Evolution may have given the zebra stripes while their cousins the horses got away with none, but researchers are still trying to figure out what triggered the difference. In specific an evolutionary ecologist at Lund University in Sweden recently conducted an interesting science experiment.

Susanne Akesson had a theory that insects may have been part of the reason that zebras developed stripes. To test this theory she put out plastic models of black, white and striped horses and coated them all with odorless insect glue. It came to light that horseflies, a kind of insect that affects both zebras and horses, preferred the white or black horse to the striped one.

Since horseflies can lay eggs in the coat and cause infection it made sense to develop a protective mechanism for the zebras. Also horses are bred by humans and may have missed out on the evolutionary advantage due to this reason.While zebras had to pretty much fend for themselves in the African Savannah.

Susanne is hopeful that the scientific study will result in a system of protection from insects for humans. If all else fails, at least we can wear striped clothing to help reduce the number of insects that hover over us on a trek.

Flavonoids are said to provide the human body with a protective effect. They are found in specific plants which are said to increase the body’s immunity. So far there have been no tests designed to check the effectiveness of the anti oxidizing properties of flavanoids.

Scientists at the Institute for Nutrition and Food Sciences at Bonn, in Germany have been growing a special set of herbs to test the effectiveness of the flavonoids that they carry. In place of the regular carbon c12, these plants are grown with a rarer isotope C-13.

This is likely to be easier to measure in blood samples of the experiment volunteers who eat these specially grown herbs. The volunteers will be tested for any other protective effects that their immune system is boosted with. Of course the plants need to be grown before they can be eaten.

The tricky part is the actual growing of these herbs. They have to be kept in a special chamber where the air is controlled. The doctoral student who is tending to these plants is not allowed to breath inside the chamber as the carbon in the carbon dioxide she breathes out will distort the results of the science experiment by altering the carbon type present in the plants.

Children learn their first language at the time that they are exploring the world around them and learning about their own bodies and self. So does it make it easier to learn a new language when you employ your body along with your brain to the task? At the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive  and Brain Sciences in Germany a new research project shows that when you learn a new language you do it better if you use your whole body to learn it.

Italian linguist Manuela Macedonia and fellow researcher Thomas Knosche have conducted an interesting scientific research into the new learning technique. They devised a new artificial language called Vimmi and taught it to 20 test subjects. Besides conventional text and audio methods they included teaching movements of the body accompanying each word.

Words that had specific physical meanings such as bread or cutting were easily assimilated with the actions, but what was surprising to the researchers was that words with more abstract connotations such as actually or so what, which have no obvious gestures but carried body gestures in Vimmi were also remembered with ease due to the body gestures. An interesting language study for a science project.

Global Warming seems like this huge mess that mankind has collectively made of the climate. So how can one individual man or woman do anything that can help set the scales right? What can one person do to make it alright? Quite a lot when you think about it!

During hard economic times, it is difficult to get people to focus on an environmental issue which seems to have little immediate bearing on their lives. However if they act lovingly towards the planet and its resources, it is they themselves who will benefit.

So how can you help as an individual? Global warming takes place due to excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Look for ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Try to use the cycle instead of the car. You will reduce fuel emissions.

Having a barbecue may seem like fun to you but is very bad for the environment. Cook your food in a fuel effective manner preferably without burning too much coal.Fossil fuels are used to generate electricity as well. So the more you use your lights, fans and other electrical gadgets the larger your carbon footprint will be.

The big companies in the corporate world run because they make a profit. If they begin to take responsibility for their manufacturing processes and begin using cleaner fuel, it affects their profitability. When the government makes them clean up environmental messes that they create it runs down their profits and may even in an occasional case shut down the company.

This is why it is difficult to get corporates to take responsibility for climate change and global warming. Governments around the world are making laws that will ensure that the corporates take some heat if they are not environmentally concerned. The Carbon Tax being levied by Australia on its mining industry is a perfect example of this.

Perhaps it is unfair to expect one big company to pay up when all the small companies are contributing to the situation just as much. It may be a worthwhile science project to come up with a measuring system to see just how much greenhouse gas emission comes out of each factory to be able to penalize the company according to its actions.

It is easy to say that the big bad corporates are the ones that are burning the most fossil fuels and causing global warming. It negates the responsibility of the individual for his part in the massive event. Just as every drop in the ocean contributes to its volume, every action of the individual contributes to global warming.

If you have lived a decade or two on the planet you would have come to the conclusion that the temperatures on the planet are far more volatile this year than they have ever been in the past. The winter has been cooler and the summer has been warmer than previous seasons.

There is a definite swing to extreme temperatures on the planet. So why is Climate Change still considered a myth? Human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to increased concentrations of greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmosphere leading to adverse changes in global climate.

The corporates worldwide have decided that Climate Change is not related to their activities. Half of the companies misrepresented climate science in their public communications, and the majority of them found other ways to spread misinformation. This included befuddling concerned citizens with bogus reports of their own findings.

They seem to be following the path of the tobacco industry whose end goal was delaying sensible regulations that protect our health and safety. The companies are out to cause confusion and delay by contesting all the findings of any climate change scientific study ever undertaken. A fact that does not bode well for the collective future of the planet.

We feel Global Warming is a distant problem and will eventually be solved by the miracles of science as it does not affect human lives and lifestyles too much. The truth is while humans may just find the planet a bit warmer and so decide to go indoors and enjoy the AC, the rest of the flora and fauna on Earth is at risk.

The Gila National Forest is battling a wildfire since June 2012 that is a direct result of global warming. The fire in the state of New Mexico started because the high temperatures dried up the forest leaving is vulnerable to fire which incidentally is believed to have started due to lightening. Now the dry wood is acting as fuel to feed the fire raging through the forest.

The Gila Wilderness has been in the past a fragile home to a small population of Mexican Wolves. This rare breed of wolves is now facing extinction in the region due to the forest. The young bears, mountain lions, birds, coyotes, and all the other species just born a few months ago in the spring are also going to find it tough to survive as the forest cover depletes with the wildfire.

Global Warming is not some distant problem that maybe our descendants will have to face, its a current issue that we need to deal with right now. What would be most helpful would be to have science projects highlighting this problem’s various aspects and offering concrete solutions.

Global warming is the term used to describe ever rising temperatures on the planet due to the activities of mankind. This heating up of the planet is now on record thanks to a number of diligent science projects taken up by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.

NOAA scientists found that the average temperature — 64.3 degrees F – for the contiguous US during May 2012 was 3.3 degrees higher than the long-term average. This means that the earth is losing moisture and is becoming drier. The rain isn’t helping as the nationally averaged precipitation as per the NOAA scientists was 2.51 inches, which is 0.36 inches below average.

31 states experienced record warmth for the season. Only the Northwest did not see warmer-than-average temperatures; only Oregon and Washington had temperatures that were normal. The scientists go so far as to say that 37.4 percent of the contiguous US is experiencing drought conditions.

The drought and wind created ideal wildfire conditions in the Southwest. Over 210,000 acres of the Gila National Forest in western New Mexico have already been consumed by forest fires. The animals were trapped and those which survived the fire may not last much longer as they are now starving in the absence of their natural food. Is there a science project that can help overcome this catastrophe?

Having Science as a subject can open up a number of unusual and interesting career options for a student. There are different disciplines of science under which you can pursue a career. These include fields that one would not associate with the traditional image of science and technology.

For instance you could be wondering what you can do with biology? Life sciences offer more than the opportunity to be either a doctor, a dentist, a health educator or a biology teacher. You could become an agricultural technician, or if you prefer animals to plants, a vet. You would also have the option of becoming a biochemist, a chiropractor, or even a genetic counselor. Definitely not typical roles and careers that you would associate with life science, are they?

Similarly you would be amazed at the diversity that being an engineer can afford. You can rest assured that the robotics expert, the civil engineer, the CAD designer, the software specialist and the mechanical engineer are not the only jobs open to you in this field. You could be an energy engineer, a landscape artist, a marine architect, a nanotechnology developer or a mapping technician.

Again none of these roles are typically associated with engineering, but you need to be one to do the job. The truth is that science is applied in practically all our vocations to some extent of the other and so some scientific experimentation can always lead to a new discipline being built on an older one.

In recent years there has been a major effort to revive STEM subjects that include science, technology, engineering and math. The lack of skilled manpower in these fields has led to encouraging the development of interest in these subjects while students are still in school.

This does not mean that your career options get limited to being a researcher, an engineer or a robotics specialist. There are any number of interesting jobs that will be open to you as a result of your mastering the STEM subjects. Some of these include jobs that may never show you the inside of a laboratory at all.

Many of these jobs are new and have just developed in the last few decades. Take for instance Climate Change Analysts. They are in great demand. Their apparent ability to use scientific principles and mathematical calculations to predict the effect of human activity on climate change is much in demand.

Another interesting career option includes becoming a Cartographer. While maps have been made since times immemorial the data that a good photogrammetrist can provide can be invaluable for the accuracy of the new generation of maps.

Maps can give us topographic, climate, and even political information so there is no chance of such a job becoming tedious or boring.  Why not make as accurate a map you can of your own neighborhood as part of your science project?