You may not realize it, but your air conditioning is warming up the planet. That’s because air conditioning systems contain highly toxic fluorocarbons that have proven to be powerful greenhouse gases with remarkable heat-trapping capabilities. The good news is better cooling systems are on their way thanks to German scientists. What the scientists have done is create an extremely efficient cooling/heating device that—simply put—bends and unbends little pieces of highly absorbent metal within it to cool/heat air. The technicalities of this machine are a bit too complex to explain here, but the important thing is that it uses no refrigerant gases and is three times more efficient than a regular air conditioner.