Big Waves

The guest on Stephen Colbert's World Water Day episode (episode #04039), Dean Kamen, has an amazing new invention developed by his company, DEKA Research, called a vapor compression distiller that is able to purify any water source into clean, distilled water without using filters, membranes, chemicals, or ion collection with no disposables of any kind. In one day, his machine can produce 1,000 liters of pure distilled water. Kamen also stated that 50% of diseases are caused by water-bourne pathogens.

"So what do you want to do with this [technology]?" Stephen asks.

"Well, since 1.1 billion people, 20% of the world's population, goes to bed every night sick or thirsty because they don't have access to water, clean water, we thought we'd put these in production, figure out how to get them placed around the world, and we'd wipe out 50% of human disease," Dean Kamen replies.

The only trick to placing these machines in areas where clean water is scarce is to make sure that everyone will have equal access to the water and the machines won't end up being controlled by corrupt police and government officials or by gangs.

Regardless, Kamen's vapor compression distiller will definitely be making big waves around the world. Way to go, Dean!