If you were doing research in the 60s, You might've heard of Polywater, A form of water that exhibited wide variety of interesting characteristics and existed under identical conditions to that of normal water. Eventually debunked, none the less is a fascinating story. Naturally one draws parallels to Vonnegut's ice nine, but did you know there actually is an ice nine? In fact, there's twelve to sixteen types of ice, depending on your opinion. More recently, computer simulations have indicated water may structure itself into icosahedra, which, incredibly, is the platonic solid (described over 2000 years ago!) representing the element water! And if you don't know what an icosahedron is, I bet you've used one before. One of the most ubiquitous, and arguably most important, substances in our lives, our understanding of water is far from complete.
posted on Apr 29, 2008 - View this thread

Six Masai warriors will face cultural challenges when they run in the Flora London Marathon to raise money for clean water for their village. Meet the runners (video clip) Think about making a small donation in their time of trouble because when we had problems here in the US, they were most generous to us.
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

Not content to rest on his laurels after creations like the portable kidney dialysis machine, the IBOT robotic wheelchair, the Segway, and the innovative cyborg replacement limbs, DEKA Research President Dean Kamen demonstrates his new vapor compression distiller on The Colbert Report.
posted on Mar 21, 2008 - View this thread

Nyanko The Movie 2. I've been thinking about ordering this, but I'm afraid it'd be my own personal Infinite Jest. It's a movie about cats.
posted on Mar 16, 2008 - View this thread

We're making another effort to find water on the moon. Beginning in 1964 with the Ranger spacecraft, we've been lobbing things at poor old Luna. Lately we've been trying to find water there so that future explorers don't have to haul the stuff up the gravity well from Earth.
posted on Feb 27, 2008 - View this thread

Tennesse and Georgia's war over water There are about five million residents in north Georgia affected by the drought. The phrase "if its brown flush it down, if its yellow let it mellow" has become part of the local jargon in an attempt to encourage water conservation.
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

Chicago adds a 5-cent-per-bottle tax on bottled water. Will this reduce bottled water consumption?
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

Thirsty Dragon at the Olympics Dai Qing on China's environmental crisis and the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
posted on Nov 29, 2007 - View this thread

While God was fooling around with his celestial SimCity control panel, he accidentally built a river right through the middle of a road.
posted on Nov 9, 2007 - View this thread

So you've all heard about how global warming will lead to rising sea-levels, but what about falling freshwater levels?
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

The only recipe for boiling salted water you'll ever need. Well, the reviews are entertaining, anyway.
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

In what it calls "the final wake-up call to the international community," a UN report (press release, website, 21 MB PDF) warns that damage to the environment is reaching a "point of no return" and now threatens "humanity's very survival." Oh, c'mon, tell us what you really think.
posted on Oct 25, 2007 - View this thread

Kids, get off my lawn!
posted on Oct 13, 2007 - View this thread

Record heat. Extreme drought. But the grass must stay green!
posted on Oct 3, 2007 - View this thread

Because water is a basic need for all life and good health, access to enough safe water, or water security, is defined as a human right by international law. [mostly pdfs]
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - View this thread

"California has a decision to make. We either brace ourselves for long-term [water] cuts that threaten our economy and our very way of way of life, or we invest in a solution to fix the [San Francisco Bay] Delta and expand our water toolbox so we can meet future challenges head-on.”
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - View this thread

An unscientific, blind taste-test of US$55/btl bottled vs tap water
posted on Sep 10, 2007 - View this thread

Here are some ways to shrink your unnatural water- and gas-guzzling lawn and plant something that is beautiful and requires no water usage, no mowing, and is more likely to attract more interesting wildlife. With this much lawn in the U.S., and incessant water shortages, and other water issues and wars in our present and looming in the future, why not go native? Naturally, there are objections, since local ordinances often don't allow for natural prairie lawns, and the neighborhood stick-up-butt committees are quick to remove things they consider eyesores. What is your lawn worth to you?
posted on Sep 9, 2007 - View this thread

I was taking a shower and thinking about all of the music videos that include water/liquid in them. It is an overused theme according to this site, and I agree. I have included some painful ones to make my point. But wait, I stumbled upon this and was mildy turned-on in some strange way. God help me. Then my mind moved to a friend of mine who was obsessed with Johnny songs. There are quite a few of those too as you may well imagine...
posted on Sep 6, 2007 - View this thread

Steve Mann's hydraulophone with sculpture gallery and performance video snippets: [1] [2] [3]
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) published their latest Infrastructure Report Card in 2005. America's infrastructure got a D. The ASCE estimate that it will cost $1.6 trillion over a five-year period to bring the nation's infrastructure to good condition. They also have a Critical Infrastructure blog. [Via Gristmill.]
posted on Aug 3, 2007 - View this thread

You folks out there in MeFi Town been keeping up with the water themed MeFi Music Challenge? There's been some mighty fine uploads for you to check out! But if there was ever a piece of music deserving the water tag, it's this drenching wet masterpiece by Brazil's brilliant, eccentric musical genius Hermeto Pascual, in which Hermeto and his band play bottles full of water, and flutes full of water, and, well, the lake. Música da Lagoa: water music at its very best. And its very wettest. [more inside]
posted on Jul 6, 2007 - View this thread

Fast Company covers the twisted economics and ironies of the bottled water industry. "In Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water."
posted on Jul 3, 2007 - View this thread

"The business is definitely an art, the men are craftsmen..."(YT) NYC's rooftop water tanks are a unique and often overlooked part of the city. Watch as one goes up (its worth the 10 minutes for the money shot at the end): "New York, is water tanks, yes."(YT) "New York, which has thousands of cylindrical wooden rooftop water tanks with conical roofs, couldn't exist without them." Its the only city with its own section under Wiki's water tower page.
posted on Jun 22, 2007 - View this thread

Many Japanese game shows involve water humiliation.
posted on Jun 20, 2007 - View this thread

Dachshund in Kiddie Pool. Also see Rusty.
posted on Jun 12, 2007 - View this thread

Conditions for Iraqi children affected by violence and displacement have reached a critical point, according to UNICEF (PDF). One of the worst problems is the lack of clean water: only an estimated 30 per cent have access to safe water that isn't contaminated.
posted on May 23, 2007 - View this thread

Scientists have discovered a planet composed of scorching hot ice. Originally thought to be a gas giant due to its mass, its actually only four times the size of Earth and most likely composed of exotic forms of ice, such as Ice VII and Ice X with s surface temperature of 300° C.
posted on May 16, 2007 - View this thread

Photorealistic CG water (and a little on how it's done).
posted on May 2, 2007 - View this thread

Roads To Riches (or We've Got a Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You--Seriously) -- Why investors are clamoring to take over America's highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous.--...a slew of Wall Street firms—Goldman, Morgan Stanley, the Carlyle Group, Citigroup, and many others—is piling into infrastructure ... Assets sold now could change hands many times over the next 50 years, with each new buyer feeling increasing pressure to make the deal work financially. It's hardly a stretch to imagine service suffering in such a scenario; already, the record in the U.S. has been spotty. ...
posted on Apr 29, 2007 - View this thread

"Hey, do any of you people who are leaving want to stay and talk about this or do you want to run out like cowards?" [YouTube] Over 80 people simultaneously walked out of Mike Daisey's recent performance of Invincible Summer. One of the people came onstage and poured water over his only copy of the show's outline. "And it wounded me in my heart, because I trusted these people."
posted on Apr 22, 2007 - View this thread

Tap Project. What if every glass of water you drank quenched someone else's thirst? Looks like its only official in NYC restaurants this Thursday, but hopefully it will expand to other cities.
posted on Mar 20, 2007 - View this thread

Bling h2o is the invention of Hollywood producer Kevin G. Boyd. It;s water in a frosted glass bottle with a cork and emblazoned with Swarovski crystals. At $24 a 750ml bottle, it's targeted at the super-luxury market. Is water from Tennessee really worth that much? Apparently, for some celebs, it is: "A lot of times when you have some water, people are like, 'You're drinking water?' Instead, you say, 'Naw man, I'm blinging." -- Jamie Foxx
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

Lawrence Livermore National Lab produces fascinating charts of energy flow in the US (more). More energy use statisitics can be found at the Energy Information Administration.
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

When I grow up I want to be an environmental engineer. I want to work on projects that can provide potable water for people. I want to clean the polluted Mother Ganga [Ganges] who provides life giving water from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. Or the Nile, both blue and white, spilling fertility from her bunds on a regular cycle. I want to design products that use the least amount of energy and fuel, from recycled materials and are biodegradable. I want to seek alternative sources of energy, such as using biofuel to power cellphones. I want to design with maximum constraints. Call her mother earth, gaia, demeter, ceres or inanna, our planet is on the brink of no return. Or is it all just a matter of perspective?
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - View this thread

Water footprint - "of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation"
posted on Jan 11, 2007 - View this thread

Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow has been linked to twice before on Metafilter. However, you can now view 10 minutes of his film as part of his Ted Talk--it's the most stunning nature footage I've ever seen. In the talk he also mentions a new concept he's developing called Animal Copyright, which I think is long overdue.
posted on Jan 2, 2007 - View this thread

Clean water is a right: "The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published its annual report on human development. It denounces the world's complacent disregard for such unglamorous subjects as standpipes, latrines and the 1.8m children who die each year from diarrhoea because the authorities cannot keep their drinking water separate from their faeces. The study is both coldly analytical and angry..."
posted on Nov 24, 2006 - View this thread

U.S. Soldiers Taunting Iraqi Children with Bottled Water youtube
posted on Nov 21, 2006 - View this thread

Stan Meyer invented a water powered car that estimates showed could travel from one US coast to the other on 22 gallons of water. He shows the in car in operation in this old news clip. So what ever happened to him? He died after eating at a restaurant on March 21, 1998. An autopsy report showed the cause of death to be poisoning.
posted on Nov 21, 2006 - View this thread

If Jesus were alive today, what sort of jeep would he drive? Why that's simple, of course. He'd drive the jeep that can drive on water!
posted on Oct 22, 2006 - View this thread

Tomorrow morning at 7:46am, the US Population Clock will hit 300 million. As the world population continues to grow at a similar rate to ours, perhaps its time to start asking some questions. After all, if you can read this post, chances are you don't live in Africa, where "more than 2,500 children are dying each day," simply for lack of access to fresh drinking water. Its so easy not to worry about when you're not the 1 in 5 who can't get a clean drink. But there's lots of ways you can help.
posted on Oct 16, 2006 - View this thread

Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)
Some more up-to-date predictions: science, invention, space travel, colonisation, immortality, water shortage, flooding, nanotech, techno-apocalypse, extinction, mental health, smart machines, robots, mind uploading, AI, Asia, economics, demographics, goverance, cities. What is your prediction?
posted on Oct 5, 2006 - View this thread

How poeple and animals use sound in the sea
posted on Oct 3, 2006 - View this thread

Webcasts from the Clinton Global Initiative conference (all wmv, archived of past 2 days and live tomorrow) --covering energy, healthcare, agriculture, poverty, religious and ethnic conflicts, etc. They're trying to turn "practical ideas into meaningful action". More here, including a cool waterpump/merry-go-round thing.
posted on Sep 21, 2006 - View this thread

What's your water situation, America? Real-time and historical ground and surface water data.
posted on Aug 20, 2006 - View this thread

Dancing droplets begets Water figures. The full set.
posted on Aug 16, 2006 - View this thread

Lifestraw: From surface water to drinking water.
posted on Aug 11, 2006 - View this thread

BULLSHIT! Penn & Teller present their rational, libertarian bent views on diverse subjects, now available for free download on Google Video ::: profanity; creationism; alien abductions; conspiracy theories; recycling; gun control; endangered species; religion; the bible; family values; the apocalypse; signs from heaven; the occult; 12-step recovery programs; exercise v. genetics; environmentalism; hypnosis; ghosts; the war on drugs; feng shui / bottled water; college; PETA; and abstinence.
posted on Aug 11, 2006 - View this thread

New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 has been under construction since 1970 and completion is expected in 2020. (Be sure to click the sidebars.) City Water Tunnels Nos. 1 and 2 have been operating continuously since 1917 and 1936, and currently cannot be shut down for repair without disrupting the city's water supply. Popular Mechanics and BLDBLOG have articles, Newsday has photos, and 60 Minutes has an article with video. Local paper The Villager covers the construction of one of the many shafts that connect to the tunnel. It has inspired a one-woman show. The Sandhog Project covers the workers, called "Sandhogs," with photos, sound, and video. Over twenty sandhogs died building the tunnel.
posted on Jul 29, 2006 - View this thread