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IAEA Reports Drone Hit Kursk Plant Cooling Tower — 12hIAEA: drone hit Kursk nuclear plant cooling tower early Thursday; no fire, reactor mode unchanged, no immediate radiological consequences.

Tom Gallagher It's good the plant stayed online with no radiation issues, but everyone should stay far away from these sites.

Cool story. Absolutely none of this will lower the price of exorbitant gas, groceries, energy bill or healthcare costs. — 2hMeme Wars: trending on the Left today.

Joe Cool Snoopy Balloon Set for 100th Parade — 3dMacy's unveiled a new Joe Cool and Woodstock balloon to celebrate the 100th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, highlighting Snoopy’s enduring Peanuts legacy. Coverage across outlets includes previews and video of the debut across New York.

49ers call Australia trip a cool experience after NFL venue changeSports — Sep 7, 2026

Fed Rate Increase Raises US Borrowing Costs Across Loan Types — 2dAcross major economies, borrowing costs are rising and uneven: the U.S. Fed’s rate hike signals higher borrowing costs with AI investment keeping some sectors buoyant while housing cools and consumer debt burdens grow; meanwhile, Korea reports new-credit loans now costing more than existing loans, reversing a prior gap.

HVAC Contractors Expand Services Across Regional MarketsBusiness — 4dHVAC firms nationwide are broadening their service menus to include full-installation, ongoing maintenance, and advanced diagnostics for both commercial and residential customers, with a focus on ductwork and energy efficiency. Notable expansions span 822 Heat and Air in the Greater DFW area, Rhymes Heating & Cooling in St. Louis, and Arctic Air in Lawrence County, Tennessee, each boosting capabilities to meet growing demand.

Tech giants claim new cooling systems could slash data centers' water use — Sep 7, 2026Public scrutiny over the water and electricity used by data centers is pushing tech giants to pursue lower-water cooling, led by Nvidia’s DSX closed-loop system that pumps warmer liquid directly through servers to cut water use. While this can dramatically reduce water consumption (with 2025 global use around 222 billion litres and potential growth to 644 billion litres by 2030 if unchanged), the trade-off is higher energy use in cooling and the need for robust heat management in extreme conditions, as the industry weighs efficiency gains against total environmental footprint.

Dana Whitfield Liquid cooling has been used in supercomputers for years, glad it's finally trickling down to regular data centers.

A Red Cross trick to help you cool down quickly, even in blazing heat — Sep 1, 2026

Elena Vasquez Would love to see actual temperature drop numbers, "cool down quickly" is vague without data to back it up.

Mercury Shrinks Up to 30% More Than EstimatedScience — Sep 11, 2026New analyses show Mercury has contracted up to about 14.5 miles (roughly 23 kilometers), representing 10% to 30% more shrinkage than earlier models suggested, driven by cooling of its large iron core. Researchers say cratering debris and surface roughness conceal contraction features, so a revised, planet-wide assessment was needed to reveal the true extent of Mercury’s shrinkage.

US inflation rises 0.4 percent in August as Pakistan weekly rate jumps — Sep 11, 2026Inflation remained stubborn in the United States in August, with the CPI up 0.4% month over month as gasoline prices surged, while core inflation cooled slightly but still pointed to tighter policy expectations for a Fed rate hike. Meanwhile in Pakistan, the Sensitive Price Index jumped 8.62% year over year for the week, led by onions and petroleum products, underscoring persistent cost pressures even as some food items fell.

Dana Whitfield Core inflation easing slightly is welcome but the overall numbers still point to another Fed rate increase soon.

Mercury May Have Shrunk Up to 23 Kilometers — Sep 10, 2026New research indicates Mercury has contracted 10% to 30% more than previously thought, shrinking about 12 miles (roughly 19 kilometers) in diameter since its formation, with surface debris from ancient impacts obscuring the planet’s shrinkage signs. The finding could imply a larger metal core or different core composition and temperature history, and future BepiColombo measurements are expected to help confirm the extent of Mercury’s cooling and contraction.

Dana Whitfield The debris from old impacts covering up the shrinkage clues is a good point. BepiColombo data should settle how much the planet has really changed.

Swamp Coolers Remain Key to Desert Cooling — Aug 18, 2026Evaporative cooling, or swamp coolers, originated in the United States in the early 20th century, with Oscar Palmer’s 1908 Arizona system, offering a low-cost, energy-efficient way to cool dry air. By the 1930s they transformed heating in the Southwest and remain useful in arid regions, though they struggle in humid climates and central air conditioning became standard in the 1950s.

Glass substrates and laser cooling target AI chip's growing heat problem — Sep 1, 2026TRUMPF’s HiPIMS-enabled through-glass vias aim to pack more AI-computing power into chips by enabling reliable, high-yield glass-substrate packaging for next-generation processors, while its ultrashort-pulse lasers support integrated chip cooling to address heat bottlenecks. Alongside these advances, iCometrue is promoting copper-block solutions to drastically reduce TPVs/TGVs for power delivery in large AI multi-chip packages, illustrating a packaging-driven shift in AI chip design.

Maya Lindstrom Power delivery gets ignored until it becomes the bottleneck. Copper blocks instead of tons of tiny vias makes sense for these massive multi-chip AI packages.

Positron AI Raises $875M at $5B Valuation — Sep 10, 2026Positron AI raised $875 million in a two‑tranche Series C that values the company at $5 billion and will fund the tapeout of its Asimov memory‑first chip and the production ramp of Titan, as well as expanding manufacturing for its Atlas system deployed at Oracle Cloud. The round, co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, SemiAnalysis Capital, and Jim Clark, will also add new board members and accelerate LPDDR5X‑based memory bandwidth‑focused inference hardware designed for air‑ and liquid‑cooled data centers.

Maya Lindstrom Jim Clark backing the Atlas ramp at Oracle makes sense given his hardware history, though scaling Titan production will still face stiff competition.

Patagonia courts OpenAI-backed data centers as US sites face backlash — Sep 7, 2026Argentina’s Patagonia is becoming a hub for massive data-center projects as cool climate, abundant renewable energy, and nearby Vaca Muerta shale gas attract tech giants and investors. Projects from Pampa Energia, Sur Energy with OpenAI, and others aim for hundreds of megawatts, though developers face infrastructure, fiber connectivity, and regulatory hurdles before large-scale operations can materialize.

Dana Whitfield Funny how these projects always chase places with weak regulation and cheap energy, then call it innovation.

U.S. Inflation Cools, Exceeding Economists’ Expectations — Feb 13, 2026Inflation cooled to its lowest level in several months to begin the year, surprising some economists, the Labor Department announced Friday. Inflation unexpectedly eased to 2.4% in January, compared to the same month in…

Heatwave Persists Across Regions, Cooling ExpectedWeather — Aug 8, 2026Heat persists across Europe, with Switzerland and surrounding regions forecast to hit around 35°C and drought conditions continuing, while in the Pacific Northwest the pattern shifts toward autumn with average highs slipping into the upper 70s to 80s and occasional showers. Homeowners are advised to curb heat with window blinds—roller and Vision/Day & Night styles—alongside other cooling strategies as warmer conditions linger in some areas and cooling remains a priority.

US Payrolls Surge, Fed Rate Hike in Play — Sep 4, 2026August payrolls surged around 162,000 with unemployment at 4.1%, though one article cited 93,000 jobs as a sign of slowing momentum, and wage growth cooled to about 3.1% year over year. Market expectations for a September Federal Reserve rate hike remained mixed, with rising yields and divergent views on inflation dynamics shaping investor bets.

Nicole Hardy Wage growth cooling to 3.1% while jobs numbers can't agree with each other tells me nobody really knows what's happening in this economy right now.

Over 100 fans treated for heat illness at college football openers — Sep 6, 2026Heat and humidity marred opening-game atmospheres across multiple campuses: at Kentucky, more than 100 fans experienced heat-related issues, with several hospitalized, after a revised water-bottle policy and intensified safety guidance were issued. In Tulsa, temperatures hit triple digits with a heat index over 106, prompting free water, misting stations and cooling zones to help fans endure the conditions.