Every year, electronic components shrink a bit more, allowing engineers to create more powerful and sophisticated chips. Unfortunately, these chips also generate a lot of heat, so novel cooling systems are needed to keep them running. As part of DARPA’s ICECool-Applications research program, Lockheed Martin is developing a way of cooling high-powered microchips from the inside using microscopic drops of water.

Ever since the first vacuum tube was invented by John Fleming in 1904, heat has been the nemesis of electronics. It’s one reason why old radio sets are built like furniture and why the first computers filled whole rooms. Each valve was basically an incandescent bulb and air needed to circulate around them to keep them cool. Read more

Showers are one of the top contributors to water usage, and waste, in the household. The makers of the Eva Bluetooth-connected shower head claim it can help you cut that water consumption in half by making sure water only pours down when you actually need it. A free companion app also tracks your water usage, compares it with other users and motivates you to keep saving in the long run, aiming to have the device pay for itself in just one year.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) puts the average shower at 8 minutes and 18 gallons (about 70 liters) of water, amounting to over one trillion gallons (3.8 trillion liters) a year for the US alone. As droughts are making water a very expensive commodity in some places, we’re seeing all sorts of new approaches to reducing water consumption in the shower, ranging from closed-loop recycling adapted from the Space Shuttle to systems that inject tiny air bubbles into the water droplets. Read more

Specialists of the Open University and the University of Leicester (UK) studied the past of the Red planet and found that water existed in the Gale crater for a long time. And if the earthman had the opportunity to taste it, it would be unlikely he liked. Read more

Fuel cells generate electrical energy through a chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. To obtain clean energy, the splitting of water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen is critical. Researchers at the University of Basel study how sunlight can be used for this purpose. The scientific journal Chemical Communications published their latest results.

Developing clean and renewable sources of energy is one of the greatest challenges of our civilization. Artificial photosynthesis is one of the most promising approaches. This is when water is photo-electrochemically with the aid of sunlight separated into its components H2 and O2 and stored. When the chemical elements are later combined, electrical energy can be created. A team of researchers led by the University of Basel chemists Catherine Housecroft and Edwin Constable are working together with the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) to implement this method. Read more