Stuff You Should Know - Can Lifestraw save the world?

Episode Date: November 19, 2010

Over a billion people do not have access to clean water, and many die from water-born diseases. With 6,000 people dying each day, this situation is increasingly urgent. Could Lifestraw filters resolve this crisis? Tune in and find out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Charles W. Chuck Bryant is in his proper place across from me. That makes the Stuff You Should Know. Let's get physical. Physical. Let me hear your body talk. You ready? I couldn't quite do it. You should probably explain that.

I put my hand under and into my underarm and kind of made like a chicken flapping motion to try to make sound. Yes. To make my body talk. Okay. I didn't know it. I had no idea why you were doing that. Really? I get it now. My hand smells funny now. Olivia Newton-John would not approve. I was once kicked out of an Olivia Newton-John concert for being too rowdy. Are you serious? Yeah. What? I'd need a little bit more on that. I'll tell you. Lifestruck and wait. I'll tell you another time. Now, okay. Wow. Chuck. Josh, you've heard of this body called the United Nations. Some say it's fraudulent. Some say it's official. Yeah, of course. But you are familiar with the UN. I've been down there. Been to that building. Have you really? Oh, sure. It was

when like a Mike Brady design that building? Yeah. Sort of that era. It feels like. Awesome. All the flags. What were you down there for? Well, I didn't go in. I just have been to New York and said, oh, look, there's a UN building. You just shouted at it. You know the sound of the UN. Exactly. The UN, in my opinion, is a legitimate body and I like it because it does things like try to reduce the number of people who don't have ready access to clean water by half by 2015. It's a huge undertaking. Great initiative. But that's something that's going on right now thanks to the UN. That's what they can do. That's one of the things they can do is kind of like throw their spare tire about and be like, hey, China, let's do something.

Sure. Yeah. Right. And I say that that's a substantial undertaking project because there's about 1.1 billion people as of 2006, I believe, who lacked ready access to clean drinking water, right? Yeah. And it's hard to imagine here in the developed West where we just waste water at a startling degree. Oh, I know. It's so cheap and abundant and plentiful, especially in areas like the Southwest or the Southeast, which here in Georgia we have our own reservoir. The Chattahoochee River starts in North Georgia. So we have that. And then South Georgia has this huge aquifer. So we're set for clean drinking water. It's hard to imagine having to walk 20 kilometers to go get water and bring it back. And that'd be part of your daily life. But it is.

And it's stuff like that that keeps the developing world undeveloped because how can you focus on anything innovative if you have to walk 12 miles to get water every day? Yeah. If you're struggling just to stay alive, what else are you going to get done that day besides meeting the goal of staying alive for yet another day? Staying alive also, you know, again, it's hard to envision. We talked about how much food and water, how long can I go without food and water? Right, yeah. And all of that was like we were trying to make it human, but it was tough to conceive. Yeah. Imagine if the water that you did go get, when you brought it back to your house, you drank it, and then a couple months later, it killed you. Like you died from diarrhea, literally. Yeah,

you want a couple of stats? Yeah, please. About 50% of the world's destitute people, Josh, suffer from disease because of the water that they cook with and drink. And about, and this is really startling, 6,000 people per day die from waterborne illness that could have been prevented. 6,000 people a day. I know. That's such a huge figure that it becomes like this mass that doesn't have any real definition. It's hard to put faces to that, you know? Yeah, think about that tonight when you get a glass of water from your tap, just so I can bum everybody out. Yeah. Think about today, 6,000 people died because they can't do something as simple as this. Exactly. And, wow, wow, that's a sad trombone. The way that people do die,

it's not necessarily from thirst. It's usually not from thirst because there is water out there. The key word here is sanitary, clean drinking water. Yeah, exactly. There's water out there, but they're full of all sorts of bacteria and pathogens. Apparently, there's about 4 billion cases of diarrhea every year. I account for about 200 of those. That is gross. This article cites about 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhea, but you become dehydrated. You do it so often that you become dehydrated so quick that you die from dehydration brought on by diarrhea. And if you're already malnourished, that's where the problem is. I could get dehydrated and drink more water, but if you're already malnourished, if you say like have HIV in your child or even an

adult with HIV, I think children get diarrhea at a rate of four times that if they have HIV in adults or seven times more likely to get diarrhea if they have HIV in developing nations. A lot of people have HIV. Yeah, about like 95% of HIV cases are found in developing nations. So couple that all together and you have people dying because of something as simple as diarrhea that's just a nuisance to people like us. And we said, yeah, we just go get the ammonium, but imagine a world where there is no ammonium. I don't take ammonium. But so I can imagine that world. Yeah, weird. Anyway, the article cites 1.8 million deaths from diarrhea. I would dispute that. I found that Giardia, which is a diarrheal parasite, causes 2.5 million deaths alone and cryptosporidium, which is

also a parasite that brings on diarrhea, causes about 3.5 million deaths worldwide alone. So just between those two bugs, 6 million deaths a year from diarrhea, dying of diarrhea. And again, as we're saying, this is all from a lack of access to clean drinking water, right, Chuck? That's right, Josh. And hopefully there is a solution on the horizon. And about five years ago, someone made great strides in solving this. A guy from, what was his name? His name is Torben Vastergaard Fransen. Yes. He's Swiss. Yes. But he sounds Dutch or Danish. Does he? I didn't know the Swiss had names that fancy. The Swiss are going to write in and say, of course we have names that fancy. Yeah. How dare you? Yeah, Josh, he developed something called

Lifestraw. And it's a company based out of Lausanne. And where? Lausanne. I said it like I was from Laus, though. Lusanne? Is it Lusanne? In 1992, they basically produced stuff for clothing. But in 1992, they started to make relief products like tents and blankets. Right. About five years after that, they phased out all their conventional textiles to concentrate on relief products. And in 2005 is when Mr. Fransen developed the Lifestraw because he was looking at a way to help Guineaworm. Right. Do you remember when that speaker from the Carter Center came and talked to us? Yes. Remember that pipe straw that they had? Yeah. So that was the original Lifestraw. It was just this no-fills black tube that has a steel mesh filter in it.

It's because of Volkswagen. Yeah. And it has a string that allows you to wear it around your neck. So you always have it with you. It's not cumbersome. And then what you do is you just lean into the water and you drink it, use it like a straw. Yeah. And it filters the water. This specifically, the original, it's still called the personal pipe filter. It originally was designed, with the help of the Carter Center, to fight Guineaworm. Yeah. We actually mentioned this in that food and water. Was it the parasite one? I think it was. Guineaworm was one of the three gross parasites. Yeah. And I think I had a little sidebar on it too in the food and water article.

Let's hear it. Now's the time we talk about Guineaworm. I don't know. I was talking about the Lifestraw. Oh, gotcha. We had previously mentioned this, but we felt like it deserved its own full podcast. Well, it's what gave the Lifestraw its birth, I guess, in 2005, I guess, is when they really came up with this personal pipe filter. And like we said, it filters out. Do you remember how to say this, Chuck? Is it dracunculus? Dracunculus. Dracunculus. That's what it is. Dracunculus, the Guineaworm. This little SOB goes down in your intestine, lodges, reproduces, and then eventually travels down, usually, to your leg.

Yeah. And then when it's exposed to water next, once it's ready to come out and it's grown to about a meter in length, the next time it's exposed to water, this milky substance, it's actually millions of Guineaworm larva go right into the water supply, and the whole life cycle is brought on again and again and again. Yeah. So what happens in these developing nations is people go down to the river to wash their wound or just be in the river. And then everybody, all of a sudden, the river's infected and people are drinking out of it. And that's just one of the diseases. There are many, many. Right. But that's what gave rise to this Lifestraw.

The problem is, is the original personal pipe filter, it was large. The filter was large. So the guy, Torben, right, Mr. Flourishname, went back to the drawing board and created Lifestraw, which is much more, I guess, detailed and is much more effective at removing pathogens and bacteria and parasites. Yeah. And as it exists today, the personal Lifestraw is about 10 inches long, 25 centimeters for our friends everywhere else in the world. About two, I'm sorry, about an inch and around. It's made of plastic. Like you said, you wear it around your neck, so you've always got it. Yeah. And it takes about eight minutes to drink a quart of water.

Which you probably shouldn't be drinking a quart of water faster than eight minutes. You're going to give yourself a tummy ache. Should we walk through how this one works, actually? Yeah. Because that's what we do. It's ingenious in its simplicity. Well, it is. And you know, I've had these with emergency drinking straws, filtration straws, in my backpack for years. So this is not like it was a brand new idea.

No. Those are all classified as what's called the POU, Water Purification Systems, Point of Use. Yeah, exactly. Right. Look at you. Thanks. So what happens, obviously, you suck the water through. It goes through a filter at first that removes the big stuff, 100 microns. Like mud. Well, it's like mud. Nobody.

Then there's a polyester filter that gets things much smaller, down to about 15 microns. Which is about a tenth of the diameter of the human hair. Yeah. And that's actually small enough to catch bacteria. Most bacteria. So that's really, yeah, that's true. So that's really small. And then it goes through iodine-coated beads, resin beads. And iodine is a halogen.

And I used to put iodine pills in water when I was camping, too. So it has the same effect. It kills parasites, viruses, a lot of bacteria. And they're in a little chamber that, you know, gets the most bang for your buck, as far as touching the water. Then it goes into an empty chamber. And then it passes through the carbon filter, which is the final step. And everyone knows that carbon helps it taste better. It's very porous and does a good job of cleaning things, like odors.

Right. So you lean down and you drink the water out of any water source. And then when you're done, you blow air through it. And that pretty much blows out the stuff that you caught in the filters. And then you go back to doing whatever you're doing. This could be the end of our show. Eight minutes later, drink after drinking a corn of water. But it gets better.

It does. With the Lifestraw family. Yeah. So chuck over its lifespan. The personal Lifestraw can filter about 700 quarts of water. So taking that that's about two quarts a day. Yeah. That lasts for a full year.

Right. Okay. So you get your Lifestraw, you use it for a year, you get another one. The family one is much more effective, I think. It filters enough to keep a family of five in water for three years before it needs to be replaced. Yeah. Where the filter goes out. Ten quarts an hour by comparison, which is obviously why they call it the family one.

Right, and it does about 18,000 quarts over its lifespan of three years, right? Yeah, and it's kind of similar, right? But it's just larger and it uses gravity and it's got a couple of more parts to it. And you just said the magic word. Like there are all sorts of water purification systems out there that require things like electricity or a diesel generator or something that you don't necessarily have. Right. The cool thing about Lifestraw and the Lifestraw family water filters is that,

like you said, it uses gravity. Right. Or with the Lifestraw personally, which is suction. Yeah. But with the family version, there's like a bucket at the top that has like that initial filter. Right. And then it goes down through increasingly smaller by micron textile filters. It goes through a halogen chamber that releases a low level amount of chlorine, right?

And then it hits the plastic hose. So just exiting the bucket, it's already been filtered three times. Yeah. Goes down this hose down to another cartridge that this is where the ultra filtration takes place. And it's also where it's discharged after that. And the cool thing is after you're done, you can squeeze this cleaning bulb three times. And basically it back flows all the impurities. Right.

And there's a separate tap to get rid of that. So you clean it very easily. You don't need anything extra. It's all self-contained and it uses gravity, no electricity, no anything. Yeah. Brilliant and it's simplicity, just like it's smaller buddy. Right. But it also, it saves five people's lives for three years rather than one person's life for a year.

Right. And doesn't have a little spigot at the bottom. So you can kind of use it as a, as if it were a repository of water. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is too. By the time it gets out of that tap, no matter where it is, it's gone through this filtration process.

So yes, it is a repository. That's right. And at the end of this process, my dude friend, you are going to have nothing in there, particle-wise, larger than a droplet of fog. Right. A droplet of fog. And that would be 99.9% of bacteria and viruses, including things like Salmonella and Shigilla and Enterococcus and whatever that last one is.

Staff. Staff. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah.

And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly.

And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app,

Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, y'all. This is Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of the award winning weekly podcast therapy for black girls. Our incredible community of sisters has been building the therapy for black girls podcast for five years running. And over that time, we've published over 250 episodes and gained over 18 million podcast downloads. During this time, we've tackled the stigma surrounding mental health

and shared conversations to help us all understand ourselves and others a little better. Hundreds of incredible licensed mental health care professionals and other experts have joined us to share tips on taking better care of ourselves. We flip through the pages of your favorite romance novels with author Tia Williams, checked in with Grammy award winning artist Michelle Williams, and discussed the hurdles of balancing competitive sports, motherhood, and mental health with Olympic athlete Natasha Hastings. Five years down and many more years of work to be done.

Join us now by checking out the therapy for black girls podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Um, the problem is, is that there are some pretty nasty bugs that are smaller than a droplet of fog. Right. 15 microns, right? Because we said with the life straw, I think both of them, the smallest the filter goes down to is 15 microns.

Yeah. Some nasty ones too, unfortunately. Yeah, remember we talked about cryptosporidium. Yeah. And Giardia. Yeah. Both of those are smaller than 15 microns and even worse than that, Giardia is actually resistant to iodine.

I know. I hate Giardia. You know, the life straw personals like big, like that last death blow is that running it through those halogenized resin beads. Right. And actually we need to point out that's just for the personal, actually, the family one does filter out the Giardia and the cryptosporidium. Okay.

Which is good. But the personal doesn't because that's, you know, it's about as good as they can do for a little 10 inch personal system. Right. It also doesn't filter out heavy metals, a fluoride. So if you don't want to get dumber, you're out of luck. Slayer. What?

Megadeth. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Sorry. It's so bad.

You know, it's sad as it took me a second to figure out what to do. You didn't laugh at first and then I was like, I just want to crawl under this desk. Arsenic. So if you're in a, if you're in a, if you're a poor person in a developed area. Right. That has all sorts of factories, but no environmental regulations, you're kind of out of luck with life straw personal as well.

Well, and there, that comes in effect though, in the case of like a urban disasters, because they start to send these to places like New Orleans. Right. And so in that kind of case, you'd be kind of out of luck with the fluoride and stuff. So there, there are some things that, that the life straw can't do. Right. And as a result, there's a lot of people out there who are dedicated to making sure that people get clean water who are saying like, this is great.

This is helpful. But at the same time, it's not really solving the problem. So like in this article, there is a guy named Paul Heatherington. He speaks for water aid, which is a British charity. And I think there's a lot of people who agree with him that the way to really solve the water crisis in the developing world is to educate people on how to treat their water, how to take care of their water. And then after they understand this, or probably simultaneously as an even better idea,

give them a clean source of water that's nearby. Dig them a well. Remember, if you're walking to and from water 12 miles a day, you haven't gotten to the point where you're manufacturing heavy equipment that can dig you a well that will supply your village that comes later, right? So a multi-pronged approach, get life straw on the hands of these people, work on the education. That's Chuck's advice.

Right. I should go to the UN. Give them life straw so they can stay alive long enough to go to these education classes. Exactly. Obviously, Josh, education and changing an entire culture of water, sanitation, and hygiene is going to take a long time. So in the meantime, get life straw on the hands of these families. And luckily, there are a lot of companies, relief organizations, charities that are

getting on board because even though they're only, I think like, you get a deal in bulk. You can get them for about three bucks a piece if you're a big organization. But I think they're like $5 just to buy a single one. And that's even too much money for these people. Yeah, that's part of the problem. That's another thing, I didn't see any criticism of life straw, the company that manufactures life straw. But I got the impression that there's people out there, especially NGOs that are dedicated to water

that feel like companies that produce relief products are not selling to their clients, they're end users, they're creating these things, they're selling them in between to people like you and me. Or rotary clubs or large corporations. So I went on and there's links on, how do you say this company's again? Vestigard Franson. And it says donate. There's like a whole thing where there's links to the rotary club.

There's one in Spain, there's one in the UK, and then there's one in the US. They all have different sites. You can donate. So in this, it was supposed to be three bucks. I've seen five bucks. But then where the rubber hits the road on this rotary site, it's 650 for a life straw. And then 25 for the family unit. Right.

And ultimately, it doesn't really matter. It's 650, you and I can afford that. Sure. And I think we should kind of put out something of a challenge to stuff you should know listeners, to donate one of these each. That'd be great. Don't you think so? Dude, if we get like a couple of hundred thousand life straws out there, that'd be awesome.

Okay. You were looking at me for approval. Like I can say, no, let's not do that. Yeah, I don't want to do that today. I feel like going back to bed. And luckily, Josh, like I said, there are companies getting involved. And think this was just released today. The Danes have teamed up with Coca-Cola, our own Atlanta's based Coca-Cola.

Right. And Vestigard Franson and a group called Water For All. And they have a deal gone. Coca-Cola apparently is the leading bottled water seller in the Nordic regions. It's called Kildevald. Is there water that they sell there? You are good at Nordic tones. That's probably not right.

But they have a program called Three Leaders of Clean Water. And it's this partnership where they donate three leaders of clean water to Africa for every purchase of Coca-Cola's bottled water brand there. Right. And just yesterday, they donated 27,000 life straw, personal life straws, through this partnership to Africa. See, I think, I never got really, I didn't get to finish my point. Vestigard Franson, right? They are making this product that is very helpful. It's literally saving people's lives, right?

Right. I think any time you combine capitalism with relief efforts, it kind of turns my stomach a little bit. I don't mind it. But that seems like when I really step back and think about it, that's such a western elitist view of things. Right. Because it's like arguing with somebody like, well, why don't you charge a little less? Why don't you donate some of these? And having a disagreement while there's somebody dying at your feet. Right, right, right.

You know? Sure. So, I mean, I think this is one of those cases where it's like, just let's get these people their stuff and then we can have this conversation later. You know? Well, yeah. But unless it's an NGO that has developed this and invented this, then you can't expect this guy to just go broke giving these away. I don't. And I-

It's tricky though. I know what you're saying. It is. And same with Coca-Cola. It's like awesome, you know, you helped foster this transportation of 25,000 life straws to people who didn't have them. But like- By people buying your bottled water to begin with. Exactly.

Which a lot of people have a problem with buying bottled water in the first place. Exactly. So, I think there's problems with it, but ultimately it's very, very important not to lose sight of the end user of life straw who's like, please send me one. So, I don't die. We should also mention too that the reason that, you know, we said that that company, the Franzen company, quit making their other textile products in 1992 was because they probably found that it was a good market for these other things. Like they also make the permanent and zero fly, which are these things. I think, is it Julia Roberts that's really involved with the netting, the anti-malarian netting? It seems like in-

Charlotte's their own Angelina Jolie thing to be involved in. She's all about Namibia and everything, isn't she? Yeah, but they also do manufacture those two products, which help prevent malaria, not present malaria. That would be a whole different product. They're sprayed with malaria. Come and get it. So, they also have these care packs for HIV positive families and you get like a permanent and a life straw and antibiotics, condoms, things like that. And some brochures.

And brochures to educate you. So, they're doing good and we love it. We're behind it all the way. I don't want you to get the wrong idea from Josh's harsh words, right? Thank you, Chuckers. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana.

Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty, exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty.

Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, y'all, this is Dr. Joy Horton Bradford, host of the award-winning weekly podcast Therapy for Black Girls. Our incredible community of sisters has been building the Therapy for Black Girls podcast for five years running. And over that time, we've published over 250 episodes and gained over 18 million podcast downloads.

During this time, we've tackled the stigma surrounding mental health and shared conversations to help us all understand ourselves and others a little better. Hundreds of incredible licensed mental health care professionals and other experts have joined us to share tips on taking better care of ourselves. We flip through the pages of your favorite romance novels with author Tia Williams, checked in with Grammy award-winning artist Michelle Williams, and discussed the hurdles of balancing competitive sports, motherhood and mental health with Olympic athlete Natasha Hastings.

Five years down and many more years of work to be done. Join us now by checking out the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. They're not the only people creating stuff. And the Rotary Club isn't the only group that you can go through to donate things. Again, Carter Center is dedicated to Guinea Worm. They kind of have their eyes on that prize because we're on the brink of eradicating it from the planet, like literally won't be found on earth once.

Yeah, once I think two countries, maybe three have it left. It'll only be the second time that's ever happened in the history of the world. What was the first one, polio? Yes, Josh, I think it was polio because this is the first parasitic disease, second disease overall. So the Carter Center really wants to get rid of this. So you can donate to the Carter Center at CarterCenter.org slash health slash guinea underscore worm.

And that will take you to their little mini site. You can do all sorts of donating there. You can go to vesturgardfranson.com. I'm going to go ahead and spell that one for you. Okay? V-E-S-T-E-R-G-A-A-R-D-hyphen-F-R-A-N-D-S-E-N.com and then slash donate. That's going to take you to all these Kiwana sites. And then there's a group called projecthdesign.org. So in this article, it's cited that they're passing out life straws to people in India.

I didn't see that anywhere. It's not just in Africa. I mean, this is happening all over the world, but Africa is obviously a big ground zero for waterborne illness. And yeah, in India, as developing as that country is, I think a significant portion of people in that nation, 16 million residents, which is surprisingly that's, oh, 25% of New Delhi's 16 million residents don't have access to clean drinking water.

So yeah, it's not just in Africa. I didn't see projecthdesign's water or life straw project, but they did have something called a hippo roller. What's that? It's, you know what a sod roller is? It's like a big drum with like, I guess, handles attached, like a lawnmower handle. It's this, but the drum in this case is plastic. And you take it to your water source, fill it up up to 25 gallons and just roll it back home.

So you don't have to have the big vase on your head? No, and it's huge. Most of the time, apparently people can haul five to six gallons at a time. This allows them to basically make five trips in one. Those are a hundred bucks and you can go on to projecthdesign.org and find out about donating that. And they have a bunch of different cool ones, cool projects that they're funding. That's awesome.

Yeah. And here's my final call, Josh. I would encourage people to try and conserve water on their own. It's not like the water that you conserve in your house in Peoria is going to go to be bottled up and shipped to Africa. But we went through our drought here in Atlanta last summer and we had all kinds of water restrictions. And Emily and I really got used to the idea of, you know, water is a limited resource

and you shouldn't just waste it. And we really got that, that, you know, we're not like using our bathwater to do our dishes, but we collect our water from our AC unit and water our plants. And we, like, I never pour water out like that I'm drinking that's gotten, you know, tepid. I always like pouring a plant and just try and reuse what I can. Yeah. So I would encourage people to do that. I always pour it on myself in a sexy manner, get my t-shirt wet.

That's what I do with it. And that's not wasteful at all. That's well worth it. So we'll see what happens after the giant nations of the world are drawn into World War III and the Balkans over water conflicts in 2024 until then we'll keep podcasting, right? I hope so. And if you want to learn more about Livestraw, I strongly recommend you guys go type that word L-I-F-E-S-T-R-A-W into the swing and search bar at howstuffworks.com.

And Chuck, now it is time for Listener Mail. Josh, I'm going to call this a couple of emails about Modafinil. Okay. Remember we talked about that in Is Science Facing Out Sleep? I do. I like that one. You want to give a quick rundown on what that product is? Modafinil is a non-stimulant, I guess, drug of arousal that was originally designed for

narcoleptics and suddenly people who don't like to sleep and like to get things done for 48 hours at a stretch without feeling tired started taking the trip. So we got one from a neurobiology major, so he is a neuroscience major, and he's Dave, aka the professor, and he has this to say, guys, I'm writing in as a neuroscientist and you're probably scared that I'm writing you with a pocket protected complaint about the number of times you incorrectly said Monofidil instead of Modafinil. Seven, he points out. Really?

Yeah, we got it backwards, which is not unlike us. But fear not, guys, I come in peace. I'm a PhD student from Toronto, Canada, but studying neurobiology of cocaine addiction. I'm familiar with Modafinil because it has recently undergone clinical trials for use as a treatment for cocaine addiction. It is thought that Modafinil could work for cocaine addiction in the same way methadone works for heroin as a maintenance treatment, but the results are inconclusive right now. A word of caution too, just because a drug like Modafinil doesn't directly impact

dopamine systems in the brain, doesn't mean it can't have rewarding and addictive effects. Do you have anything to add? I did. Any drug that can keep you up all night so you can be twice as productive as a potential to be addictive because productivity itself can be extremely rewarding. I never really thought about that. That is great, so it's like indirectly addictive then. Yeah. Lastly, at the risk of being too technical, more and more evidence is suggesting that glutamate

and GABA, GABA, the neurotransmitters directly impacted by Modafinil, play an important role in addiction, perhaps even more so than dopamine. Crazy. In fact, by altering dopamine levels, drugs like cocaine make long-term changes in glutamate and GABA circuits in the brain, and these changes are thought to underlie addictive behavior. You say cocaine exactly like Glen Fry. It's chilling. Cocaine?

Yeah. See? Thanks a lot, guys. I swear on my Modafinil that I won't sleep until I see a podcast on addiction. Man, that is so crazy. He's like a fifth person in a week to predict upcoming podcasts. Yes, or that would have already come out by now. That's right.

Yeah. That was from Dave the Professor, and then we had another note from Andrew. He said, An angry note. I just listened to your, now you went too angry. I just listened to your podcast on phasing out sleep. It was a little bothered by your one-sided bashing of Modafinil. A little bothered.

That's angry. You focused on people who abuse Modafinil by using it to avoid sleep. I've been using it for my sleep apnea for three years and has greatly improved my quality of life. Prior to this, I would sleep eight hours a night and still be tired all day. Now I sleep eight hours a night, feel awake, and alert the rest of the day. Ethical doctors aren't prescribing this to allow patients to avoid sleeping. They prescribe it to patients who have a medical condition, which caused them to be tired, despite having had enough sleep.

And he says, I still love the show. So he wasn't really angry. Signed the Chairman of the Maker of Modafinil. Of Modafinil. I mean Dan. Andrew. Yes. See, he got it wrong.

That's right. If you have a correction, specifically if you're a neurobiologist, we love hearing from experts. We should keep his email address too. Okay, let's do it. So in case we have questions. And, and don't forget, we're all starting the push now to donate life straws, right Chuck? Yeah. Yeah, so we're going to figure this out.

We'll look for more information soon. In the meantime, if you want to donate a life straw, knock yourself out. Agreed. If you are an expert in your field and you think that what you have to say would interest us, we want to know. Yes, we do. Send us an email at stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry.

It's ready, are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Langston Kermit. Sometimes I'm on TV. I'm David Borey and I'm probably on TV right now. David and I are going to take a deep dive every week into the most exciting ground breaking and sometimes problematic black conspiracy theories. We've had amazing past notable guests like Brandon Kyle Goodman, Sam Jay, Quinta Brunson and so many more.

New episodes around every Tuesday. Many episodes out on Thursdays where we answer you, the listeners conspiracy theories. Listen to my mama told me on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.