Rick Gilbrech, director of NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi says that they have exciting days ahead with a return to deep space and a journey to Mars, and the engine test they just successfully completed is a very big step in that direction. At the same time InSight is likely to have a launch window in May 2018 which would bring it to Mars by November 2018.

The InSight Mission is the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission to study the deep interior of Mars. Basically this mission is out to find out what lies below the surface of the Red Planet using these different methods of scientific study. Findings will help us understand how rocky planets developed and should give us some insight into how the Earth was also formed.

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington said, “The quest to understand the interior of Mars has been a long standing goal of planetary scientists for decades. We’re excited to be back on the path for a launch, now in 2018.” Needless to say there are still a whole number of challenges to be overcome before the successful culmination of this science project.

Recently rocket engine No. 2059 was fired and tested by NASA for 500 seconds successfully. Why is the testing of a deep space RS-25 rocket engine being treated as a major milestone by these celebrating researchers? That is because the next time this rocket is operated for this duration it will be carrying humans on their first deep-space mission in more than 45 years.

Yes, the mission to make humans land on Mars is not just science fiction any more. It is a mission with a deadline that will actually make it in your lifetime with just a couple more years of preparation to go. These engines have been used by the Space Launch System (SLS) missions and have powered more than 135 space shuttle missions from 1981 to 2011.

Steve Wofford, engines manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama said that not only does this test mark an important step towards proving our existing design for SLS’s first flight, but it’s also a great feeling that this engine that has carried so many astronauts into space before is being prepared to take astronauts to space once again on SLS’s first crewed flight.

Needless to say that the world waits with eagerness to see just how this science project is going to take off into outer space.

Gun totting enthusiasts have always gone a bit overboard in the guns and ammunition that needs to be stored safely and securely. After all one can hardly shove a couple of spare riffles and cartridges into the storage space in the garage. John Adarain came up with a solution to this problem by making his bed a safe in which he could store his firearms and extra supplies.

In 2000 he created the prototype of what he called the BedBunker and today his company Heracles Research Corporation has a full range of concealed safes called CouchBunker, TableBunker, ClosetBunker, and ConsoleBunker even as the BedBunker remains popular.  The furniture is made of fabric that can stop a bullet and the items can sell for twice the price of traditional furniture.

The manufacturers even test their furnishings in control environments. What a great science experiment that would be. Wouldn’t it be fun to be a part of that quality control team? Even the sofa cushions are designed with handles and are light enough to lift, but can be used as a shied against a bullet. The popularity of Adarain’s product range has even seen new players entering the somewhat small niche market and as more people buy guns, the more safes they are going to need.

Cancer drug research has seen another major breakthrough with shape shifting nano particles that will deliver drugs  directly to cancer cells in the body. Controlled drug delivery systems have a major advantage over traditional medicine. This process is likely to help reduce the abysmal side effects of cancer drugs such as loss of hair and skin damage by targeting only the specific cells in the body. Naturally this is much better for the patients.

Elena Batrakova, associate professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy of the University of North Carolina was associated with a study where 50 % less medicine was required when using the nano particle drug delivery system to successfully combat cancer cells in mice. This means that less quantities of drugs will be needed and patients will still be able to overcome cancer.

This is important because eventually the doses of medication will be reduced even further as the researchers target the malignant cells alone. Plus the intrusive chemotherapy sessions which cancer patients undergo will become less prone to multiple side effects and still be considered effective treatment.  Needless to say the practical applications of this science project in the real world of human medicine will be tremendously useful.

55 Cancri is the exoplanet which is eight times the size of the Earth and has been dubbed Super Earth. It is located about 40 lightyears away from us and is circling a star which is slightly smaller than our own sun. The orbit is so close to the star that its year lasts just 18 hours and temperatures on the surface are thought to reach around 2000 degrees Celsius.

Scientists have also called it the diamond planet as they have speculated that based on its mass and radius is it likely to have a high carbon content. NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations were analysed by new software in order for the scientists to discover more about the atmosphere of 55 Cancri. This is what lead to the confirmation of gases Hydrogen and Helium in the atmosphere of the planet. The signature for Hydrogen Cyanide was also present.

Professor Giovanna Tinetti was delighted with the science project‘s observations and findings. He said that the result of the project gives a first insight into the atmosphere of a super-Earth. We now have clues as to what the planet is currently like, how it might have formed and evolved, and this has important implications for 55 Cancri and other super-Earths.

Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System is a fancy name for the 3D printed tissue which is being used in regenerative medicine to replace diseased or lost organs. The Institute for Regenerative Medicine developed this process over a period of more than a decade. The process involves using both biodegradable and plastic materials to create the artificial tissue which has water based gels which contain the cells.

A strong, temporary, outer structure is also printed and this does not harm the cells. This tissue is then implanted into the patient and allowed to integrate itself into the body and eventually becomes living tissue. The trick is to keep it alive long enough for a successful integration to take place. The micro channels printed along the water based cells are used to keep nutrients and oxygen flowing from the body to the new tissues.

Anthony Atala, M.D., director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine said that thier results indicate that the bio-ink combination they used, combined with the micro-channels, provides the right environment to keep the cells alive and to support cell and tissue growth. He added that with further development of this science project, this technology could potentially be used to print living tissue and organ structures for surgical implantation.

In yet another leap in the field of 3D printing, the researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have managed to prove that it is possible to print living tissue structures which can replace injured or diseased tissue in patients. Something that would truly have been considered science fiction is making its way into the real world of medical wonders.

The science experiment involved printing ear, bone and muscle structures using customized 3D printers. The regenerative living tissue thus printed was implanted in animals and managed to mature into functional tissue. It even developed a system of blood vessels and got integrated into the body.

What’s exciting for the regenerative medicine scientists is that the process seems to be compatible for human beings. The project has received funding from the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. They are interested in the possibilities that this project could have on battlefield injuries.

As the team moves on to implant these  bio printed muscle, cartilage and bone in patients in the future it will be interesting to see their success rate. Needless to say the successful culmination in human testing for this science project will have huge implications for the field of regenerative medicine.

There is no computer as complex as the human brain and there is no one alive on Earth who can claim to understand just how the brain works completely. The complexities of the human brain are as varied as the possibilities of the universe itself. Perhaps that’s why scientists and researchers can literally spend their lives trying to uncover just one facet of how the human brain really works.

The nerve cells and the pathways between them are what define a brain. The more neurological activity the more smart the brain is supposed to be. This is why activities that stimulate new pathways in the brain centre are encouraged. This literally makes you think better and faster and areas of the brain that are performing these actions can be lit up in scans.

Helping to make a model of a working brain with all its complex neurological pathways, is to say it simply, quite a difficult task. However there are so many fascinating aspects to this such as studying the formation of nerve cells, directing their connections, and understanding which chemicals work in what manner to accomplish a specific end result. Science projects on these topics would keep a neuroscientists happy for years together, simply trying to solve these riddles.

When Pluto lost its planet status and got relegated to a dwarf planet there was a fair bit of upheaval in the academic circles. However now there seems to be some more controversy headed our way from the studies of astronomers at the California Institute of Technology who have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system.

Now is this planet, which they have nicknamed Planet Nine, the true successor to Pluto as the ninth planet of the Solar System? The composition of the planet is mostly gaseous which is similar to that of Uranus and Neptune. It also has ten times the mass of Earth, so no danger of being a dwarf there. It has been calculated that on average it takes the planet between ten to twenty thousand years to complete a full orbit around the sun.

This is partly because of its highly unusual orbit and of course also because its about 2.8 billion miles or more away from the Sun. So far things are falling into place for the Planet Nine. Perhaps the scientific community may like to undertake a scientific study deeming this planet worthy of being included in our humble Solar System?

Any human being who heads over to colonize the Red Planet is bound to be facing some pretty daunting odds. Now scientists have come up with one more thing that early pioneers to Mars will have to overcome. What’s different about this point is that it has nothing to do with the hostile environment outside, but everything to do with the body’s own bio rhythm.

A team of scientists from Holland, Germany and the UK’s University of Manchester conducted a study on animals whose Circadian Clock had moved up from 24 hours to 20 hours. The 24 hour Circadian Clock which has been found commonly in most animals and human beings stems from the speed of the earth’s rotation.

The animals were moved outdoors into the 24 hour rhythm and observed. Within a few generations it was observed that the mice with the faster Circadian clocks of 20 hours had almost completely been wiped out of the population. While this reinforced other studies conducted on the disruption of the clock associated with abnormal work and lighting conditions, it also brings out a problem for space travellers in the future.

Now considering the fact that a day on Mars is actually 37 minutes longer than a day on Earth, one can imagine the troubles that human beings will eventually face there. Naturally the scope of this single science experiment is not enough to comment on a problem of such magnitude.