Welcome sweater weather!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
In Southern California, you can relax on the beach and hike in the mountains on the same day. You may need a windbreaker, hoodie, and jacket, though.
What if you didn’t need all that wardrobe to handle the change in weather and humidity?
Enter Xiaofeng Jiang and researchers from Nanjing University in China. They developed a material using a bacterial substance that reacts to human sweat.
The material reduces in thickness by about half an inch when the humidity is high. Thermal infrared images found that the fabric improved thermal regulation by almost eighty-three percent.
What a nifty jacket! Talk about travelling light!
Reference: Jiang, X., Li, X., Zhang, H., Hu, Z., Jia, S., Meng, G., … & Zhang, Z. (2025). Sweat-sensitive adaptive warm clothing. Science Advances, 11(33), eadu3472.