News

Faced with the fickle British weather and a frustration with existing mudguard designs, British cyclists Dan McMahon and Patrick Laing have produced the Plume. Like a butterfly proboscis, the stainless steel Plume recoils when not in use; the simplicity of the design reflecting that of the bicycle itself. Unlike most mudguards, Plume is...

By 2050, the UN expects the global urban population to be 6.3 billion - the same size as the world’s entire population in 2004. Quite apart from the demand on natural resources, significant amounts of new housing will be required to accommodate this explosive level of growth. Architects are already delivering a new generation of high-rise...

You don't need to fly to the other side of the planet to undertake an expedition; The Hold-Up Paddle is an inflatable paddle board and tent that packs into a backpack. Once its fins have been removed, the paddle board becomes a mattress over which you can erect a specially designed tent. In the morning you need only fold up the tent and...

Governments should set ever-stricter emissions limits for lorries and cars, and increase taxes on petrol and diesel so that the internal combustion engine is phased out, according to a 10-year German-led project to find practical ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Renewbility project concluded that a combination of greater...

Incumbent technologies are prone to underestimate the threat posed by smaller, disruptive alternatives. Europe’s five major utilities lost £85 bn in the five years to 2013 because they did not prepare for an 8 per cent increase in renewables. A 10% loss of market share was enough to cause the collapse of the coal mining industry in America....

When it comes to our choice of bicycle, we British are a pretty conservative bunch – despite a whole world of designs from which to choose, it can seem like every cyclist on the roads is on a road bike or something cheap and heavy from Halfords. Putting aside the fact that, as a nation, we wilfully overlook the practicality of town bikes...

Office workers who sit at a desk for eight hours need to take one hour’s physical activity a day to offset an increased risk of death, according to research by Cambridge University and published in The Lancet. The research found the risk of dying was 9.9 per cent for those who sat for eight or more hours a day compared with 6.8 per cent for...

Electric cars, bicycles, scooters and skateboards may offer a quieter and cleaner alternative to the internal combustion engine, but does battery technology threaten to make us even lazier than we are already? Gita means 'short trip' in Italian and the name Piaggio has given to its latest project; a smart, self-propelled shopping trolley....

January might have been a relatively dry month across Britain, but a combination of freezing temperatures and widespread gritting made the roads seem especially grimy. Cleaning a bike after every ride is an arduous task, but recommended if components are not to corrode or wear prematurely. Win a bicycle cleaning kit To make the task easier,...

As the debate in Britain over the high-speed rail project HS2 continues to simmer, in America, the billionaire inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk has turned his attention to rail travel of the near future and a high-speed connection between Los Angeles and San Francisco code-named Hyperloop One - a 800 mph-concept referred to as “a cross...