If you live in North America, you've probably never given the cost of water a second thought. In fact, you've probably taken its value for granted probably because it costs very little or because it's vastly abundant. 

In places like Saudi Arabia, however, a liter of water costs five times as much as a liter of gasoline. This is because much of the water in Saudi Arabia is seawater that is purified in desalinization plants (Al Jubail desalination plant shown above). This price relative to fuel is quite different in the United States. For example, a liter of water (from a tap) is virtually free, while a liter of gasoline is around $0.75 (about $3.00 per gallon). 

As a result of this significant difference in cost, it plays a major effect on hu ...

A new study that's challenging the popular idea that we should drink eight glasses of water a day for health purposes shows that a 'swallowing inhibition' is activated by the brain after excess liquid is consumed. This inhibition mechanism helps maintain tightly calibrated volumes of water in the body.

The lead scientist has pointed out that if we just do what our body demands us to, we'll probably get it right. In other words, it is the best practice to just drink according to thirst rather than an elaborate schedule.

Building on a previous study, the researchers asked participants to rate the amount of effort required to swallow water under two conditions; following exercise when they were thirsty and later after they were persuaded to drin ...

To tap into scarce water supplies, most desert plants have extensive root systems that burrow deep or spread wide. But one desert moss has a different trick up its sleeve: a thirst-quenching structure called an awn. Awns are tiny, hairlike structures that project from the end of each leaf to capture water (above). For the first time, scientists have examined in detail how this moss (Syntrichia caninervis) pulls water right from the air using its awns. At the smallest scale, the awns are covered with grooves about 100 nanometers deep and 200 nanometers wide, the perfect size for dew to condense within them when conditions are right. Those nanogrooves lie within larger troughs that measure about 1.5 micrometers deep and 3 micrometers wide, a ...

Some bugs, such as water scorpions, long-toed water beetle and predaceous diving beetles (shown below) use the molecular properties of water to create miniature scuba diving tanks and spacesuits. The cohesive forces between water molecules essentially makes water molecules "stick" together, allowing bubbles to form against a wall of tension. These little insects are small enough to take advantage of this, by trapping a bubble in their outer wings or tiny bristles on their shell.

...

There’s so much trash floating in some parts of the ocean that each square kilometer of surface water there holds almost 600,000 pieces of debris. Indeed, because there's so much of it, by 2050 birds of almost every ocean-foraging species may be eating plastic.

The AquaDom is a 25 m (82 ft) tall cylindrical acrylic glass aquarium built at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Berlin, Germany. You can ride the transparent elevator it has in the center!

Ever seen an egg cracked underwater?

Lost Lake, located in central Oregon, is known for rapidly draining every year through a six-foot (two-meter) wide hole in the lake's bottom (as shown in the video). Early in the following spring, however, the lake fills up again, as snowmelt from the surrounding mountains accumulates faster than water can drain out through the hole. That hole is really a lava tube - a geologic feature made when lava cools around the edges of a river of molten rock. After the hot lava drains away, it can leave an empty space. ...

A new study finds that Mudskipper fish carry water in their mouths in order to eat prey outside of water. As seen in the video below, the hidden water is expelled at the moment of eating and it serves as a suction to move the water and their meal back toward the esophagus. The water suction, or “hydrostatic” tongue, may serve as the evolutionary bridge that allowed our aquatic ancestors to begin feeding on land.

In this amazing video, scientists have sucked the air out of the container and managed to find a pressure/temperature combination that's near the triple point of the fluid, which has been identified as cyclohexane - the triple point is the very precise temperature and pressure at which the three states of matter (solid, liquid and gas) exist in thermodynamic equilibrium.

Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-a-liquid-boil-and-freeze-at-the-same-time ...

Here are the most accurate measurements of the ocean's biggest animals. These are confirmed measurements, unlike many found on the internet that state outrageous numbers.

Anywhere between 1 in 30 million and 1 in 50 million, according to some estimates. In August of 2014, one lucky fisherman captured an extremely rare "calico" lobster in New Hampshire.

The Dana octopus squid (Taningia danae) of the Pacific blinds its prey with flashes of light from its arms! It is believed that this highly maneuverable squid uses the bright flashes to disorientate potential prey. These flashes may also serve to illuminate the prey to make for easier capture as well as a courtship and territorial display.

In Japan, firefly squid - or hotaru ika, as the locals call them - rise 600 metres (2,000 feet) to the surface of the water and light it up with their electric blue bioluminescence.

This is all the water on Earth and the air in our atmosphere, to scale. That's 1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of water and 5,140 trillion tonnes of air.

450 years for a plastic bottle, 50 for a Styrofoam cup, and 10 to 20 years for a plastic bag.

This is a single drop of seawater, magnified 25 times. The amazing image shows bacteria, worms, fish eggs, crab larva, diatoms, and much more. Think about THAT next time you swallow a mouthful of seawater.

Found all around the world, including off the coast of Australia, the tripod fish can live in depths of up to 6 km below the surface. The purpose of those super-long fins is to elevate the tripod fish to about a metre above the seabed, where the ocean's current is strong. This means that small prawns and crabs are ushered right into the tripod fish's gaping mouth, and all it has to do is stand there.

This is the first photograph taken of an orangutan using a tool to fish in Borneo. The photo captures a moment when this male was using the pole to catch fish trapped in the locals’ fishing lines.

This little guy on the left is the iron sulphide secreting scaly-foot gastropod. It's the only animal known to plate itself with metal and lives in a thermal vent deep in the ocean. But last year scientists found a pale, genetically identical version of the species (on the right) that doesn't secrete metal, leading scientists to question what the purpose of the armour really is.

A pink Amazon river dolphin on the warm side of the "Meeting of the Waters." This is where the sandy Amazon River meets the dark waters of the Rio Negro in Manaus, Brazil. A strong density gradient contributes to their visible separation, as well as a significant temperature difference - the Amazon flows at around 22°C, while the Rio Negro is around 28°C.

It looks spooky, but this is actually an image of a salt lake in Western Australia's Gibson Desert taken by astronauts on board the International Space Station. It's an example of how our brains often take random patterns and see them as faces or other familiar figures (like a ghost in this case), a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia. ...

With up to one million hairs per square inch of its body, the sea otter has the densest fur in the animal kingdom. (To put this in perspective, you’ve probably only got 100,000 hairs or less on your whole head!) Together with a huge lung capacity, this makes these water-loving creatures extremely buoyant. The pups are born so buoyant, they're incapable of diving underwater, and are often left bobbing on the surface in a sea kelp bed while their mothers hunt for food nearby.

This is the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park - the largest hot spring in North America and the third largest in the world. The incredible colours are produced by pigmented bacteria that grow in microbial mats around the edges of the mineral-rich water. In summer, the mats are usually orange and red, and in winter they're are usually dark green.

Barely half an hour after being jolted by a major earthquake on Tuesday, people of the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar had another shock when they saw a new island emerge in the sea, just over a kilometre from the shore.


It has a rough surface, much of which is muddy and some parts are mostly made up of fine- to coarse-grained sand. ...

The LifeStraw removes nearly 100% of waterborne bacteria and can filter up to 1000 L of water.


Throughout the world, an estimated 884 million people still do not have access to clean sources of water. According to the LifeStraw manufacturers, the device contains no chemicals or batteries and makes it possible to drink safely from any river, lake or puddle.

...