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Now that’s a lifesaver

Getting fresh water to shipwrecked sailors could be as easy as smoking a pipe, thought Alexander Graham Bell.

March 30, 2006
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BU Yesterday

Shipwrecked sailors often died of thirst. Saving their lives could be as easy as smoking a pipe thought the inventive Alexander Graham Bell, who taught the mechanism of speech at BU from 1874 to 1879. In this undated photo, Bell experiments with a device he developed to capture water from exhaled breath.

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