Research

If there’s one thing we humans are good at, it’s producing heat. Significant amounts, and in many cases most of the energy we generate and put into our systems we lose as heat, whether it be our appliances, our transportation, our factories, even our electrical grid.“Waste heat is everywhere,” said UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Bolin Liao, who specializes in thermal science and renewable energy. “Our power plants, our car exhaust pipes — there are so many places where we create excess heat waste.”

Fireflies, pendulum clocks, our heart muscles and the neurons regulating our daily internal processes: these things all have a tendency toward synchrony.