special reminder printed on the back, “Elmo loves you!”

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for lots more fantastic Glassware & Drinkware.

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Mind you, we’re not talking about potential geysers or subsurface lakes here; the amount of water we’re seeing here means you’d need to grind up a couple of cubic meters of this glass just to get enough water to drink with lunch. So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that now we’re even less certain how the Moon formed. The presence of water in subsurface lunar rocks messes with the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the leading theory on the topic to date. Read more at Bad Astronomy.

Link | Image: Sunday Mercury

John Wayne Stainless Steel Water Bottle – $11.95

Is your Dad a John Wayne fan in need of a means to keep cool and hydrated? This Father’s Day get him the John Wayne Stainless Steel Water Bottle from the NeatoShop.

A Man’s Got To Have A Code.

A Creed To Live By.

- John Wayne

A man also needs to drink plenty of fluids.  Being as cool as John Wayne can make a man very, very thirsty.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more macho Water Bottles!

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Actually, there are a lot more than 5 weird things about good ol’ H₂O. Like this newly discovered quantum properties of water in carbon nanotubes, for instance:

It turns out that the protons in this nano-confined water at room temperature behave in an entirely different way to those in bulk water. Protons are known to be sensitive to the electronic fields around them. So when these fields form into unusual electronic networks, it’s no surprise the protons behave differently.

"The departures of the momentum distribution of the protons from that of bulk water are so large, that we believe that the nano-confifined water can be properly described as being in a qualitatively different quantum ground state from that of bulk water," they say.

They even suggest that there could be some kind of quantum coherence that spreads out through the electronic network.

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Instructables member Shawn Melito designed and built a special “water scooter” for his then-5-year-old daughter, who has Cerebral Palsy. This gave her buoyancy, mobility, and independence on the water -under supervision, of course. He explains how he he built at at the link. Then comes the kicker:

BTW – After two seasons of use my daughter has grown out of this, but it still works great. It is free to the first person who has a disabled child the right size that can use it safely. We live near Toronto, Ontario.

Link -via NeatoBambino

Defense contractor SPAWAR System Center Pacific has developed a system that turns a stream of seawater shot into the air into a functional antenna:

As the pillar of water is squirted through the current probe, a magnetic field is created and signal comes through to a hooked-up communication device.

Plus, depending on the height of the stream of water, you can get UHF, VHF and HF broadcasts, all from the same jet of H2O. You can even set up multiple jets of water, at different heights, to broadcast on different bands simultaneously. Handy.

The idea could prove particularly useful for ships, which struggle to find room for all the antennas on board. US Navy ships already have upwards of 80 antennas on deck, meaning real estate for extra towers is hugely limited. Instead, the sea water device can be placed anywhere on the deck.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ

This is a wonderful way to look at the world. I just wish I knew who the original artist is. -via The Daily What

Update: The artist is Selin Jessa. Link -Thanks, Andy!

Water-powered battery consists of two electrodes made of special alloys, which, when immersed in water, produce electricity through a chemical reaction.

Simply refill the battery as the water evaporates – typically every 2 to 3 months. The battery has a minimum continuous life of 2 years.

Fun and educational – From the NeatoShop: Link | More fun Back To School Items

(YouTube Link)

Located in a Japanese mall called Canal City, this fountain is programmed immaculately to “paint” the air with falling water.

Canal City (Wiki)  via Bits and Pieces

Link [Embedded YouTube Clip]

Note: Some of you may know this as the traditional Turkish painting technique of Ebru (also known as paper marbling in other cultures)

Heavy rains in St. Petersburg flooded the streets. What’s a woman to do? This act of chivalry not only kept them dry, but also made the women recording the video squeal with delight. There’s also a bonus surprise that passes by. -via Arbroath

The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).

gCaptain has a list of signs that indicate the instinctive drowning response. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

The National Maritime Research Institute of Japan has developed a machine that can create shapes in a pool of water, including a heart and a star. But that’s just to entertain reporters. The primary purpose of the machine is apparently to conduct tests for water safety. At the link, you can view a Japanese-language video about the device.

Link via DVICE | Image: Japan Probe

In the asteroid belt lies a 125 mile wide hunk of rock called 24-Themis that is covered in ice and organic material. Scientists discovered this by analyzing the reflected sunlight and finding that it is consistent with the properties of water and various other organic materials.
 

Finding ice on the surface of the asteroid was a surprise because it would have been expected to evaporate quickly.

‘This implies that ice is quite abundant in the interior of 24 Themis and perhaps many other asteroids,’ Dr Emery added.

‘This ice on asteroids may be the answer to the puzzle of where Earth’s water came from.’

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by sshuggi.

You may think the baboon is not too smart because it fell for that old trick, but at least it knows where the water is! From the 1974 documentary Animals Are Beautiful People. -via Cynical-C

But switching to tap water could be a bad idea in some schools where the risk of lead contamination from old pipes—known to affect physical and mental development—is high, particularly in large urban areas such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

For instance in September 2009, the Associated Press published a nationwide investigation showing that the drinking water in schools in 27 states is contaminated with lead and other toxic substances from lead-soldered pipes generally installed before 1985.

Some school don’t test the water because of the high cost of replacing pipes. They find it more cost-effective to serve bottled water, or even soft drinks to children. Link

(image credit: Flickr user Isobel T)

The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their frontyard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year.

They said they were trying to do something good for the environment.

"We’ve got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future," said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book.

But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require residents to cover significant portions of their frontyards with live ground cover. On Tuesday, the couple is scheduled to appear in Orange County Superior Court to challenge the city’s lawsuit against them.

Soon after the city complained about the yard, the Has placed wood chips on top of the dirt, with help from neighbor Dennis Cleek.

"It’s their yard, it’s not overgrown with weeds, it’s not an eyesore," said Cleek, whose own yard boasts fruit trees. "We should be able to have our yards look the way we want them to."

But city officials determined the fix was not acceptable, saying city codes require that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with live plants.

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Need a vacation? While we can’t help you get out of the office, we can make it easier to imagine you are. The 26 photos on Web Ecoist’s Water on the Rocks series is sure to help you feel relaxed and inspired.

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The ‘whale’ is actually a project from Vincent Callebaut Architects called Physalia Physalis or ‘Water Bubble’, and it has a very serious point. One billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water. This vessel is designed to float up and down the rivers of Europe, purifying the water as it goes. It is of course a huge floating garden among other things, with interior gardens dedicated to Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. So in theory it would make the Thames drinkable. It is also apparently completely self-sufficient, being covered in solar panels. In fact, it is meant to produce more energy than it uses. Too bad it is only a concept for now.

Link – via babycreativeblog

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Babycreative.

Aqueous by Mark Mawson

Mark Mawson is a photographer that is always trying something new.  Of all his work, his underwater stuff is the best, including a series on different colored paints being dropped into water called “Aqueous.”   Mawson says that everyone looking at these images sees what they want to see.  Perhaps he could make a new Rorschach test based on them.

Link |  Mark’s website via ThisBlogRules

If you’ve ever wondered what the financial or ecological costs of a bottle of water really are, then check out this great infographic detailing the facts of bottled water. Some of the things are really interesting, like the fact that 40% of all bottled water companies just get their water from tap water.

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"The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon," the space agency said in a written statement shortly after the briefing began.

Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, said the latest discovery also could unlock the mysteries of the solar system.

He listed several options as sources for the water, including solar winds, comets, giant molecular clouds or even the moon itself through some kind of internal activity. The Earth also may have a role, Wargo said.

"If the water that was formed or deposited is billions of years old, these polar cold traps could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data," NASA said in its statement.

Coicidence? I smell a conspiracy. Where’s my tin foil hat? Next stop: microbes on Mars! Link

“The Deep Impact observations of the Moon not only unequivocally confirm the presence of [water/hydroxyl] on the lunar surface, but also reveal that the entire lunar surface is hydrated during at least some portion of the lunar day,” the authors wrote in their study.

The findings of all three spacecraft “provide unambiguous evidence for the presence of hydroxyl or water,” said Paul Lucey of the University of Hawaii in an opinion essay accompanying the three studies. Lucey was not involved in any of the missions.

The new data “prompt a critical reexamination of the notion that the moon is dry. It is not,” Lucey wrote.

The amount of water on the moon is miniscule by Earth standards, with one ton of lunar surface holding about 32 ounces. Link -via Digg

As the title suggests, this dishwasher uses pressurized steam to dislodge food particles on dishes and sanitize them. A hearty rinse after the cleaning process gives you squeaky clean dishes!

Now for the Eco-friendly part. Since no detergents are used, there is less of “ozone depleting solvents” going around. The water used in the steam and rinsing is collected in the recycling bay and using “Membrane Technology” (read more info on this here), the grime and food particles are separated from the water. The clean water is recycled to be used again for the next wash.

Contaminated water, too harsh for reusing is discarded via an outlet and only then is a fresh load of water consumed.

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All he really wants is a drink, but he was a distinctive way of getting it! -via Arbroath

Scientists discovered a particularly interesting "ambush feeding" technique dubbed the Lucky Luke effect:

“So far, we know of four ways in which zooplankters tackle the engineering feat of finding food in water which appears as thick as syrup. Our contribution has been to describe the mechanism at work for the last of these: How some copepods perform spectacularly precise and rapid surprise attacks on their single-cell prey after first having registered the prey by means of hydrodynamic signals,” explains Professor Thomas Kiørboe, DTU Aqua.

The solution for the ambush-feeding copepods builds on what Thomas Kiørboe calls the Lucky Luke effect:

“Our recordings show that the sub-mm copepods accelerate to a speed of 100 mm per second in a few milliseconds, while at the same time rotating perhaps 180 degrees. Like Lucky Luke who is faster than his shadow, the copepods jump forward so rapidly and with such precision that they, so to speak, shake the viscous boundary layer off, in that way getting close enough to their prey to capture it with their feeding limbs.”

The viscous boundary layer is the layer of water which the copepods pull with them when moving their bodies through the syrupy water. The larger the animals are and the faster they swim, the thinner it seems.

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Humans may not be able to walk on water, but an invention by Li Weiguo let us bike on water! Behold the amphibious bicycle, made by water containers jerry-rigged into pontoons:

Li Weiguo’s daughter Li Jin rides the human-powered amphibious bicycle on the water in Wuhan of Hubei Province, China on May 30, 2009. The amphibious bicycle made by Li Weiguo is equipped with eight water buckets as pontoons and adjustable vane wheels as driving power. This kind of bike can walk on land and on water.

Link – via inhabitat

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.

This short video clip shows why it’s a bad idea to get your car washed with a Liebherr R9800 Excavator.

If you’re curious, the shovel has a capacity of 42 cubic meter (which when filled with water, is equivalent to 42 metric ton or oh, about 92,500 lb). Explains the end result, doesn’t it?

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Christophe.

This guy to the left is aquatic scientist Oliver Parsons-Baker, who came up dressed as a giant poo. He’s trying to raise awareness and promote better sanitation around the world with Water Aid:

The 26-year-old, who works for Severn Trent Water, has teamed up with Water Aid to raise awareness of the billions of people trapped in the poverty cycle due to a lack of safe water and toilets.

His cumbersome costume meant he had to be hoisted onto the plinth, drawing laughter and applause from the crowd. The outfit was composed of brown foam and leather, with a sizeable housefly dangling from it.

Parsons-Baker got his message across via two placards which bore the message: "2.5bn people don’t have a toilet" and "G8 leaders – take action on the sanitation crisis now".

You can view the live webstream of the shenanigans here: Link | Coverage at the Guardian | Poo-Man at The London Paper (photo: PA)

The new findings confirm suspicions that water once shaped the Martian landscape on a regional scale instead of forming isolated oases, said rover project leader Steven Squyres of Cornell University in New York State.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by sunnyspeaks.

The floating water bridge is a weird phenomenon discovered by Elmar Fuchs and colleagues from the Graz University of Technology in Austria, in which, with the help of electricity, water can actually create a floating bridge as long as 25 millimeters.

From PhysOrg:

When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers
climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the
water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the
human eye to defy gravity.

Upon investigating the phenomenon, the scientists found that water
was being transported from one beaker to another, usually from the
anode beaker to the cathode beaker. The cylindrical water bridge, with
a diameter of 1-3 mm, could remain intact when the beakers were pulled
apart at a distance of up to 25 mm.

Why water would act this way was a surprise, Fuchs told PhysOrg.com.
But the group’s analyses have shown that the explanation may lie within
the nature of the water’s structure. Initially, the bridge forms due to
electrostatic charges on the surface of the water. The electric field
then concentrates inside the water, arranging the water molecules to
form a highly ordered microstructure. This microstructure remains
stable, keeping the bridge intact.

– via cracked

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pax.

High speed photography is cool, but this photo of water, spelled out by good ol’ H₂O is beyond awesome! It’s done by photographers Norimichi Inoguchi, Shinichi Maruyama and Wayne Wilson of Biwa, Inc.

Link (then select Other) – via designboom

Forget carbon footprint. Long before the Earth will suffer from a climate catastrophe due to global warming, humanity may perish from another environmental disaster: the diminishing supply of fresh water (Don’t believe it? Why, humans have been fighting wars over water for centuries)

In collaboration with Fogelson-Lubliner, GOOD Magazine has an eye-opening infographic of "water footprints", the amount of water an individual uses in the course of a day, as well as ways to save water by making simple changes in your habits.

I, for one, am surprised at the amount of water it takes to yield a pound of beef: Link – via swissmiss

Link (with very impressive video) – via TYWKIWDBI

Link – via Diskursdisko

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by diskursdisko.

Update 3/5/09 by Alex – Fixed to point to original link

The old "cats hate water" stereotype may be true much of the time (especially at forced-bath time), but mine isn’t the only feline in America that seeks out moments of wetness, I now know (having investigated this matter in hopes of learning she is so rare that starring roles in pet movies, or at least cat food commercials, might be possible).

There’s a breed called the Turkish Van that loves water, and many of them are avid swimmers; lots of owners of Bengals (the cat, not the tiger) report that their felines are water babies, too. And, I learned, you can even find cats-swimming videos on YouTube, action footage that proves it’s not just pedigreed cats that enjoy the occasional dip.

Link

And sure enough: there are a lot of swimming cats on YouTube