GoKawiil
Tech News
The US Climate Prediction Center says above-normal temperatures will persist across much of the country through late September, driven by a strong El Niño pattern and an atmospheric ridge trapping warm air. Some regions, including the Upper Midwest and Deep South, could see readings 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, extending a summer that already set numerous heat records nationwide.
NOAA data shows the contiguous United States just endured its warmest summer since record-keeping began, with an average temperature of 75.6°F and daytime highs averaging 88.6°F, surpassing the previous record set jointly by 2021 and 1936. The South and West bore the brunt of the heat, while Arizona logged its second-hottest summer ever and Alaska and Hawaii each posted their third-warmest.
The EU's climate service confirmed that August matched July 2023 as the hottest month ever measured, with global temperatures averaging 1.65C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists attribute the spike to a combination of long-term climate change and an intensifying El Nino pattern in the Pacific. The month also closed out western Europe's hottest summer on record, exceeding the deadly heat wave of 2003.
The EU's Copernicus climate agency reported that August tied with July 2023 as the hottest month ever measured globally, following a summer that also produced the second-hottest June and July on record. NOAA separately confirmed this was the hottest US summer, surpassing the Dust Bowl era, while global average temperatures ran 1.65°C above preindustrial levels.
Hitachi Global Life Solutions has unveiled a Y-series of EcoCute CO2 heat pump water heaters for Japan, with sales beginning progressively from November 2026. The flagship BHP-FV37YD and BHP-FV46YD models offer mains-pressure hot water in 370-liter and 460-liter capacities for three-to-five and four-to-six person households respectively, though full efficiency specs remain undisclosed. The key update is broader compatibility with electricity tariffs that reward daytime water heating, selectable directly via the unit's remote controller.
Google is backing a new initiative in parts of the Bay Area that subsidizes homeowners installing heat pumps, with incentives reaching as much as $10,000 per household. The program frames residential energy upgrades as part of broader grid infrastructure rather than isolated consumer purchases.
Anker's eufyMake brand is developing a new consumer printer that applies designs directly onto fabrics like T-shirts, jeans, bags, and hats. The device supports both direct-to-garment printing and direct-to-film transfers via heat press, and can even add color to single-color embroidered stitching. Pricing and an official product name have not yet been announced.
Tech entrepreneur Paul Graham argued publicly that companies should always hire the most qualified candidate regardless of nationality, prompting Palmer Luckey to challenge him for suggesting that hiring any foreign worker undermines an 'American firms should hire Americans' stance. The dispute unfolded as a lengthy public exchange over how immigration and merit intersect in tech hiring decisions. The author uses a personal family story about an Army-drafted tool engineer who ended up working on early heat-shield research under Wernher von Braun to question what 'qualified' really means.
NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reported that after reviewing data from the Artemis II mission, the Orion capsule's heat shield showed only about nine sites of char loss, a dramatic improvement from the more than 100 sites, some over an inch deep, seen after Artemis I. NASA had altered Orion's reentry trajectory rather than redesign the heat shield following the 2022 issues, and the approach appears to have worked as the crew safely splashed down in the Pacific.
Scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba built a solid-state cooling prototype that uses a shape-memory titanium-nickel film to convert heat directly into the mechanical motion needed to drive elastocaloric cooling, replacing the usual electric actuator. In tests, heating the actuator film to 86°C produced a 4.0 K temperature difference across the cooling device, and swapping in an external 130°C heat source still yielded a 2.2 K span, showing waste heat alone can power the cycle.
Experts at the Eighth Annual Tree Diversity Conference warned that Colorado's Front Range has unusually harsh growing conditions for trees—hot summers, cold winters, alkaline soil and a shortened growing season—and that climate models show these stresses intensifying, especially at higher elevations. Speakers noted that losses of ash and cottonwood trees, combined with rising heat-island effects from pavement and dense development, are weakening urban forests and leaving them more susceptible to pests and disease.
A new study in Science Advances reports that roughly 560 million children under age 10 worldwide now experience at least one additional month of dangerous heat stress annually because of climate change. Researchers led by Rosa Pietroiusti at Vrije Universiteit Brussel used the WetBulb Globe Temperature threshold of 28°C, a standard combining heat, humidity, wind, and cloud cover, to measure how often conditions cross into risky territory for children's health.