Alan Turing’s chemistry hypothesis turned into a desalination filter

Enlarge / A reverse osmosis facility. (credit: South Florida Water District) Alan Turing is rightly famed for his contributions to computer science. But one of his key concepts—an autonomous system that can generate complex behavior from a few simple rules—also has applications in unexpected places, like animal behavior. One area where Turing himself applied the […]

Seawater desalination will quench the thirst of a parched planet

Humanity has sought to make the Earth’s oceans potable for thousands of years. The Norse tale of Utgarda-Loki tells of Odin being tricked into drinking from a horn connected to the sea, while Exodus 15:22–26 of the Bible likely describes Moses desalinating the water of Marah: When they came to Marah, they could not drink […]