Blog Archives
LifeSaver Bottle: Michael Pritchard at TED
TED2010 is on right now in California, so it’s a good opportunity to look at some of their best talks of the past year. This one is short and inspirational – how to meet the UN’s Millenium Development Goal to “Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water and sanitation“ – for just $8bn! 
Michael Pritchard’s LifeSaver bottle is a solution to clean water needs. For just $150, it can filter even the dirtiest water, in remote areas, or following disasters such as the Haiti quakes. Spurred on by the problems following the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, see Pritchard demonstrate the technology at TED 2009:
There’s a nice little link there to cell theory and magnification, also.
This year, who is going to be worth watching? Check out the list of presenters here.
XDRTB: Extremely Drug-Resistant TB
This came via TED Blogs, and is pretty harrowing. Don’t play the video if you are sensitive to images of human suffering.
The photographer, James Nachtway, has taken these photos on TB wards around the world, and his site highlights the problem:
“XDRTB.org is an extraordinary effort to tell the story of extremely
drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and TB through powerful photographs
taken by James Nachtwey. XDR-TB, or extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis,
is a new and deadly mutation of tuberculosis. Similar in creation to
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) but more extreme in its manifestation,
it arises when common tuberculosis goes untreated or standard TB drugs are
misused. James’ photographs represent these varying strains. Learn more about TB, MDR-TB and XDR-TB, and learn how you can take action to stop this deadly disease.”
There is a great talk on TED from James Nachtway here, as he receives his TED Prize:
His movie, War Photographer, is great – and even has a section in Indonesia!
i-Biology 