Tag: diseases

Brass Doorknobs of Public Restrooms

By Anupum Pant

I remember my grandma telling me to keep some water overnight in a copper pot, and in the morning, she used to drink it. I never understood why she did that. Backed by solid science, today I’m able to appreciate her age-old wisdom.

Today, to get rid of the problem causing bacteria, trusting brass doorknobs is better than trusting those triclosan lad anti-bacterial soaps. Yes, brass can kill bacteria very effectively.

Doorknobs are probably the most touched objects, especially the ones that are on the doors of a toilet at the mall. A doorknob probably even beats smartphones because a doorknob is accessible to anyone and everyone, whereas a smartphone is usually touched by a single individual.

Although, I’m not totally sure that a doorknob is really one of the most touched objects, one thing is for sure – Door knobs are the places where an incredible amount of sickness causing germs get collected. Thanks to the thousands of unclean hands coming straight from the toilet and touching the knob for the day.

And yet, you don’t often get sick after touching public restroom knobs. That is because doorknobs are normally made of brass. Brass and a couple of other metals have an ability to clean themselves – in a given amount of time these metals are able to sterilize themselves! This is called the Oligodynamic effect. Sounds like a cool name to remember because it’s easy to remember and nothing else would annoy your friends more than you bringing it up amidst conversations…

It has been tested and found that brass is able to sterilize itself in the span of eight hours. While some have tried to explain how it works, no one has been able to explain the effect in a satisfactory manner.

Other metals like silver, copper and copper alloys are able to kill bacteria better. Silver, purportedly is a very robust disinfectant. But, not many would be able to afford doorknobs made out of silver or pure copper. Instead, a far cheaper alloy consisting of copper and zinc (brass) is used to make bacteria zapping doorknobs.

Stainless steel and aluminium metals aren’t able to do this. Be careful when you have to twist doorknobs made of Steel or Aluminium. These are metals that could get you sick.

[Wikipedia]

Making Fresh Water With Apple and Tomato Peels

By Anupum Pant

Water on Earth

It’s Christmas! On this happy day let’s take a minute to look at what the major part of the world is facing today.

The present situation might not look as bad, but the truth is that we are running out of fresh water. To give you an idea about how much water is actually there on earth, this image of the whole world’s water compared with the size of earth is, in my view, the best thing that could prove it to you.

Fresh water in all the lakes and rivers on the whole planet is represented by the tiniest dot.  Yes, there is a third water sphere in the picture. You might have to squint to find it. So, that is the amount of fresh water we have here on earth.

global-water-volume-fresh
Source: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html

War for water: If this image isn’t much of a proof that fresh water is scarce, probably this will do the trick:
Countries consider fresh water a very precious resource. Several countries all around the world are fighting with their neighbors for this blue gold. Two good examples of that – [India starts water war] and [This]

The Point

Today, economically and technologically backward countries require good cost-effective methods to purify water. Scientists are doing a tremendous amount of work in this area and coming out with innovative methods to deal with the problem. Also, it is one great idea for taking up as a science fair project by students. One such recent research regarding this caught my attention.

The fruit peel method

Note: If you are wondering why have I written fruit when we are dealing with a tomato here, this might come as a shock to you that Tomato is actually a fruit. And BTW:

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that a tomato doesn’t belong in a fruit salad. – Miles Kingston

Mr Ramakrishna Mallampati, under the guidance of Associate Professor Suresh Valiyaveettil of the Department of Chemistry at the NUS Faculty of Science, have discovered a new way of purifying water which is both innovative and cost effective. Moreover, it uses the waste product of a fruit, its peel, for something good. They hope that their new technology will comes as a boon to the people living in areas where a water treatment plant cannot be set up.

According to their research, a tomato’s peel, under certain conditions, can remove dissolved organic and inorganic chemicals, dyes and pesticides. Additionally, an apple’s peel was also found to have these wonderful properties. Apple’s peel loaded with Zirconium were found to be effective in removing phosphate, arsenate, arsenite, and chromate anions. This is the first time ever someone has used to remove two different kinds of pollutants using two different kinds of peels. Notably, all their processes can be scaled up for large scale applications.

I hope that this new discovery will come as a respite to all the poor nations where people die everyday due to the unavailability of drinking water – due to diseases.

Source: http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/#
Source: http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/#

For more details – [NUS researchers developed world’s first water treatment techniques using apple and tomato peels]

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