Things Are Good

On the Spot Water Cleaning Better Than Current Approach

Access to clean water is essentially for good health, yet many around the world lack access to save, clean, drinkable water. Researchers have found a way to clean water more efficiently than previous systems by essentially cleaning water at the source using a new catalyst. The catalyst cleans the water by creating hydrogen peroxide where it needs to be used by running electricity through special metals. This good because it requires less energy and resources to clean large amounts of water.

The catalyst-based method was shown to be 10,000,000 times more potent at killing the bacteria than an equivalent amount of the industrial hydrogen peroxide, and over 100,000,000 times more effective than chlorination, under equivalent conditions.

In addition to this, the catalyst-based method was shown to be more effective at killing the bacteria and viruses in a shorter space of time compared to the other two compounds.
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â€œWe now have proven one-step process where, besides the catalyst, inputs of contaminated water and electricity are the only requirements to attain disinfection.

Protect Your Wisdom by Leaving Facebook

American adults who got their news about COVID-19 from Facebook were less knowledgeable and more likely to believe falsehoods about the pandemic. The solution is to spend less time on the site and more time getting your news from other sources. The good news is that most adults agreed that Facebook is not a good source to get news, whereas official government websites were.

Leaving the site entirely is too much for some people as it’s a way to stay in contact with friends; so just reduce your time on the site – and avoid all “news” on the platform.

In summary, adults whose most trusted information source is government health websites are more likely to correctly answer questions about COVID-19 than those with another most trusted source. Individuals whose most trusted source is television news and those who use Facebook as an additional source of news are less likely to correctly answer COVID-19 questions. Effective public health emergency responsiveness requires that effective information dissemination and public compliance with precautionary measures occur. To increase public knowledge of COVID-19 in order to maximize information dissemination and compliance with COVID-19 related public health recommendations, those who provide health information should consider use of the publicâ€™s most trusted sources of information, as well as monitoring and correcting misinformation presented by other sources.

Ending the Gender Gap in Transportation

There is a gender gap in our cities and it’s all thanks to car-centric design. Everybody knows that cars destroy urban centers and cause a lot of harm to public health. but you may not have thought of the impact cars have on gender. As cities look to modernize themselves by returning streets to people they need to also think about how different people use transportation in the city. Part time workers are more likely to be women and that often means more trips per day than their typical male counterparts. Designing cities through a gendered lens means that the city can accommodate multiple modes of transportation beyond the male-dominated rush hour.

â€œThe discussion on inclusive mobility is gathering steam,â€ said Ricarda Lang, deputy chair of the German Green party. â€œFeminism is not a stand-alone topic, but a perspective that we also apply in the area of urban development and mobility.â€

The issue is more complex than cars versus bikes. In some cities, women cycle less, likely because lanes arenâ€™t wide or secure enough, especially with kid carriers â€” underscoring the importance of transport design. But thereâ€™s no denying car-centric systems face strain.

Numerous grassroot initiatives are demanding restrictions on personal vehicles. One of the most radical is in Berlin, where activists are pushing for a referendum that would all but eliminate private autos in the inner city in favor of walking, cycling and public transport.

This Breathing Exercise is Better Than Normal Exercise

People suffering from low blood pressure may soon have an easier time exercising to keep their pressure at the proper level thanks to a handheld device. Researchers have found a technique that is more efficient than traditional exercise. Patients can keep their blood level at a safe level by practicing a breathing technique known as High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST). Basically the exercise helps strengthen the of the diaphragm by providing some resistance. Of course, there are still many benefits to just going for a walk.

Results show participants in the IMST group saw their systolic blood pressure fall by an average of nine points. That kind of improvement, researchers say, is generally better than what high blood pressure patients see from walking 30 minutes a day five days a week. The study finds the IMST results are even on par with certain blood pressure-lowering drugs prescribed to patients.

Perhaps more importantly, study authors find people doing IMST saw their blood pressure continue to stay low even after they stopped the breathing workouts for six weeks. â€œWe found not only is it more time-efficient than traditional exercise programs, the benefits may be longer lasting,â€ says Craighead.

Home Water Heaters can Reduce Electricity Production

Across North America homes have massive tanks of hot water regardless of the outside temperature or other concerns. The energy cost to heat all this water is immense and not only can we reduce this cost we can use the water itself to power homes. The basic idea is to convert the temperature change in water into energy and vice versa to have the water tanks function has batteries. The coolest thing about this idea is that it’s not even a new one.

Here’s how it works. The heat pump water heater is like a refrigerator running in reverse. Instead of taking heat out of the unit (cooling) and dumping it into the nearby room air, the heat pump water heater dumps heat from the air around it into the water. This is vastly more efficient than heating water in the old way, with a high-wattage electric coil.

There is actually aÂ little-known tradition, going back to the late 1930s, of electric companies managing water heaters to avoid short-squeezes on the grid during times of peak consumption. Because water can be kept hot so long, consumers don’t even notice. Originally this was done with timers, later via radio signals, and today through the cloud. And, thanks to smart meters that track energy use by the minute, demand-shifts can be very precisely targeted and valued. Water heaters, reborn asÂ big thermal batteries, are an excellent means by which lots of clean power can be strategically banked for later use.Â Hundreds of thousandsÂ of water heaters haveÂ alreadyÂ been quietly hooked up this way. This is just theÂ tipÂ of the potential iceberg.