Water is everywhere, it accounts for a large percentage of the earth’s surface and humans are 70% water. These are both fascinating facts, but they’re quite widely known.

Here however, we look at five interesting facts you will probably never have heard before.

1. Did you know for example, that hair on your skin can actually hold water droplets? Therefore those of us with hairy legs might find ourselves getting sunburnt a lot more quickly than those with shaved legs!
2. On a similar note, and a fact most gardeners are probably well aware of – you should never water your garden during the day as the water can form droplets on leaves. These leaves then act as a nice magnifying glass to the sun, and we know what happens when light is magnified right?
3. Drinking eight glasses of water a day is actually an old wives’ tale. While you should definitely keep on top of your water intake, the level suitable for your need will depend on your age, health and the activities you usually participate in day to day.
4. Some animals such as gorillas spurn water… ok maybe spurn is a strong word, but they don’t actually need to drink much water because of their vegetarian diet. It is said a gorilla’s diet is almost half water.
5. Astronauts’ drinking water is made mostly from recycled urine! Water is heavy, so it’s not advisable to keep lots of it on a shuttle. And though it might sound unappetising, we’re sure the experts at NASA have devised a very effective purification process.

Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

Expectant mothers have a lot to prepare for. They need to prepare their homes for the new arrival and they also need to prepare themselves for the many changes their body will go through.

In the case of the latter, there a number of vitamins, supplements, creams and such like which can help make for an easier nine months

But not everything good for pregnant women has to cost the earth – take water, for example.

Drinking plenty of water is vital, as it helps prepare the body to tackle many things associated with pregnancy.

First off, fluid intake is important to us all to keep well hydrated, but this is even more important when you’re carrying an extra passenger! Keeping hydrated also means you will help to keep your skin looking in top condition.

Aside from those factors though, drinking plenty of water is a great way for a pregnant woman to help avoid the risk of things such as urinary tract infections.

Drinking plenty of water can help keep your urine diluted and when you have to dispose of waste for two, more water means you will be allowing your body to rid itself of such wastes. On a similar note, water will help avoid constipation and help rid the body of that particular waste too.

Water also provides a great way to help cut down puffy swelling, which is often a side effect of pregnancy. Drinking plenty of water can actually help cut down on the excess fluid that cause oedema (fluid retention).

Drinking plenty of water can also help at least keep a pregnant woman’s weight down a little by filling in for snacks and nibbles.

Much like everyone else, pregnant women’s hunger urges are often caused by lack of water rather than food, so by keeping on top of the amount of water you drink you can at least help avoid a little weight gain.

Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

As adults, we understand the need to drink a regular amount of water each day. But for children, this is not really a concern.

When it comes to water, kids will only usually think of splashing around in a bath, filling water balloons, shooting water pistols or swimming.

It’s down to parents to try and devise cunning ways to encourage children to drink more water.

There are some ways in which you can do it though. For example, if your child has a particular attachment to a cup, this can be converted into their ‘water’ cup.

Surprisingly, many people simply advise making water more easily accessible. It’s an easy enough tactic and one that can work well.

Obviously for children reaching up to sinks or the fridge in order to grab a glass or bottle of water is not always easy. But by actually encouraging them to drink more water by leaving their favourite cups within easy reaching distance, you really can help.

Silly straws are always a good way of getting kids drinking good old H2O. Lots of children also enjoy drinking ice water – so to further encourage them, why not look at ice trays featuring kid friendly shapes that they’ll really love in their drinks.

Finally, if you want to encourage children to drink more water, it’s in your best interests to drink plenty yourself! If your child sees you regularly chugging down cool refreshing water, then they’re more likely to want to do the same.

Remember that water comes in many forms, so you can always replace drinking water directly with things such as soup and fruit – or even a fruit smoothie.

• Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

It is quite interesting that, as a green-fingered nation, most of us are pretty good at keeping on top of watering our gardens and plants – and yet often fail to see the importance of regularly ‘watering’ ourselves.

Of course, we don’t mean parking your deck chair next to the garden sprinkler, but keeping on top of your water intake.

Water is vital to our day to day lives – after all we’re made of around 70% of the stuff! Drinking water is said to help keep our skin looking young, help keep our joints ‘well-oiled’ and help avoid things such as tension headaches. It is safe to say, therefore, that there are plenty of reasons to keep drinking plenty of water.

Now, while it is quite easy to water your plants, a shower doesn’t have quite the same effect on us –we need to look at other ways to ‘water’ ourselves effectively.

In the workplace, this may simply involve making sure you take regular water breaks by nipping to the office water cooler and topping up your glass whenever it is empty.

Of course, there are other ways we can help keep our bodies well-watered too. Eating plenty of fruit and veg is one such method. This is handy for keeping on top of your weight too, as you can substitute snacks for things such as apples or even pieces of sliced carrot and such forth.

If you drink water when you have the sensation of being hungry, you will often find the hunger subsides too – this is because that hunger pang is actually often your body telling you to drink more water.

Alternatively, you could look to healthy soups, broths and stocks as healthy sources of water – best of all, on a cold winter’s morning, it will give you that added boost you need to get through the day!

• Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

When you go to open the curtains to let the light in, and you realise that they’re already open – that’s when you know winter is truly upon us.

Dark, gloomy, cold and rainy days are often the norm in Britain once summer bids it final farewell. At work we naturally opt for big cups of tea or coffee to get us through the day, but we shouldn’t ignore the importance of drinking water too – even in winter.

True, drinking a chilled glass of water might not have the same endearing appeal as that steaming hot cup of coffee – but it can help you get through those winter days.

Our bodies are mostly composed of water – 70% to be precise – so it stands to reason water is likely to be important! It can help to prevent tension headaches and poor digestion amongst other things – not bad for something that you can top up at your leisure from your work’s office water cooler!

Now, while tea and coffee obviously have water in too, they’re not such a great provider of H2O as the clear stuff itself – as much as we might want to convince ourselves otherwise. Having said that, drinks like herbal tea or green tea are a good way to keep your water intake up.

What are your other alternatives, then? Well, if you really are adverse to drinking cool water on a chilly day, consider ‘eating’ your water intake. There are lots of fruits out there with high levels of water content. A salad for lunch is another option – it’s not only a healthy option, but high in water content too.

Once winter truly sets in you can even look at hot soups, broths and stocks to help you keep your water intake up.

Winter doesn’t mean the end of keeping on top of your water intake, you just have to be a little more creative in your approach to staying hydrated!

• Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

It’s nearly time for kids across the world to cry ‘trick or treat!’ in exchange for sugary treats – or a nasty surprise for the homeowner if their request is refused!

But while their baskets are sure to be stuffed with chocolates, lollipops and other sweet goodies, it’s unlikely many kids have water on their Halloween menu.

Perhaps they should, though. After all, there are so many health benefits associated with water, it’s much more of a treat than any chocolate bar, in the long run.

Drinking plenty of water keeps you hydrated throughout the day. Many people often neglect to keep on top of their hydration, and the side effects can be dry skin, headaches and a general sluggish feeling. Drinking water can often help ‘gear your body up’ to prevent such things.

Drinking a healthy amount of water is a great way to help keep the kidneys filtered too – what’s more, it can even help avoid constipation and that can only ever be a good thing!

Amongst its other ‘miracle’ natural properties, water can also help people lose weight. Now while that doesn’t mean drinking four cups of water is a quick and easy way to losing those excess pounds, it can realistically aid weight loss as part of a balanced diet.

For example, we often have a feeling of being hungry, but in truth this is often a sign that we need to drink more water.

So swap out snacks for a cool drink of water. Over time this can potentially help cut your weight down.

Of course it will be dependent on how many treats you nibble on after helping the kids do their trick or treating, but a sensible approach to diet and water consumption will certainly help.

Water then is definitely a treat for your body – and that’s no trick.

We all know the dangers of drinking contaminated water. And common sense says the cleaner water is, the better.

But did you know that water can actually be so clean that it’s dangerous to drink?

It sounds crazy, but it’s true. UPW (ultra-pure water) – water that contains absolutely nothing except water molecules – is actually considered an industrial solvent. It’s certainly not suitable for drinking.

And millions of gallons of this super-clean stuff are made every day, as it’s a vital part of the semiconductor manufacturing process – tech boffins use it to clean microscopic particles off computer chips.

To make the stuff, you’ve got to put ordinary drinking water through reverse osmosis machines. You might have heard of these being used in industrial water filtration processes. The process is quite complicated, so we’ll keep it simple – they make water REALLY clean.

Oh, did we forget to mention this was only the first step? To make UPW, you’ve got to filter the water 12 more times after reverse osmosis has already made it very, very pure.

But why would drinking this water be bad for you?

Well, we mentioned UPW is a solvent – but so is normal, everyday tap water. Though we think of solvents as corrosive chemicals, all it actually means is a substance that ‘wants’ to become a solution by dissolving other materials. That’s what makes water so good at cleaning.

Once you remove these other materials from water, though, it becomes really ‘hungry’ for more materials – so if you drank it, it would start leaching vital minerals from your body!

Truth be told, just the one glass wouldn’t hurt you. But it’s unlikely you’d want to drink more than a sip anyway.

See, ultra-pure water tastes horrible.

It turns out that cool, filtered water tastes great because it still has a few (very safe) minerals and salts in it. These are what give it its crisp, refreshing flavour.

Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

Nearly all of us will remember learning about the water cycle at school.

It’s all quite simple. First, water falls to the earth as rain, and collects in oceans, lakes and rivers. This water evaporates in hot weather, then forms clouds, and the cycle starts again.

You may have also learnt about water processing – i.e. the collection, filtering and distribution process water goes through before it ends up in your taps. (And the cleaning process it goes through after it ends up in the sewer…)

This process happens in huge water filtering plants. It is, in a sense, mankind’s own intervention into nature’s water cycle – a process that has gone on for a very, very, very long time.

But nature has its own water filtering system too. Throughout the world, lucky droplets of H₂O are caught in natural springs, destined to become clean, clear spring water.

By definition, a spring is simply a place where water flows out of the ground, after passing through an ‘aquifer’ – a body of rock which is saturated with, and transmits, water.

Not all springs produce clean water. The quality of water that enters the spring, and the type of rocks the water passes through, amongst other factors, can affect the quality of the water that eventually leaves the system.

These springs might produce discoloured or otherwise odd-looking water. But even if the water’s clear, it might not be clean – so if you come across a spring, don’t assume its water’s okay to drink.

But occasionally, natural conditions are just right. When this happens, the natural world dishes up beautiful, clear spring water that requires little or no processing – having spent years caught up in nature’s own water filtering system.

When these magic conditions are met, the water often picks up essential minerals like calcium, which could have dietary benefits – and lots of people think it tastes better too.

Of course, drinking water from taps can be clean and tasty. But for many, it just doesn’t have that great spring water taste.

Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.

Have you ever watched a local marathon, or one of the big events on the television, and wondered why the athletes always seem to have water almost thrown at them at times? Well, the answer lies in keeping the body well hydrated during exercise.

Hydration is vital to all human beings, but especially to athletes and other sports stars who use a lot of energy in running.

For athletes, hydration is key to performance as they quickly use up water in their body and rapid dehydration can kick in. This is because water evaporates via sweat – which we obviously tend to produce when participating in more strenuous activities – and therefore it is essential to replace the body’s lost moisture.

A bottle of water is obviously a very handy tool for marathon runners or long distance runners as they can hold it and keep swigging some water when they start to feel thirsty – so having people scattered across the course ready to dispense cool water bottles is a must at any long distance running event.

Of course, good hydration is not just essential for people participating in long distance running events. It’s just as important to keep on top of things if you work in an office, are a stay-at-home parent, or even if you’re retired. Water helps regulate the body in so many ways, even for the least athletic of us. It helps balance our body salts as well as detoxifying all our vital organs, it is even suggested that regularly drinking water can help revitalise the skin.

So, the next time you see a runner reach for a bottle of water, hopefully it will act as a reminder to keep yourself well hydrated too!

Latest news from Angel Springs, leading UK supplier of office water dispensers, bottled and mains-fed water coolers and eco boilers.