A thunderstorm is a common enough event around the world which sees lightening light up the sky and roars of thunder roll by. The sight may be a familiar one, but scientists are now considering an unfamiliar concept – capturing the power of lightening and harnessing it for their own use. Can something as random as a bolt of lightening actually be harnessed?

A single bolt of lightening can produce a great deal of energy. That is an undeniable fact. The random nature of its occurrence is what has made it an unpredictable and rather unreliable source of possible power. So what has changed now?

Scientists have now tried to use lasers  to direct the lightening away from striking the ground and instead striking target points from which their power could be used to generate electricity. Andre Mysyrowicz has actually managed to deflect lightening using laser lanes onto a specific target in Paris.

The science project at the optical lab of the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Techniques Avancees has even made lightening travel a curved path between electrodes. Their ground breaking work makes it possible for us to believe that in the not so distant future it may be possible to generate electricity by capturing the power of lightening.

Smartphones have taken over a number of tasks in our lives. From the time we get up using the alarm on the smartphone, to each meeting and appointment that they remind us of, to the fun we have on social media sites using the hone, there is little that smartphone apps will not allow you to do. So can they help with telemedication?

What exactly does one mean by this term? Telemedication involves evaluating the condition of patients at a remote location and then prescribing the right care and medication for them. Using the smartphone application it would be possible for medical care professionals to get a better idea about the condition of a particular patient and allow them to prescribe better care.

A specialist who works from a desktop or laptop computer would be able to consult with emergency room physicians at the rural hospital site and be able to evaluate the patient’s needs. Naturally this would improve the treatment that the patient received.

This is where using a simple smartphone would help improve the standard of treatment that a patient received. Not everyone can have expensive equipment in each rural out of the way hospital but just about everyone can get access to a smartphone. A great illustration of how one science innovation can make a huge difference to medicare.

Automation of long assembly lines is a standard practice in most manufacturing industries today. Robotic arms have taken up tedious and repetitive assembly jobs in many industries, so will a robot be taking up the running of a mine as well? Rio Tinto, the world’s largest mining conglomerate sure seems to think so.

The Australian part of the company has been making plans to automate mining processes to a considerable degree. The different forms of automation would include the actual digging, transferring of material, processing the stuff and then transporting the processed end product to the railway lines where they can be shipped out from.

The entire process of mining would be automated and the entire operation would be controlled by a man sitting in a location far away from the physical mine. The remotely controlled system would be able to save money on manpower and be more effective than the current manual system in place.

Of course its not going to happen overnight, but Rio Tinto hopes to make it happen within the next decade. At least on one of its current underground mines. If the process is successful they will naturally use it again on other mines that they own. Now that’s a science project that will need a lot of help.

Every time the wind picks up in a storm you are left hanging on to your umbrella with all your might to ensure that it doesn’t take off with the next gust of wind that assails you. A very common problem for which some scientists have come up with a rather unique solution – the storm proof umbrella.

Researchers have been working on an unflappable umbrella which would be able to withstand winds of 113 kph speed. The cycle helmet style umbrella has an aerodynamic design which makes it tough for the wind to blow it away. The flow of the wind is directed over and around the helmet making sure that it stays in place.

The helmet tapers in the back giving the asymmetric design a chance to hold on despite the strongest blowing gusts. The Senz design as it is called was tested in a Dutch study carried out in a wind tunnel. The researchers determined that the Senz design umbrella was much more likely to be effective than the traditional umbrella in a storm which had strong gusts of wind blowing.

The gale force winds did not affect the storm proof umbrella of the Senz design. So perhaps it would be a good idea to benefit from this scientific study and purchase these new storm proof umbrellas to ensure that you don’t get wet in the next storm that come along.

Think of bugs and ones thoughts end up with germs, bacteria, viruses and illness. However here is one bacterial bug that you may not want to keep at bay. It seems that researchers have found a metal tolerant bacteria that can withstand toxicity to produce gold.

At the Michigan State University researchers fed the bacteria known as “cupriavidus metallidurans” large amounts of gold chloride or liquid gold. In a week’s time the bacteria transformed this toxic material into a small gold nugget of 24 carat pure gold.

Kazem Kashefi who is an assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics said that what they were doing was microbial alchemy. It involved transforming a material that has no value into solid gold which has considerable value.

Does this mean that everyone can now get rich by growing their own gold at their home? Or can we look forward to making toxic waste heaps into the valuable precious metal gold?Unfortunately the answer is no. The process is too cost prohibitive for it to be managed on a large scale.

So biotechnology may throw up a few surprises every once in a while. It would be well worth conducting your own science project on just how useful some of these surprise results could be.