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Can Lifestraw save the world? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W Chuck Bryan. Isn't
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Speaker 1: this proper place across from me that makes this stuff
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Speaker 1: you should know? Let's get physical physical, let me hear
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Speaker 1: your body talk. You're ready. I couldn't quite do it.
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Speaker 1: You should probably explain that I put my hand under
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Speaker 1: an into my under arm and kind of made like
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Speaker 1: a chicken flapping motion to try to make sound, to
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Speaker 1: make my body talk. Okay, I didn't know what. I
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Speaker 1: had no idea why you were doing. Really, I get
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Speaker 1: it now. My hand smells funny. Now. Olivia Newton John
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Speaker 1: would not approve. I was once kicked out of an
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Speaker 1: Olivia Newton John concert for being too rowdy? Are you serious? What?
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Speaker 1: I need a little bit more on that. I'll tell you.
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Speaker 1: I'll tell you another time. Okay, Wow, Chuck gosh. You've
1:15
Speaker 1: heard of this body called the United Nations. Some say
1:18
Speaker 1: it's fraudulent, some say it's official. Yeah, of course, um,
1:22
Speaker 1: but you are familiar with you. I've been down to
1:24
Speaker 1: N been to that building? Have you really it was
1:27
Speaker 1: Whenn't it like a Mike Brady design that building? Yeah,
1:31
Speaker 1: sort of that era. It feels like the flags. What
1:35
Speaker 1: were you down there for? Well? I didn't go in.
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Speaker 1: I just have been to New York and said, oh,
1:40
Speaker 1: look there's an UN building. You just shouted at it. Yes,
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Speaker 1: out exactly. Um, the you win. In my opinion, it's
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Speaker 1: a legitimate body, and I like it because it does
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Speaker 1: things like try to reduce the number of people who
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Speaker 1: don't have ready access to clean water by half. It's
2:01
Speaker 1: a huge undertaking, great initiative. But that's something that's going
2:04
Speaker 1: on right now thanks to the u N. That's what
2:06
Speaker 1: they can do. That's one of the things they can
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Speaker 1: do is kind of like throw their spare tire about
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Speaker 1: and be like, hey, China, let's do something. Yeah right,
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Speaker 1: um and uh. I say that that's a substantial undertaking
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Speaker 1: project because there's about one point one billion people as
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Speaker 1: of two thousand and six I believe, who lacked ready
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Speaker 1: access to clean drinking water right and it's it's hard
2:34
Speaker 1: to imagine here and they developed West where we just
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Speaker 1: waste water, and in a startling degree, it's so cheap
2:43
Speaker 1: and abundant and plentiful, especially in areas like the southwest
2:47
Speaker 1: or the southeast, which you know here in Georgia we
2:50
Speaker 1: have like our own um reservoir. The Chattahoochie River starts
2:55
Speaker 1: in North Georgia, so we have that, and then South
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Speaker 1: George has this huge aquifer, so we're set for clean
3:03
Speaker 1: drinking water. So it's hard to imagine having to walk
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Speaker 1: twenty kilometers to go get water and bring it back
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Speaker 1: and that be part of your daily life, you know,
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Speaker 1: but it is. And it's stuff like that that keeps
3:14
Speaker 1: the developing world undeveloped because how can you focus on
3:20
Speaker 1: anything innovative if you have to walk twelve miles to
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Speaker 1: get water every day? Yeah, if you're struggling just to
3:27
Speaker 1: stay alive, what else you're gonna get done that day
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Speaker 1: besides meeting the goal of staying alive for yet another
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Speaker 1: day staying alive? Also, you know, again it's hard to envision.
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Speaker 1: We've talked about um, how how how much food and water?
3:41
Speaker 1: How long can I go without food and water? And
3:44
Speaker 1: all that was like we're trying to make it human,
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Speaker 1: but it's it was tough to conceive. Imagine if the
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Speaker 1: water that you did go get when you brought it
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Speaker 1: back to your house, you drank it, and then a
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Speaker 1: couple of months later it killed you, like you died
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Speaker 1: from diarrhea. Literally. Yeah, you want a couple of stats, Yeah, please,
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Speaker 1: About fifty of the world's uh destitute people josh suffer
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Speaker 1: from disease because of the water that they cook with
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Speaker 1: and drink and about. And this is really startling. Six
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Speaker 1: thousand people per day die from water borne illness. Could
4:15
Speaker 1: have been prevented people a day. It's like, that's such
4:19
Speaker 1: a huge figure that it's it becomes like this um,
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Speaker 1: this mass that that doesn't have any real definition. It's
4:26
Speaker 1: hard to put faces to that, you know. Yeah, I
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Speaker 1: think about that tonight when you get a glass of
4:31
Speaker 1: water from your tap. Just sucking bum everybody out think
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Speaker 1: about today. Six thousand people die because they can't do
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Speaker 1: something as simple as this exactly, and um dead trombone. Now, Um.
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Speaker 1: The way that people do die, it's not necessarily from thirst.
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Speaker 1: It's usually not from thirst because there is water out there.
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Speaker 1: The keyword here is um, sanitary, clean drinking water. Exactly.
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Speaker 1: There's water out there, but they're full of all sorts
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Speaker 1: of acteriathogens. Apparently there's about four billion cases of diarrhea
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Speaker 1: every year. I count for about two that is grass
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Speaker 1: this article um cites about one point eight million people
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Speaker 1: die every year from diarrhea. And and you but you
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Speaker 1: become dehydrated. You do it so often that you become
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Speaker 1: dehydrated so quick that you die. And hydration brought on
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Speaker 1: by diarrhea. And if you're already malnourished, that's where the
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Speaker 1: problem is. It's not you know, I could get dehydrated
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Speaker 1: and drink more water, but if you're already malnourished. If
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Speaker 1: you say, like have HIV and your child or even
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Speaker 1: an adult with HIV, I think children get diarrhea at
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Speaker 1: a rate of four times that if they have HIV,
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Speaker 1: and adults are seven times more likely to get diarrhea
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Speaker 1: if they have HIV. And developing nations a lot of
5:52
Speaker 1: people have HIV. Yeah about like HIV cases are found
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Speaker 1: in developing nations. So couple that all together, and you
6:00
Speaker 1: have people dying because of something as simple as diarrhea.
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Speaker 1: That's just a nuisance to people like us. And we said, yeah,
6:06
Speaker 1: we just go get the ammonium. But imagine a world
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Speaker 1: where there is no ammodium. I don't take amodium um.
6:13
Speaker 1: But so that's so I can imagine that world weird anyway.
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Speaker 1: The article cites one point eight million deaths from from
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Speaker 1: diarrhea um. I would dispute that. I found that Giardia,
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Speaker 1: which is a diarrheal parasite um, causes two point five
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Speaker 1: million deaths alone, and cryptosporidium, which is also a parasite
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Speaker 1: that brings on diarrhea causes about three point five million
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Speaker 1: deaths worldwide alone. So just between those two bugs and
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Speaker 1: six million deaths a year from diarrhea dying of diarrhea.
6:46
Speaker 1: And again, as we're saying, this is all from access
6:51
Speaker 1: to a lack of access to clean drinking water. Right.
6:54
Speaker 1: So that's right, Josh, And hopefully there is a solution
6:59
Speaker 1: on the rising. And about five years ago someone made
7:04
Speaker 1: great strides and solving this. A guy from what was
7:08
Speaker 1: his name? His name is Torben vaster guard Franson. Yes
7:13
Speaker 1: he's Swiss, yes, and Dutch or Danish? Does he? I
7:18
Speaker 1: didn't know the Swiss head names that fancy. The Swiss
7:21
Speaker 1: are gonna write in and say, of course we have
7:23
Speaker 1: names that fancy, how dare you? Yeah, Josh? He developed
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Speaker 1: something called life straw and uh, it's a company based
7:29
Speaker 1: out of Lausanne and Laosanne. I said it like I
7:35
Speaker 1: was from laos though, um is it Lusanne? In they
7:44
Speaker 1: basically produced stuff for clothing, but inwo they started to
7:48
Speaker 1: make relief products like tents and blankets. About five years
7:51
Speaker 1: after that they phased out all their conventional textiles to
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Speaker 1: concentrate on relief products. And in two thousand five is
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Speaker 1: when uh sister Franzen developed the life straw because he
8:03
Speaker 1: was looking at a way to help guinea worm. Right.
8:06
Speaker 1: Do you remember when that speaker from the Carter Center
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Speaker 1: came and talk to us. Yes, remember that pipe straw
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Speaker 1: that they had, Yeah, So that was the original life straw.
8:15
Speaker 1: It was just as no frilled black tube that has
8:18
Speaker 1: a steel mesh filter in it because the Volkswagen. Yeah.
8:21
Speaker 1: And it has a string that you you can um
8:24
Speaker 1: that allows you to wear it around your neck so
8:26
Speaker 1: you always have it with you. It's not it's not cumbersome. UM.
8:29
Speaker 1: And then what you do is you just lean into
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Speaker 1: the water and you drink, drink it, use it like
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Speaker 1: a straw, h and it filters the water. This specifically
8:38
Speaker 1: the original it's still called the personal pipe filter. UM.
8:44
Speaker 1: It originally was designed with the help of the carter
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Speaker 1: center um to fight guinea worm. Yeah, we actually mentioned
8:51
Speaker 1: this and that food and water was the parasit. I
8:54
Speaker 1: think it was a guinea worm was one of the
8:55
Speaker 1: three growth parasites. Yeah, and and I think I had
8:58
Speaker 1: a little sidebar on it two in the food water.
9:00
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. And now is the time we talk
9:02
Speaker 1: about guinea worm. I don't know. I was talking about
9:04
Speaker 1: the LifeStraw. We have previously mentioned this, but we felt
9:07
Speaker 1: like it deserved its own full Well, that's what gave.
9:10
Speaker 1: It's what gave the LifeStraw. It's birth, I guess in
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Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, I guess is when they
9:16
Speaker 1: really came up with this this personal pipe filter and
9:20
Speaker 1: like we said, it filters out. Um. Do you remember
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Speaker 1: how to say this? Chuck? Is it dr cunlus, dracunculus, dracunculus,
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Speaker 1: that's what it is, drcunculus. The guinea worm. Right, this
9:34
Speaker 1: this little s ob gets um, it goes down in
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Speaker 1: your intestine, lodges, reproduces, and then eventually travels down usually
9:43
Speaker 1: to your leg right, and then when it's exposed to water. Next,
9:46
Speaker 1: once it's ready to come out and it's grow and
9:48
Speaker 1: do about a meter in length. Um. The next time
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Speaker 1: it's exposed to water, this milky substance, it's actually millions
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Speaker 1: of guinea worm larva go right into the water supply
10:00
Speaker 1: and the whole life cycle is brought on again and
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Speaker 1: again and again. Yeah. So what happens in these developing nations.
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Speaker 1: People go down to the river to wash their wound
10:09
Speaker 1: or just to be in the river, and then everybody,
10:12
Speaker 1: all of a sudden the rivers infected and people are
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Speaker 1: drinking out of it. And that's just one of the diseases.
10:16
Speaker 1: There are many, many, right, But that's what gave rise
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Speaker 1: to this life straw. The problem is the original personal
10:21
Speaker 1: pipe filter. It was large. The the filter was large.
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Speaker 1: So the guy Torbin right Mr. Flourished name went back
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Speaker 1: to the drawing board and created life straw which is
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Speaker 1: much more um I guess, detailed, and and is much
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Speaker 1: more effective at at removing pathogens and bacteria and parasites. Yeah,
10:43
Speaker 1: and as it as it exists today. The personal life
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Speaker 1: straw is about ten inches long twenty for our friends
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Speaker 1: everywhere else in the world, about two I'm sorry about
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Speaker 1: an engine around It's made of plastic. Like you said,
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Speaker 1: you wear it around your neck. So you've always got it.
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Speaker 1: And it takes about eight minutes to drink a quart
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Speaker 1: of water, which you probably shouldn't be drinking a quart
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Speaker 1: of water faster than eight minutes. Should we walk through
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Speaker 1: how how this one works actually, because that's what we did.
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Speaker 1: Ingenious and its simplicity, well it is, and you know
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Speaker 1: they've I've had these with um emergency drinking straws, filtration
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Speaker 1: straws in my backpack for years, so it's not like
11:23
Speaker 1: it was a brand new idea. No, those are all
11:26
Speaker 1: classified as what's called the p o U water purification
11:29
Speaker 1: systems point of use. Yeah, exactly right, look at you.
11:33
Speaker 1: So what happens. Obviously you suck the water through. It
11:35
Speaker 1: goes through a filter at first that removes the big stuff.
11:42
Speaker 1: Then there's a polyester filter that gets things much smaller,
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Speaker 1: down to about fifteen microns, which is about a tenth
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Speaker 1: of the diameter of a human hair. Yeah, and that's
11:51
Speaker 1: actually small enough to catch bacteria most most specter. So
11:53
Speaker 1: that's really yeah, that's true. Uh so that's really small.
11:56
Speaker 1: And then it goes through iodine coated beads resin beads,
12:00
Speaker 1: and iodine is a halogen and I used to put
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Speaker 1: iodine pills in water when I was camping too, so
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Speaker 1: it has the same effect that kills parasites, viruses a
12:10
Speaker 1: lot of bacteria, and they're in a little chamber that
12:14
Speaker 1: you know gets the most bang for your buck as
12:17
Speaker 1: far as touching the water. Then it goes into an
12:19
Speaker 1: empty chamber, and then it passes through the carbon filter,
12:23
Speaker 1: which is the final step. And everyone knows that carbon
12:26
Speaker 1: um helps helps it taste better. It's very porous and
12:29
Speaker 1: does a good job of cleaning things like odors. So
12:33
Speaker 1: so you lean down and you drink the water out
12:35
Speaker 1: of any water source and then when you're done, you
12:38
Speaker 1: blow air through it and that pretty much blurs out
12:41
Speaker 1: the stuff that you caught f and then you go
12:46
Speaker 1: back to doing whatever you're doing. This could be the
12:48
Speaker 1: end of our show eight minutes later, drink after corn
12:51
Speaker 1: of water. But it gets better. It does with the
12:54
Speaker 1: LifeStraw family. Yeah, so chuck over its lifespan. The the
12:58
Speaker 1: personal um life straw can filter about seven hundred courts
13:03
Speaker 1: of water, so taking that that's about two courts a day.
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Speaker 1: Um that lasts for a full year. Okay, so you
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Speaker 1: get your life straw, you use it for a year,
13:13
Speaker 1: you get another one, the Family one, is much more effective.
13:18
Speaker 1: I think it's uh. It filters enough to to keep
13:22
Speaker 1: a family of five in water for three years before
13:26
Speaker 1: it needs to be replaced ten quarts an hour by comparison,
13:30
Speaker 1: which is obviously why they call it the Family one, right,
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Speaker 1: And it does about eighteen thousand courts over its lifespan
13:36
Speaker 1: of three years. Right, Yeah, And it's kind of similar, right,
13:38
Speaker 1: but it's just larger and it uses gravity, and it's
13:41
Speaker 1: got a couple of more parts to it. And you
13:43
Speaker 1: just said the magic word, Like there are all sorts
13:46
Speaker 1: of water purification systems out there that require things like
13:50
Speaker 1: electricity or a diesel generator or something that you don't
13:54
Speaker 1: necessarily have. The cool thing about life straw and a
13:57
Speaker 1: life straw family UM water fill terms is that, like
14:01
Speaker 1: you said, it uses gravity um or with the lifestock
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Speaker 1: personal suction UM, but with the family version, there's like
14:08
Speaker 1: a bucket at the top that has like that initial filter,
14:12
Speaker 1: and then it goes down through increasingly smaller by micron
14:17
Speaker 1: textile filters. It goes through a halogen chamber that releases
14:21
Speaker 1: a low level amount of chlorine right um, and then
14:24
Speaker 1: it hits the plastic hose so just exiting the bucket,
14:28
Speaker 1: it's already been filtered three times, goes down this hose
14:32
Speaker 1: down to another cartridge that that This is where the
14:35
Speaker 1: ultrafiltration takes place, and it's also where it's um discharged
14:39
Speaker 1: after that um And the cool thing is is after
14:42
Speaker 1: you're done, you can squeeze his cleaning bulb three times
14:46
Speaker 1: and basically it back flows all the impurities and there's
14:50
Speaker 1: a separate tap to get rid of that, so you
14:53
Speaker 1: clean it very easily. You don't need anything extra. It's
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Speaker 1: all self contained and it uses gravity, no electricity, no anything.
15:00
Speaker 1: Brilliant and its simplicity just like it's smaller buddy, right.
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Speaker 1: But it also it saves five people's lives for three
15:06
Speaker 1: years rather than one one person's life for a year, right,
15:09
Speaker 1: and doesn't have a little spicket at the bottom, so
15:11
Speaker 1: you can kind of use it as a as if
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Speaker 1: it were a repository of water. Yeah, that's exactly what
15:16
Speaker 1: it is too. By the time it gets out of
15:18
Speaker 1: that tap, no matter where it is, it's gone through
15:21
Speaker 1: this filtration process. So yes, it is a repository. That's
15:24
Speaker 1: that's right. And at the end of this process, my dude, friend,
15:29
Speaker 1: you are going to have nothing in their particle wise
15:33
Speaker 1: larger than a droplet of fog, right, a droplet of fog,
15:38
Speaker 1: and that would be ninety nine percent of bacteria and viruses,
15:41
Speaker 1: including things like salmonella and shakila and uh enter A
15:46
Speaker 1: coccus and whatever. That last one is staff staff Yeah. Um.
15:50
Speaker 1: The problem is is that there are some pretty nasty
15:53
Speaker 1: bugs that are smaller than a droplet of fog, right,
15:58
Speaker 1: fifteen microns, right, because we said with the LifeStraw, and
16:01
Speaker 1: I think both of them the smallest, the the filter
16:04
Speaker 1: goes down to his fifteen microns. Yeah, um, some nasty
16:07
Speaker 1: ones too. Unfortunately, remember we talked about cryptosporidium and Giardia.
16:12
Speaker 1: Both of those are smaller than fifteen microns and even
16:15
Speaker 1: worse than that, Giardia um is actually resistant to iodine,
16:20
Speaker 1: which is the LifeStraw. Personal is like big, like the
16:24
Speaker 1: the last death blow is that running it through that
16:28
Speaker 1: those those um halogenized resin beads, right, And actually we
16:33
Speaker 1: need to point out that's just for the personal. Actually,
16:36
Speaker 1: the family one does filter out the Giardia and the cryptosporidium,
16:40
Speaker 1: which is good, but the personal doesn't because that's you know,
16:44
Speaker 1: it's about as good as they can do for a
16:45
Speaker 1: little ten inch personal system right. It Also, UM doesn't
16:49
Speaker 1: filter out heavy metals fluoride, So if you don't want
16:53
Speaker 1: to get dumber, you're out of luck. Slayer what mega death?
16:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, nice? Are you know? It's sad as
17:01
Speaker 1: It took me a second figure you didn't laugh at first,
17:04
Speaker 1: and then and I was like, I just want to
17:06
Speaker 1: crawl under this desk um arsenic. So if you're in
17:09
Speaker 1: a if you're in a if you're a poor person
17:11
Speaker 1: in a developed area that has all sorts of factories
17:16
Speaker 1: but no environmental regulations, you're kind of out of luck
17:19
Speaker 1: with LifeStraw personnel as well well. And there that comes
17:22
Speaker 1: in an effect though in a case of like a
17:24
Speaker 1: urban disasters, because they start to send these two places
17:27
Speaker 1: like New Orleans and so in that kind of case
17:29
Speaker 1: you'd be kind of out of luck with the fluoride
17:32
Speaker 1: and stuff. So there there are some things that that
17:36
Speaker 1: the LifeStraw can't do right UM. And as a result,
17:40
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there who are dedicated
17:43
Speaker 1: to making sure that people get clean water who are
17:46
Speaker 1: saying like this is great, this is helpful, but UM
17:49
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's it's not really solving the problem.
17:52
Speaker 1: So like UM in this article, there is a guy
17:55
Speaker 1: named Paul Heatherington. He speaks for Water Aid, which is
17:58
Speaker 1: a British charity, and I think there's a lot of
18:00
Speaker 1: people who agree with them, UM that the way to
18:03
Speaker 1: really solve the water crisis in the developing world is
18:07
Speaker 1: to UM educate people on how to treat their water,
18:12
Speaker 1: how to take care of their water, and then after
18:15
Speaker 1: they understand this, or probably simultaneously is an even better idea, UM,
18:19
Speaker 1: give them a clean source of water that's nearby, dig
18:24
Speaker 1: them a well. Remember, if you're walking to and from
18:27
Speaker 1: water twelve miles a day, you haven't gotten to the
18:30
Speaker 1: point where you're manufacturing heavy equipment that can dig you
18:34
Speaker 1: a well that will supply your village that comes later. Right,
18:37
Speaker 1: So a multi pronged approach, get get life straw in
18:41
Speaker 1: the hands of these people, work on the education. That's
18:44
Speaker 1: Chuck's advice, right, should go to them life straw so
18:47
Speaker 1: they can stay alive long enough to go to these
18:49
Speaker 1: education classes exactly. Obviously, Josh, education and changing an entire
18:54
Speaker 1: culture of water, sanitation and hygiene is going to take
18:58
Speaker 1: a long time. So in meantime, get life straw in
19:01
Speaker 1: the hands of these families. And luckily there are a
19:05
Speaker 1: lot of companies, relief organizations, charities that are getting on
19:09
Speaker 1: board because even though they're only think like you get
19:13
Speaker 1: a deal in bulk, you can get them for about
19:15
Speaker 1: three bucks apiece if you're a big organization. But I
19:16
Speaker 1: think they're like five dollars just to buy a single one,
19:20
Speaker 1: and that's even too much money for these people. Yeah,
19:23
Speaker 1: that's that's part of the problem. And that's another thing.
19:25
Speaker 1: I didn't see any criticism of Life Straw, of the
19:29
Speaker 1: company that manufactures life straw UM, but I get the
19:32
Speaker 1: impression that there's people out there UM, especially NGOs that
19:37
Speaker 1: are dedicated to water UM, that feel like companies that
19:43
Speaker 1: produce relief products are there not selling to these to
19:50
Speaker 1: their clients, their end users. They're selling their creating these things,
19:54
Speaker 1: are selling them in between two people like you and me,
19:57
Speaker 1: or rotary clubs or large corporation. Right, So I went
20:01
Speaker 1: on and um, there's links on UM. What is how
20:04
Speaker 1: do you say this company's again best investor guard franz
20:07
Speaker 1: in um and it says donate. There's like a whole
20:10
Speaker 1: thing where there's links to the rotary club. There's one
20:14
Speaker 1: in Spain, there's one in the U k. And then
20:16
Speaker 1: there's one in the US. They all have different sites
20:19
Speaker 1: you can donate. So when this it was supposed to
20:22
Speaker 1: be three bucks, I've seen five bucks. But then where
20:25
Speaker 1: the rubber hits the road on this rotary site, it's
20:27
Speaker 1: six fifty for a life straw and then twenty five
20:30
Speaker 1: for the family unit, and ultimately it doesn't really matter.
20:37
Speaker 1: It's six fifty. You and I can afford that. And
20:39
Speaker 1: I think like we should kind of put out something
20:41
Speaker 1: of a challenge to the stuff. You should know listeners
20:43
Speaker 1: to donate one of these each. What do you think?
20:47
Speaker 1: Don't you think? So? Dude, we get like a couple
20:50
Speaker 1: hundred thousand life straws out there, that'd be awesome. Okay,
20:54
Speaker 1: you're looking at me for approval, like I can says,
20:57
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that today. I feel like
20:59
Speaker 1: going back to bed. And luckily, Josh, like I said,
21:03
Speaker 1: there are companies getting involved. And think this was just
21:05
Speaker 1: released today. Uh, the Danes have teamed up with Coca Cola,
21:09
Speaker 1: our own Atlanta's based Coca Cola, and Vest Guard friends
21:13
Speaker 1: in in a in a group called Water for All
21:16
Speaker 1: and they have a deal going Coca Cola apparently is
21:18
Speaker 1: the leading bottled water seller in the Nordic regions. It's
21:22
Speaker 1: called Killed Killed the Bold. Is there water that they
21:26
Speaker 1: sell there? You are good at Nordica? Probably all right.
21:30
Speaker 1: But they have a program called Three Leaders of Clean Water,
21:33
Speaker 1: and it's this partnership where they donate three Leaders of
21:36
Speaker 1: Clean Water to Africa for every purchase of Coca Cola's
21:40
Speaker 1: bottled water brand there. And just yesterday they donated twenty
21:45
Speaker 1: seven thousand life straw personal life straws through this partnership
21:51
Speaker 1: to Africa. See, I think I never got really, I
21:55
Speaker 1: can't get to finish my point. Vester gard Frandsen, Right,
21:59
Speaker 1: they are making the product that is very helpful. It's
22:01
Speaker 1: literally saving people's lives. Right. Um. I think anytime you
22:09
Speaker 1: combine capitalism with relief efforts, it kind of turns my
22:14
Speaker 1: stomach a little bit. I don't mind it, but it
22:16
Speaker 1: seems like when I really step back and think about it,
22:19
Speaker 1: that's such an a Western elitist view of things, because
22:24
Speaker 1: it's like arguing with somebody like, well, why don't you
22:26
Speaker 1: charge a little less, why don't you donate some of
22:28
Speaker 1: these and having a disagreement while there's somebody dying at
22:30
Speaker 1: your feet, you know. So, I mean I think it's
22:33
Speaker 1: this is one of those cases where it's like, just
22:36
Speaker 1: let's get these people their stuff and then we can
22:39
Speaker 1: have this conversation later. You know. Well, yeah, but unless
22:42
Speaker 1: it's a an NGO that has developed this and invented this,
22:46
Speaker 1: then you can't expect this guy to just go broke
22:50
Speaker 1: giving these away. I don't And it was tricky though,
22:54
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying is and same same with
22:56
Speaker 1: Code Cole. It's like, awesome, you know you helped foster
23:00
Speaker 1: this transportation of thousand um lifestraws to people who didn't
23:05
Speaker 1: have them. But like people begin with which a lot
23:10
Speaker 1: of people have a problem with buying bottle water in
23:12
Speaker 1: the first leg. So I think there's problems with it,
23:15
Speaker 1: But ultimately it's it's very very important not to lose
23:18
Speaker 1: sight of the that end user of life straw who's like,
23:22
Speaker 1: please send me one so I don't die. We should
23:25
Speaker 1: also mention too that um, the reason that you know
23:28
Speaker 1: we said that that that that company, the Friends and Company,
23:32
Speaker 1: quit making their other textile products was because they probably
23:36
Speaker 1: found that was a good market for these other things.
23:39
Speaker 1: Like they also make the permanent and zero fly, which
23:42
Speaker 1: are these things? I think, is it Julia Roberts just
23:46
Speaker 1: really involved with the netting, the anti malaria netting. It
23:48
Speaker 1: seems like in uh Angelina Jolie thing to be involved
23:54
Speaker 1: in She's all about in the movie everything. Yeah, but
23:58
Speaker 1: they also do manufacture those two produ ucks which which
24:00
Speaker 1: helped present prevent malaria, not present malaria, that would be
24:04
Speaker 1: a whole different malaria, come and get it. So they
24:08
Speaker 1: also have these care packs for HIV positive families and
24:14
Speaker 1: you get like a permanent and a life straw and antibiotics, condoms,
24:19
Speaker 1: things like that, some brochures and brochures to educate you.
24:24
Speaker 1: So they're doing good and we love it. We're behind
24:26
Speaker 1: it all the way. I don't want you to get
24:28
Speaker 1: the wrong idea from Josh's harsh words. Right, thank you checkers. Um,
24:34
Speaker 1: they're not the only people creating stuff, and the Rotary
24:38
Speaker 1: Club isn't the only group that you can go through
24:40
Speaker 1: to donate things. Um again, Carter Centers dedicated to guinea worm.
24:44
Speaker 1: They kind of have their eyes on that prize because
24:47
Speaker 1: we're on the brink of eradicating it from the planet,
24:50
Speaker 1: like literally won't be found on Earth. Yeah, once I
24:54
Speaker 1: think two countries maybe three have it left. Um and
24:57
Speaker 1: only be the second time that's ever happened in the
24:59
Speaker 1: history the world. What was the first one that polio? Yes, Josh,
25:02
Speaker 1: I think it was polio because this is the first
25:04
Speaker 1: parasitic disease, second disease overall. So the Carter Center really
25:08
Speaker 1: wants to get rid of this. So you can donate
25:10
Speaker 1: to the Carter Center at Carter Center dot org, slash health,
25:13
Speaker 1: slash Guinea, underscore worm and that will take you to
25:17
Speaker 1: their little mini site. You can do all sorts of
25:19
Speaker 1: donating there. You can go to vestor guard Franson dot com.
25:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and spell that one for you, okay,
25:25
Speaker 1: V E S T E R G A A r
25:29
Speaker 1: D hyphen f r A N D s E n
25:33
Speaker 1: dot com and then slash donate. That's gonna take you
25:36
Speaker 1: to all these Koana sites. UM. And then there's a
25:39
Speaker 1: group called Project h Design dot org. So in this
25:43
Speaker 1: article it cited that they're um passing out life straws
25:46
Speaker 1: to people in India. UM, I didn't see that anywhere.
25:50
Speaker 1: It's not just in Africa. I mean this is happening
25:52
Speaker 1: all over the world, but Africa and is obviously a
25:54
Speaker 1: big ground zero for waterboorns. And yeah, in India is developed,
25:59
Speaker 1: being as that country is, I think a significant portion
26:02
Speaker 1: of people in that nation, uh sixteen million residents which
26:07
Speaker 1: is surprisingly that's of New Delhi's sixteen million residents don't
26:14
Speaker 1: have access to clean drinking water. Um. So yeah, it's
26:18
Speaker 1: not just in Africa. Uh. I didn't see Project H
26:21
Speaker 1: designs water or lifestyle project, but they did have something
26:25
Speaker 1: called the hippo roller. It's you know what a sod
26:29
Speaker 1: roller is. It's like a big drum with like uh
26:32
Speaker 1: I guess a handles attached, like a lawnmower handle. It's this,
26:37
Speaker 1: but the drum in this case is plastic and you
26:41
Speaker 1: take it to your water source, fill it up up
26:43
Speaker 1: to twenty five gallons, and just roll it back home,
26:46
Speaker 1: so you don't have the big thing on your head. No,
26:48
Speaker 1: and it's huge most of the time. Apparently people can
26:51
Speaker 1: haul five to six gallons at a time. This allows
26:54
Speaker 1: them to basically make five trips and once those are
26:57
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks um and you can go onto Project
27:00
Speaker 1: H design dot org um and find out about do
27:03
Speaker 1: any of that. And they have a bunch of different
27:05
Speaker 1: cool ones, cool projects that they're funding. And here's my
27:09
Speaker 1: final call, Josh. I would encourage people to try and
27:13
Speaker 1: conserve water on their own. It's not like the water
27:16
Speaker 1: that you can serve in your house and uh peoria
27:19
Speaker 1: is going to go to be bottled up in chip
27:22
Speaker 1: to Africa. But we went through our drought here in
27:25
Speaker 1: Atlanta last summer and we had all kinds of water restrictions,
27:28
Speaker 1: and Emily and I really got used to the idea of,
27:32
Speaker 1: you know, water is a limited resource and you shouldn't
27:36
Speaker 1: just waste it. And we really gotten that that. You know,
27:38
Speaker 1: we're not like using our bathwater to do our dishes,
27:42
Speaker 1: but we collect our water from our a C unit
27:44
Speaker 1: and water our plants and we like I never pour
27:47
Speaker 1: water out like that I'm drinking that's gotten, you know, tepid.
27:50
Speaker 1: I always like pouring a plant. Just try and reuse
27:53
Speaker 1: what I can, So I would encourage people to do that.
27:55
Speaker 1: I always pour it on myself in a sexy manner,
27:58
Speaker 1: give my T shirt. That's to do with it. And
28:00
Speaker 1: it's not wasteful at all. It's well worth it. So
28:03
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens after um the giant nations of
28:08
Speaker 1: the world are drawn into World War three, and the
28:10
Speaker 1: Balkans over water conflicts in Until then, we'll keep podcasting, right,
28:18
Speaker 1: and if you want to learn more about life straw,
28:20
Speaker 1: I strongly recommend you, guys, go type that word L
28:23
Speaker 1: I F E S T R A W into the
28:26
Speaker 1: swinging search bar how stuff works dot com and Chuck,
28:29
Speaker 1: Now it is time for a listener, man, Josh, I'm
28:36
Speaker 1: gonna call this a couple of emails about uh madaffanel. Okay,
28:43
Speaker 1: remember we talked about that in Is Science Facing Out Sleep?
28:47
Speaker 1: I do I like that one? You want to give
28:49
Speaker 1: a quick rundown on what what that product? What that
28:51
Speaker 1: product is? Madaffanel is a non stimulant um I guess
28:58
Speaker 1: drug of arousal that people that was originally designed for knocleptics,
29:04
Speaker 1: and suddenly people who don't like to sleep and like
29:06
Speaker 1: to get things done for forty eight hours at a
29:08
Speaker 1: stretch without feeling tired started taking That's right. So we
29:13
Speaker 1: got one from a neurobiology um major. So he is
29:19
Speaker 1: a neuroscience major and he's Dave A. K A the professor,
29:22
Speaker 1: and he has just to say, guys are writing in
29:24
Speaker 1: as a neuroscientist, and you're probably scared that I'm writing
29:28
Speaker 1: you with a pocket protected complaint about the number of
29:31
Speaker 1: times you incorrectly said munafodil instead of medaffanel. Seven. He
29:37
Speaker 1: points out, Yeah, we got it backwards, which is not
29:40
Speaker 1: unlike us. But fear not, guys are coming peace. I'm
29:43
Speaker 1: a PhD student from Toronto, Canada but studying neurobiology of
29:50
Speaker 1: cocaine addiction. UM familiar with madaffanel because it has regular
29:55
Speaker 1: recently undergone clinical trials for use as a treatment for
29:58
Speaker 1: cocaine addiction. It has thought that medeffanel could work for
30:01
Speaker 1: cocaine dependence the same way methodone works for heroin as
30:05
Speaker 1: a maintenance treatment, but the results are inconclusive right now,
30:08
Speaker 1: A word of caution to just because a drug like
30:10
Speaker 1: medeffanel doesn't directly impact dopamine systems in the brain doesn't
30:14
Speaker 1: mean it can't have rewarding and addictive effects. Do you
30:18
Speaker 1: everythink of that? I did, any drug that can keep
30:22
Speaker 1: you up all night so you can be twice as
30:23
Speaker 1: productive as a potential to be addictive, because productivity itself
30:26
Speaker 1: can be extremely rewarding. I never really thought about that.
30:29
Speaker 1: That's great, So it's like indirectly addictive. Then yeah, lastly,
30:33
Speaker 1: at the risk of being two technical. More and more
30:35
Speaker 1: evidence is suggesting that glutamate and GABBA G A B A,
30:39
Speaker 1: the neurotransmitters directly impacted by medefanel, play an important role
30:43
Speaker 1: in addiction, perhaps even more so than dopamine. In fact,
30:46
Speaker 1: by altering dopamine levels, drugs like cocaine make long term
30:50
Speaker 1: changes in glutamate and GABA circuits in the brain, and
30:53
Speaker 1: these changes are thought to underlie addictive behavior. You say,
30:57
Speaker 1: cocaine exactly like Glen Fry. It's chilling cocaine. Thanks a lot, guys.
31:04
Speaker 1: I swear on my medaffanel that I won't sleep until
31:06
Speaker 1: I see a podcast on addiction. Man, this is so crazy.
31:10
Speaker 1: He's like a big person in a week to predict
31:13
Speaker 1: an upcoming podcast or that would have already come out
31:18
Speaker 1: by now. That's right. That was from Dave the professor,
31:20
Speaker 1: and then we had another note from Andrew. He said,
31:23
Speaker 1: I just listen to your Now you went too angry.
31:25
Speaker 1: Just listen to your podcast on facing out Sleep. Was
31:27
Speaker 1: a little bothered by your one sided bashing of medaffanel.
31:30
Speaker 1: A little bothered. That's angry. You focused on people who
31:33
Speaker 1: abuse medeffanel by using it. To avoid sleep. I've been
31:36
Speaker 1: using it for my sleep at mia for three years
31:38
Speaker 1: and has greatly improved my quality of life. Prior to this,
31:41
Speaker 1: I would sleep eight hours a night and still be
31:43
Speaker 1: tired all day. Now I sleep eight hours a night,
31:45
Speaker 1: feel awake and alert the rest of the day. Ethical
31:48
Speaker 1: doctors aren't prescribing this to allow patients to avoid sleeping.
31:51
Speaker 1: They prescribe it to patients who have a medical condition
31:55
Speaker 1: which caused them to be tired despite having had enough sleep.
31:58
Speaker 1: And he says I still love the show, so he
32:00
Speaker 1: wasn't really angry, Signed the chairman of the maker of Madafanelnafadel,
32:07
Speaker 1: I mean Dan Andrew. Yes see, you got it wrong.
32:11
Speaker 1: That's right if you have a correction, specifically, if you're
32:16
Speaker 1: a neurobiologist, we love hearing from experts. We should keep
32:19
Speaker 1: his email addressed to Okay, let's do it so in
32:21
Speaker 1: case we have questions and and don't forget we're all
32:25
Speaker 1: starting the push now to um donate life straws, right chuck, Yeah, yeah,
32:31
Speaker 1: So we're going to figure this out. Well, we'll look
32:33
Speaker 1: for more information soon. In the meantime, if you want
32:35
Speaker 1: to donate a life straw, knock yourself out agreed. Uh.
32:38
Speaker 1: If you are an expert in your field and you
32:41
Speaker 1: think that what you have to say would interest us,
32:43
Speaker 1: we want to know yes we do. Send us an
32:46
Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com
32:53
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
32:56
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. The how stuff works
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Speaker 1: dot com I phone app has come soon. Get access
33:01
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Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you