Originally posted by sonhouse This can be a very big deal in desert communities.
Looks useful. But I must note that the requirement for water purification is hardly unique to desert communities. A really cheap filtration system would be useful throughout the globe and especially in poor communities in Africa and India.
Originally posted by twhitehead Looks useful. But I must note that the requirement for water purification is hardly unique to desert communities. A really cheap filtration system would be useful throughout the globe and especially in poor communities in Africa and India.
Would be nice here too. The one thing I was wondering about, would it take out arsenic? or other heavy metal contaminants. That seems to be the big thing now, finding filters that do that job besides viral and bacterial removal.
I also wondered if this charged polymer could be adapted to human blood for instance to attract virals and bacteria and thus lower the load for diseases like HIV and so forth.
If that could do the job, maybe they could design a molecule that would recognize when the polymer is full of viral or bacterials and then change course and head out the kidney or rectum.
Originally posted by sonhouse I also wondered if this charged polymer could be adapted to human blood for instance to attract virals and bacteria and thus lower the load for diseases like HIV and so forth.
No. Blood has cells in too.
And virus' are another ballgame altogether.
If that could do the job, maybe they could design a molecule that would recognize when the polymer is full of viral or bacterials and then change course and head out the kidney or rectum. Now you are not making any sense at all.
Originally posted by twhitehead No. Blood has cells in too.
And virus' are another ballgame altogether.
[b]If that could do the job, maybe they could design a molecule that would recognize when the polymer is full of viral or bacterials and then change course and head out the kidney or rectum. Now you are not making any sense at all.[/b]
I was thinking of freefloating virus loads. The piece said it picks off viral and bacterial products because they are all positive charge so the negative charge of the polymer attracts the bugs and kills them because they cannot have access to its food supply.
There must be virals and bacteria in blood freefloating.