For those who love to run in the great outdoors, running on a treadmill can seem boring and not at all stimulating. At the same time, running is definitely much easier on a treadmill than in inclement weather in the winters. The question then arises, which is better?

Is running in the real world, going over unknown ground more difficult and challenging than simply notching up the slope gradient while running in a gym on a treadmill? The scientists who decided to measure the difference came up with the observation that yes, running outdoors does expend more energy.

However, the difference is so minute that it would be insignificant unless you were running really fast. For a mile run in seven minutes or less the difference in energy expended is less than one percent. So you will end up burning a 100 calories for running that mile if you ran indoors or just 101 calories if you ran outside.

The simplest solution is to set the treadmill at a one percent incline and that will compensate for the one percent less energy expended. The real thing to stay healthy is not the discovery of the science experiment, but the frequency of how often you do exercise!

Ever wondered why when you listen to loud and popular music beats, your heart begins to pound. The blood begins to flow and you feel all active and energised? Also the reverse is true for softer songs. When you listen to soothing music your heartbeat also calms down. Some music which is soothing may be considered romantic as well.

While no music listener will doubt the fact that music really affects their mood, a number of physiological experiments have also been conducted to back up the effect music has on pour physical bodies. Now scientists have come up with a possible explanation as to why the sound of music affects us so very deeply.

Foetuses can experience external sounds when they are six months in the womb. By the end of the second trimester the mother’s heartbeat is easily heard and when it rises the baby begins to associate the sound with the stress that she is feeling.

In essence our response to soothing music is calming but to fast beats is stressed. In a sort of empathic memory based reaction to how we felt our mother’s heart beat race when she was feeling stressed. More science projects may need to be undertaken to establish this as a fact, but the theory is interesting.

With the state of fossil fuels being what they are, it makes sense for us to make cars that are more fuel efficient. There are different ways that you can do this. You can make better engines so that the fuel is converted more efficiently into energy with minimal wastage. Or you can redesign the car frame to ensure that the drag force acting on it is reduced allowing it to be more energy efficient.

The folks over at Delft University  of Technology decided to go with the second option when they designed what they called the Ecorunner. These students of engineering came up with the most aerodynamic shape for a car as yet designed. You will be excused for thinking that its actually some kind of small plane, when you look at it first.

The Ecorunner has a drag coefficient of 0.0512 which is about six times less than most mass produced cars these days. So how does this reduced drag coefficient translate into fuel efficiency you want to know? Rather well as per the tests conducted on it. It shows a 1227.5 km per cubic meter of fuel efficiency on its hydrogen tank.

In regular car terms that is sort of like running more than 3000 km on a single litre of petrol. Now that is a science project that everyone can put their weight behind.

The atmosphere of the earth allows us a certain degree of protection from the harmful ultra violet and infra red rays that stream towards us continuously from outer space.  The sun’s rays contain potentially skin damaging properties and while the ozone layer does manage to shield us from some of them, it’s a good idea to double up the security by adding sun screen to our skin.

Now what exactly is sun screen and how does it help? The main components of a good sun screen usually include zinc oxide in heavy oil or white particles of titanium dioxide. These are inorganic particles which opaque sun blocks use as an effective layer of paint on the skin to shield it from the harmful rays of the sun.

In a lighter clear sun cream you will find organic compounds such as phenyl benzimidazole. While this will allow the visible rays of light’s spectrum into the skin, it will still protect it against the ultra violet block of rays. Most good sun screens have done some scientific study and tend to use a combination of the organic and inorganic compound particles to give a better range of protection to the user.

Did you know that energy is needed for just about every activity that we do these days? You can literally not take a sip of water and not contribute to the Carbon Footprint, or addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Here is an eye opener for simple, day to day activities that you may not have realized actually have a carbon footprint.

When you sit and watch TV for two hours on a 24- inch plasma screen television, you have managed to created a carbon footprint of 440 gm. This is the equivalent of driving a car for some 1.6 km. If you have a 32 inch LCD screen that you watched for the two hours, the carbon footprint just came down to 176 gm. Yes, the older technology is actually greener.

Did you just order yourself a large cappuccino? You just added 235 gm to the atmosphere! How did that happen, you wonder? Partly because of the cow that was contributing to the milk that coffee needed to be made. A black tea or coffee cup, made at home where just enough water for that one cup was boiled would just cause a carbon footprint of 21 gm.

Bottles water has nearly 1150 times the emissions attached to it compared to a glass of simple tap water. As a 500 ml bottle contributes 160 gms to the atmosphere as compared to the 0.14 gm of the tap water. Just let this science project convince you to be more conscious about your daily lifestyle choices.

When you think of carbon footprints, most people automatically picture a factory, or a manufacturing unit. One that emits copious amounts of smoke and dust. One that raises the level of air pollution along with the carbon content in the air. Did you ever imagine that something as simple as sending an email can also have a carbon footprint?

Yes, apparently the digital activities that you do also contribute to the carbon footprint. A small email you send out can have about 4gm of CO2 added to the atmosphere. A large email attachment may even add 50gm. Five large emails have a carbon footprint which is the equivalent of burning 120 gm of coal. And guess what? The digital world generates more of a carbon footprint than you would have thought possible.

Receiving a spam email, one that you don’t even open but simply delete, also has a carbon footprint of 0.3 gm. If you decide to conduct a single page web search on a laptop which is fairly energy efficient you are likely to release a carbon footprint of 0.2 gm. If that same web search is conducted on an older model desktop, you are looking at a carbon footprint as high as 4.5 gm.

So the next time you think that just because you are personally not riding a car, or working in a factory, you are not contributing to the carbon content in the atmosphere, think again. As per this science study just about any activity, including wholly digital ones, contribute to the carbon content. There are of course ways to reduce this.