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The typical American uses 99 gallons of water a day for washing clothes, bathing, toilet-flushing and cooking, and that amount doesn’t even come close to the amount of water used on a daily basis by electrical power plants.

On NPR, Terry Gross interviewed water expert Charles Fishman, author of "The Big Thirst," who says, "The last 100 years has been the golden age of water in the developed world: water that has been safe, unlimited and essentially free. But that era is over. We will not, going forward, have water that has all three of those qualities at the same time: unlimited, unthinkingly inexpensive and safe."
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When water is too "weird" to drink, you can clean it up with OYSTERS (just don’t eat the oysters). We’ve used bacteria to clean up waterways in the past (even major oil spills, like BP–NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this special report), so why not bivalves?

Chronic water quality problems caused by agricultural and urban runoff, municipal wastewater, and atmospheric deposition from the burning of fossil fuels leads to harmful algal blooms–and algae is what oysters like to EAT. Researchers found that a farmed oyster to can remove over 2 times the algae of a regular oyster.
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But is it safe to drink? – Before we fight any more water wars, let’s clean up the water we have! Even if we don’t intend to, most of us end up taking prescription drugs (and drugs that doctors DON’T prescribe) through our drinking water. There is a rising level of pharmaceuticals ending up in the water supply, particularly around hospitals and long-term care facilities, where pharmaceutical use is heavy. We’re found out a lot of amazing things, now can we figure out how to clean this up before the rest of us end up taking this medicine too?
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If you want to find planets that find harbor intelligent life, you need to do what the early explorers did right here on earth: look for water.

Since the early 1990s astronomers have discovered more than 300 planets orbiting stars other than our sun, nearly all of them gas giants like Jupiter. The new generation of powerful NASA space telescopes will make it easier to spot much smaller planets that are more similar to earth.
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