About a year ago, i read about this powder, you could add to super muddy water like this, and then you stir it up and five minutes later the mud has separated from the pure clean, drinkable, water and as a man of science. I see this and it feels like nothing short of magic. I only make 12 videos a year, so i am really picky about what topics i will cover and even though i usually just focus on using science and engineering to make totally ridiculous things at least once a year. I try to make the case that these same science and engineering principles are also being used to actually change the world for the better.

For example, last year i met with manu prakash from stamford who was disappointed to realize the typical microscope and centrifuge to diagnose malaria. Cost tens of thousands of dollars and needs to be plugged in so he amended a paper microscope and a paper centrifuge that costs 68 cents. They can diagnose malaria and require no electricity. So today we're going to find out how this was invented, how the heck it works and how it's being used to help people all around the world, but first to demonstrate this isn't some kind of smoke and mirrors trick.

I located the nastiest water. I could find near my house and met up with some intrepid field scientists. Today, i'm joined by my friends, cool kate and rainy and max i promised them they could beat a video, but i didn't tell them which one or what we'd be doing and here's the deal guys. We need to go into that pond.

That's all gross and nasty and fill it up with muddy water. Can you do that? You guys think this would be good to drink this? No, what do you guys give me if i take a sip of this 20 bucks? 20 bucks? Okay, we're not gon na! Do anything to this one, but i'm gon na do something to this one. So then we can compare the two okay, so i'm gon na take a little bit of this powder. I'm gon na put it in here.

You guys see this and then we're gon na. Take turns shaking it for like five minutes. Okay, let's see what happens yeah that looks really wet. Oh, that looks like okay, i'm gon na put my thumb at the water level.

So you know i'm not tricking you guys. Okay, some high quality h2o right there, all right, where's, my 20 bucks, randy mommy chances are, if you're watching this video, you have essentially an endless supply of clean water at the pull of a lever, and because this is so easy, we tend to forget just how Critical water is for us, you can live three weeks without food, but only a few days without water, and it's not just us from plants to ants to bacteria anything that is biological and living needs water to survive. It sounds crazy, but there are no exceptions to this rule because of this, when nasa is looking for evidence of life outside our planet, we first start by looking for evidence of water, given all that it's a total bummer that nearly 1 billion people around the world. Don't have access to clean drinking water today, drinking contaminated water causes more deaths than hiv aids and malaria combined, and so that's why the powder in this packet is a really big deal.

It was invented by a guy named philip souter, he's a laundry scientist at procter gamble, who was originally trying to figure out a way to separate dirt from used laundry water, and i want to be clear here. They are not sponsoring this video in any way. I just think what they're doing is really awesome and they deserve some credit. So i was actually able to track phillip down and he told me all about how it worked.

So essentially, there's three processes. There's there's coagulation, then the next phase is is flocculation and then the last piece is the disinfection. You start with clean water like this, but now it's all brown, because it's filled with lots of dirt particles, parasites and bacteria. So you dump the powder in the water and, as phil explained, the coagulant part of the powder goes to work.

First, it's basically seed crystals that are positively charged and because the dirt in the water is negatively charged. These seed crystals act like dirt magnets. These dirt magnets grow until they're, each about a millimeter in size. The next part of the powder to activate is the flocculant, which is a polymer which you can think about as having huge, long arms that wrap up all the little dirt magnet clumps, and now they form bigger chunks as large as a centimeter.

And these chunks now are so big they're, just slightly more dense than the water, which means they sink to the bottom. And finally, the chlorine is released and it goes to work on killing the 99.9999 of all the really tiny viruses and bacteria that are left in the water that didn't get wrapped up and sink to the bottom. So now you're just left with safe drinking water. At the top - and this isn't just some pr stunt for png since 2004, millions of people in over 90 countries have used these packets and they've saved untold thousands upon thousands of lives.

In fact, they've cleaned enough water to fill a swimming pool. That is the typical 5 feet, deep by 15 feet across. Only the length would need to stretch all the way across the united states over 13 times these packets cost them pennies to make which they sell at a loss, and that feels like the right thing to do, but it brings up the question: is there a case To be made beyond altruism, where it's in the best interest of the rich countries to help out the poor countries and to answer this question, i wanted to speak with someone in the technology sector who had some experience in this kind of thing and he's a bit Of an obscure up-and-comer named bill gates, but first i had to do a little bit of research in order to get myself up to seattle, and when i arrived, they told me i was free to make myself at home while i waited for him to show up. So i did what any rational person would do.

Given the circumstances i made the richest man on planet earth, some pizza rolls hi phil good to meet you yeah thanks for doing this. They gave me free name of your kitchen and, as a token of hospitality, i uh whipped up a batch of pizza. Rolls oh wow, um i'll, try it it's not not what i normally it's pretty hot, actually they're kind of like lava in the middle, not bad. There's an okay right, a little bit of cardboard.

What do you got here? This is a plan b because i wasn't expecting you to actually eat one of those. Okay, dick's burgers, love, dicks. I know you love uh, it's a seattle phenomena truth be told. I actually knew this after seeing a picture of him on reddit he's standing in line by himself to buy one of their hamburgers for less than two bucks.

I hate to disappoint you, there's no dicks burgers in here. Okay, we have some liquid refreshment, that's pretty pretty dark looking, so i took out the powder and explained to him how it worked, and then i set up the bottles and here's where we stood after a minute or two looks like we're: making pockets of the top There i'd rather eat these than that so far like. Why should we care about developing nations? Well, the amount of resource that rich countries spend in helping poor countries is pretty small. It's well less than one percent of their budget.

I defend that because that money is so impactful you're saving lives for less than a thousand dollars per life saved. If you help a country lift itself up, then countries like indonesia, vietnam, india, get successful enough. They grow their economy, so they no longer need aid. They graduate okay look at this, so it's amazing the way that a small, isn't it crazy.

I'm out of this thing, it's like magic, and i liked his answer that basically teaching a man to fish is better than just giving a man a fish. What about the extreme case of a person who's, just super self-absorbed? Who might think i just don't care if poor country has a fish or not, it doesn't affect my daily life. I asked what he would say to that person. The benefits are strong, even if the pure humanitarian empathetic part, isn't the key reason.

So then bill told me two main reasons: we should try and help developing nations even from a selfish standpoint. The first is for our own safety. If a poor country receives aid, it fosters education and economic opportunity which makes it more stable and there's less of a reason for people to become desperate, which is a breeding ground for radical ideologies and terrorism. All america's top generals agree that foreign aid creates stability which reduces the need for military spending and makes the world a safer place.

Additionally, bill told me: there's the issue of diseases when the next pandemic comes there's a good chance. It will be far worse than ebola and it will spread quickly into the rich countries. There's a huge benefit to us in helping these developing nations get their health systems to the point where they can detect and treat bad stuff before it has the chance to go global and the second selfish reason for helping developing nations that we discussed together was for Our own prosperity after world war ii, you think, hey, do we care about japan? Well, hey then, japan, you know sony and toyota they're, making good products yeah. Let's not forget nintendo, it's a win-win situation.

You know where we want japan to do well and make great products, and you know they're, buying boeing jets, microsoft, software, uh and so having these pathetically, hopefully uh. The idea that other countries doing well - it's not a zero-sum thing, where okay, if they do well, that means that it's it's bad for us. Basically, we needed to get the japanese back to a point where their brains could benefit the world again as quickly as possible. Otherwise, it's a waste of human capital and the world never knows super mario brothers, which raises an interesting point.

If you ask people who is the most intelligent person to ever live you get various answers like these albert einstein, einstein, einstein, albert einstein, albert einstein, einstein, albert einstein: did i tell you to say that, but the fact is, with 100 billion people to have ever lived On planet earth, it's a statistical certainty that albert einstein wasn't the most intelligent human. It was some random person, you've never heard of probably born a long time ago, who spent most of their daily energy just trying to survive, and that's why these packets are a huge deal when you have nearly 1 billion people spending their time just trying to find Clean water every day, that's a huge waste of untapped brain power. Now these packets and other aid efforts like them, allow parents to stay healthy and give them time to provide for their families, which gives their kids the opportunity to get educated, which in turn creates more opportunities for the following generation and so eventually over time. The entire world starts reaping the benefit from the contribution of this previously untapped human capital, and in this way, some massive breakthrough in solar technology, or maybe the cure to cancer or hiv might come from a poor country.

Who is just a developing nation today and i find that to be incredibly inspiring and a worthy goal. You know i get to learn a lot. You know i'm going to be working on these diseases. The rest of my life bill gates living legend eater of pizza, rolls yeah, not bad.

That was fantastic thanks, so much bill. Now we drink.