Engineers have created a cooling device that does not require electricity to operate. An article about this was published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

The device was invented by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Outwardly, it looks like a thick pizza box wrapped in foil. The “box” is made of three layers of material. At the bottom is a reflective foil, in the middle is a porous material based on hydrogel with a large proportion of water, on top is airgel, a very light material, 99% air. When heated, water evaporates from the hydrogel, cooling it, and enters the airgel, where it is additionally cooled by infrared radiation. In addition, the airgel cap serves as an insulator and reflects light as well as the bottom layer.

The device must be placed above what needs to be cooled. It can reduce the temperature of an object by 10 degrees compared to the environment. According to the developers, the system is able to increase the shelf life of food products by 40% in conditions of high humidity, or three times if it is hot and dry outside. First of all, such a refrigerator is in demand in hot third world countries, where there are problems with electricity.

Soon Xiaomi will introduce new flagships for the global market – Xiaomi 12T and Xiaomi 12T Pro. When exactly the premiere will take place is not reported, but insider Evan Blass has already published high-quality renderings of both models.

There are no external differences between them – only the inscriptions in the camera blocks are different: 108 MP for Xiaomi 12T and 200 MP for Xiaomi 12T Pro. Both models are expected to have 6.67-inch AMOLED screens with a resolution of 2712 x 1220 pixels, and screen protection will be provided by tempered glass Gorilla Glass 5. Xiaomi 12T Pro will be based on Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC, Xiaomi 12T hardware platform – MediaTek Dimensity 8100. The devices are also credited with 5000 mAh batteries with support for 120 W fast charging.

Evan Blass has previously been noted for many truthful leaks. So, at one time he published exact images of the Sony Xperia 5 II, Galaxy Note20, Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Tab S7, Galaxy Watch 3 and Samsung Galaxy Buds Live, Xiaomi 12 before their official premiere.

Physicists set a record by cooling matter to the lowest temperature in history. An article about this was published in Physical Review Research.

The behavior of matter at temperatures close to absolute zero is very different from what people are used to. Some substances pass into a superconducting or superfluid state, and at extremely low temperatures, the quantum properties of elementary particles appear, which can be used for calculations.

Physicists at the University of Basel have cooled a tiny copper circuit on a silicon chip to 220 microkelvins, the lowest temperature ever achieved in such experiments. This was achieved using a cryostat and a magnetic field: the spins of the copper atoms in the chip were aligned, due to which they cooled more strongly.

In the future, scientists hope to cool quantum processors and conventional semiconductor electronic components using this technology.