Heating

As sunlight passes through a building's windows it can cause indoor temperatures to rise, to the point that the structure's air conditioning system has to be used. A new window material, however, blocks incoming heat while staying mostly transparent.

You may have heard of electrochromic windows that can be electronically switched between clear and tinted states. Well, the same technology has been applied to a new material that could both heat and cool buildings, if mounted on their outside walls.

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, for their work uncovering the receptors that allow us to perceive temperature and pressure.

Managing heat is a major challenge in electronics and engineering, and it’s controlled using materials that either conduct or insulate heat. A new material blurs that line by blocking heat in one direction but conducting it in another.

Electronics and batteries are vulnerable to very high or low temperatures, but a new thermal switch could help deal with both. Made from graphene foam, it can dynamically trap heat when it’s cold out or allow heat to escape when it gets too warm.

CAR T cell immunotherapy is a promising treatment for cancer, but it can trigger dangerous side effects. A new study precisely targets cancer by engineering CAR T cells to activate at higher temperatures, then heating tumors with ultrasound.

Heating and cooling systems are some of the biggest energy guzzlers, but passive temperature control could reduce emissions. Phase-change materials show promise for this, and now engineers have developed a new PCM composite that can be 3D printed.

If you were a bird, chances are that you'd want to minimize the number of times you had to land on the treacherous ocean. A new study now suggests that multiple seabird species have thus evolved dark-colored wings, in order to stay aloft longer.

Australian researchers have created what may be one of the most thermally stable materials ever discovered. This remarkable advanced material, made of scandium, aluminum, tungsten and oxygen, doesn't change in volume at all between 4 and 1,400 Kelvin.

It can be frustrating, when the jacket that you initially put on to keep you warm starts making you too hot. Jackets made from an experimental new reversible fabric, however, could both heat and cool their wearer.

Both cars and electronic appliances require heat removal systems, typically made of steel or aluminum. That may soon change, though, as scientists have created two magnesium alloys which they claim can reduce the weight of such systems by a third.

Concrete is pretty useful, which is why it’s the most widely used construction material in the world. Now, engineers have made it even more useful, creating concrete that can conduct electricity and produce heat, by mixing in nanocarbon black.