The Cool Down

8 hours ago | thecooldown.com | Juliette Portala

Things are getting heated in Southern California, where one Redditor is fighting the homeowners association that controls their property over what they consider to be "details.""There's a lot going on in the world right now. The fact that my front door is a natural dark green should not be a huge concern," the OP wrote to the members of an anti-HOA subreddit. "The HOA is also pissed because I have a little manual push lawn mower in my backyard," they said.

15 hours ago | thecooldown.com | Matthew Swigonski

Nobody enjoys paying bills, which is one reason a now-retired engineer from Ohio decided to do something about it. As Solar United Neighbors reported, Richard Coin opted to try something that was new to his small Ohio community in 2005. He chose to power his home using solar energy. of renewable energy have been around for . However, homeowners may have been less able to take advantage of energy sources such as solar panels due to limited resources at the time, especially in the early 2000s.

17 hours ago | thecooldown.com | Leslie Sattler

Tunisian startup Bioheat is transforming olive waste into valuable clean energy briquettes. These briquettes help curb deforestation while serving as a sustainable alternative to imported fuel, Tech Xplore reported. The company addresses a massive waste problem in Tunisia, which is expected to be the world's third-largest olive oil producer this season. After extracting olive oil, mills are left with enormous amounts of thick paste that traditionally goes unused or is burned inefficiently.

18 hours ago | thecooldown.com | Tina Deines

A test of a handful of popular chamomile tea brands found toxic "forever chemicals" in the bags of more than half of the samples. Consumer watchdog group Mamavation sent 13 chamomile teas from 13 popular brands to an Environmental Protection Agency-certified laboratory to test for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as "forever chemicals." Tea leaves from seven of these samples had detectable levels of PFAS, with four of them containing quantifiable levels.

19 hours ago | thecooldown.com | Leslie Sattler

Great tits in urban environments produce fewer offspring compared to their forest-dwelling counterparts due to light pollution, reported SwissInfo. A new Swiss study found these birds become restless at night in brightly lit city areas, causing them to warm their eggs less consistently. Scientists from the Sempach Ornithological Institute compared hatching rates between forest and city nesting boxes to understand human impact on breeding birds.