QI | Fancy A Glass Of Ultra-Pure Water?

[@stephenderry9488]

I was in the audience for this episode, at the end Stephen threw all his cards in the air for the audience to grab as souvenirs. I have a the piece of paper (not even a proper card) which says "A - Seawater B - Treated Sewage C - Ultrapure"

[@yodawithasoda2272]

Aww that's such a lovely story. I wish I can visit the taping of Qi someday too

[@josephn1000]

I was there too, it was so great. I don’t remember him throwing the cards into the audience, damn. I must have been too busy taking a sneaky selfie 😛

[@limyohwan]

Oh i thought it was AC water i.e. condensation

[@anamkarajoy]

Spoiler Alert!!! (But, honestly, very cool!)

[@unclvinny]

I worked in a physics/chemistry lab years ago where we had a “nanopure” filtering system with a ton of crazy filters and doodads getting as many impurities out as possible. So naturally when the lab was empty one day I had a nice glass of it. It was at room temperature, and was as close to drinking nothing as I can imagine. It had a texture, and no more. It was *super* boring, but I enjoy telling the story.

[@michaellavery4899]

I did it with gallons of de ionized water after a long day in the lab. I was found dead the next morning.

[@nickrwidmer]

Johnny was a chemist's son but Johnny is no more what Johnny thought was H2O was H2SO4

[@Tismitch]

If you hold de-ionised water in your mouth for 30 seconds or so, it swells all the cells in your mouth and makes your mouth feel really weird :)

[@Zombie-lx3sh]

I only worked in a lab for a few months as an intern a few decades ago and even I knew that it was dangerous to drink this water and I didn't.

[@oldbatwit5102]

@@Zombie-lx3sh I worked in a chemical plant for a few months when I was 17. I don't remember what the water was like but I used to steal chloroform and me and my friends would sniff it till we fell over. The next morning we would all be bloody and bruised. What larks!

[@josephchambers2000]

I love how as it goes to the sign out screen it looks like Stephen Fry sort of regenerates into Sandi Toksvig.

[@sophitsa79]

🧡🧡

[@t123a698]

Joseph Chambers My kidneys! I don’t like the colour.

[@josephchambers2000]

Stephen : It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for. Alan: The toksvig! Sandi: So I was a trainee all this time!

[@Vasharan]

The QI host is a Time Lord and regenerates every few years.

[@t123a698]

Now here’s some Ultra Pure water… from Mars

[@sabrina.h2737]

I only drink 100% recycled dinosaur pee.

[@cfytcf]

How do you collect it?

[@sabrina.h2737]

cfytcf Any water source.

[@cfytcf]

@@sabrina.h2737 I thought you were making a reference to Jurassic Park 3

[@sabrina.h2737]

cfytcf Lol

[@DrZaius3141]

Any given water molecule is expected to have been in about 10-100 dinosaurs.

[@NewMessage]

No don't drink sea water or c water. I see.

[@smokefire3]

but what about water you can see?

[@knugenavswarje734]

*I sea

[@RS14988]

I C what U D'd there

[@JackDManheim]

Are you ever gonna check that message?

[@zdenek3010]

Just be water. As we all mostly are.

[@ablestmage]

I live in Texas, and several summers ago my city (Wichita Falls) was under such dire drought conditions for so long that my city opted to install a treatment plant to treat and process the city's sewage water in an effort to delay/reduce how much water we drain from the nearby lakes which were dwindling quite dangerously. I drink the city water quite ordinarily, and it passes all of the required FDA rules, etc, and I can't really tell a difference from how it was before. In part of the debate about the ickiness of it, the fact that our primary source for water had been lakes was mentioned, in that it contained (and seemingly without controversy) all manner of droppings and excretions from animals, even dead animals, toxic algae, old tires, sunken cars including the car batteries leaking deadly acid, dead bodies of people who drowned and were never recovered, and who knows what kinds of random junk -- and most people were unconcerned with those things, and seemed hyperfocused on the poo-water element alone of the newer system =)

[@satibel]

if you drink diluted sulfuric acid to the quantities you'd get if you throw 10 liters of it in a lake, you'd get slightly more acidic water, which wouldn't be worse to drink than orange juice or cola. I haven't done the calculations, but odds are that eating an onion would have you drink more sulfuric acid.

[@fretlessman71]

Exactly. Ever wonder where the astronauts on the International Space Station get their water? Treated waste.

[@thesubhumancomedy]

Texas... Unless it's 'I work with', personal stories are not so popular.

[@kingoftadpoles]

I worked in a water lab where I handled treated sewage effluent on a daily basis (we had our own mini sewage works on site, receiving local domestic waste). I never drank any of it but also never had a day off work through catching any bugs from it. This was before the days of crazy health and safety measures. All i had was a lab coat for protection.

[@jonatanrullman]

Well, it was sewage, not ebola.

[@TheOfficialCzex]

You can subsist on de-ionized water, provided you intake an adequate quantity of electrolytes with your food consumption. It's highly unlikely that "ultrapure" water will cause any issues to a person with a regular diet.

[@hugehappygrin]

good luck finding out what a "regular diet" is. Oh, sure, people .. experts .. all have differing opinions, but the SCIENCE is still out on this one.

[@emilybarclay8831]

@@hugehappygrin a diet that gets you the vitamins and minerals you need in the quantities you need and doesn’t contain too much sugar and fat. How you get those nutrients is up to you

[@fluidthought42]

​@@emilybarclay8831 Yeah, science already knows what's up. For a modern diet, get enough micronutrients and not too many macronutrients. The problem is people trying to find a cheat in the system, trying to optimize everything to the peak rather than just, yknow, eating a varied diet and cutting back on the sugar.

[@Jigwally]

why would anyone think that water having been through other people beforehand is unsettling or gross did you not previously know how water works

[@ATinyWaffle]

Ew! My carbon atoms were in a dinosaur turd!

[@vigilantsycamore8750]

It's the old adage about people not wanting to know how the sausage is made

[@ConstantChaos1]

When it comes down to it we are exclusively hydrogen that has been in a star and or in something before

[@dielaughing73]

Water is constantly being broken down in chemical reactions and forming other compounds, so the idea that all water has been on a long journey through various organisms is nonsense anyway.

[@ConstantChaos1]

@@dielaughing73 not really, reactions that split water arent that common. Anyway the atoms still exsist and therefore persist lol

[@juslangley]

I usually have ultra-pure water as a chaser to my milkplus, milkplus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

[@alysonthompson7873]

Justin E. L. I appreciate this comment

[@chaos.corner]

@@alysonthompson7873 ITYM "Very horrorshow, my droog."

[@the_once-and-future_king.]

Interspersed with some in-out in-out.

[@t.c.thompson2359]

I haven't seen this movie but only one movie talks like that.

[@jmalmsten]

I was expecting the twist to be that theyare all treated sewage... Aka regular perfectly drinkable tap-water.

[@FirstNameLastName-tx6td]

Well treated sewage isn't regular tap water

[@OriginalPiMan]

@@FirstNameLastName-tx6td It is in some places.

[@kylechesser645]

I don't know what regular water you drink I live in Florida in the middle of nowhere we drink water straight out the f****** aquaphor and it's the cleanest tasting water you can drink you go to a bigger city like Orlando, Tampa,Miami, Jacksonville, Tallahassee and you can smell and taste all the chemicals and nasty s*** they put in the water

[@firstname405]

@@kylechesser645 everything is chemicals and the "nasty stuff" likely comes from the pipes (unless they went light on the chemicals and bad things grew in the water)

[@jmalmsten]

@@firstname405 I've been told the Dihydrogen Monoxide that people keep adding is particularly nasty. ;)

[@lys2303]

I was born in Windhoek! We still have our big clay water filter from there, it both filtered and cooled the water. Sadly after years the filter cartridges are blocked and they don’t sell such cartridges here in England, only small plastic cartridges.

[@notthemessiah9243]

Actually there are more molecules in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in all of the oceans. This means that there are enough molecules to be in every glass of water been drunk around the world simultaneously. It also means that any historical figure you can think of drank water molecules that you are now drinking.

[@TheBoWill]

we have the same water on earth weve always had, chances are its been through more than 9 animals

[@rilohoneu6030]

Yeah like atleast 12

[@rickard7031]

Also DINOSAURS!!!

[@MiketehTV]

@@rickard7031 I only drink water that has been through at least 12 dinosaurs.

[@ablestmage]

I would imagine we have at least some water we haven't always had, if any passing comets shed any of their frost on their way by.. but the chances of consuming comet water seem rather........ astronomical

[@tvdan1043]

All water has, at several times during its existence, been rain.

[@DirtyPoul]

My computer is water-cooled, which means I use distilled water to cool it. I was curious, so I thought I'd try to taste it. David Mitchell is spot on. It tastes like water, but more boring than the tap water I usually drink. EDIT: I say distilled, but it's triple distilled and chemically purified making it an electrical insulator. I thought this was worth the added cost as it would reduce the risk of ruining the electronic components in case of a leak. A few drops of water has actually hit the graphics card, but nothing has happened. I guess the added cost was worth it. As for the taste, I want to elaborate. Normal water tastes kind of like nothing, but the purified water kind of adds a taste of boringness. It tastes less fresh and kind of stale. It's a bit weird to experience, so I'd recommend tasting it if you ever happen to come across it. A few sips will be harmless.

[@Sycamore_flaw]

@Eric Burkheimer Just look up pc water cooling, is quite common for people who build computers mainly for the cpu block and gpu. It is just a more efficient method of cooling a computer used for heavy loads so is better suited for powerful computers (Provided the tubes don't leak)

[@AfroGannon]

But has it cooled down your gpu?

[@klaxoncow]

@Eric Burkheimer You can purchase the kits online. It's popular with "extreme gamers" in order to push their PCs faster (overclocking), as water cooling is more efficient than the air cooling of a CPU fan. You can get fairly neat water cooling blocks that have a water tank and fans on it to cool the water, with pipes that run to a "CPU block" that you attach to the CPU in same way as you'd attach a CPU fan. An all-in-one affair that's reasonably easy to install. Although, for the more adventurous, you can also buy the individual components - water tank, water pump, lengths of piping, CPU block, etc. - and then do all the plumbing yourself. But, yes, you do need to be adventurous and know what you're doing, as doing plumbing work, involving water, over a powered motherboard is not advised for the newbie to PC building. It's at the "gaming" fringes, but it's getting more common as a cooling solution (e.g. the availability of consumer kits for those who like to build their own PCs from parts). Water cooling is more efficient and also potentially quieter (because though fans are the cheaper and simpler method of cooling, they do make noise - and make more noise, the more you push your PC, as they try to keep up). It needn't be a massive computer. The water cooling kits fit into the standard PC case sizes these days. It's more about intensity of use - how far you're pushing that little CPU - than about physical size. Oh, and distilled water is used in the cooling systems, just because any particles could potentially bung it up after a while (as the same water is just cycled around and around the system, so any dirt and particles and other crap that get into the flow basically stays there and just slowly muddies up the water over time). Also, many purposefully use clear piping, so you can see the liquids go around (you can get coloured cooling liquids too, if you're into that sort of thing), so the lack of particles stops it getting dirty and looking like crap. (Yes, there definitely can be an element of "showing off" here. Gaming PC cases tend to have transparent glass sides, so you can see in at all the impressive tech. RGB lights and coloured cooling liquids to put on a bit of a "disco" show inside the box. If you've gone to the effort and paid all the extra money for these fancy trinkets - and shelled out for all the latest and greatest tech - then it's perhaps unsurprising that humility and humbleness is thrown out the window. "Hey, you, look inside my PC! Look at all the flashing lights! Look upon my mighty works and despair!". Not to say that all water cooling is bragging rights - you can have perfectly legitimate needs for more efficient cooling that's much quieter than fan cooling - but, well, there's a lot of it about.)

[@Mega_Mikey]

Distilled water isn’t as pure as the ultra pure. The ultra pure water actually acts as an electrical insulator because it’s so pure

[@andymcl92]

@@Mega_Mikey ...which actually makes it less wet, weirdly.

[@michaelsnell4034]

While sewerage is not put back into drinking water, I seem to recall that it is more pure than water going into the tap water process. This is because as they discharge water into a river or whatnot, there are many others drawing water from that same source downstream to treat for their own municipality.

[@montieluckett7036]

Most water sources in this country receive water from source, filter it, send it out for consumption, retrieve it, filter it, dump it back into source water and repeat the cycle. All you need are a lake, a river running through it and a really good filtration system. So, in effect, most of us probably are drinking treated sewage. If not our own, then from whoever is upstream of us.

[@MalcolmCooks]

isnt tap water treated sewage?

[@Moritz19081980]

Well, I can only speak for my country/city: It's mainly groundwater. But in the groundwater there is also sewage. The sewage gets into a "sewage treatment plant" (gets rid of toxic stuff in the sewage) and then the cleaned sewage gets back into the groundwater. So it's basically a cycle. And the groundwater cleans itself by passing several layers of stone etc. When it finally reaches the layer which is impermeable to water, it is clean. And from this layer the waterworks get the water for the taps.

[@MalcolmCooks]

I always assumed water treatment plants were so we could recover usable water back into the system

[@Jake12220]

Well technically any glass of tap water will contain a very small percentage of what was once dinosaur pee so yes all tap water is recycled sewerage, just depends how far back you want to go and how big the percentage is.

[@vagabondwastrel2361]

It depends on your location. Some areas treat sewage then give it some more filtration and a dose of bleach for the city waterline.

[@brabhamF1]

@@MalcolmCooks Actually big cruise ships have sewage plants that do treat water to the point of it being basically like groundwater. However for daylie life that process would be waaaaaaaaaaay too expensive. The ground treats your water for you tho (as explained by others) so why not take advantage of that.

[@rtg_onefourtwoeightfiveseven]

Surely though, by the time it reaches your kidneys, the pure water will have mixed with all the other fluids in the stomach etc. and no longer be pure/harmful?

[@elizabethblackwell6242]

It's utter nonsense. I have drunk ultra pure water for 15 years with no detrimental effects.

[@Jamvan001]

@@elizabethblackwell6242Really? You've drank nothing but distilled water from a commercial, industrial or chemical supplier for 15 years? Or does the bottled water you get from the supermarket say "ultra pure" on it somewhere.

[@elizabethblackwell6242]

@@Jamvan001 Commercially distilled and purified using ultrafiltration membranes. Tap water that's had chemicals, biological contaminants, suspended solids, gases, ions and other dissolved substances removed.

[@Jamvan001]

@@elizabethblackwell6242 "ultrafiltration membranes". Sounds like marketing wank to me. At best it's just a waste of money

[@elizabethblackwell6242]

@@Jamvan001 Says you with a PhD like me?

[@paulf1071]

I think an important thing overlooked here is whats called 'hyponatremia'. (This is water intoxication caused by drinking too much water.)

[@brianabraham8726]

Depends on how you've treated the sewage. "Here take some treated sewage. It was sewage, but I've stirred it. Should be perfectly drinkable now"

[@Resavian]

We have just started a treated sewage program for turf and farming here in QLD, it is going to help relieve drinking water usage and keep recycled water from going back into our catchments

[@Hempknight123]

I live in Adelaide Australia, I wish we had treated sewage instead of what comes out of our taps :(

[@savo6070]

what... comes out of your taps?

[@petejones879]

I've drank processed sewage.. Only then it was called Ansells bitter

[@pearkore6821]

Closed captions please!

[@Magmafrost13]

Of course, you'd reach water toxicity long before you managed to drink enough ultrapure water to strip enough minerals from your system to cause any problems. Not that you could get your hands on that much of it anyway, its not exactly sold at your local grocery store.

[@Twinrehz]

You could be drinking it over a very long period of time, though the replenishing of minerals through all other food would probably make up for that.

[@whychoooseausername4763]

It is, sold as your local grocery store, for use with irons.

[@Magmafrost13]

@@whychoooseausername4763 You're thinking of distilled water. Ultrapure water is a few steps above grocery store distilled water (which is just deionized water)

[@tygrkhat4087]

@@Magmafrost13 Ultrapure water is just deionized water that has been passed through utraviolet light to kill any microscopic organisms. At the lab I worked at, we used deionized water to clean the labware and ultrapure was used in the experiments.

[@josketobben]

Probably completely true. So silly how panicky they're being about purified water.

[@TheWitchOvAgnesi]

Very timely that this should be recommended to me before my trip to Rio de Janiero tomorrow...

[@chunkylefunga]

During covid? Mate #stayathome.

[@DerHerrMitR]

Pure water is perfectly drinkable as long as you provide the electrolytes through sustenance. I use it to make tea.

[@pemo2676]

why bother

[@DerHerrMitR]

@@pemo2676 Because I bloody well can, fuck off. And on a more serious note, the tap water in my area is horrible and I can't be arsed to spend a fortune on bottled water.

[@pemo2676]

@@DerHerrMitR ah, the cursed lands of not having clean and/or not bad tasting water

[@DerHerrMitR]

@@pemo2676 Such is life in an industrial town.

[@dusssss631]

@@DerHerrMitR may I ask how you purify your water? I've moved to a place with loads of chlorine in tab water, so I'm drinking loads of bottles.

[@QUANTUMJOKER]

I've read that heavy water is also dangerous if you drink a lot of it. Heavy water is water with deuterium (a heavier isotope of hydrogen) in place of regular hydrogen atoms. Heavy water takes more energy to metabolise, so it's harder for our bodies to use. If you drank a couple of glasses of heavy water, you'd be perfectly fine, but if a significant amount of your body's water were replaced with heavy water, you would suffer symptoms similar to radiation sickness.

[@ConstantChaos1]

Part of the issue is that it's also harder to expell D2O so it can accumulate more easily.

[@fretlessman71]

2:32 - I know Mr. Fry says Orange County, but I'd bet my big toe that the photo is from Loveland CO. That's gotta be Horsetooth Mountain in the background.

[@yellowbelly7863]

What exactly is distilled water then? Does it still retain the minerals?

[@CarlosBenjamin]

Distilled has no mineral content (or shouldn’t have).

[@Cheesepuff8]

But what will water with a lot of chlorine do to you, cause sometimes I can smell it in my tap water and surely that's not great

[@DawgBreff]

It's the cancer-causing, intelligence dumming, pineal-gland suppressing *_fluoride_* that you need to worry about more...

[@unscentednapalm8547]

@@DawgBreff lol

[@arranbreckenridge7055]

@@DawgBreff read a book plz

[@Lattamonsteri]

Does chlorine get thru the skin when we are swimming in public swimming pools? 🤔

[@beaverstever1083]

Chlorine only produces a smell if it reacts with something (its odourless otherwise) and if you can smell it then it means that your water was in desperate need of the chlorine to clean it

[@Septimus_ii]

In the UK, treated sewage is perfectly good for drinking and is much cleaner than spring water

Not in the us. Our regular tap is just clean enough to pass regulation....supposedly

[@NitroIndigo]

Alan's got new kidneys!

[@amyshaw893]

but i dont think he likes the colour

[@NitroIndigo]

@@amyshaw893 Of his kidneys?

[@amyshaw893]

@@NitroIndigo yes, his kidneys

[@Jeremyramone]

Reminds me of the tap water scene from curb your enthusiasm

[@haydenhoodless2055]

Mix the sea water with ultrapure?

[@nickrwidmer]

One time I ate food and got my electrolytes from it instead. really you can get magnesium, calcium, clorine, sodium, and potassium, ect mostly from food which is why you don't need to drink Gatorade to survive.

[@satibel]

if life gives you gators, make gatorade.

[@theguythatmakesyoumad3834]

Just mix A and C?

[@Tomyp89]

Some places in the Alps they feed mountain water in their pipe systems.

[@brianjones8899]

Does anyone know where I can watch this show?

[@vagabondwastrel2361]

youtube if your googlefu is strong enough.

[@ray_mck]

Just so I can be the jerk and answer your question in the QI sprit of "Say what you mean and mean what you say": you can watch this show in the United Kingdom on the BBC. With that out of the way, the show's frequent use of copyrighted images and music make it an expensive sell to other markets, so the networks don't buy it. For those markets, the standard shady methods of obtaining or viewing the content are the only choices.

[@garethwilkins6744]

@@ray_mck Or Dave.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

So wouldn’t the best answer be to drop a few drops of the seawater into the ultra-pure, giving it electrolytes? In terms of which to drink.

[@mccarthy5825]

I am almost sure I read a few anecdotal reports that drinking say a cup of sea water a day mixed with 2 cups of fresh water is not too detrimental. I believe some guy who got off course traversing an ocean had to stretch his supply and did so by doing this. Reminds me of a very interesting video I seen recently where the guy went sooooo out of his way to prove that Heavy Water tastes sweet... And speaking of Heavy Water one of my favourite stories about WW2 is the British/Norwegian efforts to destroy the cascade in a hydroelectric dam in Norway which at the time produced most of the heavy water in the world. The allies were concerned that the Nazi regime would use it to moderate their 'Atomic pile' and eventually enrich uraniam for a weapon. Unfortunately very brave Bristsh commmandos, Norwegian partisans and local villagers lost their lives but indeed the cascade was demolished, then the ferry transporting the remaining stock was sunk. Also the plant engineer had to delay the explosion because he left his glasses inside and lenses in occupied Norway were hard to get.

[@fluidthought42]

Makes sense. Eating salted soup isn't exactly a deadly thibg thing.

[@aarashsaleh]

I don't actually think it's true that ultrapure water is harmful. Water contains such low concentrations of minerals that they are not physiologically relevant and the absence of them in ultrapure water makes it essentially no different to tap water. Both are hypotonic. I'd like to know who provided the scientific opinion for this one

[@chrishicks7946]

2:15 in the grand scheme of things, water goes through as much shit as we do.

[@reimusklinsman5876]

This was the first explanation on why sea water is bad for you. It never made sense to me.

[@barneylaurance1865]

Pretty sure it's a myth that ultra pure water is significantly more dangerous than tap water. Yes of course we need electrolytes but we need many things that aren't in water. That's why we eat food. If ultra pure water is dangerous presumably safety regulators would publish some standards that define exactly how pure is too pure. Where are they?

[@montieluckett7036]

Distilled water is what's considered "antra-pure" it's nothing but H2 and O. Normally it's only got scientific, industrial and clinical uses. If you consume it for daily drinking water you'll rapidly develop dysentery due to its lack of having any "body" to it. No matter how sufficient your dietary habits are.

[@chequereturned]

Montie Luckett Do you have any sources on that?

[@barneylaurance1865]

And of course drinking extreme quantities of ultra pure water would be dangerous - but drinking extreme quantities of ordinary drinking water is dangerous anyway. I don't think the quantities involved would be very different.

[@esquilax5563]

What if you mix the seawater with the ultra pure water?

[@decodolly1535]

Sounds like you'd be an absolute riot in a cocktail bar 😀

[@esquilax5563]

@@decodolly1535 😂😂😂

[@jayfredrickson8632]

You can get all the electrolytes you need in your food. Water isn't the main source . However distilled water doesn't "taste" as good because , paradoxically, we expect the taste of the electrolytes. As for treated sewage. ... Tap water just about everywhere is treated sewage. As long as the treatment removes harmful stuff, that's OK .

[@croxymoc3254]

What if i mix A & C*

[@truegame142]

Anyone get a bit sad when sandi comes and interrupts stephen

[@trollson66]

Ah! Those good old days when we had "treated sewage water" and not just raw sewage dumped in our waterways and beaches.

[@innescurrie]

I was expecting Stephen to say after they drank it, that C was the sewage treated water after all!

[@JimC]

Maybe they discussed this more in the full show, but ultrapure water isn't any worse than tap water or treated sewage water. With a normal diet, a normal amount of any of those three as your only beverage is perfectly fine. The problem arises if you drink far too much of them. You upset the blood's electrolyte balance and all your cells, including those of your brain, wind up absorbing too much water. It's called hyponatremia (literally, too little salt) or water intoxication or (as mentioned in an earlier comment) water toxicity. In extreme cases the brain swelling can lead to convulsions and death. One infamous case of this in the USA was some stupid radio show offering a big prize to whoever could drink the most water. Their bonkers rationale was that if you drank too much you'd just vomit it up. One woman won the prize, but during the show she complained about headaches (from the brain swelling) and some other problems. A nurse called in, gave an emphatic warning about the danger, and told the woman to go to the hospital immediately. Unfortunately, the woman died a few hours later. I think there wasn't a lawsuit because she had signed a waiver. Mild cases had shown up in runners who drank only plain water during a long run. They've since switched to water with balanced electrolytes. Incidentally, the "eight glasses of water a day" alleged guideline is BS. It won't hurt you, but it won't do anything except make you pee more (and reduce the pleasure of quenching a real thirst). You get some water in all your food, even in dry bread. Drink when you're thirsty, and you're fine. (If you're thirsty all the time no matter how much water you get, see your doctor because you might have a medical condition, such as diabetes.) The original guideline stated something like normally you need 64 oz. of fluid a day, *most of which you get through your food.* And that fluid includes coffee and tea (but possibly not alcohol). Coffee does have a mild diuretic effect, but in regular drinkers the body adjusts to it. If you pee a lot because you drink coffee, you're drinking a lot of coffee.

[@Jake12220]

Mostly true, but ultra pure water is not the same as deionised or distilled water, its far purer. You could drink all the distilled water you like and be fine, you would get hungry and eat before experiencing any real problems, but if you just drank ultrapure water without eating you would probably be dead in a day or two. Should look up what ultrapure water is, its not exactly something you can pick up at the supermarket.

[@JimC]

@@Jake12220 I know what ultrapure water is. It's nearly pure H2O, having had as much dissolved minerals and other extra stuff removed as possible. The wikipedia article says the same thing. And it says NOTHING about problems with human consumption (but it costs a lot more). Things may be added to tap water to purify it, but dissolved minerals may be added just for taste. Tap water has no nutritive value. It's just for your body's need for water. Ultrapure water would provide that. The removal of minerals, etc. has no effect. You wouldn't die any sooner on ultrapure water than on tap water. If you have an authoritative source for your claim, please post it.

[@JimC]

@@Jake12220 As QI sometimes admits, their answers are very occasionally wrong. This is one of those times.

[@Jake12220]

Its most commonly put as ultrapure water drinks you, but this gives a quick straightforward technical answer. The properties of ultrapure water are different to regular water. isciencemag.co.uk/features/fact-of-the-day-1/

[@JimC]

@@Jake12220 That article gives no cites at all, let alone any authoritative ones. Try again.

[@ChristopherDowning]

Presumably if there is no creation or loss of water world wide - wouldn't all of it be pretty second-hand?

[@IceCenders]

"Post-Apocalypse Bar: Pick your poison"

[@Ryarios]

You realize as soon as ultra pure water hits your mouth, it’s not ultra pure anymore...

[@seanclough7810]

I'll get my damned electrolytes from the chandelier.

[@TheFlyingEpergne]

I love Stephen fry

[@KokkiePiet]

Someone did the math, all water on earth has passed trough a dinosaur

[@kylechesser645]

That could have been Florida because in Florida we use sewage water or "water" shit treatment plants but it's called reclaimed water and it's very recognizable pipes and it is very well marked the sprinkler systems are all tagged so people don't drink it or get it on their skin but we use it to water your yard in big neighborhoods like gated communities where they water all the time or golf courses or fields of crops and stuff like that

[@stephenderry9488]

PEOPLE: This water is not fit for human consumption. Use it for agriculture. PLANTS: Yummy yum yum! PEOPLE: Now we eat the plants.

[@CarlosBenjamin]

I miss seeing the mountains of Florida……

[@inyourgenes]

I was expecting the water to be containing the three different isotopes of hydrogen = hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium...but alas, water containing differing amounts of contaminants.

[@Ngamotu83]

Isn't all drinking water treated?

[@gingerbreadmatt2783]

Ok...what if you mixed ultra pure with sea water considering they are opposites?

[@spencjon4822]

Worked at an industrial plant treating acidic byproduct from metallurgy/manufacturing. I would *never* drink the water on the off-chance something was wrong; however, we consistently sent it off to local/state/federal and independent testers to verify the water was safe enough to drink. (After a few staging ponds while the tests process, it ends up in the river nearby). I'm surprised water treatment from sewage is not in more city water supplies.

[@FourLetterLWord]

so i wonder how death by ultapurewater registers in an autopsy...

[@MaxUltimata]

Either malnutrition or kidney failure. Ultrapure water saps the nutrients out of your cells, but you'd need a lot of it to be fatal.

[@jasebrown2634]

My Mom calls water council pop.

[@PythonPlusPlus]

What if you added some sea water to the ultra pure water?

[@RetroAdzz]

Ultra pure water sounds so tasty

[@TheBeetress]

Omg they shared a cup -2021

[@EleanorPeterson]

I've no objection to drinking water that's already been through 9 people, as long as it's always the same 9 who are processing water for the whole country. I mean, anything else would be taking the piss.

[@kristianfagerstrom7011]

So, 50/50 A/C should be a nice compromise - although I suspect B is perfectly fine, as long as you don't know where it used to be...

[@bramvanduijn8086]

That would still be too salty, i'd start with 5% Sea water in the C-water and change based on taste.

[@MystLunarabne]

So, if you drink seawater and ultra-pure water do they cancel each other out?

[@iliatchaplinski]

Depends on the proportion. 1:1 would still be too salty. Maybe 1 part seawater 15 parts ultra-pure.

[@ohsshugar8346]

Salt isn’t the only electrolyte missing from ultra-pure so you’d just die in a more precise way :)

[@Jake12220]

@@ohsshugar8346 salt isn't the only mineral in sea water...

[@Jake12220]

@@iliatchaplinski humans can survive drinking just sea water so 50:50 should be easy enough to adapt to. Its true that if a person just starts drinking sea water and nothing else that they will die, but we can acclimatise to drinking it over time. The only issue is that it requires a person to drink small amounts very often. In western eyes this was first proven by a guy that rowed across the Atlantic in a kayak, but has been done by many seafaring cultures(like the Polynesians) for hundreds if not thousands of years.

[@ohsshugar8346]

Matt TheChosen oh shit, good point, ignore me. Still though, I reckon the sheer volume of salt relative to everything else would mean it doesn’t simply cancel out

[@WillBravoNotEvil]

Coca Cola's Dasani water's mineral formula is as protected as the Coca Cola secret formula. (Lifelong Atlanta boy here. Coke's sort of a big deal here.)

[@NewhamMatt]

1:06 Did anyone notice Stephen's Goon Show reference?

[@NewhamMatt]

@@BobCassidy It sounds to me like he's imitating Peter Sellers' character, Major Dennis Bloodnok. The line is a common one from Spike Milligan's work (which included The Goon Show), and given his age and heritage, I can't imagine that Fry wouldn't have been familiar with it.

[@raspycellist]

I've been drinking distilled water for quite a while, and have never felt better. I've seen it make dramatic changes in how I feel too.

[@DanSlotea]

Just mix A and C and get on with it, damn it!

[@NeoAnguiano]

was gonna say the same, infurating they didnt say that

[@Mega_Mikey]

Purity rankings for those confused: Ultra pure Reverse Osmosis filtration Distilled Brita Bottled Tap

[@andymcl92]

I'd argue the last two on the list vary quite a bit. Some countries and regions have very pure tap water. For example, here in Scotland our water is a lot better than the hard water in England. There's also the fantastic story of the time Coca Cola tried to sell bottled tap water in the UK, and it failed miserably. This was partly because they filtered the water and actually made it less pure. Oh yeah, and the name they used had a totally different meaning in the UK compared to the USA...

[@andymcl92]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/inyXepuXgdyLjMU If you're interested

[@Mega_Mikey]

Yeah you’re probably right

[@krissp8712]

I think some cities like Singapore use reverse osmosis for their tap water ^^

[@andymcl92]

@Voltaic Fire Sorry, parts of England. Like I said, variable :p still, I feel like it's harder than in Scotland. I could be talking nonsense though!

[@rachelcookie321]

To be honest, I thought the standard tap water was already treated sewage water and I had no problem drinking what I thought came from the sewer.

[@allinson_sam]

Bring back Stephen Fry as presenter

[@IndecentExposure.]

A smidge of sea water in your ultrapure. Job done

[@dylanzondag5224]

I was a bit disappointed that none of them drank the sewage, since it should be perfectly oke

[@kirbsanify]

How does de-ionized water fit into this scheme? I know it is more pure than reverse osmosis and distilled waters. Is it equal to so called "ultra pure"?

[@msamour]

I've been drinking distilled water for the last 15 years and I have never had any problems. I really think the drinking pure water belief is wrong.

[@erickyoung8331]

Yeah, his understanding of the science is a bit off. The pure water is no danger, you just would have to have mineral supplements from somewhere else since you aren't getting it from the water, or you could have health problems. These days, our diets are so full of minerals that it is sort of irrelevant, much like not needing iodine in salt anymore.

[@joshuaharrison9331]

got the osmosis explanation backwards

[@emjackson2289]

Sue Perkins is just one of the most beautiful women in the World. FACT.

[@rusparmesan]

There isn't that much evidence that pure water is that harmful. There is a WHO article about it. You can read it. Basically, it's harmful if you have a bad diet and don't get enough minerals with food (which is bad news for you anyway), but with a good diet it's much less harmful, especially considering the fact that you rarely drink only pure water.

[@hh481]

so weird to watch them share a glass now, 10 months into rona

[@nathanthom8176]

Meanwhile in Flint, Michigan...

[@McC1oudv2]

Drink the pure water and a few sips of sea water

[@the-chillian]

As anyone with a passing familiarity with the water cycle goes, all water is treated sewage, at least in part. The only question is whether we treat it ourselves or allow nature to do it.

[@RIXRADvidz]

Tucson has been watering their parks and golf courses with non-potable water for decades, they learned to live water lean a long time ago. it's time the rest of you caught up

[@Party_Magician]

The rest of us don’t have golf courses in the middle of the desert, but sure

[@miltonknowlestheinsanewitc4996]

I think I'm just going to stick with tap water in my town it's the same as the river water but it's been UV filtered which is unnecessary our river is Dean safe to drink so are all the local Springs that at least an a 40 minute walk away just bragging that I only need to take a small water bottle at this point

[@PLF...]

Ehm, treated sewage is normal in tap water... Thats one of the main reason we treat water - so we can add it to the public supply. Which then is the same as in bottled water - which obviously most often is regular tap water. The fact that many cities have terribly old piping and thus the water tastes weird doesn't change what it is. All water comes from somewhere and is recycled again and again. The same reason why the heavy elements in your body comes from the center of a dying star light years away, so does the water come from [all over the place]. The filtering from rain down through the ground and coming out as spring water is not as effective in filtering out compounds as man-made filters, the main difference is what it leaves behind. Which is what you can taste. So not only is glass B treated sewage, they all are - and that water in all three have also passed through millions if not billions of beings before passing through you.

[@brettcameratraveler]

But have you tried the new ultra luxury H3O? It's 1 better, so

[@teh-maxh]

If the problem with ultra-pure water is that it lack electrolytes, and seawater has too much electrolytes, couldn't you just mix them?

[@IndigoIndustrial]

This is the coment I was looking for. Just add a splash of Seawater to Ultrapure water. Seawater is ~3.5% salts.

[@cartossin]

This is actually a myth. I I've drank drink only

[@vagabondwastrel2361]

Not myth. It is about volume. Rabbit starvation is another type of deficiency with the same concept.

[@morganmitchell4017]

The stuff you drink is

[@Poppillon]

@@vagabondwastrel2361 saying that someone who died from mineral deficiency died because they drank ultrapure water is flawed logic. Sure, you can die from mineral deficiency but typically your water is NOT your main source of minerals

[@vagabondwastrel2361]

@poppillon you know what. You are the type of person who would stay in their house as the fire department is putting out a fire in the living room because you thought someone was cooking. I made an simplistic example of WHY volume matters. Hell it doesn't even need to be ultra pure water because people die from drinking too much water in summer in America in football practice. Not soccer but football. It is an imperfect example but for some reason you didn't like the one time there is a perfect example that everybody should know. If you are only eating rabbit and drinking melted snow you will die because you are not getting enough fat.

[@carelesswhisker4155]

see this is why they don't invite me to shows like this the second he said option c kills you I'd be chugging that shit

[@salwaaj1356]

Pure water, meaning without electrolytes and minerals..only H20? Hum..i'd like to taste that

[@EebstertheGreat]

I see this sort of exaggeration all the time. "Pure water tastes terrible! Pure water will leech calcium from your bones! If you drink too much pure water you will die!" They all sort of come from truth, but none of them are actually true. Pure water tastes fine, and an awful lot better than plenty of natural sources. Granted, it doesn't taste the best, but it's far from terrible. Strictly speaking, hypotonic water _does_ leech minerals, but you would have to drink a tremendous amount before that issue became a relevant health risk. And if you drink too much of _anything_ you will die, but the primary risk of gorging yourself on pure water would really not be its purity. There is just nothing particularly dangerous about it. If you plan on running a marathon, maybe consider not ultra-purifying all your water with reverse osmosis for some reason. But under reasonable conditions, there is no threat. It's water. You'll be fine. Seawater, by comparison, actually is dangerous, and many people have indeed died from drinking too much seawater.

[@emwecker]

Ultra pure water is also a poor conductor due to its lack of salt and electrolytes. Fun fact.