Water

Although we've seen several materials that are designed to remove oil from water, many of these become saturated, and have to be discarded. A new reusable membrane gets around this problem, however, by repelling oil instead of just soaking it up.

Although small amounts of fluoride in drinking water may help to strengthen teeth and bones, too much can be dangerous. With that in mind, a simple new test has been designed to determine if fluoride levels are too high.

Scientists have uncovered an unfortunate feedback loop that could make things worse for the climate. According to a new study, ocean acidification seems to increase the amount of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, that’s released into the air.

Superhydrophobic materials, which are excellent at repelling water, can be extremely useful for a whole range of reasons. Now engineers have found a quirky new use for them – making “unsinkable” metals that stay floating even when punctured.

When it comes to algae that produce toxins in lakes or other waterways, it's certainly best to detect excessive populations of the things as soon as possible. A new smartphone-based system could help, delivering on-the-spot readings within minutes.

Although some people may take a more "civilized" approach, it's likely that most of us drink water by putting our mouths up to the faucet. The Da Vinci faucet was designed to make doing so more hygienic, as it incorporates a drinking fountain.

To gain a clearer picture of water ice availability at the Moon’s South Pole, NASA has announced a new mission to send in a lunar rover by the name of VIPER to drill into the lunar surface and analyze samples.

If microbes such as toxic cyanobacteria are present in water bodies, then the sooner that health authorities know, the better. The prototype Pelican drone is designed with that in mind, as it can autonomously perform on-location water analyses.

Water is crucial to life as we know it, so it’s one of the key things astronomers look out for on exoplanets. And now, water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere of a potentially habitable exoplanet for the first time.

Researchers from the University of California Berkeley have developed a device that can wring drinkable amounts of water out of even the driest air.

Throughout the densely-populated country of Bangladesh, a lack of access to clean drinking water is responsible for a variety of debilitating and often-lethal infections. Soon, however, residents could filter virtually all harmful microbes out of their water, using paper derived from algae.

A new international study indicates that a simple, automatic chlorine dispenser can have a major impact on childhood diarrhea in the developing world. By applying water disinfectant that doesn't adversely affect taste, rates or diarrhea were reduced by 23 percent in a test project in Bangladesh.