Pump

Flextail has made it a mission to design battery-powered pumps tiny enough for even the most ultralight of camping trips. All those efforts have led to the new Zero, a pump so small it clips to a keychain and brings automated inflation everywhere.

Pumping up deflated tires has to be one of the most cumbersome tasks on two wheels. The electronic Mini Pump, pitched as the world’s lightest tire inflator, is just the kind of handy gadget that you’ll want to take along for the ride.

While there are already garments which cool or warm their wearer via circulating liquids, those garments tend to be equipped with cumbersome, noisy pumps. An experimental new system, on the other hand, uses interwoven tubular fibers as pumps.

Researchers have developed an implantable pump that can deliver chemotherapy drugs directly into the brain to fight hard-to-treat cancer. In a phase 1b trial, patients were able to undergo the therapy while going about their day-to-day activities.

How exactly kidney cells transport blood through the organ's tubes has remained a mystery. Now researchers at Johns Hopkins University have investigated the mechanical forces at work and found a previously unobserved pumping action by kidney cells.

Among other items, serious canoeists are advised to carry an extra paddle (in case they lose one) and a bilge pump (in case their boat gets swamped). The Paddle Pump is designed to make things simpler, by combining both tools in one device.

Soft-bodied robots move via pneumatic "muscles" that are selectively inflated or deflated. And while the muscles themselves may be soft and squishy, they're usually hooked up to hard, unwieldy pumps. A new pump, however, is both small and flexible.

When it comes to portable bicycle tire-inflating devices, hand pumps require a lot of effort, while CO2 cartridges are single-use only. The aluminum Choka bike frame offers an alternative, by doubling as a compressed air tank.

Invented by siblings Joe and Christine Edell, the AirLock is both a tire pump and a cable lock.

Portable, cordless air-compressors aren't new, but they're often bulky, limited in scope and ugly. In response to these issues, a team of engineers and product designers fro Hong Kong has come up with the Norshire Mini. A compact, minimalist, multi-function pump/compressor for the iPhone generation.

​While people are fairly fussy about things like bicycle tire pressure, they tend to be a lot more blasé when it comes to inflating basketballs – even though a ball's pressure can greatly affect its performance. The Innoflate Perfect Pressure Needle is designed to help … by whistling.

​Founded in Italy in 1917, Silca was the first company to put an air gauge on a bicycle tire pump. Now based out of Indianapolis, the manufacturer has sort of come full circle with its Viaggio Bluetooth-equipped floor pump – it's taken the gauge back off, and put it on the user's smartphone.