If you were to ride the rail line from norther Germany near Hamburg to Bremerhaven, it may be possible that you were riding the world’s first commercial hydrogen train. There are two trains on the route and seem to be what the future of trains will be. The train called Coradia iLint, has been developed by the French firm Alstom, has been pressed into service by Germany this September.

These Hydrogen Trains are fueled by hydrogen fuel cells that cause no carbon emissions and are considered much more environmentally friendly than conventional fossil fuel run trains. Also they steal a march over electric trains as they require no overhanging wires fueled by electricity to run. This makes it easily adaptable to different rail routes. It is also much cheaper to set up when compared to electrical train routes.

The inherent hydrogen cell generates the electricity required to run the train through a chemical reaction. They cause no pollution, including noise pollution as the reaction is a silent one. Imagine riding a train that makes no engine sounds. The state is extremely interested in this trial run in the north of Germany before implementing the trains all over the nation. This is a science project that literally delivers the future to us.

When you think about an airport, you naturally think about the people who work there. The entire process of getting from your cab to your flight has you meeting and interacting with many airport officials. However in the future, it may be possible to transit through an airport without interacting with a single human official. In fact Singapore’s Changi Airport may be the first in the world where airport bots will take over completely.

The airport has been judged the best airport in the world for six years by Skytrax. It is dedicated to making airports manned by robots a reality and has actually constructed an entire terminal to test these bots of the future in real time. As airports get bigger with the need to handle larger volumes of passengers, it is also required to ensure that these passengers get seamless service while they transit through the airport.

Singapore has a limited pool of  domestic talent to handle such a growing need. The city state also has an aversion to allowing too many ex-pats in the country. In this scenario, getting robots to do the work of humans may seem like the most practical alternative. The current science project in the test terminal will prove if it’s possible.

SpaceX has been an innovative company right from the day it was first conceived by Tesla electric car CEO Elon Musk. Now the California based company plans to use it’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) to launch a tourist around the moon. Their Twitter handle said that SpaceX has signed the world’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard the BFR launch vehicle – an important step towards enabling access for everyday people who dream of travelling to space.

A human has not stepped on the moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to explore the lunar surface in 1969. Since then only 24 people have ever been to the moon. President Donald Trump has been pushing NASA to put boots on the lunar surface. NASA hopes to create a lunar gateway on the Moon that will serve as a launching point for future missions heading into deep space.

SpaceX is a primary commercial partner of NASA in it’s endeavor. It’s BFR is the newest rocket with a capacity to lift 150 tons in to space using the power of it’s 31 engines. This super powerful launch vehicle is also what the Moon tourist, whose name or monetary contribution to the science project have not been divulged, will ride.

If you are a health food fanatic, you are going to have to grill your meat another way. Apparently a study conducted at the University of Oxford in the UK has concluded that grilling with coal as a fuel is really a heart risk. Derrick Bennet, who led the study said that they focused on the effects of long term use of coal, wood and charcoal as a cooking fuel as associated with a risk of increasing cardiovascular disease.

The study was based on adults in the age group of 30 to 79 years living in China. The data was collected for over four years between 2004 and 2008 on 341,730 adults to identify the potential impact of cooking with solid fuels. It has been suggested that the air pollution from the solid fuels may have led to the increase in heart related illnesses in the group.

The study also turned an eye on how switching from solid fuel to clean fuel, that is either gas or electric fuel, to cook had impacted the study group. It was concluded in the scientific study that the switch from solid to clean fuel helped to lower the instances of cardiovascular related deaths in the study group.

Robotics is a constantly evolving field. There are new technological advances every few months that make it possible for robotic engineers to create new designs all the time. Needless to say some robots have been crucial for the purpose they have been designed, while others merely a good source of entertainment for the users.

At the University of Texas, San Antonio, nanorobots were created by Soutik Betal as part of his doctoral research. They were merely 120 nano meters large. These small robots were remotely controlled by an electromagnetic field. They also have the distinction of being the world record holders of being the smallest medical robots. Certainly a science project for the books!

The robots interact with biological cells and can be used in the future to help treat patients with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. They are composed of two parts – the core and the shell – both of which are made of multifunctional oxide materials. The core is magnetic and can change shape when magnetic fields are introduced. The little robots can be used to align themselves with a cell, push cells into different locations, and even deliver medication to cells. Who knows what else they can be trained to do!

Jet lag is often experienced when traveling from one zone to the next. If you are zipping from London to Sydney, halfway across the world, this is bound to hit you hard. Also in the given current scenario, the flight is not going to be one single leap. You will likely be halting for refueling and more passengers at least one place in the middle.

Now Australian Airline Qantas is hoping to make life a lot more easier for people. Teaming up with air craft manufacturer Boeing, the Australians hope to use a plane that is designed to make a direct flight between Sydney and London. The team have called it “Project Sunrise” and are hoping to ultimately fly a set of 300 passengers and their luggage on this 20 hour, nonstop flight as soon as 2022.

Direct connections from major cities in Europe, America and Africa would follow if Qantas is successful. The marathon flight will have to incorporate a lot of things like sleeping bunks, child care facilities, and even a gym where those feeling the need can stretch their limbs. All this in addition to the regular meals and air crew requirements. It’s a tall order, but it’s a science project that is entirely possible.

Obesity is a growing problem in today’s world. There’s just too many people who are over weight and struggling with lifestyle disorders. It makes sense then, that health care with a focus on weight loss is an essential area of research for many scientists. At the University of Surrey, UK, researchers have been investigating a simple and effective tool to lose weight.

Simple changes to the time you eat breakfast and dinner have been seen to reduce body fat in the scientific study. The participants were divided into two groups. One was asked to eat their meals at the normal times with no changes. While the second group was asked to delay their breakfast by 90 minutes and eat their dinner earlier by 90 minutes.

It was estimated that the participants who belonged to the second group ended up losing twice as much body fat as compared to those in the control group. A simple alteration of changing the meal timing can benefit the human body greatly. About 57% of the people mentioned in their responses that they reduced the amount of food they were eating due to a reduction in their appetite, cutback in snacking and having less opportunities to eat.

A lot has been said about limiting the usage of smartphones for children, but the same has not been applied to the parents. If it’s bad for the development of the children to be constantly on the phone, it’s equally bad for the connection between the parents and children when the parents are constantly found on the phone.

Pediatricians have always emphasized on the parents spending time getting to know their children to forge a strong familial bond with them. However Dr Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at the University of Michigan has dire findings based on a study conducted in the Ann Arbor region.

Dr Radesky has created a one page primer for parents on smartphone usage based on her research. Parents who are distracted by their mobile phones are less likely to have interactions with their children and more likely to have encounters that end in conflicts with them. Parents need to rethink their relationship with their phones if they want to have richer bonds with their children.

This scientific study has underscored the fact that meal times and interaction before bedtime need to be free of mobile phone interference in order for the children to actually feel that their parents are present with them.