semiotic_pirate | On a roll here.... What if?

I was actually thinking about this for real the other day. I had been doing research about how dairy farms are using Ultrafiltration to come up with all those neat new yummy tasting dairy based products we've been seeing coming out. It uses pressure to drive out the wanted elements through a membrane barrier and keeps behind the unwanted elements. YES, I've been contemplating it as a subject for my thesis/research paper for my masters degree. (sighs with the weight of it) Anyways, back to the main point. All of a sudden I thought... Since this filtration method can get very tiny particles out of whatever (including macromolecules if you set it for something like that) out of the starter mixture... What if we used that to filter the AIR? I mean, here we have all around us some of the worst situations (take for instance Los Angeles or Mexico City) where due to pressure waves of air flow and topography, you have trapped in pockets, these clouds of filthy polluted air. Air that is full of particles that are bigger than the molecules that the air is made up of (nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc..) What if we were able to set up some sort of Ultrafiltration system for these untenable air pockets?

It's not that I truly expect anything like this to happen. But, it is an interesting exercise for the mind to imagine. Floating air scrubbers. (Starts to laugh in a maniacal fasion like a mad scientist whose creation has just come to LIFE!)

Yeah yeah, some sort of George Jetson dreams I have.

(Image designed by kenn brown and chris wren, illustrators for Wired Magazine... Those guys are GREAT!)