In an emergency there is a natural tendency for human beings to panic. This is where having a robot emergency guide could come in useful. However the researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted a study to check if people may become a bit over dependant on a robotic guide and not use their own brain. This was the first research project ever conducted in robot – human trust.

As part of the science project 42 volunteers were guided by a brightly lit robot with the words Emergency Guide Robot printed on it to a conference room. Here they were asked to take a survey and complete some tasks, they were not informed about the true test. In some cases the robot which was actually being controlled by a human researchers made them walk around in circles before actually entering the conference room.

In some cases the robot simply stopped moving and the researchers informed the volunteer that the robot had broken down. They fixed it and have them follow the robot again. One incident involved the robot leading them into a hallway filled with artificial smoke and setting off an alarm. The robot then guided the volunteer to an exit deeper into the building rather than outside it.

What was interesting to note in the science project was the fact that despite the robot repeatedly being shown as unreliable, the human beings were more than willing to follow it around and even trust it with their lives. This is not the ideal situation to be in. Human beings need to trust themselves more than a faulty robot which has already let them down a couple of times.

In October 2014 comet C/2013 A1 also called Siding Spring came up close and personal as it crossed the planet Mars. NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) also entered orbit around the planet a few weeks before this fly past. While most instruments on the MAVEN were switched off during the event so as to protect the sensitive equipment, the magnetometer was left running.

Afterwards it was observed that the comet’s powerful magnetic field temporarily merged with, and overwhelmed, the planet’s weak field. Simply speaking the charged particles from the comet’s tail entered the atmosphere of Mars and charged it giving rise to storms. This is incredible given the fact that the two bodies were separated by 140,000 kilometers even at the closest point of the flypast.

Jared Espley, a MAVEN science team member at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said that the main action took place during the comet’s closest approach, but the planet’s magnetosphere began to feel some effects as soon as it entered the outer edge of the comet’s coma.

Think of this science project as studying a curtain which gets ruffled when a speeding wind flows past the door. This state of affairs lasted for a while before Mars was gradually saw its atmosphere come back to normal.

Alternative fuels are a huge buzz word today as we race towards depleting our stockpiles of fossil fuels. Solar, wind and water power have been harnessed with varying degrees of success by different technologies that researchers have come up with. Now its the time of the ocean to prove that its more than just the largest feature of planet Earth.

Japanese scientists have come up with turbines that are powered by ocean currents in a modified hydroelectricity project. Their green energy comes straight from the bed of the ocean where they have placed a submerged marine turbine to harness the energy of the Kuroshio Current.

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have designed this science project which involves a three blade turbine with a float, a counter weight and a nacelle to house electricity generating components. Testing of the science project has revealed that the turbine is both robust and stable.

The expected output of the alternative power source is likely to reach 1 GW which is the same as a single nuclear reactor. That is the capacity to power close to 400,000 homes. Think it is time to say goodbye to the impending world wide energy crisis when these babies go into mass production!

Ever so often the human mind tries to imagine the scale of the universe it lives in, and ever so often it gets boggled by it. This is why the two short scientific essay type films that the brothers Charles and Ray Eames made way back in 1977 still fascinate the viewers to date.

The short videos are easily available on YouTube if you would like to take a look at the magnitude of the universe in a relative context. It starts with the normal human eye’s view that one would see with the naked eye, then it begins to increase the scope of area by powers of ten. This takes you through city, state, and country pretty quickly. Soon you are looking at the Earth and its place in the solar system, and the milky way galaxy.

Eventually the view expands to the entire known universe. Then it retraces back to normal human eye view, only to begin a reverse journey by shrinking the view by the power of ten. The final stop is coming down to a single atom whose quarks can be observed. That is when this science project helps you realize that the vast regions of outer space and the tiny atom within, are actually pretty similar. Quiet a fascinating concept.

The rising levels of carbon di oxide that are being blamed for climate change were relatively unknown before 1958. In that year American chemist and oceanographer Charles Keeling began the key experiment for measuring the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Keeling set up his observatory at Mauna Loa in Hawaii. He chose the remote location as it was not influenced by any smoky chimneys near by. His initial measurements shows that there was a cyclic dip in the CO2 levels in the summer as plants absorbed more of it from the atmosphere. However by 1961 his measurements showed that levels of CO2 were rising constantly.

He tried to bring his findings to the world, but no one was interested. He even had to struggle for funding. Unfortunately he was not heeded even after managing to scramble for funding to keep the project going for many years. His long running experiment’s data is what helps observers today.

The science project now has over a hundred locations across the globe where CO2 measurements are routinely taken. The Keeling Curve shows us that CO2 concentration was at 315 parts per million by volume in 1958 but has gone up to 401 parts per million by volume in 2014. What’s scary is that its higher than it was in the last eight hundred thousand years, and its still rising.

Evolution in human beings and other species has been well documented. The concept is simple. The traits that are important  for survival are passed on to the next generation. It is credited with developing sharper senses, opposable thumbs and other mental and physical traits that made it easier to survive. The documentation of scientific evidence allows us to proclaim that without evolution, we as a species would definitely have been wiped out.

Considering the fact that all the electronics that we use is also being wiped out, or becoming obsolete as soon as the technology improves, we may be better off if we can program robots to evolve with the new technology. It is with this idea that two research teams in Zurich and Cambridge came up with a science project to build robots that could evolve in successive generations.

The mother robot is essentially a robotic arm which uses small cubes which are baby robots to build new arrangeable patterns of robots that are given a task. The mother is programmed to insert random mutations into the genome of each successive generation. The genetic blueprints of successful robots are the ones that get used next time round while deficient ones are discarded. After about ten generations the robots were performing twice as well as the first generation.

Ever so often the successful treatment of a cancer patient depends on an early and accurate diagnosis. Researchers at the National Institute of Health (NIH), US, have identified a way to check for colon, lung, breast, stomach, and womb cancer with a single blood test. This will surely be a very useful diagnostic tool.

Having identified a striking signature in the DNA of the tumour that occurs in these types of cancers was the first step to developing this tool. They also have found some evidence to support the fact that a similar methylation signature may be present in other types of cancers. This will lead to future blood tests that may be able to identify a wide range of possible cancers in a relatively easy and inexpensive manner.

Dan Kastner from the NIH says that finding the signature was an incredibly arduous and valuable process. He says that the findings would play an important step in developing a test to identify early cancers through a simple blood test. Needless to say that the successful culmination of this science project will make life much easier for health care professionals in terms of successfully diagnosing cancers and getting the right treatment to their patients.

When we think of a Black Hole, one automatically gets the danger sign in the head. However it seems that one need not wave the red flag all the time as they could be useful. A Black Hole could become the ultimate power generator as per Stephen Hawkins.

As per Professor Hawkins a mountain sized black hole could provide enough x-rays and gamma rays to power the entire world’s electricity supply. The single black hole would be able to generate 10 million megawatts of electricity. That is the good part. The not so good part is actually finding a way to harness that power.

Remember we want to tap into the power without unleashing the pull of the black hole on us or our planet. If one tried to place the mountain sized black hole in a power station it would simply get pulled to the centre of the Earth. That is not the ideal location for a power station.

Of course this is assuming that we finally come up with a viable science project that allows us to find small enough black holes and transport them through outer space to us without incident. Lots of strings to be tied up in this project.

It was a well documented fact that spending time in outer space was going to affect your health adversely. Your sleep cycle is affected, you may have suffered atrophied muscles and apparently some may even be having trouble with their eyesight.

Now researchers at the Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences Division at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas have found out that genetic differences in enzymes present in the human body may be the actual culprits when it comes to many diseases.

Scott M. Smith who is involved with the research said that they have identified a genetic link in astronauts with vision issues. While they are yet to identify why, or how it happens exactly, they are hopeful of studying the people who are suffering from eye trouble after being in space to be able to identify the cause and eventually find a cure for the problem.

The results of the scientific study will naturally have far fetching implications on future astronauts who will work for NASA in outer space. The researchers hope that more work into the genetic and nutritional reasons for the issues arising from these enzymes will help them solve the riddle faster.

The French government, several commercial companies and the crowd sourcing campaign which are providing the initial funding for building the vessel have got to be anxious to see it completed soon. Not that you will be in any danger of missing it when it finally does hit the waves.

The monumental Sea Orbiter is going to have a structure of 27 meters above sea level and 31 meters below sea level. There are going to be different observation decks at both above and below sea level zones.

The Sea Orbiter will have a pressurised module where aquanauts can live and work. They will be able to move freely from the module to the sea without wasting time for decompression as traditional divers have to do. This will make it possible to save a lot of time in deep sea research as they can live in the underwater module for much longer periods of time than ever possible before.

Astronauts may join the aquanauts in the deep sea module to live under pressurised space living conditions before they head out to outer space. Of course the primary purpose of the Sea Orbiter will remain to help facilitate the learning and research activities that ocean related science experiments can provide the scientists on board the vessel.