Water + Salt + Energy = Clean!

codesmith.ca writes "CTV News is reporting about a device built at the Russian Institute for Medical Engineering that can convert standard water and salt into an antimicrobial solution. Apparently it's works on almost anything (virii, bacteria, cysts...) and it's safe for human consumption to boot. I can't find a site for the institute, but there are articles around. This one is fairly detailed, but hard to reach. Here's the Google cache. Here's one about a paper shows it's not exactly super-new technology." Any chemist care to comment on what sounds to be too good to be true?

Comments

What the fuck are viruses?

[ajs]

Ok, for those of you who might make the mistake of listening to this guy, pay close attention: english is a living language. If enough people think that the correct plural spelling of virus would be potatoe, then potatoe it is! I think if I wrote viruses, more people would try to correct me than if I wrote viri (virii looks wrong to me), and if my goal is not to have a debate about spelling, I'm going to go for the one that looks right to more people. Same goes for octopi, ain't and eventually, yes, even hax0r will be a valid word in the american dialect of english (and in many other dialects and languages for that matter).

Actually that last one intrigues me a great deal. Words like hax0r, 1337, d00d and other techno-slang are catching on like wildfire. Currently they are only used in limited sub-cultures but certainly some of these words have such a strong and unique connotation that they will leak into common usage. This is a radical shift for english as it adds new characters into to language for the first time in a very long time (mostly characters have just been removed).

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[ajs]

I take back my comment about "more people would ... correct me...." According to google, there is a landslide of support on the Web for viruses over virii and viri combined. While I've always heared viri in technical conversation, I'll concede to popular usage.

I double-checked by looking for the following strings:

vir*
computer vir*
"computer vir*"

In each case, the viruses spelling was far-and-away the winner.

Since the importance of common usage was my whole point, I have to suggest that people use "viruses".

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[Christopher Thomas]

pay close attention: english is a living language. If enough people think that the correct plural spelling of virus would be potatoe, then potatoe it is!

I'm afraid I'm with Clippy on this one:

Clippy: Is this the same principle of common usage that keeps sending us all the spelling mistakes, and thinks it's ok to stick an apostrophe into any word ending in 's' no matter whether it's a contraction or a plural?

Clippy: Because if so, it can bite my skinny wire ass!

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[Chris Burke]

Sure, sure... Eventually the language will change.

Until then it's still fucking wrong.

Thank you.

P.S. I once called it "virii" too, but someone corrected me and then I stopped. I didn't try to pull this "living language" bullshit. Though in theory you're correct, which just makes it even bigger bullshit. :)