Defrost In a Flash

Is there anything more miserable than chipping at the ice on your windshield with a plastic scraper, standing there like an idiot while your defroster hopelessly spits lukewarm air on the glass?

A Dartmouth college professor has harnessed electricity to remove ice from windows. All it takes is a special film and a short burst of juice, a technology called "thin-film pulse electrothermal de-icing," or PETD.

It's not just for cars, too. This analysis by CNET reveals that PETD has already been used to keep a Swedish bridge from icing over and can cut energy consumption in frost-free refrigerators "by a factor or two." If you're interested in the gory details of how PETD gets the job done, click on through to the complete story.

Meanwhile, give me my PETD windshield!