Use your cell phone to detect mercury levels in water
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
It may not make your list of must-have camping gear, but a newsheet that detects mercury levelsin water may prove useful to those who live or work downstream from industrial and mining sites (such as gold mines and coal-fired powered plants) and want to drink the local water.
When dipped in water for five minutes, the sheet, manufactured by chemists at the University of Burgos in Spain, signals the presence of mercury by turning red -- a process that can be seen with the naked eye.
Take a picture of that sheet with a digital camera, and you can learn the specific concentration of the mercury, a metal that is liquid at room temperature and has been found to cause long-term neurological issues after accumulating in the brain.
Read more:http://cnet.co/X6oAgF