Outdoor Air Conditioning Cools the World Cup—But Is It Sustainable?

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November 29, 2022

Dear Reader, Years ago, when Qatar first placed its bid to host the men's World Cup, it promised to help athletes and fans alike manage the nation's scorching temperatures by building stadiums with outdoor air conditioning. As the 2020 Tokyo Olympics demonstrated, a warming world can make sporting events dangerous. But outdoor AC may not be a sustainable solution to this problem, experts warn. Read more in this week's top tech story.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology @sophiebushwick

Engineering Outdoor Air Conditioning Cools the World Cup--But Is It Sustainable? In an ever warming world, the health benefits of stadium air-conditioning may not outweigh the climate risks By Daniel Leonard

Climate Change How Will Men's World Cup Soccer Players Cope with Qatar Heat? The question of how to preserve athletic performance amid extreme heat, including at the World Cup in Qatar, is pressing as climate change bites By Katharine Sanderson,Nature magazine

Computing It's Time to Open the Black Box of Social Media Social media companies need to give their data to independent researchers to better understand how to keep users safe By Renée DiResta,Laura Edelson,Brendan Nyhan,Ethan Zuckerman

Renewable Energy How the Hydrogen Revolution Can Help Save the Planet--And How It Can't Many researchers see a huge role for hydrogen in decarbonizing economies By Davide Castelvecchi,Nature magazine

Aerospace Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think I've been working on space elevators for almost 20 years, and though we still have issues to solve, we are getting closer to making them reality By Stephen Cohen

Computing The Leap Second's Time Is Up: World Votes to Stop Pausing Clocks How, and whether, to keep atomic time in sync with Earth's rotation is still up for debate By Elizabeth Gibney,Nature magazine

Culture Twitter Is Not Rocket Science--It's Harder Elon Musk wants to run Twitter like SpaceX. But human behavior will make it much more difficult By Joe Bak-Coleman

Materials Science Silkworms Spin a Potential Microplastics Substitute "Intentionally added microplastics" in pesticides and cosmetics could be made from silk instead By Ysabelle Kempe

Computing Discovery Helps Computers Draw Intricate Two-Dimensional Animations A new algorithm solves the long-standing "hidden line problem" of computer graphics By Lyndie Chiou

Robotics Transforming Robots Help to Transfer Skills How do you teach a new robot old tricks? By Matthew Hutson

Natural Disasters Twitter Chaos Endangers Public Safety, Emergency Managers Warn Twitter is a crucial communication tool during disasters, but impersonators and other problems under Elon Musk's leadership have emergency managers on edge By Andrea Thompson

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 327, Issue 6

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We lack a set of well-defined mathematical theories that can guide our social systems through the next year, much less to some distant point in the future." Joe Bak-Coleman, Scientific American

FROM THE ARCHIVE A Better Way to Cool Ourselves A new technique doesn't deprive us of fresh air. And because it uses less energy, it's good for the climate as well By Forrest Meggers,Dorit Aviv,Adam Rysanek,Kian Wee Chen,Eric Teitelbaum | May 2021

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