If you are interesting in star gazing and are working on a science fair project that involves night time observation you may have already encountered skyglow. This is the glow in the night time sky which comes from lights in the city. It is to be thought of as light pollution, which does not allow you to get a clear view of the night sky.

So how do you beat skyglow and still do your project? Well the obvious answer is that you take your night time star gazing project out of the urban area into a more out in the country area. That way the only lights that interfere with the viewing of your sky will be the ones that you are using on your camping trip.

This may not always be quite conducive to your daily routine. So there is another another solution. Its based on measuring the skyglow and then working out the right location to study the night sky from. You could just have to head out a few miles out into a semi urban area to see that the skyglow goes down enough for you to complete your star gazing project with ease.

To measure the skyglow you can use the Bortle Dark Sky Scale. This will need some basic familiarity with the concept of the night time sky for it to work for you. So study up on that before hand and get an adult with this specialized knowledge to help you out with the science fair project.

You must have noticed that even after the sun sets the sky does not get dark right away. The reason for this is the curve of the Earth. The rays of light continue to come through the atmosphere even after technically the sun has set. So have you ever wondered just how soon does it become pitch dark after sunset?

Here is an interesting science experiment that can be done.  You will need to measure the time from when the sunsets to the time it becomes totally dark. This period of semi light is also known as twilight. It has nothing to do with Bella and her favorite vampire, its just the term from which the saga took its name.

So how does one measure twilight and make a science project out of it? You will have to take the length of time that it takes to turn day into night at different times during the year. You can start with measuring twilight for a week each month. Then take the average of the week for that month’s twilight duration.

Repeat the process each month and at the end of the year you will have the duration of twilight in each month. Now you can get the yearly average figure as well. You can make charts with graphs showing the 12 month readings for the duration of twilight in the year for the display board. An interesting and interactive science project.

Life for an astronaut is tough. The person needs to be in perfect physical condition to withstand the rigors of space life. Science experiments have so far not required them to be in outer space for too long as it is not possible for life to be sustained indefinitely in space.

In case we ever develop scientific technology that allows a spaceship to be self sustaining, there will be the possibility of a Star Trek type long distant vessel exploring outer space. But how will an interstellar journey would be spent in weightlessness affect the human body is the essential question.

Living without gravity can over time decrease the blood volume, atrophy muscles, diminish bone mineral content and impair the vision of the astronaut. A journey of many decades will also see possible conception and birth of children in outer space. It is as yet unclear what the effect of the mother being in space will have on the fetus development.

Since gravity help in giving birth, it will be more difficult to have a child in zero gravity. Maybe cesarean sections will be required. How will the mother react to surgery in space is also yet to be studied. As is evident, the human race is far from developing the technologies needed to survive in space for long durations. Thus it is a time for pursuing more science projects in this field.

The old proverb goes, necessity is the mother of invention, and is still true today. Rare Earth Elements or REEs are a group of 17 elements that have properties that are extremely useful in the high tech industry. Many science fair projects will use small amounts of these minerals to enhance the capabilities of their working models.

They have uses in solar panels, wind turbines, electric car motors, lithium-ion batteries and missile guiding systems to name a few vital industries. The trouble is that these elements, as the name suggests, are rare. The primary source of supply of these elements was China. They controlled 95% of the global supply for the REEs.

Recently they have decided to reduce the export of the REEs as they need them for domestic projects. This has resulted in a major price hike for all 17 REEs. Nations and industrial firms are scrambling to find alternative sources for them. There is also a lot of science experimentation in progress to try and do without the REEs.

Some science projects in major companies like Toyota and General Electric are dealing with hunting down suitable substitute materials for REES. In the US the Department of Energy has begun 15 research projects that will focus on what the organization calls Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies for Energy or REACT. As said before, necessity is truly the mother of invention.

Drinking and driving has long been considered a health hazard. There are any number of examples where lives have been lost just because someone was driving under influence of alcohol. It is tragic, but is that the only danger from alcohol? Apparently not, as a science project recently pointed out.

Cancer Research UK published a study wherein the connection between alcohol consumption with cancer was documented. The study said that for a person who drank more than three drinks a day there was considerable damage to the liver and the heart. While liver cirrhosis has been previously documented, the ill effects of alcohol on the heart have not been studied in such detail.

Drinking heavily add more fat to the bloodstream. This can lead to clogged blood vessels. The study found that high alcohol intake over a long period of time, can lead to high blood pressure, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure and stroke. A study which was published this year estimated that alcohol consumption caused at least 13,000 cancer cases in the UK annual. Of these about 9,000 cases were detected in men and 4,000 in women.

The two most prominent types of cancer detected were bowel cancer and breast cancer. Heavy drinking in men also caused the sperm quality and quantity to drop. So it would be best as per this science study if alcohol consumption was limited to moderate if you wish to keep your health.

So far we have hear about the ozone depletion at the South Pole and over the Antarctic region, but this year the scientists have recorded enough of ozone depletion in the skies above the Arctic to declare that an Arctic Ozone Hole is now a reality. The science experiments that recorded the data over the Arctic say that things are as bad at the North Pole as they are at the South Pole.

The formation of the ozone hole in the Antarctic region has been an annual feature for some decades now, but things are surely getting worse if the same problem is now cropping up in the Arctic region as well. The ozone hole is caused by the combination of cold temperatures and lingering ozone-depleting pollutants in the atmosphere.

The ozone layer is vital to the well being of the denizens of earth as it filters out unwanted radiation entering the atmosphere. The constant depletion of ozone by reaction with polluting chemicals has been playing havoc with this protective layer in the atmosphere.

Despite the ban on aerosols that were seen as the primary culprits, the damage that has already been done is considerable. It is now a vital science project which seeks to save what is left of the ozone layer and to somehow refill the ozone holes that crop up annually at the poles.

There is no doubt that outer space has held human beings fascinated all through history. In the very first science projects man sought to map out the stars in their constellations. This ancient map has been added to by each passing civilization as technology improved. Today we have a much better picture of the night sky than the ancient tribes did and still we continue to learn.

Each year new data is added by scientists who painstakingly study separate sections of the sky. They use powerful telescopes and photograph the view so that they can analyze and study it better. One such science project has been undertaken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

The WISE shows that there are significantly lesser near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. This was sought out by a survey project, called NEOWISE. In this the scientists explored the entire celestial sky twice in infrared light between January 2010 and February 2011.

As the data from these continuously taken photographs of the celestial sky were studied it was found in this science project that the danger to earth from asteroid collisions was not quite as high as previously thought.  As per the NASA website – “WISE captured a more accurate sample of the asteroid population than previous visible-light surveys because its infrared detectors could see both dark and light objects.”

In high risk professions such as the military, para military, the fire fighters and first response workers at emergencies the robots can play an important function. The robots can help save lives of these people and reduce the risk profile to their jobs. Every year there are science projects based on robots that can reduce the risk to human life.

Some of the jobs that a robot can do which can help save lives are listed here. The bomb disposal squad will be happy to work with a remote controlled robot when they try to diffuse bombs. It is traumatic for team members to see their colleague blown to bits in front of their eyes as he works on diffusing a bomb.

With fire fighters a robot that can go into burning buildings and identify just where the trapped human beings are can make the job much easier. The robot can guide the people who can move through the smoke filled buildings to an exit to save their lives. they can also pin point the location and stand guard with people who have been injured and need help to be physically removed from the building.

In case of the military services it is much easier to send in a robotic drone on spying missions than a human being. Even if the unmanned aerial drone is shot down you do not lose a pilot. Robots can and do save lives every day. It is essential to support science projects that help robots to save human lives.

Machines have been made by man to help him with almost all aspects of his life. Man can claim that all these robotics based science projects are helping him to get things done faster and more efficiently than before, but does all the help that man have improve the quality of his life?

Is it really worth spending the billions that get spent annually on robotics? Or are we just so busy developing new toys that we lose the focus on what is truly important. It is not denied that machines and robots have made it easier for us to do a number of tasks, but these were tasks we could do any way.

So by making the machines and robots work for us are we giving them the power to run our lives? So far there has not been developed successfully the kind of artificial intelligence that would be harmful to human beings. But just how soon will we have machines thinking and then what will happen when the machines realize that we the human creators are redundant?

In popular science fiction there is always the battle between man and machine looming large in the future. Perhaps if we choose to develop the right sort of machines it would be possible to skip that battle altogether. Maybe we can work out the probability of keeping machines and robots from fighting the war against humans in a science project.

Robots have been seen as a possible way to reduce risk to human life and to help humans so that their time can be freed up for more useful ventures. Many robotics based science projects have these two points in part of their aim. So the first space going humanoid robot the R2 would be expected to keep to these aims.

The Robonaut 2 is a humanoid robot which has a torso and arms but no legs. It moves on tracks and has been designed to work besides humans in outer space. The R2 went up to the International Space Station in the last trip of the space shuttle Discovery. It has been reassembled by the scientists in the space station recently.

Now the R2 has just completed its first mission. It carried out repair work on the exteriors of the International Space Station which involved replacing a faulty electrical circuit. Th repairs tool nearly two days to complete, but the robot saved one of the astronauts on the space station a spacewalk.

It is considered a good likelihood that in the future the robonauts will be able to handle such standard repairs all the time leaving the human scientists and researchers free to pursue their experiments and conduct their research. The R2 is the future of robotic personal help and the science project is bound to improve as it goes along the way.