Reverse osmosis is one of the processes that makes desalination (or removing salt from seawater) possible. Beyond that, reverse osmosis is used for recycling, wastewater treatment, and can even produce energy. Water issues have become an extremely pressing global threat. With climate change come unprecedented environmental impacts: torrential flooding in some areas, droughts in others, rising and falling sea levels. Add to that the threat of overpopulation -- and the demand and pollution a swelling population brings -- and water becomes one of the paramount environmental issues to watch for in the next GENERATION . Water treatment plants and systems are now adapting reverse osmosis to address some of these concerns. In Perth, Australia (notably dry and arid, yet surrounded by sea), nearly 17 percent of the area's drinking water is desalinated sea water that comes from a reverse osmosis plant [source: The Economist ]. Worldwide, there are now over 13,000 desalination p
Posts
Touch Screen Backstory Automobiles, airplanes , computers , and steam engines —touchscreens belong in the cliche of these famous innovations because they do not have a particular inventor and a real, "Eureka" moment : in other words, no one man or woman invented the touchscreen. The first innovation that comes close in resemblance to using a touchscreen was known as a light pen , a stylus with a photocell in one place end, and a cable connecting the computer to the other end, that is able to draw graphics on the screen. It was developed in the 1950s and forms an integral part of one of the foremost computer systems to possess graphics, Project Whirlwind . Light pens do not work like recent touchscreens. Eventhough, there was nothing spectacular about the screen itself,all the work took place within the pen and the computer it was connected to. In the 1960s and early 1970s, a different approach in the development of touchscreens emanated from the researc
WHAT IS A TOTAL STATION? Theodolite A theodolite / θ iː ˈ ɒ d ə l aɪ t / is a precision instrument for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes. Theodolites are used mainly for surveying applications, and have been adapted for specialized purposes such as meteorology and rocket launch . [1] A modern theodolite consists of a movable telescope mounted within two perpendicular axes : the horizontal or trunnion axis and the zenith axis. A theodolite measures vertical angles as angles between the zenith, forwards or plunged—typically approximately 90 and 270 degrees . When the telescope is pointed at a target object, the angle of each of these axes can be measured with great precision, typically to milliradian or seconds of arc . A theodolite may be either transit or non-transit. In a transit theodolite, the telescope can be inverted in the vertical plane, whereas the rotation in the same plane is restricted to a semi-circle in a non-trans