Wood

Austrian ebike maker Esel brings its award-winning ash wood frames to city streets for the first time. The new eUrban comes in two builds, and makes a compelling bet that wood is the smartest material for urban riding.

Some of the world's best skis and snowboards are made from a combination of materials, including wood at the core for its strength and low weight. They're usually glued together with additional layers – but what if we stitched them together instead?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Designed to represent the concept of a time machine, and built by a talented woodworking engineer, this extraordinary wooden vehicle is now turning heads as it whirrs and rattles through the streets of Vietnam.

Swedish sodium-ion developer Altris has identified a means of making the lithium-free batteries even more sustainable. Together with partner Stora Enso, it's adapting tree pulp-sourced carbon toward use as an anode material.