If you’re living in a house with hard water running through the pipes, you’ll probably have to get a water softener to deal with the unsightly build-up all over your pipes and fixtures. If the hard water build-up is something that you have to deal with on a regular basis, then finding an effective, cost-efficient, and low-maintenance solution should be at the top of your priorities.
Most people prefer using water softeners for their easy maintenance, but they offer a wealth of benefits besides that. If you want to know more about the benefits of using water softeners, read on to find out.
Using water softeners means that you’ll save money, simply because hard water can cause damage to your appliances and your pipes and fixtures, forcing you to pay large sums to cover the costs of repairs. The build-up in your pipes will decrease the amount of water moving; thus, the water pressure will increase to make up for the water moving through the pipes. In addition to this, hard water also requires more energy to be heated or cooled, so getting a water softener system in your house is probably the best thing to do to reduce your energy bills.
There are three main types of water softeners that you can choose from based on your needs: ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and salt-free. The first one is the most common type, and it is used by most house owners to soften water due to its commercial availability.
The ion exchange removes magnesium and calcium ions, which are the main cause of build-up and pipe damage, and replaces them with sodium ions, which are less harmful to your pipes and fixtures. As always, maintenance is important, but fortunately, it isn’t really hard to manage an ion-exchange softener. All you have to do is regularly clean the brine and the resin tank, and remove any clogs that prevent the salt from reaching the bottom.
Reverse osmosis is considered the most effective of all water softeners, as it can remove almost 98% of impurities in the hard water. However, many people opt for an ion-exchange softener, the second best thing when it comes to removing impurities. Above all as reverse osmosis softeners often use a lot of water, and they might cost quite a lot of money in the long run.It will also stop buildup on your pipes and fixtures.
Last but not least, salt-free softeners have mechanical filters that remove impurities. But they may not be the best option if your hard water is particularly harsh, as it can’t remove magnesium ions as effectively as the other two options.
If you’ve been doing the laundry with hard water, then you already know how it can affect the quality of your clothes. If you’re trying your hardest to make your clothes soft and fresh, yet you still end up with bad results, it is probably due to the hard water in your pipes and fixtures.
Also if you have very hard water, your clothes may even look unclean no matter how many times you wash them.
That’s because hard water usually leaves residue in the form of mineral build-up. This can affect the colors of your clothes and leave stains that are particularly obvious on white clothes.
Some people add salt to prevent color bleeding caused by hard water, which is a way to mimic how a sodium exchange softens hard water, moreover, detergents dissolve more easily in soft water, which means that you’ll have to use larger amounts of detergent if you have hard water. For that reason, you’ll be able to save a couple of bucks when you use a water softener.
It’s hard to know exactly why the relatives of today’s sockeye went extinct
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Published Apr 24, 2024 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 3 minute read
The artwork and publicity materials showcasing a giant salmon that lived five million years ago were ready to go to promote a new exhibit, when the discovery of two fossilized skulls immediately changed what researchers knew about the fish.
Initial fossil discoveries of the 2.7-metre-long salmon in Oregon in the 1970s were incomplete and had led researchers to mistakenly suggest the fish had fang-like teeth.
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It was dubbed the “sabre-toothed salmon” and became a kind of mascot for the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon, says researcher Edward Davis.
But then came discovery of two skulls in 2014.
Davis, a member of the team that found the skulls, says it wasn’t until they got back to the lab that he realized the significance of the discovery that has led to the renaming of the fish in a new, peer-reviewed study.
“There were these two skulls staring at me with sideways teeth,” says Davis, an associate professor in the department of earth sciences at the university.
In that position, the tusk-like teeth could not have been used for biting, he says.
“That was definitely a surprising moment,” says Davis, who serves as director of the Condon Fossil Collection at the university’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
“I realized that all of the artwork and all of the publicity materials and bumper stickers and buttons and T-shirts we had just made two months prior, for the new exhibit, were all out of date,” he says with a laugh.
Davis is co-author of the new study in the journal PLOS One, which renames the giant fish the “spike-toothed salmon.”
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It says the salmon used the tusk-like spikes for building nests to spawn, and as defence mechanisms against predators and other salmon.
The salmon lived about five million years ago at a time when Earth was transitioning from warmer to relatively cooler conditions, Davis says.
It’s hard to know exactly why the relatives of today’s sockeye went extinct, but Davis says the cooler conditions would have affected the productivity of the Pacific Ocean and the amount of rain feeding rivers that served as their spawning areas.
Another co-author, Brian Sidlauskas, says a fish the size of the spike-toothed salmon must have been targeted by predators such as killer whales or sharks.
“I like to think … it’s almost like a sledgehammer, these salmon swinging their head back and forth in order to fend off things that might want to feast on them,” he says.
Sidlauskas says analysis by the lead author of the paper, Kerin Claeson, found both male and female salmon had the “multi-functional” spike-tooth feature.
“That’s part of our reason for hypothesizing that this tooth is multi-functional … It could easily be for digging out nests,” he says.
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“Think about how big the (nest) would have to be for an animal of this size, and then carving it out in what’s probably pretty shallow water; and so having an extra digging tool attached to your head could be really useful.”
Sidlauskas says the giant salmon help researchers understand the boundaries of what’s possible with the evolution of salmon, but they also capture the human imagination and a sense of wonder about what’s possible on Earth.
“I think it helps us value a little more what we do still have, or I hope that it does. That animal is no longer with us, but it is a product of the same biosphere that sustains us.”
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Arachnophobes need not fear: A new European Space Agency (ESA) image of Martian “spiders” actually shows seasonal eruptions of carbon dioxide gas on the Red Planet.
The dark, spindly formations were spotted in a formation known as Inca City in Mars‘ southern polar region. Images taken by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter show dark clusters of dots that appear to have teeny little legs, not unlike baby spiderlings huddling together.
The formations are actually channels of gas measuring 0.03 to 0.6 miles (45 meters to 1 kilometer) across. They originate when the weather starts to warm in the southern hemisphere during Martian spring, melting layers of carbon dioxide ice. The warmth causes the lowest layers of ice to turn to gas, or sublimate.
As the gas expands and rises, it explodes out of the overlying ice layers, carrying with it dark dust from the solid surface. This dust geysers out of the ice before showering down onto the top layer, creating the cracked, spidery pattern seen here. In some places, the geysers burst through ice up to 3.3 feet (1 m) thick, according to ESA.
Related: Single enormous object left 2 billion craters on Mars, scientists discover
Inca City is also known as Angustus Labyrinthus. It’s named for its linear, ruin-like ridgelines, which were once thought to be petrified sand dunes or perhaps remnants of ancient Martian glaciers, which could have left high walls of sediment behind as they retreated.
In 2002, however, the Mars Orbiter revealed that Inca City is part of a circular feature approximately 53 miles (86 km) wide. This feature may be an old impact crater — suggesting that the geometric ridges may be magma intrusions that rose through the cracked, heated crust of Mars after it was hit by a renegade space rock. The crater would have then filled with sediment, which has since eroded, partially revealing the magma formations reminiscent of ancient ruins.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of the glowing gas ejected from a dying star, which in this case happens to resemble a “cosmic dumbbell.”
The portrait may also include evidence that the star gobbled up another star, in a form of stellar cannibalism, before it collapsed.
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