This is a scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

It's an idea straight out of Star Wars.

Suck the humidity from dry desert air and turn it into drinking water.

What I really need is a droid who understands the binary language of moisture evaporators.

Vaporators?

Sir, my first job was programming binary loadlifters.

Very similar to your evaporators in most respect.

Very similar to the evaporators in Star Wars moisture farms,

scientists have now used a box of gun metal gray powder

to pry moisture from the dry Arizona air by night and deliver drinking water the next day.

The powder consists of tiny structures called metal organic frameworks, which contain even

tinier pours to grab water.

Initially water goes in and the first water molecules to go in adhere to the internal surface

and make the pores more polar so more water comes in.

Omar Yagi, a chemist at UC Berkeley.

The powder filled box is built inside yet another box.

At night, the larger box is left open

to let in the cool, slightly humid air.

But when it's closed in the morning it helps trap heat and

evaporated water inside. The water then condenses inside the larger box and trickles down

to be collected, no cooler or power source needed. The finding by

Yagi and colleagues is in the journal Science Advances. It would take many

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