I just get Error: SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER from Firefox and Edge.

Germany just enacted a law that makes landlords pay part of the heating bill to change the incentives for upgrading the equipment.

That's the same thing, no?

It needs some extra valves to switch the flow of coolant around, but yes.

Some refrigerants are more suited for cold climates, some of which require very high pressures.

In the same way that an electric motor and a generator are the same thing.

In an EV they literally are.

Yes?

But without the few bits and bobs of extra control for handling that condition they are, effectively, not.

Same for AC and heat pumps.

EVs have regenerative breaking and so come with those bits and bobs.

But not all electric motors are paired such. Which is the point: a heat pump and an AC are "the same thing" at the gross level, but that doesn't mean all ACs have all the bits and bobs necessary for them to act as heat pumps.

Dug into the ground, we usually call a "ground source heat pump", or less accurately, "geothermal". The normal split systems are "air source heat pumps". AC is a heat pump without a reversing valve.

A heat pump is not necessarily dug into the earth. Rather, the flow of the heat pump is moving heat (thermal energy) from outdoors to indoors or the other way around in an air conditioner.

Depending on the direction of the coolant flow, you get either a indoor heating or cooling unit. This is best demonstrated by going in front of the outdoor unit of a heat pump, when they are cooling, the outdoor unit generates heat because it's compressing gas, which then is then expanded when it reaches the indoor unit, generating cold. Exactly like a refridgerator.

There's also air-to-water retrofits for houses where you had centralised gas/wood heaters and water radiators.

split a/c (heat/cooling) is dirt cheap compared to the cost of heat pump installation

NIMBYs are the reason why large parts of the mentioned new 700 km Südlink connection are being built as below ground cables, adding enomous costs.

I very much doubt that humanoid robots will be cleaning airplane cabins any time soon...

Also trust in PCR cyclers ist often low... PCR is often not straight forward, chemicals can go bad, primers don't work reliably, input DNA has inhibitors, etc. So people are quick to blame the thermocycler if things don't work for an unknown reason, or some have their favorite cycler that "always works for me", and don't what to switch to an unknown one. I guess part of the reason is that there is no log where you can check the exact temperature in every well of the block after the run. Failed PCRs cost money and especially time, so I can see why people don't want to try machines some guy built in his garage.

Yeah, tell the thousands of PhD students who question their life choices over non-working PCRs every year that it's "optimal". ;)

In normal biology labs real-time PCR is used much less than normal PCR, I'd guess 5% of PCRs across labs are run in real-time machines.

Here is a nice video with slow motion footage of the bees in flight, and an interview with the researcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jje1LPrsHbc

The aquarium is great, but when I was there I found the penguin exhibit a bit sad: it's completely indoors, the penguins will never see the sun or sky...

The general state of animal welfare in Japan leaves a lot to be desired.

Aw, that is pretty sad

The Calgary Zoo has a mixed indoor/outdoor habitat for the penguins. During the winter the King Penguins are outside, and they even organize a daily walk for them where they get to leave their enclosure entirely

How would a penguin take Japan's outdoor climate?