A solution for the drought problem in California?

The sea of 96MILLION plastic balls that LA hopes will save it from drought: Reservoir is covered in an ocean of black spheres to stop 300million gallons of water evaporating

Black plastic balls were this week released into the 175-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California

They are designed to cover the water, prevent evaporation and protect it from dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife

The polyethylene balls, around the size of an apple, cost 36 cents each and are black to help deflect the UV rays.

With no apparent relief to California's record-breaking drought, Los Angeles has turned to more unusual methods to protect the city's water.

Officials recently released 96 million floating 'shade balls' into the 75-acre Los Angeles Reservoir in Sylmar, California.

The black plastic balls are designed to help protect the water against dust, rain, chemicals and wildlife, as well as prevent 300 million gallons of water from evaporating each year. 

The balls work by floating on the surface and blocking the sun's rays.

As well as protecting against evaporation, they also prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.

For most people, exposure to bromate - created from naturally-occurring bromide in water -is unlikely to be cause problems.

But some people who ingest large amounts of bromate have suffered nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out.

Dr Brian White, a now-retired Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP biologist), was the first person to think of using shade balls for water quality.

HOW DO THE SHADE BALLS WORK? 

• The plastic black balls, around the size of an apple, cost 36 cents each.
• They floating on the surface and block the sun's rays to prevent water from evaporating.
• By doing this, they prevent the chemical reaction that creates the carcinogenic compound bromate.
• The balls also form a protective barrier across the surface that helps keep birds, animals and other contaminants out away. 

From Mailonline

Bug-killing book pages clean murky drinking water

Scientists in America have designed a drinkable book that can save lives by making polluted water safe to consume.

It's an instruction manual with information on how and why water should be filtered.

Once read, its pages can be torn out and used to turn dirty water into drinkable water.

The "drinkable book" combines treated paper with printed information on how and why water should be filtered.

Its pages contain nanoparticles of silver or copper, which kill bacteria in the water as it passes through.

In trials at 25 contaminated water sources in South Africa, Ghana and Bangladesh, the paper successfully removed more than 99% of bacteria.

The resulting levels of contamination are similar to US tap water, the researchers say. Tiny amounts of silver or copper also leached into the water, but these were well below safety limits.

The results were presented at the 250th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, US.

Dr Teri Dankovich, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, developed and tested the technology for the book over several years, working at McGill University in Canada and then at the University of Virginia.

"It's directed towards communities in developing countries," Dr Dankovich said, noting that 663 million people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water.

"All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells etc and out comes clean water - and dead bacteria as well," she told BBC news.

The bugs absorb silver or copper ions - depending on the nanoparticles used - as they percolate through the page.

"Ions come off the surface of the nanoparticles, and those are absorbed by the microbes," Dr Dankovich explained.

According to her tests, one page can clean up to 100 litres of water. A book could filter one person's water supply for four years.

Instructions are printed on the book's pages, in English as well as the local language

Dr Dankovich had already tested the paper in the lab using artificially contaminated water. Success there led to the field trials which she conducted over the past two years, working with the charities Water is Life and iDE.

In these trials, the bacteria count in the water samples plummeted by well over 99% on average - and in most samples, it dropped to zero.

"Greater than 90% of the samples had basically no viable bacteria in them, after we filtered the water through the paper," Dr Dankovich said.

"It's really exciting to see that not only can this paper work in lab models, but it also has shown success with real water sources that people are using."

One location gave the paper a particularly tough challenge.

READ MORE HERE

Good news!A parrot, feared extinct, is found in Australia

So Cuuute!

The mysterious night parrot is one of the world's rarest species.

Now researchers have finally managed to capture and tag one of the birds, as part of a project to protect the species.

It had been thought the species was extinct for at least 100 years since if had been so difficult to find.

Although some people have said that they have seen the bird, no-one has been able to take good quality photos to prove that they really had seen a night parrot.

Steve Murphy finally captured the parrot after 18 months of searching.

Now, researchers have taken photos, and feather samples that prove the species is still alive.

The parrot was fitted with a tracker, so that researchers can now continue to learn more about it.

They have found that it stays in the same nesting site, but travels up to eight kilometres each night to find food.

Night parrots are nocturnal - they only come out at night.

It's not clear how many night parrots there are yet.

But researchers say that they will keep the location a secret for as long as they can, to try to protect the parrot from being disturbed.

from CBBC Newsround