America has some of the cleanest drinking water on Earth, but in many developing countries, clean water is oftentimes hard to come by. Bacteria and other nasty organisms give rise to such waterborne illnesses as cholera, typhoid and hepatitis.
Many scientists are working on inexpensive and simple technologies that can clean water and make it safe to drink. Among them are Yi Cui and his colleagues at Stanford University, who have developed a new type of water filter that is 80,000 times faster than existing filters and less expensive than what’s available today. It doesn’t cost much because there are no moving parts and it uses very little power.
Just about everyone I know has some type of water-filtering pitcher in their refrigerator, or one hooked up directly to their faucet. While those filters physically trap most bacteria from flowing into water, this new nanofilter actually lets bacteria flow right through.
