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When the pandemic forced schools into remote learning, Washington-area science teacher Rebecca Bushway set her students an ambitious task: design and build a low-cost lead filter that fixes to faucets and removes the toxic metal.
Using 3D printing and high-school level chemistry, the team now has a working prototype -- a three-inch (7.5 centimeter) tall filter housing made of biodegradable plastic, which they hope to eventually bring to market for $1 apiece.
"The science is straightforward," Bushway told AFP on a recent visit to the Barrie Middle and Upper School in suburban Maryland, where she demonstrated the filter in action.
"I thought, 'We have these 3D printers. What if we make something like this?'"
Bushway has presented the prototype at four conferences, including the prestigious spring meeting of the American Chemistry Society, and plans to move forward with a paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
Up to 10 million US homes still receive water through lead pipes, with exposure particularly harmful during childhood.
The metal, which evades a key defense of the body known as the blood-brain-barrier, can cause permanent loss of cognitive abilities and contribute to psychological problems that aggravate enduring cycles of poverty.
A serious contamination problem uncovered in Flint, Michigan in 2014 is perhaps the most famous recent disaster -- but lead poisoning is widespread and disproportionately impacts African Americans and other minorities, explained Barrie team member Nia Frederick.
"And I think that's something we can help with," she said.
The harms of lead poisoning have been known for decades, but lobbying by the lead industry prevented meaningful action until recent decades.
President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged billions of dollars from an infrastructure law to fund the removal of all the nation’s lead pipes over the coming years -- but until that happens, people need solutions now.
- A clever trick -
Bushway's idea was to use the same chemical reaction used to restore contaminated soil: the exposure of dissolved lead to calcium phosphate powder produces a solid lead phosphate that stays inside the filter, along with harmless free calcium.
The filter has a clever trick up its sleeve: under the calcium phosphate, there's a reservoir of a chemical called potassium iodide.
When the calcium phosphate is used up, dissolved lead will react with potassium iodide, turning the water yellow - a sign it is time to replace the filter.
Student Wathon Maung spent months designing the housing on 3D printing software, going through many prototypes.
"What's great about it was that it's kind of this little puzzle that I had to figure out," he said.
Calcium phosphate was clumping inside the filter, slowing the reaction. But Maung found that by incorporating hexagonal bevels he could ensure the flow of water and prevent clumping.
The result is a flow rate of two gallons (nine liters) per minute, the normal rate at which water flows out a tap.
Next, the Barrie team would like to incorporate an instrument called a spectrophotometer that will detect the yellowing of the water even before it is visible to the human eye and then turn on a little LED warning light.
Paul Frail, a chemical engineer who was not involved in the work, said the group "deserves an incredible amount of credit" for its work, combining general chemistry concepts with 3D printing to design a novel product.
He added, however, that the filter would need further testing with ion chromatography instruments that are generally available in universities or research labs -- as well as market research to determine the demand.
Bushway is confident there is a niche. Reverse osmosis systems that fulfill the same role cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, while carbon block filters available for around $20 have to be replaced every few months, which is more often than her group's filter.
"I am over-the-Moon proud of these students," Bushway said, adding that the group hoped to work with partners to finalize the design and produce it at scale.
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According to a Daily Beast review of court transcripts in a lawsuit a protester has brought against Donald Trump, his former attorney Michael Cohen explained in detail a conversation he overheard between the former president and his head of security that contradicts what Trump previously testified under oath.
That, in turn, could lead to Trump facing charges of perjury.
As the Beast's Jose Pagliery reports, Cohen was a last-minute witness in a lawsuit brought against Trump where he is accused of siccing his security team on protesters outside of Trump Tower before he became president. In a previous deposition, Trump has denied involvement.
However, as the new report states, Cohen gave testimony that he was in the room when the protesters were discussed and, under questioning, stated Trump asked security head Keith Schiller, "Did you see that there’s a demonstration going on? Get rid of them," to which Schiller reportedly replied, ”Okay, boss."
RELATED: Trump considered a military coup: Would he have gotten away with it?
The Beast's Pagliery writes, "When Schiller reappeared in his boss’s office less than half an hour later, he had a large piece of a cardboard sign he had ripped out of the hand of Queens resident and demonstrator Efrain Galicia. Video captured by journalists downstairs caught the scrappy fight. Cohen remembered Schiller saying, 'I took the sign. He grabbed me, so I hit him across the side of the head,' to which Trump responded, 'Good.'"
As the report notes, Trump previously denied ordering an attack on the protesters when he was asked if he instructed Schiller to use force, to which he replied, "No I didn't."
The report continues, "Although Trump previously swore that he did not order his guards to do anything, Cohen testified to the complete opposite—opening up the possibility that his former boss lied under oath," before adding, "If the case goes to trial in the coming weeks, jurors will likely hear all three stories and have to make up their minds about whom to believe."
As a side note, the Beast report also reveals Cohen also testified Trump lived in fear of being "pied" after it happened to Microsoft founder Bill Gates with Pagliery quoting the attorney testifying, "For some reason that upset Mr. Trump terribly. We were all instructed that if somebody was to ever throw anything at him, that if that person didn’t end up in the hospital, we'd all be fired,”
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Russia's war in Ukraine has pushed the number of forcibly displaced people around the world above 100 million for the first time ever, the United Nations said on Monday.
"The number of people forced to flee conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution has now crossed the staggering milestone of 100 million for the first time on record, propelled by the war in Ukraine and other deadly conflicts," said UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
The "alarming" figure must shake the world into ending the conflicts forcing record numbers to flee their own homes, the UNHCR said in a statement.
UNHCR said the numbers of forcibly displaced people rose towards 90 million by the end of 2021, spurred by violence in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Myanmar and Nigeria.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and since then more than eight million people have been displaced within the country, while more than six million refugees have fled across the borders.
'Wake-up call'
"One hundred million is a stark figure -- sobering and alarming in equal measure. It's a record that should never have been set," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
"This must serve as a wake-up call to resolve and prevent destructive conflicts, end persecution and address the underlying causes that force innocent people to flee their homes."
The 100 million figure amounts to more than one percent of the global population. Only 13 countries have a bigger population than the number of forcibly displaced people in the world.
The figures combine refugees, asylum-seekers and more than 50 million people displaced inside their own countries.
"The international response to people fleeing war in Ukraine has been overwhelmingly positive," said Grandi.
"Compassion is alive and we need a similar mobilisation for all crises around the world. But ultimately, humanitarian aid is a palliative, not a cure.
"To reverse this trend, the only answer is peace and stability so that innocent people are not forced to gamble between acute danger at home or precarious flight and exile."
UNHCR will provide the full data on forced displacement in 2021 in its annual Global Trends Report, due for release on June 16.
'Plague of human suffering'
More than two years on since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, at least 20 countries still deny access to asylum for people fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution based on measures to clamp down on the virus.
Grandi called on May 20 for those countries to lift any remaining pandemic-related asylum restrictions, saying they contravene a fundamental human right.
"I am worried that measures enacted on the pretext of responding to Covid-19 are being used as cover to exclude and deny asylum to people fleeing violence and persecution," he said.
A joint report last week by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said around 38 million new internal displacements were reported in 2021. Some of those were by people forced to flee multiple times during the year.
The figure marks the second-highest annual number of new internal displacements in a decade after 2020, which saw record-breaking movement due to a string of natural disasters.
Last year, new internal displacements specifically from conflict surged to 14.4 million -- marking a 50-percent jump from 2020, the report showed.
"Today's sobering 100 million displacement figure is indisputable proof that global leaders are failing the world's most vulnerable people on a scale never before seen," NRC secretary-general Jan Egeland said in a statement.
"We are witnessing an unprecedented plague of human suffering."
He said the aid system would not be able to support 100 million people in need without more resources.
"It is twice the number of people compared to a decade ago, without a doubling of funding to match it," Egeland said.
Natural disasters continued to account for most new internal displacement, spurring 23.7 million such movements in 2021.
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