1. The world’s whitest paint just won a Guinness World Record

  Researchers from Purdue University developed a paint so white that coating a building with it could reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning in a building . It’s so white that it has been awarded a Guinness World Records title for the world’s whitest paint, but the goal was to help save the world, not break records. Back in April, the Purdue team reported their latest white paint formula, which reflects up to 98.1 percent of light. After testing over a hundred different reflective materials for their paint, they eventually settled on using an extremely high concentration of a chemical compound called barium sulfate, which is typically used to make photo paper and white cosmetics.

  The team also used a wide range of different barium sulfate particle sizes in their paint, allowing it to scatter a higher range of light spectrum from the Sun as different sizes....