clipped from: www.nasa.gov   
NASA -National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA develops child car-seat safety device

Every year infants and small children die needlessly because they have been left in vehicles, according to KIDS 'N CARS, a national nonprofit safety organization. As a result, NASA has developed a safety device that would alert parents who inadvertently leave their infants and small children strapped in car seats.

The NASA device, inspired by aircraft flight test technology, uses precision materials and electronics to sense when a child is seated in a car infant or booster seat after the driver has left the vehicle.

Overloaded, exhausted, distracted or confused by a change in routine, working parents can completely forget that they've left their children unattended.
The Child Presence Sensor driver alarm, designed to hang on the driver's key ring, sounds ten warning beeps if the driver moves too far away from the vehicle.