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That's the recommendation from a new report by the US National Research Council, who say reclaimed waste water is needed as a necessary substitute for the dwindling supply of freshwater. What's more, reprocessed urine might actually be cleaner than freshwater. More »
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Back in November, we challenged you to guess the medium used to create these eye-catching images. Finnish artist Erno-Erik Raitanan had produced the series by cultivating bacteria samples on color negative film. More »
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A few weeks ago, NASA scientists announced they'd discovered something completely new on the surface of the Red Planet. Now they know what it is —and they're calling it the most powerful evidence for liquid water on Mars ever encountered by the Opportunity Rover. More »
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For decades, humanity has been launching missions to Mars, in hopes of making sense of the enigma that is our solar system's most Earth-like planet. And as with all good mysteries, many of our investigations have simply led to more questions. More »
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The answer definitely isn't 32 degrees Fahrenheit, even if that's the freezing point of water. If the conditions are right, water can remain liquid all the way down to minus 55 degrees. Just another way water is bizarrely amazing. More »
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We know that there are small deposits of water on the Martian surface, and there's evidence of plenty more water both below the surface and in the planet's past. Now we've gained a powerful tool for exploring Mars's watery history. More »
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We recently discovered the first direct evidence of comets bringing water to alien planets, and now we can go one step further. The planetary disk around the star TW Hydrae has enough water in it to support thousands of oceans. More »
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The Eta Corvi solar system is like a window into how our own solar system looked billions of years ago. All of Eta Corvi is being bombarded by giant comets — the exact same process that created Earth's oceans. More »
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Where Earth got its oceans is a big question, and the currently preferred explanation is that ancient comets brought in huge amounts of water from the outer solar system. That hypothesis just received some big evidence to back it up. More »
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Ocean levels have risen several inches over the last century, and that's only likely to increase going forward. Most of that is related to climate change — but now scientists may have discovered a hidden factor in all this: irrigation. More »
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If you're tired of skiing on Earth, there's some perfect powder waiting for you, just 800 billion miles away. It's all thanks to Enceladus's amazing water geysers, some of which rain back down on the moon's surface as snow. More »
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This map is the result of one very busy month of data collected by NASA's Aquarius instrument, offering the first ever global map of the ocean surface's saltiness. This information has potentially profound implications for our understanding of changing climates. More »
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There's been a lot of talk recently about a coming water crisis, in which there both won't be enough water to go around and what water there is will be dangerously polluted. Well, there might be some good news. More »
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This morning, we formally invite you to pump the orange juice out of your glass or the milk out of your cereal bowl with a pump made from a stick and a straw. Then spend the rest of the morning cleaning it up while whoever else eats breakfast near you glares at you reproachfully. Entertain them with a lecture about physics while you wield the sponge. It will be a rich, full day. More »
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In 1954, British Pathe — whose Youtube channel brought us those ghastly dead kitten dioramas — did this amazing segment on Catherine Bent, a water diviner whose gift gave her the gait of a woman possessed. Clearly, Ms. Bent was on the payroll of the Ministry of Silly Walks. More »
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Frogs in northern Australia have to find a way to survive months of cold, dry climate. Their solution? Hang around outside just long enough to trap condensation, which they use to hydrate themselves. By any standard, this is pretty ingenious. More »
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While visiting Singapore, Marvel Comics talent scout C.B. Cebulski discovered Dr. Who bottled water, an oxygenated beverage that has absolutely nothing to do with the television show. The legality of this seems somewhat dodgy, but hey, at least we now know that Dr. Who contains no sodium or carbohydrates. Also, the Singaporean Dr. Who travels in a screamingly branded truck, which is somewhat less conspicuous than a police box. More »
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Water may be flowing on Mars, but where we really need it is here on Earth. Over 75% of our planet's surface is covered in water, yet 2 billion people worldwide reside in water-stressed countries. With fresh water accounting for a meager 3% of Earth's total water supply (and the vast majority of it locked up in glaciers and icecaps), the demand for state-of-the-art desalination technologies that can purify ocean water has never been greater. More »
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We've just learned that there's strong evidence that saltwater flows on the surface of Mars. It's another reminder that water is everywhere in our solar system, whether it's ice, vapor, or liquid. Here's a handy guide to where all the water can be found. More »
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The small moon Enceladus is constantly shooting water vapor out of its geysers. But that water isn't staying on the satellite - it's actually making its way to Saturn, making Enceladus the first known moon to shape its planet's composition. More »
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A distant, hyper-energetic black hole known as a quasar contains the largest reserve of water in the known universe, equivalent to 140 trillion times the water on Earth. The solution to our water crisis is only 12 billion light-years away! More »
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While the climate on the surface of Mars is pretty much completely dry, it's still possible that, every so often, it snows on Mars. These hellish storms would move at hurricane speeds and dump four inches of snow every hour More »
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Say aliens have abducted you. After probing you for a while, they get bored and drop you off wherever they choose. You look around you and see nothing but forests and snow-capped mountain peaks. And the only instruments you have on you are your lucky lighter and a thermometer that they left in your . . . let's say your mouth. What vital data about your whereabouts can you get using just those tools? More »
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Near the star Rho Ophiuchi, there are thick cosmic dust clouds from which new suns are born. While the vast majority of particles in the clouds are hydrogen, a newly discovered molecule could explain where water came from. More »
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A proto-star has been observed shooting water from its poles out into space. It may continue to do so for over a thousand years. Scientists think that this process may account for much of the free-floating water in the universe. More »
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Tibetan singing bowls have been used to produce beautiful and eery sounds. Now physicists are using them when they're full of water to create a reverse-rainstorm. More »
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After much consideration, a new theory has been advanced as to why half an hour in a bathtub makes fingers look like they're a billion years old. Finger wrinkles might not be a structural failure. They might be a tactical advantage. More »
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At zero degrees Celsius, liquid water freezes into ice. That should be the end of the story, but under very special conditions, frozen water can flow like a liquid. This frozen flowing water could be found on other planets. More »
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Scientists have come up with a super-sensitive microphone that works underwater. What did it take? The same thing it takes to accomplish anything worth doing: lasers. More »
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It is my sad duty to tell you that you can. You can now change your name to I.P. Freely. Fear should not keep you from peeing in a pool – just shame. More »
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Everything you knew about canine hydration was wrong! You will gasp in astonishment to discover the physical links between dog drinking and cat drinking! And learn the secrets behind messy dog slobber! All will be revealed! More »
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As more bacteria and algae are getting harder to kill, researchers are looking for new ways to eliminate them in water supplies. One idea is to unleash an electron-starved compound that will rip them apart. More »
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NASA's Messenger probe has already taken thousands of photos of Mercury's surface after coming into orbit around the planet earlier this week. And it's got plenty still to do, including searching for hidden pockets of ice on Mercury's boiling surface. More »
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Urban population growth is skyrocketing. The majority of people on Earth live in cities, and most of the water they drink has to be shipped in. Scientists say that by 2050, many cities will have seasonal water shortages. More »
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National Geographic won a journalism graphics award for an amazing interactive map showing where fresh water comes from on Earth. This is just a taste of what you can find if you visit the map, which shows locations of glaciers, rivers, aquifers, and more. In this part of the map, you can see where groundwater is - and find out that it's not being recharged fast enough to meet local demands. More »
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The Three Gorges dam on China's Yangtze River, pictured here, is one of the world's great engineering marvels. It's just one of many structures people have built to transform and contain China's massive rivers for the past 2,400 years. More »
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We've considered the possibility that aliens could invade. Sometimes they fly, sometimes they walk, sometimes they sprout and take over our bodies when we're sleeping, but only rarely do they swim. There's a dearth of water-based aliens in media, despite the fact that statistics prove that in 60% of regular comic book continuity Aquaman's wife is an alien. These alarming numbers show that we need to pay more attention to how many exoplanets could have large oceans. To do that, we have to take a look at how oceans form. More »
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Our view of the Solar System has changed utterly in the last fifty years. Mention that at a cocktail party and your listener will assume you're talking about Pluto, the demotion of which has stirred more response than any other recent planetary news. But in addition to all we've learned through our spacecraft, our view of the Solar System has gone from a small number of orbiting planets to huge numbers of objects at vast distances. Fifty years ago, a Kuiper Belt many times more massive than the main asteroid belt was only theory. And the early Solar System models I grew up with never included any representation of a vast cloud of comets all the way out to 50,000 AU. More »
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It's in our homes, our schools, and in houses of national and international power. It's running through our country and underneath our cities. It goes into all of our food, and many of us go to sleep at night with some quantity of it by our bedside. It's water, and since we see it every day, we don't consider it to be unusual. That's a mistake. Water has some intensely strange properties. More »
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Why is it that astrobiologists consider water a prerequisite when seeking out alien life? Steve Nerlich of Universe Today has the details. More »
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