Our planet Earth is situated in the galaxy known as The Milky Way. The closest, visible, neighboring galaxy is Andromeda. To find out the weight of a galaxy is difficult enough, but try comparing two of them to see which one is heavier? That is a real science project undertaken by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

Matthew Walker published a new paper demonstrating a new method that they have developed to measure galaxies. The team of researchers headed by Walker first gathered data available on the Local Group of each galaxy. The Local Group includes all those systems that lie in and right outside an area.

Then they combined their knowledge of gravity and expansion  to arrive at the mass of each galaxy. By studying two massive galaxies that are close to each other and the galaxies that surround them, we can take what we know about gravity and pair that with what we know about expansion to get an accurate account of the mass contained in each galaxy, said Walker.

The mass was calculated to include ordinary, visible matter and the invisible dark matter in the two galaxies. It was found that Andromeda had twice as much mass as the Milky Way. Incidentally in both the galaxies 90 percent of the mass was made up of dark matter as per the findings of the science project.

Pictures from the NASA spacecraft Cassini have revealed the geysers occurring on the moon of Saturn called Enceladus. For the last seven years Cassini has been studying and sending back images of Saturn and her moons for researchers back home. Now it is photographing the geysers on Enceladus to reveal that liquid water comes forth from some underground sea on the moon.

The icy moon, Enceladus, shows a geological basin on its south polar region which resembles tiger stripes. About 101 geysers have been spotted breaking out of these tiger stripe shapes regions. It is believed that the friction and tides caused by the unusual orbit of the moon around Saturn may be the reason why ice cold water turns into hot geysers.

The study also revealed that the geysers were not a near-surface phenomenon, but have much deeper roots. Specially since the greatest geyser activity was seen to coincide with times of greatest thermal radiation. Researchers found that narrow pathways through the ice shell of the moon’s surface remained open from the underground  sea all the way to the surface, if filled with liquid water.

This is what caused the sky high geysers to erupt when the radiation and heat increased. More images from Cassini will help the researchers continue working on this engrossing science project.

The bane of having to wear eye vision correcting glasses may actually have come to an end. If you need to wear glasses to read, you may be very interested in the new generation of gadgets that offer vision correcting displays. University of California – Berkeley researchers are coming up with display screens that compensate for a viewer’s visual impairments.

In other words the gadget creates sharper images that can be seen by a visually impaired person without having to wear eye glasses or contact lenses. The new generation of display can be easily transferred to gadgets such as smartphone, tablets, and computer screens. With some further research they may even be able to help people with more severe visual impairments.

The prototype of the vision correcting display was created in collaboration between researchers at University of California – Berkeley  and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The algorithm was developed by the former while the physical device for manufactured by the latter.

While these displays are a far cry from being available in the next smart phone that you purchase, the potential of the product is mind staggering. A whole lot more research is going to be done in this science project before it can be anywhere near ready for commercial production.

Diabetes is a lifestyle problem that has come up in a big way all over the globe in the last couple of decades. Type 2 diabetes involves insulin insensitivity which prevents blood glucose from being digested in the system. So far the only treatment available were minding your diet, exercising more and taking insulin shots.

Now researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered that the protein FGF1 injected into mice with diabetes can control their blood sugar levels for nearly two days. This treatment not only keeps the blood glucose under control but also insulin insensitivity in the mice.

Naturally the discovery has sparked speculation of making a drug that could not just control type 2 diabetes but actually cure it. The director of Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Lab, Ronald M. Evans, said that FGF1 offers a new method to control glucose in a powerful and unexpected way.

The new protein treatment is also likely to have less adverse side effects than the current methods of treating diabetes with insulin. Mice without diabetes showed no reaction when injected, but those with diabetes showed substantial improvement in glucose levels. Naturally it is still in experimental stages, but there is hope that at the end of this science project there may lie a cure for diabetes.

There were more than 1,344 student team proposals  made nationwide from which just 15 were selected to go into space. The NanoRacks-National Center for Earth and Space Science-Charlie Brown, and the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP) came together for project which was set up to promote the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education initiative.

The experiments and proposals were of all kind. A set of girl scouts from Hawaii wanted to conduct a study to collect data on the viability of edible plants grown in microgravity. If crew members could grow edible plants in space they would have fresh food supply enabling them to maintain themselves independently. After going through a number of plants they picked arugula microgreens to grow hydroponically in water, rather than in soil.

They also designed an incubator where an LED would provide the microgreens with light and warmth required for growth.  Again after some debate a purple light frequency made up of red and blue was thought to be the best choice for the LED color. Then they wrote a computer program for the incubator and LED to function independently.

It was a great team effort that saw their science project being selected for launch into outer space. One can’t help but think what experiment would you pick to send to the International Space Station if you had the chance? Interesting thought, isn’t it?