The term 3D printing is brandied about quite a lot these days, so it can be confusing when you hear of human tissue and plastics being used in the same technology. The truth is that while most 3D printing technologies use the same principle : that of building up an object by adding layer upon layer, they all use vastly different methods to achieve this.

The method of 3D printing used can vary in terms of cost, speed, accuracy and materials being used. The final product is also vastly different when a different 3D printing technology is used. There are three commonly used technologies out in the industry today. These include :

1. Fused Deposition Modeling – here a plastic is fed into the printer where it is melted and added in layers. As the layers harden the object is formed or printed. It is a simple enough process to be used in a regular office for consumer printables.

2. Selective Laser Sintering – this technology uses fine powder of metal or plastic while a laser goes over it. The powder gets fused together in layer after layer and forms the printed object. As imaginable this method is far more versatile and allows many range of materials to be made.

3. Stereolithography – this used a liquid resin raw material which is sensitive to ultraviolet light. The light causes the resin to harden in each layer. The process is fast but the printed object does not have great material strength, but science experiments are on to rectify this.

The concept of 3D printing is not new. The technology has been around for more than three decades. However its evolution through this time has been nothing short of spectacular.The different kinds of materials that can be used in the process have made it an extremely versatile as well as useful technique.

Researchers at Princeton University have printed a bionic ear using silicone and chodrocytes. This could work better than a cochlear implant. NASA is using a partially 3D printed space suit in its simulators to test a new design for a portable life support system.

Archeologists using CT scans have printed out a life sized replica of King Tutankhamun. It was later fleshed out and painted to resemble the actual body. They even made a model of a 1.9 million year old homo habilis skull using polymer resin. In fact you can actually download  files to print 3D fossils from africanfossils.org.

There is actually unlimited potential in 3D printing, as an architect in Amsterdam trying to print a canal house with 13 rooms is proving. The home will be developed using a specially developed bio-plastic compound that is composed primarily of vegetable oil. This three year long science project will surely test 3D printing to its limits.

The human population of Earth is growing far faster than it ever has before. In the past a number of reasons would wipe out entire cities and hold the population of the world in check. However with tools developed from modern science we no longer fear epidemics the way our ancestors did.

In addition the life span of a human being today is much longer than even a hundred years ago. Old age related diseases have been treated, as have strokes and other diseases which people would have succumbed to in a previous period. It means that there are more people living longer in the world.

The larger population requires more food to survive. Naturally the focus on global food production is now much  more critical. New genetically modified foods tend to bridge the gap, but we are not yet sure exactly how healthy such foods are likely to be for the human population in the long run.

Many scientific projects focus on the question of food availability and possible scarcity that we will face in the future. Perhaps it would be better to focus on the food that is currently being wasted despite having the potential to ward of human hunger. France has set up new laws that make sure supermarkets do not waste fresh produce, perhaps the world should consider taking up this policy as well.

It may seem that such a battle is stacked against the little bug, but the mountain pine beetles are actually ravaging the western forests around Mount Rushmore. The seemingly insignificant underdog has resulted in the death of an alarming one million trees. What’s worse is that the threat is spreading right across the nation and spilling into Canada as well.

So how does this tiny bug get the better of a single tree, much less a whole forest? Apparently it is a slow and steady demise that occurs over a fair period of time where the tree is concerned. The summer season sees the beetles boring into tree barks as they are attracted by the resin the tree releases.

The next week the beetles lay eggs in the burrows. The blue fungus deposited by them acts as food for the next generation. As the larvae hatch in the week after laying they also develop resistance to the coming cold. They will eventually turn into pupae and then adults over the next five months to a year.

All that time they continue feeding o the phloem and fungi and killing the tree. The tree still appears green for a year despite the fatal mauling that the beetle gives it. Eventually it will turn red and die, needing to be culled. Science projects are researching how the trees can be saved from this epidemic.

Today when you wish to get from one place to another you have a number of street signs that will help you get where you want to. You can also log in to a GPS and make sense of which path you need to cut through all these street signs to take you to your intended destination without once placing a foot astray.

Did you ever wonder how difficult navigation would have been in the ages before man put satellites into the sky? When the only way to navigate was to know your stars and plot a course on the ground based on the picture seen in these celestial formations? Imagine having to find your way under such conditions.

Tough, isn’t it! Well now imagine trying to fly through the skies under such conditions where you have no instruments to guide you. The US Department of commerce began establishing airways for trade in the mid 1920s. The old World War I planes were flown over huge landscapes with very rudimentary instruments. Imagine a science project where you have to navigate like that!

In order to aid their pilots the they put up big concrete arrows on the ground pointing in the direction that the pilot should be moving to reach the next town and airfield. Some of these ancient flying path finders can still be seen along the old air routes, befuddling their use to people unaware of the past.

Millet is one of the most ancient grains to be farmed, right along with buckwheat and quinoa. While today millet is seen as little more than bird food, the grain actually is a highly nutritious one.  Its protein content is comparatively high and it does not require too much water irrigation during its growth cycle. This makes it ideal for providing nutrition in areas that may have suffered from lack of water.

The tiny grain is actually a powerhouse that can be used more extensively in today’s world, as it is gluten free. Considering the number of health conditions on the rise which require gluten free diets, millet could prove a major boon.

Already there are organic food companies touting millet flour as a substitute to regular wheat flour. It is only a matter of time before all its advantages come to the forefront in the main stream market. A few science projects could be conducted to see exactly how well millet can help different ailments.

In countries with large populations such as China, India and countries where water is scarce such as African nations, millet can be grown to great advantage. Given the state of global population expansion, this ancient food source could perhaps help turn the tide in feeding the billions that will populate the planet Earth in the future.

There have been dire predictions about the dying populations of bees across the globe. Some people go so far as to suggest that if the bees ever died out, so would the human race, due to the lack of their pollination abilities. If that may be true, its a good thing that Los Angeles has taken a look at the problem and come up with a rather unconventional solution to boost dwindling bee populations.

The Los Angeles city council has recently approved the  keeping of bees in residential areas. Beekeeping as a hobby has seen a major revival because of this step. If you can have a few people in each neighborhood dedicated to rising the population of bees, there will be a significant increase all over the world. In theory the science project offers a lot of promise.

US Beekeepers have reported losing a quarter of their bees last year and the trend is not encouraging. Advocates of bee keeping find Los Angeles city council’s decision great. They even argue that urban bee keeping is better than farm bees, as there is less pesticide in the plants that the bees get their pollen from. So the new hives may actually have healthier honey.

Living in a busy city has made some of us almost unable to distinguish the fact that there is pollution in the air. We have grown immune to the stale air that we breath. However the World Health Organization has revealed statistics that one in eight deaths in 2012 was caused due to air pollution.

Architects around the world are working with scientists coming up with ways to make buildings that can actually help lower the air pollution experienced by people inside the buildings. The Manuel Gea Gonzalez Hospital has a smog eating facade that is covered with titanium dioxide which works as a catalyst to break down pollutants into less harmful components.

This allows the air within this hospital in Mexico City to be less polluted than that outside. Inspired by this development London is also set to use titanium dioxide in similar roles. There is a Palazzo in Milan, Italy which is also likely to have a air cleansing exterior.

Although scientists are skeptical about these measures reducing global air pollution, there is a big trend of using innovative technologies to deal with the issue. The ongoing science projects in the field are doubtless going to help reduce air pollution in the future.

Adrianne Haslet – Davis was devastated to lose  her left leg below the knee as a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. The loss was felt severely by her as she was a professional ballroom dancer. However thanks to Hugh Herr and his biomechatronics team at MIT she is now able to dance again.

Hugh himself is a double amputee and has designed Adrianne’s robotic prosthetic leg in a highly unconventional manner. It has a number of sensors that react to speed, torque, and position by either stiffening or relaxing her robotic ankle allowing her to maintain the flow in her dancing.

It is important scientific research that Hugh conducts as he designs each individual robotic leg that are optimized for running and walking. Hugh hopes to produce intelligent prosthetic limbs that can change under different conditions just like a real bionic limb would. They will be nothing like the stiff precursors that amputees have had to use so far.

As far as Adrianne is concerned, the new robotic prosthetic limb has given her more courage to try out new things. She felt victorious even before she could walk back on stage and is much more fearless than she was before.

From the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, to the structure of the DNA helix. The simple living cell to the structure of an atom, everything in the world follows a pattern! The natural pattern of things is visible in every aspect we look into, but does this pattern also follow us into the realm of man made objects?

Chemists at the Carnegie Mellon University have been working on mapping the structure of a synthetically generated gold nano particle. Rongchao Jin, associate professor of chemistry at the school said that with X-ray crystallography, they were able to see very beautiful patterns, which was a very exciting discovery.

Called Au133, these particles self-assemble into three layers within each particle. These are the gold core, the surface molecules that protect it and the interface between them. The gold core is in the shape of an icosahedron. The sulfur-gold-sulfur combinations stack into ladder-like helical structure. And the outer layer of surface-protecting molecules whose carbon tails self-assemble into fourfold swirls.

Needless to say the patterns that govern are world are effortlessly visible even in artificially created gold in the laboratories. This is such a pretty science project to behold.