My column in the May issue of Contract Pharma explores how some archaic technologies, including the Zeer and the Crosley IcyBall, are getting a 21st century makeover.

On a recent flight from Istanbul to Chicago, I noticed a man across the aisle from me in seat 10D, frantically fumbling with his laptop computer. He was clearly agitated that his work was interrupted when he was unable to receive a wi-fi signal — comfortably hurling through the stratosphere as if by magic — at 600 miles per hour, 38,000 feet over the mountains of western Bulgaria. He whines when the flight attendant tells him there is no ice available for his scotch and soda, and he later commented to the woman next to him that his dinner salad was warm and wilted. He would, in less than half a day, be on the other side of the planet among all the modern creature-comforts he has come to take for granted, and all would be right in his world. Incensed by his current state of inconvenience, he grumbles.

Meantime, somewhere in a dry and dusty Nigerian village, a woman prepares a Zeer, two earthen pots the same shape but of different sizes. Read the rest of the article here.

The Zeer Pot

The Crosley IcyBall