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Who knew rust could slay arsenic and slake your thirst?

Arsenic could be locked up some day if Rice University's “nano-cops” have their way. An arsenic-removing technology called “nanorust” — based on tiny bits of iron oxide — will begin field tests later this year in Guanajuato, Mexico, to see if it can eradicate harmful levels of the poisonous metalloid in drinking water. Discovered by scientists at Rice’s Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, nanorust is a potentially low-cost technology that, if proven effective, will have arsenic and even water-borne viruses on the run and leave water running purer and safer. A parched world could drink to that.