Vascular Window Keeps Room Cooler

This is Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This'll just take a minute.
Windows can offer beautiful natural light.
But on bright days, the sunlight can bake a room.
That trapped heat drives up air conditioning use and energy costs.
Now, a team of researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has designed cooler windows by mimicking nature.
When animals get hot, tiny capillaries near the surface of the skin dilate.
Circulating blood helps transfer the body heat out to the air.
In that spirit, the researchers created a super-thin silicone-rubber layer with a network of tiny sealed channels.
When the rubber is stretched over a window, it's completely transparent.
Water running through the channels absorbs heat and transfers it to the outside air.
In the researchers' model, a large window at 100 degrees Fahrenheit can be lowered to a much more manageable 86 degrees.
And the energy needed to pump the water is far less than what would be needed to cool the room equivalently with air conditioning.
The research is in the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells.
The team is working with architects to model energy savings if the microfluidic channels were included in an entire building's windows.
Which could warm consumers' hearts.
Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber.