Best overall: Midea U-Shaped Air Conditioner (MAW08V1QWT)Best window: LG Dual-Inverter 18K (LW1817IVSM)Best portable: Whynter ARC-14SBest design: Windmill ACBest budget: Frigidaire FFRE053WAE How we picked the best energy-efficient air conditioners I live on the bottom floor in a small apartment with no central air conditioning. It can get hot in the summer, with temperatures in our bedroom generally hovering around 80 degrees. That’s not conducive to sleep and our standing fans don’t provide much respite....

The best garage door openers glide freely and operate quietly, so you don’t even know they’re there. From wall-mounted to smart garage door openers, the options keep growing. Today, it’s a matter of narrowing it down to a model that fits within your budget and includes features that make your life easier. Ultra-quiet or extra powerful, belt-drive, or chain-drive—they’re all out there and ready to do the heavy lifting. Check out the best garage door openers that made our list, and get key tips for picking the right model for your home....

Comfortable grip: Mueller Austria Ultra-Stick 500 Hand Blender The Mueller Ultra-Stick runs on a powerful 500-watt motor, with nine adjustable speed options. The stainless steel fixed blade blends efficiently, while the whisk attachment quickly fluffs up your egg whites or cream. This blender is easy-to-clean, durable, and portable. For the design-conscious: KitchenAid Cordless Hand Blender The KitchenAid hand blender is designed to be used right away—no adjusting or fidgeting. It has seven straightforward speed settings, and a 4-point stainless steel fixed blade....

Finding the best keyboard for you, however, isn’t always easy. Maybe even more so than any other piece of computer hardware, there is no one best keyboard for everyone. For Mac users, the options are a bit more limited, especially if you want a keyboard with a Mac-style layout, rather than the usable, but less than exact Windows “default.” Thankfully, there are plenty of great options designed with Mac users in mind and, while there’s no one size fits all solution, the half-dozen choices below should meet the needs of most average Mac users....

With new technology and developments in sleep science, we know more about what it takes to get a good night’s sleep. Traditional coil innerspring models have evolved, and modern designs come with foam materials that can literally shape around our bodies. With cooling gels, foam, plush pillow tops, and breathable materials, we can stay cool, relaxed, and comfortable all through the night. What’s more, you’re no longer stuck shopping in stores with pushy salespeople....

With more people working from home, untethered to a desk, a mobile hotspot really extends what “remote” can mean. Smartphone service providers are expanding their 5G networks all the time, meaning you’ll barely even be compromising the home wireless internet speeds you’re used to. We’re here to help you find the best mobile hotspot, no matter your network or needs. Best T-Mobile hotspot: Inseego 5G MiFi M2000Best AT&T hotspot: Netgear Nighthawk M5 (MR5200)Best Verizon hotspot: Jetpack MiFi 8800LBest Verizon 5G hotspot: Inseego MiFi M2100Best budget unlocked hotspot: KuWFi 4G LTEBest hotspot for international travel: Skyroam Solis Lite...

Best overall: Audeze LCD-2 ClassicTrue audiophile: Dan Clark Audio StealthBest over-ear: Audeze LCD-5Best closed-back: Meze LIRICBest earphones: 7Hz TimelessBest budget: HIFIMAN Sundara How we selected the best planar magnetic headphones I’ve been an audio enthusiast and headphone collector for over five years. I began my first foray into the world of audio as a kid, borrowing my dad’s Sony over-ears to sink into Metallica’s 1991 self-titled LP (aka “The Black Album”)....

Best overall: POOL BLASTER Water Tech Catfish Pool CleanerBest inground: Zodiac MX6 In-Ground Suction Side Pool CleanerBest cordless: AIPER SMART Cordless Rechargeable Pool CleanerBest robotic: Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus Robotic Pool Vacuum CleanerBest manual: Poolmaster Big Sucker Swimming Pool Leaf VacuumBest budget: POOLWHALE Portable Pool Vacuum How we chose the best pool vacuums We love diving into specs to find a selection of great products. We then look at critical reviews, take peer recommendations, and survey user impressions to narrow down the options to the best pool vacuums....

Plus, laptops, tablets, and smartphones provide convenience and mobility, but those small screens can cause headaches, blurry eyes, and fatigue. Digital eye strain is already an automatic negative byproduct of using digital devices, and trying to crowd a lot of information on such a small screen only exacerbates the problem—especially if you’re using the computer devices for several hours a day. However, a portable monitor can provide a much better working and viewing experience....

Another selling point is the fact that you can double-check to make sure your door is locked at any time. Ever been in line at the grocery store and wondered if your teenager remembered to lock the door after leaving on a bike ride? Your phone can tell you…and fix it if the door is open. In addition, you can use the best smart locks to let people in and out of your house when you’re not home....

Quality wine glasses will upgrade the taste, aesthetics, and enjoyment of your wine experience. There are wine glasses tailored to specific wine varieties, such as Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, as well as more versatile all-purpose wine glasses. Traditionally, most wine glasses are stemmed, but stemless glasses have become very popular in recent years as they offer a more casual, modern approach (and, practically speaking, can be less likely to be knocked over)....

“What we’re hoping this technology can do is provide our first window into what’s happening in the majority of the ocean,” says John Dabiri, a mechanical engineer at the California Institute of Technology, who published the findings January 29 in the journal Science Advances. The humble jellyfish might not have a brain, but it does have the impressive distinction of being the most energy-efficient of all swimming animals. “Some of that goes to their evolutionary heritage of being the first animals to learn to swim some 500 million years ago,” Dabiri says....

This won’t be the first time CRISPR will be used on human cells—in the past year, one team of scientists used the enzyme complex to edit (non-viable) human embryos, and another tweaked human T cells to better fight disease. But this could be the first time CRISPR is used directly on a living person’s genome to directly treat her disease. Editas plans to use CRISPR to treat Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), an inherited eye condition that causes irregular development of the retina, leading to severe vision problems starting in infancy....

“There’s really nothing that Bolsonaro is putting on the table that makes conservationists and scientists happy right now,” says noted conservation biologist William Laurance of James Cook University in Australia. A sign of the times is the fact that Bolsonaro plans to dismantle the governmental ministry of the environment and place it under the purview of the ministry of agriculture, Bruna says. “Obviously, [these two ministries] have different teams and goals, and in fact, the ministry of the environment is also responsible for enforcement of environmental legislation,” he says....

Another solution is a network attached storage (NAS) device, which stores data locally, like a hard drive, but acts as a server that anyone on your network, or even over the internet, can access. Professional solutions for such devices can be pricey, but you can, in fact, make your own NAS setup with a Raspberry Pi computer and the external drive, or drives, that you may already be using to access your files....

Blame the digital revolution. “In the early 1990s, only 1 percent of all counterfeit currency was created with high-quality printers, scanners and copiers,” says Michael Merritt, a deputy assistant director for the Secret Service, which is charged with policing counterfeit currency. “Now it’s 56 percent.” One notable offender is Art Williams, Jr., who has been arrested twice in the past decade–and has seven years left on his October 2007 sentence–for printing roughly $10 million in ersatz American currency using a scanner and a high-end printer....

From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Forest Service put out all fires on its lands, and state agencies followed suit in this fire suppression policy. But then, officials realized that extinguishing every ember had left mountains covered with leaf litter, twigs, and dense stands of trees—all of which enable fires to grow large and hot, clawing their way from the ground and into canopies. Many of the ecosystems had evolved to withstand and benefit from the occasional fire, which opened up more space for sunlight to reach the forest floor, brought nutrients to the soil, and reduced incidents of disease and pests....

The good news—and bad news—is that we’re making new batches of carbon-rich refuse all the time. In 2018, the average American generated an unsavory 4.9 pounds of waste every day. Could these fresh trash heaps help replace our dependence on dead dinos? We already know, of course, that we can burn carbon-based products for energy. But simply setting trash aflame has its own nasty side effects. Incineration plants, which have been running in the US since 1885, emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter, lead, mercury, and dioxins, among other toxins....

Video by Benny Migliorino.

College students, long treated as the interns of the R&D world, are coming into their own as designers and innovators, thanks to a series of contests aimed especially at them. “Students are more willing than corporations to try new solutions to difficult problems,” says Frank Falcone, a mechanical engineer at Argonne National Laboratory, a sponsor of the annual EcoCAR Challenge. Unlike prize-driven contests, student contests often offer a few thousand dollars of seed money up front in return for little more than bragging rights or a trophy as the payoff....