Heat: Energy's tax-man

The "2nd Law of Thermodynamics" sounds intimidating, but really all it says is that whenever energy is transferred, a little bit of it turns into heat. Most of the time, that means the energy is no longer stored in any useful way: when our bodies digest food, or an engine turns explosions into forward motion, or your laptop charges, some of the energy is lost to heat.

The scientific word is 'entropy,' which is the idea that the universe is becoming "less ordered" as time goes on. Eventually the universe will be nothing but heat energy!

Although not nearly this dramatically

Most of this heat is completed wasted without being recouped - your body gives off heat into the air and your laptop charger just burns your leg if it's stuck under a pillow or something. But scientists have started to turn ambient heat back into energy, albeit not directly. The battery will still need to be charged while it is warm, and then when it's cooled it ends up with more voltage than was put into it. This doesn't violate the law of conservation of energy because the extra energy came from the heat!

Also tomorrow night there will be a meteor shower around 10pm to midnight, be sure to get outside to look at the stars :)