Aches and pains are the bane of human existence and a good masseuse can actually make them disappear with a proper massage. Unfortunately, the skill needs time to develop and the treatment itself may not be quite that affordable. Not to mention that a specialist may not always be available when you have need for one.

What then is the solution to your massage woes? Try a robotic masseuse. AiTreat is a start up company founded by Albert Zhang, a graduate of the Nanyang Technological University at Singapore. The robotic massage therapist developed by the company is called Expert Manipulative Massage Automation or EMMA for short.

Emma is a robotic arm with a 3d printed massage tip that offers sports  and other injury rehabilitation and pain management. Emma has been designed to work along with a physiotherapist as well as a Chinese physician. The robot is not a means to replace a therapist, rather a way for improving productivity by allowing a single therapist to treat multiple patients.

Zhang claims that Emma has a user friendly interface and consists of a single 6 axis robotic arm which is capable of highly articulated movements. It’s sensors include a 3D stereoscopic camera for vision, pressure sensors for the comfort and safety of the patients and more. This is one useful science project.

There are a number of records for the world’s largest machines and the tate-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) has just created it’s own. The world’s largest seaplane was constructed by the company this year in an ongoing effort for China to reduce it’s dependence on foreign built aircrafts.

The AG600 was unveiled in Zhuhai in China by AVIC. The aircraft is about the same size of a Boeing 737. It has a flight range of 4,500 km and is able to collect 12 tonnes of water in merely 20 seconds. The Chinese government plans to press it into service in marine rescue operations as well as to fight forest fires. It’s wingspan is much smaller than the H-4 Hercules which was designed in the 1940s for Allied Troops.

AVIC’s deputy general manager Geng Ruguang said that the AG600 would be very useful in developing and exploiting marine resources. Ruguang added that it could be used for environmental monitoring, resource detection and transportation.

Needless to say the construction of this behemoth is going to help the Chinese ability to conduct a variety of operations in the South China Sea, where it has built a series of artificial islands featuring air strips, among other infrastructure with the potential for either civilian or military use. Now those are science experiments the world would love to see.

Solar cells have been traditionally made of silicon. The element has dominated the sola cell and alternative energy market for years. However the days of silicon as kingpin of the solar cell creation may soon be at an end.

It’s successor may well be a material called Perovskite. This alternative is not just cheaper to manufacture solar cells with, it is also relatively easier to process as compared with silicon. While silicon based cells have an efficiency of 25%, the perovskite cells are still at 22% efficiency. This may seem a negative point till you consider that the first perovskite cell was at 3% and in the last few years the efficiency has been constantly improved.

However as Lin Leong of the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering in Singapore pointed out, the challenge to developing efficient and cheap commercially available solar panels has until now been dominated by silicon, with emerging alternative solar cells considered minor players.

With perovskite that autonomy and domination is now at risk. The promise of better efficiency, combined with its lower production costs makes the perovskite solar cells a viable and attractive option for commercial start up companies. This is one science project that they are literally going to be pouring over.

The hair you have can be straight or curled, crimped or coiled. You may be happy with it just the way it is, or you may be always trying to find new ways to style it. Well, the science of curls is being taken rather seriously at the Purdue University by a bunch of scientific researchers.

They are studying how the interplay of gravity, texture of the hair and the follicle that it grows out of, can all contribute to the actual manner in which the hair grows. They are also looking at symmetrical and asymmetrical follicles to see why the former grows straight hair and the latter curled.

Studying hair with computers in labs may seem like overkill, but each science project has its own importance and use. Currently the researchers are tying to figure out how the curly hair is made more vulnerable to heat during visits to the hair dresser.

Since straight hair conducts heat better it is less prone to burning than those curls. Now the team of researchers at Purdue University is conducting a science project to protect those curls by finding the optimum heat for styling them without causing them permanent damage. That’s knowledge that the curls on my hair could do with too.

When you look around the room what do you see? For that matter when you are out in the park, how do you see the trees, the grass and the flowers? Now wonder how your dog, who is along with you in the park, sees the same things and comprehends them?

Imagine how entertaining and educative it would be to be able to see the world through the eyes of animals. How many mysteries would be solved if we could see how animals in the wild actually behaved when there were no human beings near by.

Well, that’s exactly what you can do with CritterCam at National Geographic. The team of researchers attaches a camera system to a range of animals in the wild to reveal their point of view. They are then able to study the animal’s routine and behaviour without physically being present.

Of course it’s not all that easy to set up. They have to tranquillise the animal and then set upon it the harness which will contain the actual camera. Not to mention that the camera itself could develop a multitude of issues when in use. Still, the results so far have been highly encouraging for this science project.