This Is How You Might Drink Water in the Future

Behold this weird blob from three London-based industrial design students. Called Ooho, this blob is actually a "strong, hygienic, biodegradable, and edible" replacement for traditional water bottles. Tom McKay's avatar image By Tom McKay March 27, 2014 5 Behold this weird blob from three London-based industrial design students. Called Ooho, this blob is actually a "strong, hygienic, biodegradable, and edible" replacement for traditional water bottles. What is that? Created by "spherification," a technique of shaping liquids into spheres developed in 1946 and more recently repopularized by world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adriá of the famed elBulli restaurant, Ooho consists of a compound of brown algae and calcium chloride that forms a gel around a watery core. Creators Rodrigo García González, Pierre Paslier and Guillaume Couche say that the Ooho could eventually replace traditional, plastic water bottles entirely (which go unrecycled 80% of the time) for just 2 cents a pop — especially after seeing how other products like WikiPearl have gone into commercial production. "The double membrane protects the inside hygienically, and makes it possible to put labels between the two layers without any adhesive.

While technically the gel is edible, it doesn't look very appetizing yet: