A lot has been said about how the climate is changing due to human activities that lead to the increase of temperatures worldwide. Now it may be possible, with new carbon capture and storage techniques, to reverse some of this and restrict the level of global warming to increase at just one and a half degree Celsius.

So what are these carbon capture and storage techniques that the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis is talking about? Here are the salient points. Improved living standards  need not come with a large increase in energy demand as new energy sources such as solar and other renewable sources replace the old fossil fuels.

More forest cover enables a faster clean up of carbon from the atmosphere and it is recommended that a mere 10% increase in global green cover by 2020 would help meet the 1.5 celsius change. In addition building made with new material that are easier to heat and cool, will ensure that the energy resources used are also reduced.

Key innovations such as electrical vehicles, single electronic device such as smartphones per person, and better electrification can lead to a massive decrease in the current energy requirements of the globe. This in turn will lead to global warming reduction, say the researcher of this science project.

The carbon footprint being reduced is a major concern for most companies that are involved in product manufacturing. However, there is one business concern, that has come up with a great way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and make it a commercially viable project.

In Switzerland we have Climeworks AG facility, that has a giant air filteration plant which is literally sucking in carbon dioxide from the air. This is rerouted to a greenhouse next door, which helps in creating healthy crops. The plant is able to take in 900 metric tons of carbon per year and convert it into a valuable resource instead of being the cause of global warming.

Christoph Gebald, co-founder and managing director of Climeworks says that highly scalable negative emission technologies are crucial if we are to stay below the 2-degree target [for global temperature rise] of the international community. The pioneering business, is showing others the way to make a real difference.

The best part is that the carbon dioxide that is captured can be easily used in a number of other industries besides greenhouse gases to boost vegetable growth. The first obvious use is for making carbonated beverages. Now that’s a science project that has reached a valuable conclusion.

The regular black asphalt roads that we see in our cities are actually a reason that adds to the heat in our cities. The black color tends to absorb more of the sunlight and then releases it after sunset into the atmosphere. This means that temperatures in the heart of the city can be almost five times higher than temperatures fifty miles out in the wilderness, away from the city.

A simple way to counter this measure contributing to global warming is to paint the roads white! Not just any white paint, but a special one developed in LA with the name CoolSeal. This paint ensures that most of the radiation of the sun is reflected back, rather than absorbed by the road. This means that the temperature of the area also drops lower than the areas which have regular black roads.

Yes, painting all the roads in your city with this special paint will be expensive. However, if you count the long term benefits of having a cooler city, and the low electricity bills of the citizens, it may just be an investment worth making. The study of the sustainability of this experiment of painting all the roads in your city white with CoolSeal will make an interesting science project.

There are a number of new technologies coming up dealing with single chip devices that are used in multiple number and connected to provide the data required. The sensors on these single chip devices are often spread over a large range of area and this combined with the sheer number of devices makes it an uphill task to supervise each device physically for researchers.

At present the batteries in IoT devices are the most expensive part of the operation. They are three times the cost of the chip that they are powering. They need to be frequently changed when they get completely discharged, and this leads to a huge waste in human man hours as well as loss of data in the chip.

Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have come up with an innovative microchip, that can continue to operate even when the battery runs out of energy. The chip named BATLESS, is able to work on a smaller solar cell powered section, keeping the data alive and well, till the main battery can be replaced.

The science project is now working on a way to make BATLESS work completely on solar power so that the need to switch out a worn battery in IoT devices is completely eliminated. This will of course, improve the functioning of IoT devices greatly.

In the past the patient who had to undergo a brain scan would be required to sit or lie down in a specific room. Then they would be plugged in to the equipment that would be used to monitor their brain waves. The duration of the scan would be fairly long and would require them to stay mostly immobilized in the room.

The researchers at the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, University of Nottingham and the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL, have been working for the last five years on changing this. They have come up with a new type of brain scanner which can be worn much like a helmet over the head.

This new, light-weight, magnetoencephalography (MEG) system is easy to use, does not restrict the mobility of the patient too much and is reputed to be even more sensitive in the scanning process. The brain scanning helmet would be easier to use for a certain demographic of patients such as young children, epilepsy patients, and those suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

The new and improved brain scanner is not yet used widely, as it is expensive and does not have a one – size fits all functionality. However the science project that created this new technology is a resounding success.

As we grow in population, the day may soon arrive when the planet Earth is not enough to contain all of humanity. To this purpose researchers have been working at identifying planets which are similar to ours and may be able to sustain life. The most recent study has been conducted by researchers at the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at Plymouth University.

The study has been significantly different than those conducted before it, for the use of artificial intelligence in trying to identify patterns that are too complex for a human brain to handle. They have identified five types of planets to sort their classification into. The new planets are classified based on which of these five planets they most resemble.

The identification and classification is based on the planets that have atmosphere and are rocky surfaced. The five planet classifications are like the present-day Earth, the early Earth, Mars, Venus or Saturn’s moon Titan. The atmospheric observations, also known as spectra, are fed into the network of artificial intelligence to make the automatic classification of a new planet studied.

This is a much faster process than the manual ones used in science projects that came before this one. The effectiveness of the system needs to be studied, before the system can be applied to future robotic spaceships. Selecting and identifying targets in outer space will become that much more easier.

In most science fiction stories, there is always a distant planet or asteroid which is rich with resources that are being mined by humans or other advanced alien races. These resources are well defended and controlling them could be the issue of starting a galactic war. Guess what? Mining an asteroid my not remain science fiction for too long.

So far the technology has been missing to perform the deed, however with the rapid advancements made in the last couple of decades, humans now have the ability to mine an asteroid and return home with the booty. The only thing stopping them currently, is the prohibitive costs such an operation would currently entail.

Many industrialist are not stopping this fact from allowing them to study and hunt for potentially rich asteroids in the solar system. The composition of different asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter are being studied carefully as they are the most likely canditates for a future science project involving mining.

A company called Planetary Resources is already hoping to mine these asteroids which have a promising wealth of minerals to offer the enterprising pioneer. Maybe in the not so distant future it will be possible for miners to get a Fly-In, Fly-Out mining job on a space station based on a asteroid.

The police in Beijing have a new advantage, aka smart glasses. The cops are using these smart glasses that can identify car numbers and run facial recognition on the passengers in real time. If the technology finds either in a black list, the smart glasses display a warning including a red box and sign. The entire process takes just a few milliseconds and gives the police a huge advantage against criminals and known offenders.

China is dealing with it’s own set of rising crime and using technology to deal with the issue is not a new idea. What is new is the implementation of smart glasses to use that technology. Surveillance and facial recognition make it much easier for the Chinese cops to do their work. Helping keep the streets of Beijing safe from the criminal elements that would otherwise cause them harm.

If the idea works well enough, China may be implementing the smart glasses in other large cities. It is already something that police in other countries have been thinking about implementing. Soon there will not be any where left for known offenders, however the system does have a few weaknesses. These issues in the science experiment need to be sorted out before the system is copied the world over.

After setting up self driven cars, Google founder Larry Page is now looking at self piloting vehicles. Since October 2017 the company called Kitty Hawk has been doing stealth test flights of a vehicle that looks like a cross between a small plane and a drone. The company is run by Sebastian Thrun, the guy who set up Google’s autonomous car unit and is the director of Google X.

So what’s the big deal about this flying vehicle that takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane? Apparently the pilot-less vehicles are going to be the first commercial air taxis in the world. They will soon be joining an official certification process unheralded by Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

The aircraft is called Cora. It has a wing span of 36 feet. It uses 12 rotors powered by batteries to fly. It’s endurance is a range of 99 km. It can easily carry two passengers. The company called Zephyr Airworks ran the vehicles in the covert testing mode. Now things are about to become a lot more public for what may end up being the world’s first commercial, flying taxi, service. Now that’s a science project coming to a truly fruitful conclusion.

A Solar Storm causes a temporary disturbance in the magnetosphere around the Earth. It is triggered by a Solar Flare. This is when a massive explosion in the Sun’s atmosphere causes higher than normal levels of radiation to come towards the Earth. When this radiation comes in contact with the magnetic field surrounding the Earth, the flares cause a geomagnetic storm.

What usually happens when a Solar Storm occurs will depend on the severity of the radiation that came in from the Solar Flare. Usually the satellites in the vicinity tend to get knocked out for a while. This means anything from mobile communication to commercial flight GPS systems may get affected. Power outages may also occur in some areas.

A beautiful effect of the Solar Flares is the stunning view that the Northern Lights offer as they process the radiation visibly through the Earth’s atmosphere. The auroras formed during such flare ups of extra radiation, have distinctly different designs. Not all effects of a Solar Storm are destructive. Either way, a scientific study of the effects of a recent solar storm may make for an interesting science project. Data can be obtained from various agencies studying the phenomenon around the world.