Hydra's Solar-Hydrogen Power Makes Clean Water From Dirty at 20,000...

For the one in every eight souls around the world lacking access to pure drinking water, how about this: A solar-powered water purification system that spits out pure water, hydrogen and, just for kicks, electricity too. Could it get any better than that? The device is called Hydra, and like its many-headed mythological namesake it truly serves a multitude of purposes: As its press release notes, "imagine a single trailer-mounted device that turns scum into over 20,000 gallons of pure water a day, stores electricity better than a battery, makes medical-grade oxygen, and runs on the sun." That's quite enough benefits from one device, thankyouverymuch. It works on a very simple, long-understood principle: electrolysis. The products are exactly what you may expect: Oxygen to help with medical problems, electricity for any number of purposes, and pure water at a phenomenal rate. But how does Hydra compare with other systems out there that offer some of the same benefits?

mental_floss Blog & The Straw that Saves Lives Providing money, roads, education, electricity, and employment to needy people of the world is a noble idea, but it's like putting the cart before the horse when a billion people don't have a reliable source of safe drinking water. They are in danger of ingesting typhoid, dysentery, salmonella, diphtheria, E. coli, or cholera. Water treatment plants and long distance pipes are terribly expensive for Third World nations, and even purified water can become contaminated with disease before consumption. A possible solution: a personal water filter for each person. Danish water purification company Vestergaard Frandsen has developed the LifeStrawÂ® Personal, a small filter that requires no power and can be worn on a string around the neck. Vestergaard Frandsen also offers the LifeStrawÂ® Family, which can be used to clean a household water supply. LifeStrawÂ® won the Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas earlier this year, among a growing list of awards and accolades.

Laser Crosswalk Saves Pedestrians From a Painful Death - GEARFUSE When the light turns red, a huge laser wall projecting apparitions of crossing pedestrians spans across the crosswalk. The concept is designed to keep crossing pedestrians safe from any overzealous drivers who otherwise might have ran the red light. Link [via] Hot Wheel: Ultra-Minimalist Electric Single-Wheeled Vehicle | Gadgets, Scie... In our greener future, it looks like we will all need to opt for smaller, more energy-efficient transportation. Most designers have been rising to that call by thinking up tiny electric cars – but some are going in a different direction. The Solowheel is an almost-ridiculously tiny single wheel urban transport gadget that acts like a self-righting unicycle without pedals. A rider has simply to step on and stand up while the Solowheel moves toward a destination. Like the Segway, the Solowheel is operated largely by the distribution of the rider’s body weight. Lean forward to go faster, lean back to slow down and lean left or right to turn. The tiny unicycle is totally battery-operated and can run for about two hours on a charge. While it’s a bit troubling to see people riding around on a single wheel with no safety gear, we’re guessing it doesn’t go fast enough to make it a truly dangerous activity.