I found these water conservation posters online a few years ago and have been holding onto them. Many cities and other organizations create marketing materials to educate people about water conservation. In this day and time, it is strange to think about getting people to conserve water for the good of their nation, particularly for a war effort.

It is hard to think about anyone rationing or conserving today for a war effort (even though we are presently at war). Today, pleas for water conservation are made for the environment’s sake, your personal footprint sake, or for money saving sake. Read more

Most of us have heard it a hundred times: drink eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy and hydrated. And while hydration is genuinely important for our health, if you’re guzzling all that water with your meals it can actually have a negative impact on your digestion.

It’s true that the entire digestive system works more efficiently when it’s well-hydrated, but this doesn’t mean it should be flooded with cold water right when it’s working to digest your last meal. Too much water during meals can interfere with natural levels of acid and bile needed in the stomach to properly digest your food. In particular, too much cold water during meals can slow digestion and may cause cramping in sensitive individuals. Read more

As the male túngara frog serenades female frogs from a pond, he creates watery ripples that make him easier to target by rivals and predators such as bats, according to researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Leiden University and Salisbury University.

Ripples continue for several seconds after a male tungara frog has stopped calling.

A túngara frog will stop calling if it sees a bat overhead, but ripples continue moving for several seconds after the call ceases. In the study, published this week in the journal Science, researchers found evidence that bats use echolocation — a natural form of sonar — to detect these ripples and home in on a frog. The discovery sheds light on an ongoing evolutionary arms race between frogs and bats. Read more

Inspiration can come in many forms, but this one truly was a breath of fresh air. A group of McMaster researchers has solved the problem of cumbersome, expensive and painfully slow water-testing by turning the process upside-down.

Instead of shipping water to the lab, they have created a way to take the lab to the water, putting potentially life-saving technology into the hands of everyday people. The team has reduced the sophisticated chemistry required for testing water safety to a simple pill, by adapting technology found in a dissolving breath strip. Want to know if a well is contaminated? Drop a pill in a vial of water and shake vigorously. If the colour changes, there’s the answer. Read more