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How would you like to be able to wash your car by just hosing it off – no soap, scrubbing or drying? You may be able to in the not-too-distant future, thanks to an ultra-hydrophobic (water-repelling) paint that can be applied to a variety of surfaces, and that stays on once applied.

Next-generation lithium-ion batteries may hold more charge for a greater number of cycles thanks to a new material derived from natural silk. Scientists found that when used in place of graphite, it allows batteries to work for over 10,000 cycles and to store five times more lithium.

Belgian industrial designer Tobias Knockaert recently told us about his stainless steel Erembald bike, that he's producing along with partner Karel Vincke. In order to keep prices down, its frame is cut by lasers and put together like a puzzle.

In a considerable display of chutzpah, Oklahoma-based firm Kinslow, Keith & Todd (KKT) has unveiled a plan to build a tornado-shaped tower in tornado-prone Tulsa.

At 3.2 million watts, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory laser diode array is the most powerful ever built, and will form part of an even larger quadrillion watt femtosecond pulsed laser currently under construction for the European Union's Beamline facility in the Czech Republic.

The infrared sensor installed on the ESA’s Proba-V satellite is being adapted for use back home. While it’s currently being used to provide pictures of Earth’s flora, its creators believe it’s well suited to applications such as scanning for skin diseases and spotting defects in production lines.

Two years ago, Google launched the Chromebook Pixel, a premium Chrome OS device designed to show off its cloud-based operating system in the best light possible. Now the second generation Pixel is here, bringing better performance at a lower cost.

The emergence of consumer electroencephalography (EEG) devices is giving us new ways to monitor and train our brains. One such device is the Melomind, which promises to help users better manage stress. To do so, it delivers 15-minute sessions of specially designed music.

A skin-like membrane progressively changes color when stretched by tiny amounts. Its creators say that it is easy to manufacture and could have applications in security, entertainment, and structural monitoring.

Maybe not as glamorous as drones that go faster or shoot beautiful images, but making them less likely to crash into objects is still critical to advancing the technology. Startup Panoptes' answer to this is a kit that can be slapped onto certain consumer drones to stop them running into things.

Japan hopes to one day harvest power from an orbiting solar farm and beam electricity back to Earth. This week it announced the successful test of such a wireless power system at a small scale.

The Instrument 1 has changed significantly since we last saw it back in 2014. The latest version is more widely compatible and features a new design. The company has headed to Kickstarter to fund the the ambitious multi-instrument, and it's already surpassed its funding goal.