Cooling

The desert-dwelling Namaqua chameleon has a pretty neat trick – it changes skin color to stay cool when outdoor temperatures rise, and stay warm when they drop. An experimental new coating could one day do the same thing for our homes.

Hog barns typically aren't the nicest places to be at the best of times, but try living in one during a heat wave. Scientists at Indiana's Purdue University have developed a self-activating hog-cooling pad for just such situations.

Heating and cooling account for huge portions of our energy consumption. Now scientists at Stanford have created a new type of paint that passively blocks heat from entering or escaping, and can be made in a range of colors.

If you're sitting outside on a hot day, a sun shade will only help keep you cool to a limited extent. The ecto system goes further, by pumping ice water through your outdoor chair or seat cushion.

By their very nature, rugged tablets are deigned to withstand all kinds of punishment at construction sites, on military missions or wilderness adventures. Utah's Juniper Systems claims that the Mesa Pro is the first IP68 model with active cooling.

Lighter colors are cooler than darker ones, which can limit the practical palette choices for your clothes, car or house. A new material, inspired by butterfly wings, can produce vibrant colors while reflecting 100% of light to keep them cooler.

People camping in tents are expected to "rough it" a bit, but … if they have a battery-powered heating and air conditioning system right beside them, why not use it? That's the thinking behind Campstream One, which mooches off the user's EV.

Large fluctuations in outdoor temperatures can shorten the lifespan of the batteries used in electric cars – if those cars are parked outside, that is. An experimental new car-cloak could help minimize such damage, by damping changes in temperature.

While it's nice to have ice cubes available for cold drinks on hot outings, bags of store-bought ice often melt too quickly and take up cooler space. The Evo Icer offers an alternative, in the form of a portable battery-powered ice cube maker.

Heated insoles generally rely on batteries to warm icy toes. Solecooler has a different idea, getting its power straight from the source: the feet. Its insoles harness basic stepping motions to generate heating and cooling.

Heating and cooling systems are among the biggest guzzlers of energy. Berkeley Lab has now developed a new technology that heats and cools by switching a material between solid and liquid states, inducing a large temperature change from a small voltage.

Last year, engineers at Purdue University used their expertise in materials science to produce the world’s whitest paint, and have now made some tweaks to the recipe and produced a version that is thinner and lighter.