One of the basic diagnostic tests for detecting diseases is a blood test. However so far to get a blood test done you needed to go to a laboratory that was equipped to conduct the test and give you results. In remote regions and third world countries doctors often have no lab to refer the patients to. They have to make do with guess work based in the symptoms.

The scientists as the Michigan Technological University have now come up with a solution to overcome this problem. It is called the lab on a chip and consists of a portable credit card sized chip that can run diagnostics on anything from HIV to diabetes. So far these chips were only able to handle a single type of test as they were manually designed.

However Shiyan Hu, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Technological University, is working on a new kind of chip. This lab on a chip is being designed with the aid of a computer and will be able to run dozens of blood tests. What’s more all it will need to conduct these tests is a single drop of blood. The results of this science project will have great application in the field of health care worldwide.

The radio waves, the electro magnetic noise of computers, refrigerators, and all kinds of different waves that populate the air around us are invisible to human beings. However birds who use the magnetic compass in their bodies aligned with the radiations of the Earth are now being distracted by this man made electromagnetic noise.

Henrik Mouritsen from the University of Oldenburg worked on an experiment in Germany involving European robins who were getting confused because of this electromagnetic noise. He dubbed it “electrosmog”. Electrosmog messes up with the internal magnetic compass inside birds that lets them know North from South.

In the seven years that he has studied the effects of this electrosmog on birds Mouritsen has been able to rule out the effects of wi-fi, cellphone signals, and power lines based on their frequencies. However AM radio and electromagnetic fields from electronic such as computers, printers, and refrigerators remain as possible suspects.

Visiting cities while flying thousands of miles on their annual migration has now become even more dangerous for birds. Can they learn to navigate to avoid cities? Unlikely but can human beings learn to reduce their electromagnetic signature? Possible but requires more scientific study. The only way this will become a priority is if it is proved that humans also suffer illeffects from these emissions.

About twenty years ago a business meeting involved a group of people in the same conference hall in an office building. About ten years ago it was possible for a couple of these people to be present at the meeting using teleconferencing video tools. The participants could be seen and respond in real time to questions asked in the conference hall despite not being physically present.

Now science is taking the business meeting to the next level. Holo Meetings will allow you to see a three dimensional image of the person you conduct your business with instead of staring at a flat screen. The image of the person will be able to move around the conference room and point out to business tools as well.

Does this seem like Star Trek gone Star Wars? Maybe but the technology is being developed by more than one company in the world today. We are not sure whose science project will bear fruit first but yes, the future will see you conducting Holo Meetings with your colleagues who are sitting in some remote location.

Besides business meetings such an invention will also give a major boost to the educational and health care industries. Teachers sitting in school will be able to monitor students working at home. Doctors not in the hospital will be able to consult on a patient just brought in to the ER. The possibilities of using this technology are boundless.

Do you have a tendency to fall asleep when you get tired doing something monotonous? Imagine the disastrous results if a driver did actually feel so sleepy while driving at night that he fell asleep! Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid  in Spain have come up with a special solution to this problem. Here’s what they did.

They have designed a car system which is able to detect pedestrians up to 40 meters away from the car in poor visibility. The system uses infra red cameras to capture body heat to confirm the presence of pedestrians in the field of vision. In some versions of the system a warning is issued to the driver if a pedestrian is spotted too close to the car.

In an automated car system the same process is used, but it brings the car to a halt on its own if the pedestrian is in the danger zone. So even if the driver nods off at the wheel the car will not let him cause a tragic accident. Of course these systems are still under the testing stage at Intelligent Systems Laboratory of the university, but car makers the world over will be watching the progress of this science experiment with great attention.

There are some addictions that are legal and the morning cup tops the list. Tea and coffee are the beverages of choice for the morning fix. For those who love their coffee on the go, here is a new option from a Danish designer that allows you to fix your coffee anywhere. The Growers Cup claims to be coffee’s answer to the tea bag. The manufacturers of this new product describe it as a hybrid between a filter coffee brewer and a French Press.

The coffee bag is as simple to work as the tea bag. The process involves pouring hot water into the bag where the water is held over the coffee beans.  As with the tea bag, the longer you infuse the water the stronger the coffee will be. One bag uses about 300 ml of water to produce two cups of coffee.

Currently the Growers Cup offers their customers five different types of coffee bean variations. Just how successful the coffee bag will be in contrast to the tea bag only time can tell. What about you? Would you drink coffee that was brewed like this using a coffee bag? Or can you come up with a new science project in which you brew coffee just a little bit differently?

The arrival of plastic money made it easy for people to shop around the world. You no longer had to carry wads of cash tucked into your wallet to make a payment. One slim plastic credit card was enough to see through all the expenses that you could possibly have. It was revolutionary, but here’s the next big thing – Your Hand!

A Swedish start up company, called Quixter, has created a device that allows you to swipe your hand in place of a credit card to process payments.  The biometric system scans the veins present in your hand to identify you. Once the identification process is complete the payment is approved.

This system is based on the fact that like fingerprints no two human beings have the exact same pattern of veins in their hand. Quixter has tested 15 machine on the campus of Lund University. Fredrik Leifland who is a founder of the start up is a graduate in engineering of the Lund University.

Here is how the system works. You punch in the last four numbers of your phone number and then hold your hand over the sensor to process the payment. The whole transaction takes less than 5 seconds and is a great example of an innovative science project.

In a world that is growing desperate for power and energy due to fast depleting natural resources hope has been brought forth by a tiny island that is the first in the world to be powered entirely by water and wind. El Hierro is the smallest of the Spanish Canary Islands. Its capital Valverde is the center of major buzz as in June 2014 with the opening of another wind farm the island will be fully energy sufficient.

Currently alternative energy means like wind and water have not been consistent enough to provide uninterrupted power supply. However by combining the two natural means of energy production the Gorona del Viento power plant will ensure that the islanders always have electrical energy available. The wind farm will use five turbines installed in the north eastern region of El Hierro to provide an output of 11.5 megawatts which is more than enough to meet the demands of the nearly 10,000 residents of the island.

While islands across the globe have tried using solar and wind power El Hierro will be the first to ensure a constant supply of power without tapping in to an external electric power source. Now that is truly an awesome science project with spectacular results.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) held its first competition in which there were five categories that a machine could be entered. These included :Weird and Wonderful, Discovery, Equipment, Innovation, and People. Professor David Delpy, EPSRC’s Chief Executive was extremely impressed by the breadth of images and imagination exhibited demonstrating the talent, both scientific and artistic, that resides in the community.

Toby Harris, a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London’s Cognitive Science Research Group won the award for his Stand Up Comedian Robot.  Harris said they were thrilled that their experiment pitting human stand-up comedians against a robot was inspiring others. This ground-breaking research was helping them to understand both what makes for a great performance and what makes for a compelling audience experience.

They used new technologies to analyse people’s moment-by-moment responses, so while teaching a robot stagecraft was fun, it was the ability to read and react to the audience that made it work. More than the creative industries were at stake here said Harris, by better understanding what happens between performers and audiences, we should gain new insights into the value of bringing students together for class, or workers to a conference table.

Other science project entries to the inaugural competition of the EPSRC included the beauty of Rayleigh-Taylor instability shown in salt water as it accelerates into fresh water, the amazing Gömböc – the world’s only artificial self-righting shape, micro-scale vaccine mixing, cancer cells that resemble tropical islands seen from space, and mathematicians that appear to fly

Wisconsin Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory is dealing with the latest in interactive robots. They have so far come up with interesting uses for robots of the future. A game playing robot that can keep small children entertained was displayed at a recent open house show to display how much progress has been made in human – robot interaction.

Other robots at the show included one which served sushi to customers from a mock order table and a tele -prescence robot allowed a human to see things where he was not present but a robot was. They shared a gaze with special glasses made for the purpose.  HCI Lab’s telepresence robot consists of an iPad-like device running a video-conferencing program, attached to a motorized base with wheels. It is fondly called Skype on a Stick by its creators.

If robots can be made to act more human, humans will not have to learn new behaviors to interact with them. Think about a smart phone and how much it can do for you, but its all useless till you learn how to operate it. Many people have trouble handling the various apps and barely scratch the surface of the full potential of the phone.

Robots could make humans face a similar problem in the future. This is why most science projects at the HCI lab are working towards making robotic behavior more natural for human beings to understand and interact with.

After spending many hours of research and equal amount of money NASA has now intentionally crashed a space probe into the moon. The spacecraft in question is LADEE or the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. The space probe was launched in September 2013 to study the atmosphere of the moon by making more than 100 orbits.

It had completed its primary mission in the month of March 2014. The LADEE was running low on fuel and left to its own devices may have crashed into a historic site on the moon such as the landing site of the Apollo missions. So the NASA engineers decided to bring it down to the moon in a controlled trajectory.

The LADEE even survived the four hour darkness generated by the total lunar eclipse of 15 April. An important feat considering that it was only ever designed to handle an hour’s darkness. It was shortly before the eclipse that NASA engineers gave the LADEE a final engine burn that determined the crash trajectory.

Finally the spacecraft crashed into the moon at a speed of nearly 5800 kilometers per hour. The craft itself disintegrated and may have even vaporized on its ways down to the surface of the moon. Now that is a science project going down in a blaze of glory!