Long before the James Bond movie which declared diamonds to be a girls best friend, the value of the crystal was known and appreciated by many ancient civilizations. A diamond formed from coal over millions of years and excruciating levels of pressure is today the perfect gift for your better half, but they can literally cost the earth to purchase.

Buying a diamond engagement ring can be akin to declaring bankruptcy for the next couple of months till you can recover from the high costs. However in place of natural diamond if you were to go in for a lab grown stone named a microwave diamond, the costs substantially diminish.

These stones have the same physical appearance as a real diamond. they even share their chemical make up with the real deal. The only difference is that they have been produced artificially in a matter of months rather than in the cradle of mother nature over a couple of thousand years.

They have become immensely popular over the last few years. These 10 week miracles seem to be very popular with people who are looking for something smart, but at the right price. Now this is one science project that is pushing an unusual subject – romance!

Alien technology in science fiction movies always has that magical material that space crafts are made of which tend to seal themselves up even as the bullets split it apart. The gaping hole slowly but surely begins to close on itself and soon there is no evidence left of the damage done by the bullets that were showered on it.

Well, it seems that scientists today have managed to figure out some of the secrets that would make it possible to become a reality on future space crafts we build. A self healing material has been developed by researchers that can prevent structural penetration from becoming a catastrophic event.

With the air supply that is required for astronauts to survive in space being a premium, this new self healing substance is obviously going to be a very important development. The material was created by sandwiching a reactive liquid between two layers of a solid polymer.

During experiments conducted by the researchers when the material was shot at with a bullet, the liquid quickly reacted with the oxygen to form a solid plug for the hole in a second. Needless to say this science experiment is going to be a closely watched one.

There have been a number of catalogued fears in the history of psychology, but as technology comes into play, new fears arise. Like for instance Nomophobia, a fear of being without your mobile phone. You may think that’s funny but as per PhD students in Iowa State University its quite a serious problem.

Caglar Yildirim and Ana-Paula Correia have identified four dimensions for this fear.  They used a questionnaire to test people’s reactions to statements that were given. The scale ran from 1 where the participant strongly disagreed to 7 where they strongly agreed. The higher they scored the more severe form of Nomophobia did they suffer from.

In the section of the questionnaire where people were asked to answer how they would react if they did not have their smartphone with them, a number of statements were made about how uncomfortable and anxious they would feel. Some were concerned about not being able to contact family, while others would miss keeping up to date with social websites. Someone even mentioned that they would not know what to do.

The truth is that mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives. Smartphones act not merely as phone but as cameras, internet access points, communication hub and a personal assistant as well. All this science experiment pointed out is the importance that we give to this little gadget in our lives.

Clean drinking water is a shrinking resource that the whole world is now becoming aware of . The top priority now is to find a way to take the polluted water around us and making it potable in the easiest and most cost effective manner. It is this need that made Theresa Dankovich turn to nano technology even as she studied the material properties of paper.

Based on her initial research work scientists has now come up with a new filtration device which is being termed the “drinkable super book”. The pages of this book have been embedded with bacteria killing metal nano particles. The simple, inexpensive method uses pages from this book which are slid into a special holding device in to which the water is poured for filtration.

This water is then filtered through the book’s special page, killing the bacteria through nano technology and being collected in the holding device below. A single page infused with this nano technology can filter nearly a hundred litres of water. That is equal to a single person’s water requirement for nearly four years. Needless to say this science project has the potential to bring safe drinking water to a number of inaccessible regions worldwide.

How long do you sit surfing the posts that pop up on your Facebook news feed, Twitter scope, or reading email forwards? Do the minutes turn to hours even without your noticing? Do you find yourself addicted to checking the last posts added? If you are over using the internet there is a good chance that you are becoming a bit more forgetful than others around you.

A researcher from the De Montfort University in Leicester conducted a study which found that the more time a person sat on the internet via laptop or mobile phone, the more likely he was to develop cognitive failures. These included behaviours such as a range of blunders, a lack of general awareness of what’s happening around them and even slip ups in speech.

If you think you are spending too much time on the never ending streams of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media websites, you may like to ease off the habit for a bit. You may just realize that you have become distracted from the real world and its going on without your help. If nothing else, this science study sure highlights the need for us to step away from the digital world for our own health.

Creating an unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV is not a new concept, but when the UAV is printed and can be assembled without using any tools, that is new indeed. With a wingspan of one and a half meters, this UAV made in the UK can cruise at a speed of 93 kph.

Called the SULSA, the UAV was successfully tested from a Royal Navy Warship, HMS Mersey and landed on Chesil beach in the Wyke Regis Training Facility in Weymouth after flying about 500 meters. It had on board a camera to record its flight and researchers monitored the UAV from a control van using the visual clues from the camera.

The UAV was used As part of Project Triangle to demonstrate that it could be easily launched at sea and used successfully in a maritime environment. The UAV was printed at the University of Southampton after extensive designing and research.

It is the world’s first completely printed aircraft and received a positive reaction when it landed on Dorset Beach after a short flight. Needless to say, that this science project has a lot of potential uses in both the commercial and military industries. It will be interesting to see how it is developed further.