Now three patients in Melbourne, Australia have been implanted with the “bionic eye” which is a retinal implant that is expected to help blind people see. The device that was used in these surgeries was developed by a collaboration between Bionic Vision Australia, the Bionics Institute and the Centre for Eye Research Australia.

In case of the first patient the device was surgically implanted and then switched on one month later.  It is equipped with 24 electrodes with a small wire that extends from the back of the eye to a receptor attached behind the ear. The bionic eye is inserted into the choroidal space which is the space next to the retina within the eye.

Dr Penny Allen, the surgeon who implanted the bionic eye said that electrical impulses were passed through the device, which then stimulated the retina. Those impulses then pass back to the brain creating the image. The device electrically stimulates the retina, the next step in the science project was analyzing the visual information that they were getting from the stimulation she said.

The type of vision restored is likely to be more black and white than technicolor, says the doctor. However it is definitely going to give the patient far greater mobility than they had before.

The miracles of science never cease to amaze us. The latest science project that will be a real blessing to the blind is the bionic eye. It is essentially a retinal implant which can allow the blind to see partially. It was implanted with success in a woman last month.

The light powered retinal implant which is being called a bionic eye was developed by scientists in Stanford University, California. The device uses specially made glasses to beam light in to the eye. This powers the implanted bionic eye allowing the patient who was blind to see something.

The doctors in Australia put the bionic eye to test on a human being last month with a great degree of success. Diana Ashworth had retinitis pigmentosa, which is an inherited cause of blindness. Dr Penny Allen led the team of surgeons at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital where the surgery was performed on Diana.

After the implant Diana mentioned that each time there was a stimulation of the electrodes she saw flashes of light. Every time she saw a different shape form before her. There is more scientific development required to restore full vision to a patient but the doctors are up beat and positive that it will work.

Imagine a vehicle that can drive itself by using cameras to take images of the road ahead and processing the road to be driven using a computer chip. Actually there’s no need to imagine this little modern miracle as it has already crossed the realm of science fiction into reality. The only trouble is if you want to drive this beauty, correction, get a ride on her, you will have to land on Mars first.

The space rover Curiosity can drive using its wheel system and, based on images taken by its cameras, the rover can avoid obstacles. That’s not the only cool thing that the rover can do either as you would know if you have been following its progress.

The Curiosity has a mighty powerful drill arm as well. This robotic arm can powder a rock and create mud samples that can then be then segregated for testing by different scientific instruments that are housed in the rover’s on board laboratory.

Each step in the construction of this latest rover has taken into consideration past failures and used measures to overcome them. The science project that is currently the cynosure of all eyes began on paper even before the mission was anywhere near conceptualized or approved.

At $2.5 billion, Curiosity is the most expensive rover that NASA has ever developed.It has as many as 10 scientific instrument and a 7 foot long robotic arm to assist it in the two year long mission it plans to complete on the surface of the Red Planet, Mars.

It has the most advanced state of the art technology, but it also has a drawback. It depends on its robotics to be driven. When it comes down to it the Curiosity is essentially the largest robotic laboratory that any space agency has ever constructed and launched into space on a mission.

Curiosity takes over the job of exploration on Mars from the older NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity. These two old work horses have worked the surface of Mars for nearly 6 years. Spirit shut down last year, but opportunity is still going strong.

The two rovers lasted well beyond their expected three months survival rate. They were tiny at two and a half feet when compared to the seven feet that Curiosity is. And they had barely rudimentary robotics to help them function. Nothing near the scale of the latest science project from NASA. Still they did set the trend going.

The current exploration of Mars by Curiosity has dredged up the debate. Are robots assistants to humans or their replacements? There seem to be two lines of thought on this.

For Louise Jandura, sampling system lead engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory the involvement of robots on the mission is critical for success. They are much required assistants without whom the progress that we have made in such a short while would not be possible.

Julie Shah, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at M.I.T., on the other hand feels that the robots that are being designed are likely to replace human beings in industrial and manufacturing processes. This is likely to result in a loss of a number of jobs.

So what’s the verdict? Is the advancing field of robotics good for mankind as a whole. Since most robots are not as good at doing what all a human being can do at this stage, one can safely assume that it will be a while before they begin to replace the human element altogether in the work place.

At the same time, when you have the option of getting a repetitive job done well and with precision by a robot why would you turn down the offer? Till the next science project convinces us otherwise, cheers to robots!

With the Olympic Games every four years come a host of expectations from athletes all over the world. Some expectations are from the public, others from the family and near ones of the sportsperson participating and yet more come from the coaches and sponsors. Is it any wonder then that the pressure leads to experimenting with performance enhancing drugs?

Doping is forbidden in sports meets and can result in expulsion from the games. However the allure of the big medal is difficult to explain. The sports person will risk everything that he or she has worked for by taking a banned drug to help improve the performance to an elevated level. The 16 year old Chinese swimmer who was the eye of the storm in the recent doping controversy will be able to attest to the pressures that the sportsperson faces.

As there are regular scientific studies involving the testing of drugs that enhance human performance, it is not too difficult to imagine the temptation that a sportsperson feels when he knows he can shave of many seconds from the performance with the help of these drugs. It is human nature to strive to be better after all. So what if that involves getting unexpected help from a couple of pills.

The human race has revolutionized the means of transport available to it. They were not satisfied with walking as a means of exploring the world, and so worked on faster means of transport. The wheel is considered mankind’s greatest invention for the simple reason that it killed distances much faster than before.

A couple of centuries ago it would take months to cross a continent over land and sea if you planned to go from London to New York. Today you can cover that distance, doorstep to doorstep in a matter of hours using a combination of cars and aircraft.The better the means of transportation became the smaller the world got.

As the world began to shrink it was not uncommon for people of different continents to come together for a shared purpose. One such event is the ongoing sports meet in London, the summer Olympics.Can you imagine the number of cars, buses, rail and aircraft that have been put to use to bring each and every contingent from countries around the world to participate in the games?

Of all the science projects that have been undertaken perhaps we owe the most to the means of transportation that have been developed for the drastic change in our lifestyles. Faster, higher and better, rather akin to the motto of the Olympics.

Making the human body test its limits is no new concept. Mankind has always been interested in pushing itself to extremes. The number of science projects that do research on enhancing human performance have been many and varied.

Some sought to test the physical ability of the human body while other research was centered on the mental faculties we possess. It is in no small measure that these scientific studies have contributed to our overall understanding of the feats and deeds that the human body is capable of completing.

Then comes the push to do better. If a record for a physical ability exists the next guys wants to break it. Swimming, running, and other sports are good examples of this, but what about mental abilities? Can they be trained to do better like the physical body can be trained? Apparently so.

The mental performance can be enhanced by training as well as some supplementary help. This can include performance enhancing drugs such as those are banned in physical sports as well as the artificial stimulation of the human brain physically.Maybe some day in the not so distant future you will be able to download the answers to the test straight to your brain. Till then such a human performance enhancing system remains the constant subject of research in science projects the world over.

The human body is like a magnificent puzzle that scientists are trying to solve with different research projects. How the body reacts to different stimuli is a popular method used in science projects dealing with the human body. It is well known that the energy for the effective functioning of the body comes from food, but water is just as important suggests this new study.

The Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Connecticut recently performed a science experiment involving performance of a simple task with a dehydrating effect. It was nothing very drastic, but proved illuminating all the same. The volunteers were made to walk a treadmill to induce dehydration after which they were put through a series of cognitive tests.

It was found that even a mild dehydration of 1.5% loss of the normal water volume of the body had a detrimental effect on concentration, reasoning and mood of the person. Another fact that came to light was that while the detrimental effect was seen in both sexes, the women showed a more substantial shift from effectiveness.

So if you want to study well or be physically fit it may pay dividends to ensure that you are also well hydrated. Drinking water regularly can actually make you more effective! At least that’s what the researchers of this science project had to say.

We eat food to provide us energy. Out of the total number of calories that we consume 10 percent is used to maintain the body temperature, 20 percent is used by the physical exertions that you under take during the day and 70 percent is used up by the basic cellular processes that support our life including regulation of the osmotic balance of each individual cell that makes up the body.

There is considerable angst amongst teenagers with respect to their looks and weight. Diets are a popular way to control weight gain and some of them can be quite absurd. However a new scientific study says that girls may actually need less calories per day as compared to boys.

The reason for this is that boys tend to be taller, heavier and have larger internal organs and muscles as compared to girls. As per the study another reason may be the fact that girls naturally have a slightly higher proportion of body fat and need less energy to sustain it. The conclusion of the science research study was that girls need 500 less calories per day as compared to boys.

Maybe that is why the natural urge for girls to lose weight translates into dieting and for boys into increasing their physical activities in terms of exercises and sports. Guess there is a difference between boys and girls on a more basic cellular level after all.