Tag Archive for: Water

I’m Holding My Breath for this New Museum

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Jason deCaires Taylor (via www.underwatersculpture.com)

Jason deCaires Taylor (via www.underwatersculpture.com)

Soon, Cancun may be noted for something more than Spring break underage drinkers. A national park in Cancun will soon feature sculptures of human figures situated in the seabed, with the first four “going down” this month. These are the beginning of what will eventually be hundreds of figures in “the worlds largest underwater museum.” From BBC News on November 19th,

According to the park’s director Jaime Gonzalez, one of the aims is to reduce the pressure on the natural habitat in other areas of the park by luring tourists away from existing coral reef, which has suffered damage from hurricanes and human activity.

One of the sculptures is La Jardinera de la Esperanza (The Gardener of Hope). It features a young girl lying on a garden patio, surrounded by potted plants. When it is installed four meters below the surface, the work will include propagated coral in the empty pots. This well-established reef conservation technique will rescue damaged coral fragments by providing a suitable new substrate. The base incorporates habitat spaces for other marine creatures such as moray eels, small fish and lobsters.

“It all happens rather quickly – within two weeks, we will see green algae,” says artist Jason deCaires Taylor, who is in charge of the project. “Then within a few months, juvenile algae will appear and the project will progress from there.”

La Jardinera (photo: Dr. Jessie Voights, www.wanderingeducators.com)

La Jardinera de la Esperanza (photo: Dr. Jessie Voights, www.wanderingeducators.com)

The BBC article also included this observation from Dr. Paul Jepson, a lecturer in conservation at the UK’s University of Oxford, who applauded the idea of the museum.

“Conservationists need to find different ways of engaging with the world. Artists should get involved in environmental matters so it is not just scientists trying to get the message out there,” he said.

And I wholeheartedly applaud that. In fact, that why I write about “Water and Art” and exactly why it matters.

Vicissitudes by Jason deCaires Taylor, Grenada, West Indies

Vicissitudes by Jason deCaires Taylor, Grenada, West Indies

Detail, Vicissitudes by Jason deCaires Taylor, Grenada, West Indies

Detail, Vicissitudes by Jason deCaires Taylor, Grenada, West Indies (via trendhunter.com)

Ready to Rinse Away Your Plastic Waste?

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Is this beginning of a new class of “something in the water?” The Harmless-Dissolve bag is a new approach to eco-packaging, a biodegradable, compostable water-dissolvable bag that almost disappears before your very eyes. (Shown here: the November, 2009 issue of CR Creative Review, which incorporated the new packaging.)

According to the harmlesspackaging.co.uk website, it is a…

…water soluble polymer which completely biodegrades in a composting environment, in a dishwasher or in a washing machine. It has no harmful residues and will biodegrade into naturally occuring substances.

Food for thought? No, more like food for our ravenous micro-friends:

Harmless-Dissolve is non-toxic and is degraded by micro-organisms, moulds and yeasts. These organisms can occur in both artificial environments, such as anaerobic digesters, activated sewage sludge and composts and natural environments such as aquatic systems and soil. The micro-organisms use Harmless-Dissolve as a food source by producing a variety of enzymes that are capable of reacting with it. In the end the bag becomes carbon dioxide, water and biomass.

Eco-tasty! (Except for the the term “biomass,” which strikes me as a little fuzzy and ill-defined.)

For envelopes, Harmless-Dissolve can be made in any size, printed full colour process using biodegradable inks and finished with a biodegradable peel and seal lip.

Which prompts a fantasy scenario of receiving my water bill in a water-soluble envelope! (The check is NOT in the mail!)

Would-Be Inventors, P&G Wants Your Idea!

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You know that great idea you had for purifying water? Boy, if only you had some way to get that to market, why, you’d be rich!

Actually, your timing might be perfect! Since you live in the age of open collaboration and “crowdsourcing“, maybe, just maybe, your idea is just right for Procter & Gamble, the 8th largest corporation in the world by market capitalization and 14th largest US company by profit. (And supposedly, the folks behind game-changing business innovations such as modern “brand management,” soap operas and Pringles faux chips!)

P&G’s “Connect & Develop” brings it to the web with a database of inventions and innovations that P&G is actively seeking. According to the website,

P&G’s Connect + Develop strategy already has resulted in more than 1,000 active agreements. Types of innovations vary widely, as do the sources and business models. Inbound or out, know-how or new products, examples of our success are as diverse as our product categories. We are interested in all types of high-quality, on-strategy business partners, from individual inventors or entrepreneurs to smaller companies and those listed in the FORTUNE 500 — even competitors.

What’s there for the water innovators? Consumer-driven P&G is in fact, actively seeking three “solutions” for water purification and drinking water technologies:

Ready-to-Market Water Filtration Technologies Jun 29, 2009 Ready to market technologies including pitchers, faucet mounts, u …more Water Purification
Manufacturer/Marketer of in-home Drinking Water Technologies Jun 29, 2009 Water filtration, purification, or treatment devices marketable … more Water Purification
Water Filtration Technologies Featuring Several Levels of Filtration to Reduce Contaminants Jun 29, 2009 -Single or multiple stage filtering technology or device capable … more Water Purificatio

So water-invention smartypants, download that form, get everything signed, sealed and delivered and just sit back and wait for the checks to roll in. Oh, and don’t forget my finder’s fee.

Another Reason I’m an Anglophile

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Just when we think our crush on the country, culture and people of England was getting out of hand, along comes a note from Ferrers (aka The Pie Man) to further stoke our Anglophile tendencies. He pointed us to the delightful BWTAS –  the British Water Tower Appreciation Society. The group “exists to connect enthusiasts of water towers to share their enjoyment of their artistic, cultural, architectural, historical, social and engineering significance.”

We’re in favor of that! But the best part of their “about us” statement is this “It is a society that tries not to burden itself with administration duties, committees and all that stuff (although it has them). It is whatever the members can make of it themselves.”

What will become of Jumbo, the largest remaining Victorian water tower in Britain?

What will become of Jumbo, the largest remaining Victorian water tower in Britain?

Visit their website or follow them on Twitter, but be sure to set aside some time as it is packed with tons entertaining information, not only from the UK but from all other world. (In fact, I saw plenty of US-based water-tower stuff that I’d never come across myself elsewhere!)

The Society has organized exhibitions of water tower arts and crafts, given talks, organized tours, written guidebooks on water towers, and appeared on radio and TV. Its diverse membership includes architects, artists, historians, civil engineers, utility company employees, tower owners “as well as ‘just plain folk.”

If you’re UK-based, lucky you! All the rest of us should bookmark the BWTAS site in our big-fat, “someday” UK travel folder.

Me want cookie, me drink cookie?

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Om nom nom nom! Don’t we wish we lived in Washington State, where researchers have found traces of spices and food flavorings in the waters of Puget Sound.

Via WaterTechOnline.com, National Geographic News has reported this delicious water gossip in a November 12th segment of a new series exploring the global water crisis.

University of Washington associate professor Richard Keil said the spices and flavorings vary depending on the time of the year. For example, around Thanksgiving, researchers have detected a spike in thyme and sage; around the Fourth of July, waffle-cone and caramel-corn byproducts surge.

Keil and his research team have been tracking the “pulses” of food ingredients that enter the Puget Sound. They found that of all the food ingredients detected, artificial vanilla is most prevalent in the sound. The team found an average of about 6 milligrams of artificial vanilla per liter (mg/L) of water sampled; the region’s wastewater effluent contains more than 14 mg/L. According to the story, “This would be like spiking an Olympic-size swimming pool with approximately ten 4-ounce (113.4-gram) bottles of artificial vanilla.”

Puts a whole new perspective on the branding of “Dunkin’ Donuts!”

The Visual Water Dictionary: Plume

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The Visual Water Dictionary attempts to cut confusion on ambiguous water terminology with easy visual references.

Today’s Term: Plume

Plume is an underground pattern of contaminant concentrations created by the movement of groundwater beneath a contaminant source, with the contaminants spreading in the direction of groundwater movement.  The source site has the highest concentration, and the concentration decreases and dissipates away from the source.

Diagram of a polluted groundwater plume (via www.earthsci.org)

Diagram of a polluted groundwater plume (via www.earthsci.org)

Thirsty in Suburbia desirability grade: F
(Major points deducted for threat to water quality, sneakiness and long-winded disputes over “who’s going to clean up this mess?” )

Often confused with…

A chapeau with Plume by Givenchy (via www.thisislondon.co.uk)

A Plume is a feathery accessory attached to a hat or other headgear. This plume floats merrily along with the direction of the wearer, and tends to disrupt the concentration and sight lines of other persons near the Plume’s source.

Thirsty in Suburbia desirability grade: B
(Minor points deducted for the laughing and finger-pointing that modern Plume wearers must endure.)

Previous entries in the Visual Water Dictionary:

Slurry
Cake
Mixed Liquor
Oasis

Love that Dirty Water

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I can think of a dozen hysterical, pun-loaded punch lines for this, none of which are appropriate for this sorta-family-friendly forum! From engrishfunny.com.

The Golden Poo Awards. Really.

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Toilet humor (humour) has moved out of the school yard and into the studios of some of the UK’s most creative animators. I thought I was good at the potty puns and chuckles, but the threshold has been raised to astounding heights with the winners of the short film “Golden Poo Awards” announced October 15th. In fact, it’s so over the top, I spent a few minutes pondering if it could be some sort of prank!

PooP Creative (really!) and The London International Animation Festival (LIAF) jointly promoted the competition to tackle the serious issues of sanitation and hygiene in an edgy, irreverent and humorous way.

And “the issues” aren’t limited to the poorer, less developed regions of the world. According to the site,

How Dirty Are YOU? More than 1 in four people have faecal matter on their hands! Britain’s 12M cases of norovirus, gastroenteritis, MRSA, E-Coli and now Swine Flu infections are mainly down to dirty hands. (Dirty Hands Study via London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

I think they succeeded splendidly…the films are creative, funny, engaging, expressive and memorable. Following the top 2 entries, see more here at the Golden Poo Awards site.

First Place: Dancing In The Loo by Delphine Mandin

Second Place: A Film About Poo by Emily Howells & Anne Wilkins

Is There Tap Water in a Time Warp?

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Travelers must get desperately thirsty zipping through the space-time continuum, and one shouldn’t trust the quality of the tap water in a time warp, I’d think. (The “Doctor” character in the famous British TV series Dr. Who has the power to regenerate his body when near death… I guess that means both he AND his licensed single-use container are recyclable!)

Photo: Approved by Dr. Who water by St. A on Flickr