Gizmodo: life saver

Mazda Kiyora Recycles Rain Water for Drinking

Jesus Diaz — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EDT

This is the new Mazda Kiyora, a concept car that is not only designed to consume less gas and produce less emissions, but to collect and purify the most important liquid on Earth: Water. You know, for drinking. If you are into that kind of liquid, anyway. When you drive the Mazda Kiyora through rain, its roof channels the falling water into a specially-designed Lifesaver purification bottle. The bottle, called Lifesaver Bottle Citi, is placed in the middle of the car's interior, between the front seats, for easy access by all passengers.

Designed for Mazda by LIFESAVER® systems, the LIFESAVER® bottle citi™ is the world’s first ultra filtration water bottle to be installed in a car. It removes all waterborne pathogens and other pollutants creating safe sterile drinking water for the driver and passengers.

Taking advantage of rain as a natural resource, the roof of the Mazda Kiyora channels rainwater firstly through an activated carbon filter and then into a specially commissioned drinks bottle designed for Mazda by LIFESAVER® systems.

The LIFESAVER® bottle citi™ is located between the front seats for easy access, and uses state of the art ultra filtration hollow fibre membranes. With a pore size of 15 nano-meters these membranes remove all microbiological contamination including bacteria and viruses without using chemicals, delivering safe fresh drinking water to the driver and passengers any time. The bottle is removable so can be taken out of the car and used to gather water from other natural sources such as rivers, lakes and streams.

I wonder if car manufacturers couldn't do the same with hydrogen cars, minus the special purification system, condensing the vapor coming out of the car exhaust into a bottle. Or if they want to really make it fancy, include a espresso machine.

For a more detailed look at the Mazda Kiyora, check Jalopnik's coverage from the Paris Motor Show. [Lifesaver via Inhabitat]

Life Saver Portable Water Filter Cleans the Crap Out of Your Water...Literally

Adrian Covert — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:30:31 EDT

The Life Saver water bottle is a military grade water sanitizer that can make the dirtiest of water drinkable in seconds. The bottle not only filters out bacteria, but also takes care of viruses and water that has been contaminated by fecal matter. The creator, Michael Pritchard, initially came up with the idea after watching victims of Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 tsunami in Asia go for days without receiving clean water. There are others, however, that are interested in Pritchard's invention.

After showing the bottle off at a defense conference in the UK, Pritchard sold all 1,000 of his $385 bottles in under four hours. Defense experts were impressed with the fact that it could filter 4,000 or 6,000 liters before the filter had to be replaced. An innovation such as this could have a significant impact if it ever reached the consumer market, not only being used as emergency gear, but for camping and travel as well. [The Register]

Warrior Wear Army Clothing Has Built-in Tourniquet

AddyDugdale — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 06:13:47 EDT

A military clothing company has come up with Warrior Wear, a line of trousers and shirts with I.T.S. &mdash that's an integrated tourniquet system &mdash attached for those fighting on the front line. If you are hit, you just pull the corresponding tourniquet tight to stem the bleeding from the wound. There are four tourniquets on the trousers, and four on the shirt (the short-sleeved version has two), which can immediately be applied to the wound by either the wearer, his buddy or a medic. As well as helping to stop deaths in the field, it is thought that using the I.T.S. will dramatically speed up the time it takes to recover from extreme blood loss injuries.

The system was devised by Dr. Kenneth Rose, a former Army surgeon who spent several years in the military. "The majority of preventable deaths come from loss of blood resulting from arm and leg wounds that are not protected by body armor," he explained. "The fact that you can always find the tourniquet with the Integrated Tourniquet System and the speed with which you can immediately apply it will dramatically impact not only loss of life but also the amount of time that it takes to recover from extreme blood loss injuries."

Warrior Wear is currently in the last phase of testing, and should be available in the first quarter of next year. [Blackhawk! via Medgadget]