dn27633-1_300[1].jpg Throw away those power cords and chargers. Signals from a Wi-Fi router providing wireless electricity could soon be used to power gadgets and charge phones Our homes are a tangled mess of wires and chargers. But that might be about to change. Work is under way to use the Wi-Fi ...

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwEtxQs940g[/media] Ever wished a painting could come to life? This 3D version of a van Gogh masterpiece comes close, especially if viewed with a virtual reality headset. Animator Mackenzie Cauley of Brooklyn, New York, has transformed The Night Café by Vincent...

dn27555-1_300[1].jpg Watch your language. Words mean different things to different people – so the brainwaves they provoke could be a way to identify you. Blair Armstrong of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language in Spain and his team recorded the brain signals of 45 volunteers as they...

dn27551-1_300[1].jpg It's not much fun being a Russian rocket scientist at the moment. On Saturday they suffered the latest in a string of high-profile disasters, after a Proton-M rocket failed during the third stage of the launch. A Proton-M launched last May failed as well, as did one in 2013. Th...

dn27486-1_300[1].jpg The United Arab Emirates has announced details of its uncrewed Mars probe, which it plans to launch in 2020 to monitor the planet's atmosphere from orbit. The spacecraft, named Hope, will be a big step up from the country's previous space activities as it attempts to compete wi...

A medieval law could help us bring to book all those responsible for algorithms that run – and ruin – our lives… mg22630200.700-1_1200[1].jpg Conference: Theorizing the Web 17/18 April, International Center of Photography, New York City THIS century's next great legal challenge will be to make thos...

mg22630200.700-2_1200[1].jpg TOYS, toys, toys. We are deluged with new playthings that make ever more demands for our attention – many of them digital. How can we focus on anything true or beautiful amid the twitter and chirp of such constant, almost toddler-like demands? Other writers have excoria...

mg22630202.200-1_300[1].jpg The US army has said it wants invisibility cloaks for its soldiers within 18 months. How realistic is that? The US army wants invisibility cloaks for its soldiers. Not just that – it has announced that it wants to test the best contenders within the next 18 months. Seems...

dn27468-1_300[1].jpg Spider-man would be so envious. Spiders have woven webs infused with carbon nanotubes and even graphene, raising the prospect of new materials with record-beating properties. Graphene – sheets of carbon just one atom thick – is one of the strongest artificial materials, and spi...

CAFFEINE gives you a spike of energy before you crash back down – even if you're a robot made from bull sperm. Spermbots, as they are called, were first developed in 2013 by Veronika Magdanz of the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden, Germany, and her colleagues. She ...