Heating

Artificial retinas have the potential to restore some sight to people with certain kinds of blindness, but they contain complex electronics that can overheat. Now a Stanford team has found a way to potentially bypass the issue.

Stanford University engineers have developed an ultra-thin heat shield for electronic devices that measures just 10 atoms thick.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has made some groundbreaking discoveries for physics, but it’s hard to tell how exactly that benefits the average Joe/Jill. Now CERN has announced that the LHC will soon divert some of the waste heat from the collider to help heat thousands of nearby homes.

Researchers at EPFL have crunched the numbers on heat transfer in the air of train tunnels, and outlined a geothermal heat recovery system that could potentially supply heating and cooling to thousands of nearby homes.

Engineers from the University of California San Diego have developed a proof-of-concept armband that can keep the wearer's skin at a constant temperature, even when the ambient temperature is raised or lowered. And the technology is being scaled up to vest size.​

​Squids, octopi and cuttlefish are able to change the color of their skin thanks to specialized cells known as chromatophores. Scientists have now replicated the manner in which those cells work, resulting in a flexible material that can either trap or release heat as needed.

A German research team has prototyped an extraordinary heating/cooling system that stresses and unloads nickel-titanium "muscle wires" to create heated and cooled air at twice the efficiency of a heat pump or three times the efficiency of an air conditioner.

​If you're a winter cyclist, then you'll know how off-putting it can be to press your butt down onto an ice-cold saddle. Slovenian inventor Drago Beravs is out to remedy that situation, with his heated Sweet Saddle.

If you're dirty and sweaty from performing an outdoor activity, it's understandable that you don't want to drive home that way. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take a hot shower first? Well, the portable Geyser System lets you do so – depending on how you define the word "shower."

​Ravean has been producing different self-heating outdoor accessories for several years now, from vests and hoodies to sleeping bag liners. Now the company is developing a battery-powered heated glove with a recent Kickstarter launch exceeding its goals just days after it went live.

For years, the military has been using simple chemical-based heating systems as a way to quickly warm prepackaged rations. Now the YABUL Cook translates such systems into a light-weight silicone device that is foldable and easy to transport.

​Can you control your whole body's temperature by heating or cooling just one small part of it? It seems a little far-fetched, but the makers of the Aircon Watch certainly believe you can, and if their early crowdfunding success in anything to go by, they are far from alone.