An American woman is suing luxury hotel chain Ritz-Carlton for reportedly delivering a bottle of water that had been contaminated with human semen by one of its employees.

The woman and her husband – referred to as Jane and John Doe in the lawsuit – visited the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay, California, last November, but their comfortable four-night stay turned into a nightmare one evening when the wife requested a few bottles of drinking water. After they were delivered by a member of the hotel staff, Jane Doe put one of the bottles on the nightstand next to her bed and fell asleep without taking a drink from it. Later that night, she woke up, took a swig of water, and immediately realized that something wasn’t right. The water had a weird taste that she horrifyingly recognized…

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Ruki, a tributary of the Congo River, has recently been dubbed the darkest river in the world, with water so dark that you can’t even see your face in front of you.

In what is considered the first-ever scientific study of the African river, scientists concluded that the dark-colored water is caused by the high levels of dissolved organic matter from the surrounding rainforest. Scientists found that the color is caused by carbon-rich compounds leached out of rotting plant matter and washed into the Ruki River by rainwater and floods. Dr Travis Drake, lead author of the recently published study, said that the Ruki is “essentially jungle tea” in which carbon-rich plant matter is brewed. The resulting coloration of the water makes the Ruki darker than the Rio Negro.

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A 35-year-old American woman tragically lost her life while vacationing with her family after drinking two liters of water in a very short time and suffering severe brain inflammation.

Ashley Summers was celebrating the Fourth of July with her family on Lake Freeman in Indiana when she started feeling really dehydrated because of the hot weather. She eventually got a bad headache, and she was drinking a lot of water. She ended up consuming four 16-ounce bottles of water in 20 minutes, and although she didn’t experience any serious symptoms at the time, she later collapsed inside the garage of her home and never regained consciousness. Doctors told her shocked family that Summers had suffered severe brain inflammation after drinking too much water in a very short period of time.

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A Belgian company has developed a water processing installation that allows it to convert pig’s blood into water fit for human consumption.

Based in Zwevezele, West Flanders, Veos specializes in producing animal proteins for the food industry by processing animal blood and collagen into high-quality protein powder used in human and animal food products. Until recently, the company relied solely on large quantities of groundwater to clean the massive tanks it stored pig blood in, but, thanks to a €2 million investment in a state-of-the-art water purification installation, Veos can actually use the stored pig blood to make drinkable water.

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A New York woman who claims she hates drinking plain water has ended up in the ER several times with severe dehydration because she simply refused to put water in her mouth.

Lori Cheek is what is known as a “water hater”, a person who hates both the taste of water and the “slimy” sensation of it going down her throat. She is fully aware of the risks of not drinking enough water, as she has experienced severe dehydration more than once, but she would still rather not drink anything at all than have a sip of water. In her day to day life, Cheek relies on hydration tablets, Crystal Light and other flavored drinks to stay hydrated, but she won’t touch water.

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To highlight a new type of water purification system, a restaurant in Kuurne, Belgium, has started serving its customers free drinking water recycled from its sinks and toilets.

The water served at the Gust’eaux restaurant in Kuurne these days is the same as any other potable water – it has no smell, no taste, no color – so it’s impossible to tell that it’s source is actually the restaurant’s toilets. By using a complex, five-step purification system, Gust’eaux is able to turn its sewage into a water so pure that it has to be enriched with minerals before being served to clients.

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Hundreds of people in Coal Grove, Ohio, recently woke up to pink, Pepto Bismol-like water flowing through their faucets. While many were alarmed, authorities assured everyone that the water was safe to drink, but could stain laundry.

On Monday, June 3rd, residents of Coal Grove, a small village in Ohio, were shocked to find that the water flowing through their faucets had turned vibrant pink. After receiving dozens of calls from alarmed citizens, local authorities issued a statement apologizing for the situation and explaining that the unusual water coloration was the result of a pump malfunction at the water treatment plant which resulted in too much Sodium Permanganate being released into the distribution tank. They also assured people that the water was safe to drink, as laboratory samples showed that the sodium permanganate levels were below the health risk guidelines of the EPA.

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An Israeli woman in her 40s was recently admitted to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv with possibly irreversible brain damage after being on a fruit juice and water diet for three weeks.

The unidentified woman, who weighed less than 40 kilograms and was in bad physical shape due to the severe salt imbalance caused by her liquid diet, had reportedly followed the advice of an unlicensed alternative therapist. While the woman’s condition has not been announced by doctors, it is believed that she is suffering from hyponatraemia, aka ‘water intoxication’. It is caused by low levels of sodium in the blood. When sodium levels in the blood become very low, water enters the brain cells and causes them to swell.

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Despite being a hub for technological advancement, California’s bay area is also notorious for absurd anti-science health trends such as the movement opposing vaccinations which, in 2014, lead to the most significant measles outbreak the state had seen in decades. Joining the absurdity of the “anti-vaxxers” is a new and equally ridiculous trend – “raw water”. That’s actually unfiltered, untreated, raw spring water, which, even when from the seemingly cleanest of sources, can spread diseases like cholera, E. coli, Hepatitis A or Giardia.

To add insult to potential injury, this unsterilized water, bottled and marketed by startups like Live Water, is priced at $36.99 per 2.5-gallon containers and $14.99 per refill at the co-op Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. The water is often out of stock and typically sees a price hike with every restock.

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German architect Marc Wübbenhorst has to drink at least 20 liters of water a day or risk dying from dehydration. The 35-year-old suffers from the rare metabolic disease Diabetes insipidus, which causes intense thirst and the frequent excretion of large amounts of diluted urine. If Wübbenhorst stops drinking water, his body starts to dry out, and he can die of thirst in a matter of hours.

Constant thirst has been a part of Marc Wübbenhorst’s life for as long as he can remember. It’s nothing like the thirst a normal person experiences, because it doesn’t go away after drinking a glass or two of water. His body can’t hold any water, as his kidneys eliminate the fluids almost as fast as he ingests them. Marc can never ignore his thirst for more than an hour, because he starts to experience severe symptoms of dehydration, like cracked lips, dizziness and confusion. These are symptoms that most adults experience after two or three days of fluids deprivation.

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A sommelier is usually defined as a wine expert who makes recommendations on what wine goes best with certain meals, at a restaurant. But Martin Riese doesn’t know a lot about wines. He is a professional water sommelier, the only one in the the United States.

German-born Riese has been fascinated with the different tastes of water since he was 4-years-old. His parents, who worked in the hospitality industry, would take him vacationing all over Europe, and the first thing he always did was try the tap water. To him, it tasted different everywhere he went, so he couldn’t understand why everyone always called it the same thing. Later, he would learn that he had been blessed with a very special palette that allows him to detect the subtle differences in the taste of different mineral waters. Luckily for him, there was actually a job that required just the kind of unique talent he had – water sommelier.

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Producing water out of thin air used to sound like magic, but thanks to modern technology, this ‘spell’ is becoming available to everyone. Fontus, a $100 solar-powered device can pull moisture from the air and condense it into potable water.

Fontus is the brainchild of Vienna-based designer Kristof Retezár. It works on the simple principle of condensation, just like the droplets of water that collect on the sides of a cold soda can when you take it out of the fridge. But the Fontus can collect a lot more water than that, because it uses thermoelectric cooling. A condensator in the device is connected to a series of hydrophobic surfaces that repel water. So when it takes in air, these surfaces get cold, leaving behind condensation.

“Because they’re hydrophobic, they immediately repel the condensed water that they created, so you get a drop flow [into the bottle],” Retezár explains.

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We all know we need to drink water to survive, but one man claims he drank his last sip of water, or any kind of liquids for that matter, over three years ago. And, yes, he’s till very much alive.

Peter Filak, a former registered nurse and current webcam model, says he had his last sip of water on May 5th, 2012. He has had a few slips in the early days of his liquid-free lifestyle – some sodas and chocolate milks – but after managing to control his urges, he has relied solely on fruits and vegetables for his nutrition and hydration needs. “Especially as I went into a raw fruit and vegetable diet, I’d be waking up two to three times a night to pee. So it just didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t understand why I had to be drinking all that water,” Filak wrote on his website, More Apples a Day.

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‘The Drinkable Book’ is a new invention that could potentially save millions of lives around the world. Its pages are made of treated paper that can purify water when passed through, killing over 99% of bacteria.

The book is the result of postdoctoral researcher Theresa Dankovich’s hard work. For several years, she developed and tested the technology, working at McGill University in Canada and at the University of Virginia. The pages of the book contain nanoparticles of silver or copper, which are responsible for killing bacteria. The microscopic organisms absorb the silver or copper ions as they percolate through the page.

“Ions come off the surface of the nanoparticles, and those are absorbed by the microbes,” Dr. Dankovich said. “All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells, etc. and out comes clean water – and dead bacteria as well,” she explained.

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Rajendra Singh is considered a hero in the state of Rajasthan, in India, for single handedly reviving five rivers that had been dried up for decades. His exceptional work and dedication have earned him the nickname ‘Waterman of India’.

Singh, who studied Ayurvedic medicine at college, had always dreamed of becoming a farmer. So when he moved to Rajasthan’s Alwar district after graduating in 1985, he was interested in healing not just his people, but also the semi-arid region’s ailing ecosystem.

Singh noticed that the district’s population was dwindling – most villagers had left their homes after the local Arvari River had dried up in the ’40s, and the only people who remained were either too old or too poor to move elsewhere. Singh, driven by a strong desire to help the villagers, took on the task of bringing water back to those lands.

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