While cruising through the lol-sphere of the interwebs, I found the craziest, coolest, most futuristic-y thing on Epic Win. The Zero Energy Biological Robot Refrigerator. In theory, it works by cooling biopolymer gel, using light as its energy source. The gel is odorless and not sticky. All you do is shove the food item into the gel. The size of the fridge depends upon how much stuff you put into it, which makes sense. If the volume of the gel is a constant, then the space taken up by food expands the overall mass. Somehow the biots also control the temperature according to food, maybe even humidity like a crisper? Since this is theory and not real yet, the actual science is fuzzy (or a very well kept secret).This fridge was part of a contest to dramatically change the way people thing of common household appliances and redesign them completely instead of updating old models. Instead of, say, creating a better seal or better circulating cool air in the modern fridge, the challenge would be to rethink the fridge to make it better, more efficient, etc. You can find other contest entries at the Electrolux Design Lab website. You can find other rethought designs by Yanko Design on their blog.
