Manufacturing Water Purifier and Filtration Systems

Manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems has become a huge business in the industrialized countries of our planet. Companies manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems in the U.S. ship them to developing countries. Foreign companies manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems ship them to the U.S.

Some of these water purifier and filtration systems are intended for municipal water treatment, while others are manufactured for home use. All must adhere minimally to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Companies manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems for use in the U.S. must adhere to EPA and FDA regulations as well.

U.S. government standards from the EPA require two different levels of water cleaning for purifier and filtration systems.

* filtration Systems: Any type of water filtration system must remove at least 99.99% of bacteria, chemicals, and other contaminants. filtration systems must also remove lead and other harmful metals and minerals. This is considered 4 Log or simple filtration.

* purifier Systems: All water purifier systems must provide 7 Log reduction of contaminants. If you have 7 Log contaminant reduction, your purifier has removed 99.99999% of bacteria, chemicals, and other contaminants.

What This Means to You

If you are directly involved in manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems, this means your products all must be of high quality, and will require constant testing to be sure they conform to government standards. Your filtration systems must all remove the proper percentage of contaminants, as must your purifiers. You cannot sell a filtration system and make claims that it purifies water. All must meet EPA requirements.

If you are not directly involved in manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems, the difference between purifiers and filtration systems may seem minimal. It may seem as though it doesnt matter whether you purchase a purifier or a water filtration system. At a glance, removal of 99.99% or 99.99999% of contaminants may not look like a huge difference.

What it means, however, is that a purifier must be one thousand times (1000x) as effective as a filtration system! To put it another way, you have a choice as to how clean you want your water. Are you content to remove just 1 bug from your water glass, and leave 999 bugs in there? Or would you rather remove 1000 bugs from your glass of water? drinking water purifiers must give you super-clean water in even the most highly contaminated and dangerous circumstances.

Challenge to Manufacturers

Our challenge to manufacturers is to make clean water available to all who need it. Manufacturers should be working to reduce the costs of manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems so that they are more readily available in remote areas and undeveloped countries. People in those countries urgently need filtration systems, whereas we in developed countries have very potable water flowing from our municipal water supply. Those in need often cannot afford clean water, though, given the current costs of manufacturing water purifier and filtration systems.

Manufacturers need to couple their desire for profit to humanitarian compassion, and create ways to provide purifiers, or at least filtration systems, at much lower cost.

2007, Anna Hart. Anna Hart invites you to read more of her articles about water purifiers and filtration systems at http://www.healthydrinkingwaterblog.com Anna has also posted information on that site about solar purifiers. If you want to learn about inexpensive solar drinking water purifiers, you wont want to miss her article on that subject.

Yoga Sutra New York

Got Back Pain?

In the journal of Neuroscience, November, 2004, researchers at Northwestern University, concluded that sufferers of chronic back pain had brains that aged 20 times that of normal healthy folks.

They went further and reported that the brains of those with chronic back pain had as much as 11% brain shrinkage. It is gray matter that is lost, which is responsible for information processing (I.Q), and memory.

The leading researcher, A. Vania Apkanian, said the average healthy person loses 0.5% of gray matter annually, but having sciatica, chronic back pain, produces 10 to 20 years of normal aging. The longer one suffers from chronic back pain (years), larger the brain loss. Yes, really.

The reason for brain shrinkage appears to be the almost permanent state of a negative mood and attitude, and the stress associated with it. Apkanian believes brain shrinkage (loss of gray matter), is a result of nerve cells in a constant state of activity they are overworked to the extreme.

He concludes, that the longer the back pain persists, the greater its irreversibility because the brain structures and functions change permanently.

What is New?

In 2006, Dr. Sean Mackey, Stanford University, reported a different approach in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dealing with chronic back pain, his research indicates that patients looking at their own live brain scans can learn to control pain activation.

There are two brain systems involved in pain - pain perception and pain modulation. Wait there is no single pain center, but 5-10 areas that transmit pain feedback.

Here is the killer conclusion of Dr. Mackey, top-gun at Stanford Medical school:

Pain modulation (change, alteration), is triggered by BELIEF. A placebo (sugar pill or an injection of plain water), can shut down the pain, while a nocibo (belief in harm), will augment the pain, when your brain is convinced you are being hurt.

How Come?

The brain releases its endogenous (originating from within), endorphins (pleasure hormones), an opiate-like substance.

The reason a placebo works is the brain releases a chemical that attaches to our Mu Opioid Receptors. Get this fake opiates cause the brain to produce its own real ones in response. It is the bandwagon effect.

Does Believing in Change Cause Change in Reality?

The answer is yes, with practice, as the mind unites with the body.

It appears to be a brain thing called the power of suggestion. The same one used in hypnosis and auto-suggestion, where you convince yourself.

A physician telling a group of patients in an experiment, that the pain they were feeling would positively be relieved by their (placebo) medication, resulted in 99% effectiveness. We believe in the authority and his/her expertise. It sounds weird, but our belief changes our state-of-mind, which in turn alters our body receptors.

Hold it! Thinking about pain produces physical changes in our - pain, no-pain - perception. It is visible on the fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery), and is not a schizophrenic episode.

They have zeroed in on the area that produces human awareness of our mind-numbing pain it is called - rostral Anterior Cingulate Cotex (rACC). We can see it in action, in living color, on the fMRI, and see it modulated by our Prefrontal Cortex, the brain area that makes decisions.

The scientists do not claim they know why cognitive effort can reduce the activation of the rACC, it just does. Thinking too deeply about the why, delivers us to the realm of Huh? We are rational creatures motivated by emotion, let us not go any further.

Soft Wired

You have heard that our genes make us hard-wired, we come to life preprogrammed to a substantial degree.

Another reality is that our brain is Soft-Wired, (plastic), so that we can learn. When we learn it is followed by structural and functional changes in our brain. practice, according to the experts, can reduce pain an average of 64%, no mean trick.

One more once what you believe and expect, creates your reality. It does not alter the world, only your world. Another thing we do not know a whit about the source of consciousness. It is not neurons firing, but depends on our neurons that are wired together, to fire together.

Endwords

It is intuitive that having a positive attitude is better than holding a belief that you will fail. We are at the next threshold of reason what you actively believe, mentally visualize and expect come to pass in your brain, and perhaps in your motivations and behaviors.

Professor William James, 1890, at Harvard, created the Law of As-If. Whatever your mind consistently thinks and feels drives your brain to discover and bring to pass. If you Act, Think, Feel and Believe AS-IF you have already obtain the goal you are chasing it is a direction to both hemispheres of your brain to attract it.

The latest research states that folks with chronic back pain have annual brain shrinkage of an extra 1.3%. That is far too much. We have over 100 billion brain cells, so it is not an immediate ticket to Alzheimers, but it does you no good.

Here is the core of it meditation, hypnosis, distractions, mental visualizations, and placebos all offer a method to train the brain to obey our prefrontal cortex our active consciousness. It works for me personally, to reduce pain, and enhance healing.

It is your assignment to check it out. The Indian charkas are real, seven subtle areas of energy that can be manipulated by acupressure and acupuncture to help you heal faster, and reduce pain. My personal favorite is daily chanting Uh-(as in Accountant, OO (as in Book), and Mng as in Mee-ing (Uh-OO-Mng) for 20 minutes twice a day. Google Mudras (hand gestures), too

Now I know that you are far too busy to find a total of forty minutes daily to maintain your health, reduce if not eliminate pain, and actively live to age 90.

Deal-Or-No-Deal?

See ya,

copyright
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org

Author of Speed Reading For Professionals, published by Barron's Educational, original partner of Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating 2 million, including the White House staff of four U.S. Presidents.

Yoga Instructor Certification Program

The WiFi Blues

Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love has it. Many in San Francisco want it...

Wireless broadband Internet access (wifi) seems too good to be true. At relatively low cost, anyone can get on the Internet anywhere in a city. All the city needs to do is install wifi antennas.

An argument in favor of citywide wifi is that it will reduce the digital divide: the poorer you are, the more limited your access to the Internet and its information resources. Cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco are actively trying to close the digital divide. One option is wifi.

Yet in weighing the options, virtually nothing is heard about the potential health risks. Saturating an entire city with wifi adds to the existing burden of nonionizing radiation. That burden, called electrosmog by some, consists of long-term exposure to low-level concentrations of nonionizing radiation from familiar sources like radio and TV signals, electronic and electrical devices, and the ubiquitous cell phone.

Wireless Internet Access

Local area networks (LANs) link computers, printers, modems, and other devices. Traditional LANs make the links physically using wire cable. Messages between computers and the other devices on the network are managed by a device called a router.

A wireless LAN does away with the wire cable by using a router that transmits and receives radio signals. To use a wired LAN, you have to plug the computer or other device into a wall socket. A wire leads from the socket to the router, which manages signal traffic between the devices on the network.

With a wireless LAN, each device on the network is built so that it can send a signal to the router and receive signals back. Wireless routers typically have a range of a hundred to several hundred feet. The range can be increased by adding a booster that increases the signal strength.

As with all radio signals, the closer you are to the transmitter (the router) the stronger the signal. Cell phones work on the same principle. The difference is that cell phones work at a different frequency and put out a stronger signal than wireless LANs.

Radio Frequencies

Cell phones operate at frequencies in the 3 to 30 GHz range, similar to microwave ovens. Wireless LANs operate at one tenth of that range0.3 to 3 GHz, the range of UHF television broadcasts. GHz stands for gigaHertz, a standard measure of radio frequency radiation (RFR)electromagnetic radiation created by sending an alternating electrical current through an antenna. The higher the GHz, the faster the current alternates.

frequency by itself does not measure the potential effect of RFR. As you would guess, the strength of the signal also matters. The strength of a signal is measured in watts, a standard measure of electrical energy. For example, a 100 watt light bulb is brighter because it puts out more energy than a 60 watt bulb.

Think of the effect of waves at the beach: small waves far apart (low strength, low frequency) versus large wave close together (high strength, high frequency). The former is likely to have less of an effect than the latter.

The exposure to RFR is measured using SARspecific absorption rate. SAR is expressed either in milliwatts/kilogram (mW/kg) of body weight or milliwatts/cubic centimeter (mW/cm2) of exposed body area: the size of the wave and how much of your body it strikes.

Health Risks

wifi enthusiasts dismiss health risk concerns because the power output and SAR exposure is significantly below the minimum standard set for cell phones. But cell phone standards are set for the short term exposure of a cell phone in use pressed to your head. In addition, the standards are set based on the thermal (heating) effect of the radiation.

Nonthermal effects of cell phones are documented at exposures below the current US standards, including

- memory loss,
- sleep disruption,
- slowed motor skills and reaction time,
- decreased immune function,
- spatial disorientation and dizziness,
- headaches,
- lowered sperm count,
- increased blood pressure and pulse,
- DNA breakage and reduced DNA repair capacity, and
- cell proliferation.

A second problem is that cell phone exposure is intermittent, whereas wifi exposure is constant. A more accurate comparison is to the effect of cell phone broadcast antennas. These antennas send and receive radio frequency signals constantly.

The signal strength from an antenna is comparable to a cell phone only at very close range. The exposure is not a cell phones brief blast but a persistent bath of low- strength RFR. In addition to the health effects documented for cell phone use, exposure to cell phone antennas include

- increased blood pressure and pulse,
- sleep disruption,
- emotional effects such as increased depression and irritability,
- memory loss and mental fog,
- fatique and vertigo, and
- increased cancer risk.

Because of these effects, the International Association of Fire Fighters (AFL-CIO) decided in 2004 that they will not permit cell phone antennas on fire houses.

RFR Hypersensitivity

much of the discussion of RFR health effects is framed as a concern with people who are hypersensitive. Hypersensitivity is the technical term for allergies and similar immune system overreactions. But instead of pollen, RFR hypersensitivity is a reaction to nonionizing radiation. It seems that an unlucky few are affected while the rest of us are off the hook.

Research by Olle Johansson and rjan Halberg of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm suggests otherwise. They looked at the incidence of cancer in Europe and the US and found a striking association between the increase in certain cancers during the 20th Century and exposure RFR as measured by radio and TV broadcasts.

What the hypersensitive really represent is one extreme in a complex landscape of effects and risks. Just like any other environmental stressor, RFR will affect some people more than others. And as with other environmental stressors, the greater the overall burden, the greater the risk of becoming one of the the unlucky few.

Wireless LANs add to the existing burden of RFR. Just as burning more fossil fuels adds more smog, adding more RFR adds more electrosmog. You dont have to expose your home or your city to the increased burden created by wifi. Theres a viable alternative: a wired LAN. The hype might make it seem less convenient and more expensive. But whats a good nights sleep worth? Or reducing your risk of cancer?

Resources

International Association of Fire Fighters. 2004. Position on the Health Effects from Radio Frequency/Microwave (RF/MW) Radiation in Fire Department facilities from base Stations for Antennas and Towers for the Conduction of Cell Phone Transmissions. Access at http://www.iaff.org/safe/content/celltower/ celltowerfinal.htm.

Johansson, Olle and Doug Loranger. 2005. Electrosmog. Your Own Health And Fitness. Broadcast November 29, 2005. http://yourownhealthandfitness.org/ radiation.html.

Sage, Cindy. 2005. Comment on San Francisco TechConnect Community Wireless broadband Initiative. Sage Associates: September 2005.

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