Think of the number of visits you need to make to the optometrists and opticians to get the correct number for your eye glass lenses. What if you no longer had to do that? What if you could adjust the lenses in your glasses and make the blurry vision get clear and focused in an instant? “Eyejusters” may allow you to do just that!

Eyejusters is an Oxford based start up company which has developed a pair of eye glasses which can be focused by the wearer by merely turning a dial on the frame of the glasses. The glasses were developed from an original idea as old as 1920 by a pair of physics students and two engineers.

Oven Reading, co-founder of Eyejusters and Head of Business Development, said that they agreed that optometrists could provide a better standard of care but their glasses were particularly useful in parts of the developing world where people did not have access to prescription glasses.

Eyejusters has sold their glasses to a number of NGOs in Sudan, Uganda, Morocco and India. They are also available as over the counter reading glasses in the US. Some science projects can be truly helpful and financially beneficial.

If you are lactose intolerant and wonder if you would ever get to taste cow’s milk, the work that scientists are doing at the University of Waikato in New Zealand would be of interest to you. In their rather unique science project the researchers have genetically modified a cow that produces milk which lacks beta-lactoglobulin.

This is a protein which is found in cow’s milk but not in milk produces from a woman’s breast. This is the reason why some people are allergic to milk from cows which contains beta-lactoglobulin. The absence of this whey protein makes the milk low in allergy properties.

The absence of this protein in the milk has occurred due to a DNA modification technique known as RNA interference. The resulting cow was born with no tail, but the researchers say that was not likely to be a side effect of the genetic modification.

The cow was then given hormone treatments to make it jump start the production of milk, as it was not pregnant and was producing milk of its own. So if you are lactose intolerant and still want to taste cow’s milk , this low allergy milk produced in this science experiment should be your first choice.

Think of a bike that’s fork less, chain-less and dynamically adjustable. It would change shape as you rode it to give you the best ergonomics possible. This is what Cannondale have come up with in conjunction with Priority Designs. The Continuously Ergonomic Race Vehicle or CERV concept Bike debuted at the Eurobike show in August.

The design of the bike is such that the rider remains in the most optimal and comfortable position all through the ride. The dynamically adjustable headset  moves both fore and aft and up and down while the cyclist rides it. This flexibility is unique to the bike.

The designing the team states on its website that “the headset translates forward and down for a clean, low-drag position when descending. When climbing, it moves up and back, creating a more upright position for maximum leverage on the crank. Doing all this with a traditional fork in place wasn’t going to cut it, so a single-sided swing arm was proposed. Designing a forkless front-end has its own challenges, integrating it into a multi-axis adjustable system is another degree of difficulty altogether.”

When you think of security measures you would think of materials in terms of iron, steel, cement , concrete, and other strong materials that infuse confidence in security. You would not be thinking in terms of flimsy fabrics of any kind, and you would be missing out on the opportunity to use a revolutionary security  measure.

An almost invisible fabric based burglar alarm is the latest in security technology. This smart fabric is essentially a fine web of conductive threads which is connected to a micro controller. If it is cut the action triggers a warning alarm that includes the exact location of the breach.

The fabric can be used under wall tiles of a building,or laid over the floor under wall to wall carpeting, or laid on the rafters of a roof to provide an additional layer of invisible security for the building. It could even be used in the construction stage and integrated right into the concrete used to construct the building.

The revolutionary fabric was the product of an ongoing scientific  collaboration between the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Berlin, the Techische University Berlin, and ETTLIN Spinnerei und Weberei Production GmbH. The current flowing through the fabric is too weak to pose a threat to humans but is more than enough to trigger an alarm.

When you think of a computer you think of software and logical steps. You think of programmed tasks and rather mechanical behavior. What you do not think of is emotions. However there’s a group of researcher in Malaysia who are determined to make you think again. Here is what they have done.

The team of researchers at the Manipal International University of  Selangor have developed a computer which they claim can decode human emotions by reading lip patterns.  Led by Karthigayan Muthukaruppan the reseachers have come up with a system that uses a genetic algorithm that helps the computer identify the various emotions that a person may be expressing.

The algorithm improves with each iteration to match irregular ellipse fitting equations to the shape of the human mouth displaying various emotions. Essentially the more the person uses the system the better it becomes at reading their emotions.

This latest science project could change the way that people interact with computers. It would also provide a great opportunity for disabled people to use voice synthesizers with more ease and efficacy. Computer based communication devices will also see a total revolution if the system can be used in mass manufacturing processes. That is still some time away, but the computers that understand emotions are here.

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!