I do wonder why do they call this particular piece of protective clothing a raincoat if its main function is to prevent you from being laced with poop as well as poisonous seepage from your surroundings. After all, a raincoat is supposed to keep you dry from the pitter patter of rainfall, no? I guess the entire form factor of it (not to mention the classic bright yellow color) makes sense, where this new project that involves lining the outhouses of the developing world with such a “raincoat” might end up saving millions of lives.
After all, plenty of places around the world to have drinking wells that are placed a wee bit too close to outhouse pits, so obviously there is stinking health issue at hand – you get parasites, germs, and other pathogens crawling around, hoping to make that trip into nearby drinking water. Who would have thought that rainwater fabric is the solution? Steve Dentel, a professor at the University of Delaware, picked up a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Grand Challenges Explorations Fund recently for his discovery, where the fabric in question is very close to the waterproof, breathable material that sees action as a raincoat, where it will protecting the surrounding area from nasty and potentially death dealing organisms.
How did Dentel test his discovery? Well, he placed fecal matter in a couple of pouches, where one of them is made of the breathable fabric, while the other uses regular plastic. The fabric enables water vapor to move through, but made sure the fecal matter and its army of germs remain contained.
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