Billboard in Peru Turns Air into Clean Drinking Water

Just outside Lima, Peru, a billboard provides drinking water to whomever needs it - producing water out of thin air for residents of the desert city.

The world has known jugs, taps, plants etc that are used to filter water, but imagine a 50 feet tall billboard on the main road that filters water for all of its adjacent area ? Yes, this has been made possible by the University of Engineering and Technology, Lima, Peru.

This billboard is capable of actually making 100 liters (26 gallons) of water everyday out of thin air (no its not a bank and no its not creating any paper currency but it’s much better than that). It works like this: the billboard is designed the way that it captures moisture from the air and puts it through a reverse osmosis system, turning it into drinking water which is then stored in 20 liter tanks. It is capable of providing drinking water for hundreds of families per month.

Originally it was designed by Lima’s University of Engineering and Technology as an advertisement for enrollment  the billboard works to overcome the lack of transportable water in the coastal desert. The resourceful design takes advantage of the atmospheric humidity of almost 98%, to counter the dangerously low annual rainfall (just over half an inch).

We all know that the government will not fund this but could this be the answer for other drought-stricken cities around the world? Can this be used in the deserts of Africa where many people die either because of the non-availability of water or because of the water born diseases? Can this method be used in cities and cosmopolitans where most of the tap water is fluoridated which is not only bad for health but also a reason for many diseases such as cancer.

SOURCE: GOODNET

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Weird Peruvian Web-Towers

Something in the Peruvian Amazon is making weird, intricate structures that resemble white picket fences surrounding an Isengard-like spire.

No one has any idea who the mysterious craftsbug (fungus? spider?) is, or what the structure is even used for, excepting the fence part, which almost makes sense. Nobody, not even the scientists we asked.

Troy Alexander, a graduate student at Georgia Tech, spotted the first of these structures on 7 June. The little, seemingly woven fence was parked on the underside of a blue tarp near the Tambopata Research Centre, in southeastern Peru. He later spotted three more of the bizarre enclosures on tree trunks in the jungle.

"All of them were on the small island used to view the parrot clay lick at Tambopata Research Centre," Alexander said. He described the fences as small - about 2 centimetres across -- and posted a second photo of the structure on the subreddit whatsthisbug, hoping someone could explain the origin of the fortified mini-Maypoles. No one could.

We noticed the weirdness on 29 August, when Phil Torres, a biologist who also works at Tambopata, posted a link on Twitter. In the intervening days, we've tried to find out what on Earth could have made these tiny towers.

But it turns out that even scientists who study such things haven't a clue.

"I have no idea what made it, or even what it is," said William Eberhard, an entomologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

"I've seen the photo, but have no idea what animal might be responsible," echoed Norm Platnick, curator emeritus of spiders at the American Museum of Natural History. 

"I don't know what it is," said arachnologist Linda Rayor, of Cornell University. "My guess is something like a lacewing, but I don't really know."

 "I do not know what organism made it. Never seen such a structure before," said Jonathan Coddington, who studies spiders and is associate director for science at the National Museum of Natural History. 

We asked Wired.com's incoming bug blogger, entomologist Gwen Pearson, if she had any thoughts on what the strange and beautiful structure could be. "The general consensus amongst people I know is this group," she said, referencing moths in the Bucculatricidae family. But, "I would have gone with a relative of this group in Vietnam," she noted, pointing toward the Urodidae family, known for weaving basket-like cocoons.

"We are all guessing," Pearson said. "We have no freakin' clue. And that's my expert opinion."

Suspecting that some sort of Lepidopteran (a butterfly or moth) might be responsible for the design, we've begun querying entomologists who specialise in these organisms. "I have no idea," said Todd Gilligan of Colorado State University, and president of The Lepidopterists' Society. "Some moths construct an 'egg fence' around eggs, using scales from the abdomen to protect the eggs," he said. "So constructing fences around objects isn't unheard of, but I haven't seen anything like this before."

Suggestions from the interwebs have ranged from an incomplete cocoon, to the work of a moth in the Bucculatricidae family, to a spider from Mars. Alexander's favourite theory, described on Facebook, is that "there are spider eggs in the base of the pole, and the spiderlings climb the pole and sail away on silken parachutes, protected by the fence the whole time."


Conclusion: the structure itself, and the organism that made it, are still a mystery.

This story originally appeared on Wired.com

Peru Provides Free Solar Power To 2 Million Of Its Poorest Residents

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Peru has initiated a new solar panel program that will provide electricity to more than 2 million of its poorest residents, Don Lieber over at Planetsave has reported.

Currently, only 66% of Peru’s 24 million people has access to electricity, according to the country’s Energy and Mining Minister Jorge Merino. By 2016, the plan is to provide electricity to 95% of residents through The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program.

“This program is aimed at the poorest people, those who lack access to electric lighting and still use oil lamps, spending their own resources to pay for fuels that harm their health,” he said.

The first phase will install 1,601 solar panels in the Contumaza province, enough to power 126 communities throughout Cupisnique, San Benito, Chilete, Tantarica, Yonan, San Luis, and Contai. The second phase of the project will involve 12,500 PV systems to provide 500,000 households, about 2 million people, with free electricity. The overall cost will be around $200 million.

Peru has incredible access to sunlight, so this is the perfect way to take advantage of natural resources while providing a valuable service to residents of all income levels. Makes you wonder why more countries can’t do the same, doesn’t it?

Source - www.the9billion.com

Solar power in Peru

Light Up The World - Solar Energy Project in Alto Nanay, Peru

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