Although various alternative technologies are being developed, the large-scale desalination of seawater typically involves forcing it through a membrane that allows the water to pass through, but that traps the salt. These membranes can be costly, they can get fouled, and powerful pumps are required to push the water through. Now, however, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin and Germany’s University of Marburg are taking another approach. They’ve developed a chip that separates salt from water.
The crowning glory is a 14-ft boat which has been left whole and inverted to form the roof. A 20-W solar panel powers the creature comforts inside. To create the shed's frame, the boat was fixed atop four telegraph poles plonked judiciously on a hillside amid Wales' Cambrian Mountains. (The views aren't at all bad, either). Aluminum-framed windows were salvaged from a 1940s caravan, and others were "borrowed" from Holland's farmhouse. Walls are a mixture of corrugated metal and, for a taste of the Neolithic, wattle and daub. Inside things take a turn for the high tech. The shed's PV panel feeds a battery which provides power to LED lighting and a 12-V sound system – the only new item in the construction. The shed also boasts a plumbed Belfast sink (the generous, cuboid-shaped ones), and a 19th century wood burning stove for heat fitted with a chimney fashioned from the queen pole of an old circus big top.Where sheds end and (sometimes pretentious) ...

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