The remarkable chemical and physical properties of water, primarily resulting from hydrogen bonding, have major consequences for all living organisms.
The properties of water place limits on organisms — on their physiology, anatomy, behavior, distributions, and evolution — but simultaneously provide evolutionary and ecological opportunities. Read more
Speaking about the topic of “women and water” is really impossible. The conceptual category “woman” is a socially constructed and constructing set of ideas that varies from historical time period to time period and culture to culture.
This would of course mean that “women’s” (as a conceptual category) relationship with water changes throughout time and across cultures as well. There is no homogoneous category of “woman” into which all women at all times fit into. Read more
In the study of religion, water is used as a symbol and as a ritual object. Even in rituals, however, the use of actual water is laden with symbolic content, and its function is a symbolic one.
Symbols, then, are where we should begin a discussion of water in Western religions. Symbols are any figuration, whether in image, material, or in language, which is invested with cultural meaning. The meaning that a symbol has, however, is not limited to denoting one thing–symbols, by definition, mean many things at once. The classical distinction was made by Ferdinand deSaussure; he wrote frequently about the differences between “signs” and “symbols.” According to Saussure, a sign is arbitrary, whereas a symbol is not. Read more
Water is an odourless, tasteless, transparent liquid at room temperature
Water is wet
Water covers about 70 percent of the earth’s surface in the oceans, lakes, rivers, and glaciers
The ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan creation story recounts that the sun-god Atum (Re) reposed in the primordial ocean (Nun)
Ninety-seven percent of the water on the planet is in the form of salt water. Only 3 percent is fresh, and two-thirds of that is ice
Chemically, water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, its molecule consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen – H2O
The physical and chemical properties of water are extraordinarily complicated and incompletely understood Read more
Virtually every health-conscious person can quote the recommendation: Drink at least eight eight-ounce glasses of water per day. Other beverages—coffee, tea, soda, beer, even orange juice—don’t count. Watermelon? Not a chance.
There’s no denying that water is good for you, but does everyone really need to drink 64 ounces or more every day? According to Heinz Valtin, a retired professor of physiology from Dartmouth Medical School who specialized in kidney research and spent 45 years studying the biological system that keeps the water in our bodies in balance, the answer is no. Read more
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