Beyond The Bench

Mindbogglingly useful: a new, low-cost water purification protocol for the developing world now freely available* to download from CP Microbiology:

Unit 1G.2 Bioremediation of Turbid Surface Water Using Seed Extract from Moringa oleifera Lam. (Drumstick) Tree

In the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams described his fictional creation, the all language-translating Babel fish, as being something ‘so mindbogglingly useful’ that it seemed almost inconceivable that it could have evolved by chance. This notion might equally apply to the drought-resistant Moringa oleifera tree, which can yield – among other things – cooking and lighting oil, soil fertilizer, as well as highly nutritious and tasty food in the form of its pods, leaves, seeds and flowers. In addition, as is set out in this unit published in Current Protocols in Microbiology, its seeds can be used as part of an inexpensive drinking water treatment technique that could help significantly reduce the incidence of waterborne disease in the developing world.

Around a billion people in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America rely on untreated surface water sources for their daily potable water needs. Of these, some 2 million are reckoned to die from waterborne diseases every year, the majority of these deaths being among children under 5 years of age. This amounts to a Mogadishu of fatalities every six months, and a Mexico City every decade. To help combat this appalling toll of avoidable mortality, Michael Lea* of Clearinghouse, an organization that researches and implements low- cost water purification technologies, has outlined a procedure that can reduce levels of harmful bacteria in water by around 90-99%, as well as reducing cloudiness, making the resulting drink aesthetically as well as microbiologically more acceptable for human consumption.

Water purification methods using seeds from the Moringa tree have been known about for centuries, but their use has been limited geographically. Cultivation of this tree as a food source is now spreading widely –amazingly the tree grows happily in all the regions where it can be most useful– but not many people know how to use the crushed seed powder as a coagulant to clean their water and potentially save lives. It is Lea’s hope that having the technique readily available via the internet from a reputable source in a protocol format – a first – will make dissemination to local community leaders, health workers and educational programs much easier.

The story doesn’t end there. This, after all, is the almost implausibly useful Moringa tree. Included with the protocol for purification is another that can be used for extracting a multi-purpose vegetable oil from the seeds, that leaves a ‘presscake’ that is just as effective in cleansing the water as the powder. Any surplus oil produced that is not needed for home cooking, lighting or mosquito repellent can then be sold, giving individuals a powerful economic incentive to use Moringa seeds over chlorine tablets—which are a daunting expense to people existing on small and uncertain incomes. Any surplus seed powder or presscake would also be saleable.

Michael Lea is at pains to stress that the use of these techniques will not be a panacea against waterborne disease. However, given that increasing the use of the Moringa tree can bring benefits in the shape of nutrition and income, as well as of purer water, there is the possibility that thousands of 21st century families could find themselves largely liberated from what should really be considered 19th century causes of death or debilitating disease. This prospect, and that of the human potential thereby released, is truly and happily mindboggling.

Made freely available as part of the John Wiley & Sons Corporate Citizenship Initiative.

A previous freely-available water treatment protocol authored by Michael Lea, Biological Sand Filters: Low-Cost Bioremediation Techniques for Production of Clean Drinking Water, is available here.

Historically, wine has been lauded as the “healthy” alcoholic beverage. Per serving (4 oz glass) it contains about 30 fewer calories than the average 12 oz bottle of beer. The anti-aging compound reservatrol was recently discovered in red wine, along with other phytochemicals that can thin blood, improve cholesterol, and even reduce risk of cancer.

Yet, while beer has often followed in wine’s shadow, its virtues are now coming to light. Recent research suggests that drinking beer could actually help to prevent osteoporosis and cancer.

How?

University of California, Davis food science professor Charles Bamforth and graduate student Troy Davis published research this past February showing that beer is a rich source of silicon—a bone-strengthening nutrient ¹. Previous research also shows that beer contains folate—a B vitamin that helps to prevent cancer and reduce birth defects ².

So drinking a pint could prolong your life. Cheers to that!
-A. Goldstein

1 Casey, T., & Bamforth, C. (2010). Silicon in beer and brewing Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.3884