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

A watery ocean may lie beneath the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, scientists believe. Gravity measurements reveal deformations in Titan’s interior that suggest a layer of liquid ‘sloshing around’.

The ocean is thought to be made of water with a depth of a couple of hundred kilometres. It appears to cover the entire moon beneath 100 kilometres of ice.

The evidence comes from the American space agency Nasa’s probe Cassini, which made six fly-bys of Titan between 2006 and 2011.

Scientists used signals beamed back by Cassini to measure distortions in Titan’s gravitational field.

The data showed something strange happening in the moon’s interior which indicated the presence of liquid water.

Writing in the journal Science, the planetary experts led by Dr Luciano Iess, from La Sapienza University in Rome, concluded: ‘Such a large response to the tidal field requires that Titan’s interior is deformable over time scales of the orbital period, in a way that is consistent with a global ocean at depth.’ Read more

Among the most serious Earth science and environmental policy issues confronting society are the potential changes in the Earth’s water cycle due to climate change. The science community now generally agrees that the Earth’s climate is undergoing changes in response to natural variability, including solar variability, and increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Furthermore, agreement is widespread that these changes may profoundly affect atmospheric water vapor concentrations, clouds, precipitation patterns, and runoff and stream flow patterns.

Global climate change will affect the water cycle, likely creating perennial droughts in some areas and frequent floods in others. (Photograph ©2008 Garry Schlatter.) Read more

Underground heat pump installation to extract heat from water flushed down the drain

Homes in Helsinki will soon be heated by heat extracted from waste water. After domestic waste water has been treated at the Viiki sewage works, it will pass through one of five heat pumps built under Katri Vala Park. Its heat is removed, concentrated and used in domestic heating. Read more