Wood

A team of researchers might soon have you walking on desert sand, no matter how far from the dunes you might live. This group of engineers has developed a method to transform it into a new construction material that's perfect for pavements.

Nowadays, wood is rapidly becoming a valuable material in the renewable tech industry, replacing many harmful materials. Recent research shows that wood-derived compounds can serve as an alternative to the toxic chemicals used in paper receipts.

With the rise of clean energy, scientists have been searching for ways to design cheaper, safer, and more sustainable batteries. German researchers have come up with a promising solution: making batteries from by-products of the wood industry.

It's a sad fact that antibiotics are constantly entering the environment through the wastewater stream. There could soon be a cheap new way of removing those antibiotics from the water, however, using plentiful pine bark.

Don't be fooled by that soft-looking down and pretty faces – woodpeckers are tough, tree-pounding beasts who simultaneous harden their whole bodies like a hammer and grunt as they drill away with force of up to 30 times their weight.

A Maryland-based startup is set to begin mass producing Superwood, which is made from regular timber using a densification process, and exhibits strength greater than that of steel.

Although lumber does show promise as a renewable alternative to structural materials such as steel, it still tends to be weaker than those substances. Scientists have now set about addressing that shortcoming, by strengthening wood with added iron.

Factory wood-cutting robots may be capable of fast and intricate carpentry tasks, but they're expensive – plus they put actual carpenters out of work. A new augmented reality system splits the difference, by guiding the hands of human carpenters.

While sustainably-grown wood can be an eco-friendly building material, its relatively low tensile strength limits its potential applications. That could soon change, however, thanks to a new self-densifying technique for creating super-strong wood.

Imagine a glow-in-the-dark designer desk, or wooden fence posts that guide you home with their eerie light. Scientists in Switzerland have developed a way to make glowing wood, with the help of a fungus.

A 3,775-year-old log discovery has lent credence to the idea of burying wood to sequester the carbon it contains. Known as a wood vault, the concept helps keep CO2 out of the atmosphere while allowing the soil to be used for crops and other purposes.

Vantablack, which is the world's darkest material, could be in for some competition. Canadian scientists have created a super-black substance that has the potential to be cheaper, hardier and easier to manufacture … and it's made out of wood.