Though it’s been around since the Middle Ages, the sewer system beneath Paris won fame in the 19th century, when the city offered boat tours through the tunnels. This is also when an ingenious method for cleaning clogged tunnels was devised. It involves giant balls of iron and a lot…
Underground in places nobody likes to look, bacteria are doing terrible things to our sewage pipes. The concrete pipes that carry our waste are literally dissolving away, forcing engineers into a messy, expensive battle against tiny microbes.
Bad guys can’t just close their window shades to hide from the law any more. A European research group has developed a high-tech way to detect bomb makers and illegal drug labs — by sniffing what they flush down the toilet.