What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
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   Thursday, March 30, 2006

   THEY BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE

If I wasn't born a geek, growing up in the 1970's certainly sealed the deal. It was a crap decade -- Vietnam, Watergate, the oil crisis, Jonestown, Barry Manilow -- so people tended to become either desperate for nostalgia or fascinated by the future. Seventies pop culture wallowed in sci-fi: there were happy futures, terrifying futures and futures I'm not sure which. "Star Wars" managed to be futuristic AND nostalgic at once!

Somewhere in all that -- way up in the Canadian fringes past even "The Starlost" -- was a cheap little Global TV show called "Science International." Host Joseph Campanella (an actor who's appeared in every TV show ever) wore a groovy black turtleneck against a black background so that his floating head could explain the scientific innovations that would change our lives. Each segment ended with his breathless exclamation, "What will they think of next?" He said it so often that the producers eventually threw their hands up and made it the new name of the show.

That sort of gee-whiz glee is largely passé these days though my old boyfriend Bryce worked for Telus Mobility and excitedly told me in 1999 how hard they were working on video games for cellphone colour video screens. "But what's the point of that?" I asked. "Who cares?" he shrugged, "It's just cool."

Today, though, I got a genuine dose of that old-school 'wow, futuristic!' vibe when I read this piece on what Proctor & Gamble has been working on:

Chemists have developed a powerful household water purification system that puts the cleansing power of an industrial water treatment plant into a container the size of a ketchup packet. The researchers have shown that the tiny packet, which acts as a chemical filter, can be added to highly contaminated water to dramatically reduce pathogen-induced diarrhea — the top killer of children in much of the developing world.
...
Worldwide, approximately 1.5 million children under age five die each year from simple diarrhea acquired from pathogens found in drinking water, according to public health experts. That translates to about 4,000 children dying each day as a result of contaminated water.
...
A single packet can decontaminate 2 ˝ gallons of drinking water, or enough drinking water to sustain a typical household for about 2-3 days, Allgood says. The packet is added to a large container of impure water, stirred, filtered through a cloth to remove impurities and then allowed to sit for 20 minutes. The net result is clear, safe drinking water, the researcher says.

What will they think of next?

Labels: Canada, technology, the 70s