The global terrorism acts that have caused such pain and devastation have been possible due to suicide bombers. However if this science project is to be believed suicide bombing is not limited to the human race, in fact the insect kingdom claims its own suicide bomber ant.

At the University of Leuven in Belgium researcher John Billen has been making a study of the southeast Asian carpenter ant which is known as Camponotus cylindricus. This little creature can turn into a suicide bomber to kill enemies of the ant colony.

The ant actually explodes sacs of venom when it is threatened covering the enemy with a sticky and toxic secretion. The explosion is triggered when the pressure on the glands placed under the length of the body is increased by the abdominal muscles. The explosion brings out the poison. This coating of toxins is usually enough to stall any enemy of the ant colony.

However the exploding of the venom sacs is a last resort of the ant as per the researcher doing the science project. The insect will first defend itself by biting the enemy. The bite will pass on a poisonous cocktail of aromatic hydrocarbons. If that does not work the ant will then pump its abdominal muscles to cause the sacs to explode ending its own life and saving its colony.

A crystal is a solid and as glass is made from crystalline quartz one would believe that it was a solid. As per scientific terms a solid must have its building blocks arranged in a three dimensional space. That means that the atoms, ions or molecules which make up the solid need to be arranged in a regular pattern.

The trouble with glass is that it is made by heating a mixture of quartz, soda and chalk the melting point of more than 1,100 degree Celsius. This means that even after it cools down the building blocks stay in a amorphous, non crystalline state.

It is only in liquids that the atoms, ions and molecules are found in an amorphous state. So this irregular distribution of the building blocks of glass show that it is actually a frozen liquid. At least in terms of scientific definition based on the arrangement of its molecules.

So then why is it called Crystal Glass? This is basically a misnomer as the glass is blown with lead oxide, zinc oxide or barium oxide in order to increase its refractive index. This gives the glass blown with such an additive a sparkle like a regular crystal, but it is still a frozen liquid as far as science is concerned.

Terraforming is a science fiction fantasy wherein the climate and environment of a distant planet is manipulated by human beings to become more like their home planet Earth. If the latest science project that NASA has undertaken is anything to set store by, this science fiction fantasy may too become a reality.

NASA is creating an extreme environment test chamber. Here it hopes to replicate the surface conditions of Venus. The high temperatures, pressure and excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are all to be reproduced. they main reason they are doing it is to help build more durable inter space vehicles and crafts.

The last spacecraft that was sent to Venus did not survive beyond two hours in the extreme hostile environment. The chamber is also to be used to conduct climate modifying experiments. These may answer worrying questions about our own globally changing climate.

It may not have the answer to global warming, but it may point us in a direction where we can do something to fix the weather. It is best that first we learn to deal with the climate of our own planet before we set out on as ambitious a science project as terraforming.

It may sound like a science fiction project, but the technology already exists. The simple blood test can actually tell you your biological age within a decade. What is more based on life expectancy factors it can even predict just how long you have to live.

It seems that our DNA has something called telomeres at the ends of the chromosomes. It has been established by scientists that these telomeres tend to shorten as we age. So they believe that by measuring the length of these telomeres it may be possible to not only tell what the person’s age is but also when the person will die.

This can be a bit complicated because biological age is not always the same as chronological age. Two people may be 35 years old and that is their chronological age. However one may lead and active and healthy life while the other may smoke too much, drink a lot and eat unhealthy junk food regularly.

In this case the healthier person is likely to have a much lower biological age and thus live longer. Critics say that the blood test will not be accurately able to tell the biological age of a person as different factors involved in aging a person are involved. It would make an interesting albeit morbid science project to see just how accurately the test can foretell lifespans.

Astronomy projects may not be the most exciting but they can occasionally throw up some surprisingly fun facts. In a two star system planets can end up being tossed from one star to the other  a number of times before they finally get ejected out of the system.

This interplanetary game of ping pong can result in very disruptive orbits that interfere with other planet orbits as well. Such two star systems are thus usually not too stable an environment for life to be sustained in them.

After all the existence of life depends on evolution and with the temperature, gravity and atmospheric pressure changing as often as they do on such planets it is hardly a wonder that life as we know it would not exist in such conditions.

That should not lead to disappointment for those of you hoping to meet ET in your lifetime. There are still a number of viable planets in the universe where carbon life forms similar to ours could have evolved. The question now is how and when are we going to establish contact.

Hunting for the alien life forms is an ongoing science project with professionals and amateurs just as easily involved in the act. Who knows the next big spaceship from outer space could be spotted by a kid out in the yard doing an astronomy project!

In a number of science fairs the projects involve a robot trying to perform sports stunts like shooting a hoop, kicking a goal and even playing chess. Given that the computer brain of a robot allows them to make faster decisions than a human being, eventually robots will be better than human beings at sports.

That may be the logical conclusion to follow. Of course this means that professional athletes may soon be replaced by robots who perform better, have less margin for error and throw no tantrums! Perhaps in the not so distant future we may see a couple of robot players on all sports teams.

Who knows what the future could hold? Athletic ability in human beings may be soon restricted just how well he can control a robot player in the field. And with Artificial Intelligence improving the robot’s decision making it may be just a matter of time before the robots are completely autonomous.

Scary thought that the new heroes of basket ball may not be men like Lebron but some nameless robot which can shoot baskets with far more accuracy than a human player. Will robotic teams take over all sports? Lets hope not! Still a science fair project where two robotic teams play football and in a rather disastrous manner leads me to hope that the days of professional robot players are still some years away.

In a bid to make it the most target effective bullet the Sandia National Laboratories have come up with a bullet that can twist and turn to hit the target. The science project is interesting enough but when you add the tiny guided missile to the mix it really livens things up.

Building the navigation system for this little projectile was no mean feat. Imagine trying to load a processor and chip on something as tiny as the size of a gun bullet. It would take more than miniaturization to make this work, it would take innovation.

That is just what the researchers on the project did. They have added an optical sensor that follows a laser beam on to the target. The bullet that they have come up with is 4 inches long, half an inch wide and can make up to 30 corrections in direction per second.

Basically if the laser is aimed at you , you can bet that the bullet has your name on it. Think of a heat guided missile but this one is smaller and quite accurate for a target located even a mile away. This is quite an achievement as an unguided bullet is likely to miss a target that is located even half a mile away. It would be interesting to see how this particular science project develops.

No matter what you pick up as your science fair project there is likely to be mountains of data on the topic online. So when you sit down to get what data  you can use from the internet you need to be careful about where you get that data from.

A number of sites can provide incorrect data that may cause your project more harm than good. So stick to sites that have a good reputation of giving honest and correct information. Some of these sites include Discovery, National Geographic, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics. All of these sites have reputed writers providing correct and substantiated information on the website.

The websites like Wikipedia or Cheat Sheets need to be checked before the data on them can be used. This is because anybody can write and edit this site. This leave so much more room for incorrect information to creep in. So watch out what data you use from them and try to have it collaborated from a more reliable source if you must use their data.

The internet is the gateway to the highway of information. However like all highways you need to get on the right one to take you to your destination. So pick the information from online sources with care when you sit down to work on your science fair project.

Robotics is a fast developing science discipline. Each week we hear about one more robotics based science project which is enthralling the world. Be it a team of robots playing football or a robot singing to a karaoke song. Robots are slowly but surely learning to do what humans can do.

Soon there may come a day when robots are independent of their human masters. They may no longer be remote controlled the way they are today, but be self regulated with some fancy algorithm in their computer chip brain. This is why it is important to think today about how ethical it is to use a robot.

Ethics have always been open to interpretation by the person talking about them. None of us would have a problem with a robot being used as a primary care giver to an invalid patient. However would it be correct to give the robot control over the human being? Can a robot understand the human emotions behind a frustrated statement that a bed bound patient would make?

It is easy to think that robots will make the world a better place for humans by taking on their work, but is that really going to happen? All the time saving gadgets that humans have come up with so far have only managed to add another layer of stress to their lives. Will robots be the same? Only time and science will tell.

The fossil fuels are going to run out and the world will need alternative means of power generation. There have been countless number of science projects dealing with possible successors to fossil fuels including solar, wind and biomass fuels. And yet there is no clear sign as to what will power the future.

The sure shot answer at one time seemed to be nuclear fuel. It was compact, generated great quantities of power and could be used to generate power over large areas. Unfortunately it is very unstable and difficult to handle. This was driven home very vividly in the Fukushima disaster.

So if nuclear fuel is not the answer to the future, what is? Solar energy has been harvested but it does not still have the technology required to power large areas indefinitely. Wind and water turbine power also have their own technological limitations besides availability limitations.

Can the power of the future come from another source altogether? Perhaps from plants? Like the character, Doc, manages to power his car in the movie “Back to the Future” with some banana peels and a device that looked suspiciously like a blender? It may not be so funny when you think about it. Only future science projects will tell.