Long term habitats for astronomers on Mars will require some major creative thinking. How can living quarters be established quickly, with a minimum of resources and stay durable for the long time that they will be in use. This is a puzzle that scientists have been working on for a while to solve.

While one batch of researchers is working on turning Martian soil into bricks using pressure, another is wondering if constructing igloos is the way to go. NASA scientists have been working on reinventing the traditional Igloo in a manner that it works on Mars.

The concept is to have an inflatable domed structure which can be filled with water. Given the much colder temperatures of the Martian atmosphere, the water will freeze in place. This will provide the Igloo with a thick wall of ice that helps protect the inhabitants from dangerous cosmic rays that float around the surface as well.

The science project involving housing options on Mars has many more concepts under exploration by NASA scientists. Whatever the astronomers eventually use will need to be resilient enough to survive harsh terrains as well as easy enough to set up with a minimal amount of resources and fuss.

Parking at a mall or a crowded location is never fun. The stress and strain of actually finding a spot is just about equaled by trying to find the car again once you return. Some people even take photographs on their smartphones just so that they will be able to identify the place they need to return to.

Now here’s a little gadget that pairs up with your smartphone and works like a homing beacon for finding your car, no matter where it is parked. Called the Cariboo, the gadget simply needs to be plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car for it to be operational.

Once plugged in, it will need to be linked to an App which is available on your smartphone to trace exactly where the car’s location is. Not only does it make finding your car easy, it also ensures that if someone else drives off with your car, you can trace it.

Other features include being able to send your precise location to friends while waiting for them to find you, as well as being able to generate statistical data on your personal driving habits. This is one science project that is  on it’s way to financial success.

One of the primary concerns for humanity is the lack of accommodation for it’s growing masses. As our numbers grow the planet’s resources get strained to provide food, clothing and shelter for us all. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers have developed a system that can 3-D print the basic structure of an entire building.

Perhaps being able to make buildings with finite resources and in a quick span of time may be the answer to the housing problem that humans are already facing. The system has a tracked vehicle which is used to carry a large industrial robotic arm.  The huge robotic arm has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end.

The researchers claim that the building will be built cheaper and faster than regular construction. Plus it can be customized and modified as desired by the owner. Different materials are incorporated into the 3D printing as the process is carried out. This is no longer about simply shaping plastic the way you want it. The system can use a variety of materials.

Another advantage of this science project is that unlike older systems that were restricted to a certain area for printing, this one can move around freely. This gives the system the ability to construct all manners and sizes of things.

One of the primary problems that people who set out to colonize Mars will face is that of adequate building material. How are they going to construct homes, when they will have such severe restrictions on what they can carry with them from Earth.

Majority of the material they carry would be food, water and tools. So it would make sense to be able to build bricks from scratch on Mars. At least that’s what the researchers at the University of California – San Diego, want to do.

They have come up with a technique which uses pressure, similar to the kind generated by a blow of a hammer, to build a brick out of martian stimulant soil. This brick does not need to be baked like the traditional ones made back here on Earth.

To make the bricks without additives like polymers and without heating, two steps are necessary. First is to place the soil in a compact area and second was to create a pressure like dropping a 10-lb hammer from a height of one meter.

That is literally all it took to form the brick. Now the proposal to build solid habitats for human pioneers on Mars has become easier thanks to this science project.

The computer has always been a source of heat. The early computers had a tendency to overheat and switch off. To avoid this happening they were placed in cool rooms to combat the heat that they generated. Now there is a chance that the very heat that the computer generates is used to cool the area around it.

At least that’s what the researchers at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln are trying to do. Instead of combating the heat they are planning to use it as an alternative energy source. This is an interesting science project with many possibilities.

As electricity and heat are both essentially sources of power, they plan to use the heat generated when the computer is in use. Sidy Ndao is the assistant professor of mechanical and material engineering who is developing a nano thermal device or thermal diode to the effect.

Ndao feels that one would be able to use heat in the same way one is able to use electricity. By using the heat generated by the computer to power up the computer itself is one way to go. The heat expended is used to power the thermal diode which is fitted into the computer and acts sort of like a secondary power source.

A lithium ion battery is quite literally electronic gold. The holy grail of all gadgets that require charged batteries. Which is why scientists and researchers all over the world spend a considerable amount of time and resources trying to improve their quality. If they can improve the duration the battery lasts and reduce it’s production cost, they are bound to have a commercially successful product.

It is to this end that the researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have developed a low cost chemical process that can use glass bottles to manufacture lithium ion batteries which are able to store four times more energy than what is currently the norm. These batteries have the potential to improve the range of electric cars, hybrid electric vehicles, and provide great value to consumers using personal electronic gadgets like cellphones, laptops and the like.

They hit upon the idea of using glass bottles as these contain high purity silicon nano particles. These are required in the construction of the batteries. Plus silicon anodes store up to 10 times more energy than graphite anodes. Although so far their expansion and shrinking during charging has made them rather unstable for use. This science project hopes to rectify that issue and come up with something better.

The smartphone is an invaluable tool. A way of life. A basic necessity now. So when you see that battery slipping away and you find a public charging station close by, you are most likely going to go plug in that phone to charge. After all if the juice runs out, you are going to be in serious trouble. How will you stay in touch with the world?

That action could be one of the biggest mistakes you ever make. Experts warn us that using public charging stations to charge your phone is a high risk activity. The USB cables that are provided at the location can actually be used by hackers to transfer data from your phone even while you are blissfully charging it.

At the New York Institute of Technology researchers were able to find out that hackers can access the smart phone plugged in via the charging cable. They did not require a specific data cable to see what websites the phone user has been visiting while the phone was charging. The charging station can be used for malicious intent if the hacker so desired. This science project proves that keeping a smartphone safe is quite difficult when hackers can expose so many vulnerabilities.

As the winter recedes and the heat wave of summer takes over, there is no denying the fact that the planet is getting warmer. While we may argue about the reasons for this Global Warming and just how much the urbanization of mankind has contributed to it, even the experts agree that the temperatures are really shooting up each year.

Last month, March 2017, was cited to be the warmest March in 137 years of modern record keeping of temperatures by NASA. The mean March temperature calculated in 1951 to 1980 was 1.12 degrees Celsius  lower than the temperatures we faced last month. Basically this means that we were 1.12 degrees Celsius warmer than we should have been in March.

Still not convinced the planet is heating up? The last two top March temperature related anomalies have taken place in the two previous years. All records are made available to the public by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. The institute collects data on temperatures in 6,300 meteorological stations all over the world.

These include land based, ship based and buoy based instruments that constantly monitor and report the temperature. The regions covered span from sea surfaces in the temperate zone to Antarctic research stations. This is one thorougher science project in operation.

In a world where every aspect of our lives is getting “smarter” all the time, it should come as no surprise that Swansea University’s Institute of Life Science has come up with a “Smart Bandage”.  Just a plaster to place on your wound will not do. Now the question is just what does this intelligent bandage do?

Marc Clement, who led the research into the development of the smart bandage, says that the intelligent dressing uses nano technology to sense the state of the wound at any one specific time. Basically the bandage joins a 5G infrastructure combining it with your mobile phone.

Now it can keep track of how the wound is healing, inform the doctor about the details, and also let you know where you are, and just how active you have been lately. It can be tailor made to meet the needs of the individual patient.

The bandage will go on trial within the next year. The researchers working on the prototype hope that 3D printing will bring down the cost of mass producing these individualized bandages. This is one science project which will be able to directly communicate with your doctor when you are unwilling to.

If you take your account security seriously, you may be looking at the latest means to use encrypted passwords. However no matter how tough the password a system may generate for you, it can always be cracked.

What can’t be cracked is bio-sensor based passwords which would be unique to yourself. That’s why people started with face recognition software. Unfortunately this was not quite the success it was touted to be since it was relatively easy to fool with a disguise.

Then came the more advanced finger print password, wherein the same concept of having a unique fingerprint that solved crimes, was used to protect systems. However hackers were able to swipe the print and duplicate it to enter the system.

Now the scientists are speaking about using the unique pattern or brain activity when shown a set of pictures as the way to log in to a system or account. Having had a 100% success in identifying the 45 volunteers in the research study at Binghamton University, the system seems to be a huge improvement.

The current challenge for this science project is how to measure the brainwaves in an easier manner. Currently the participants need to wear a special hat stuffed with wires and bio sensors for the brain wave identification to occur. This is not commercially adaptable.