I've been following the development of the Lifestraw water purifying "straw" for a number of years now. Highly portable, no moving parts, no batteries or power required, rated for 1,000L--sounds great, right?

It's been used successfully in Third World countries to reduce the burden of disease in these places by making clean water available. However, until recently recently, the Lifestraw was not available for retail sale and was only being distributed through aid organizations. Apparently, now they can be purchased. Anyone try these out yet?

It seems that the technology behind the Lifestraw has changed over time. The previous version used iodine-impregnanted beads as the primary purification method. There seems to be little to no info out on the actual technology in the current version, but it now seems to use some form of microfiltration membrane (think "reverse osmosis membrane" but with a larger pore size). The vacuum of sucking water through the Lifestraw is enough to move water through the membranes without any iodine taste that I assume the prior version imparted to the water.