Empathy is is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person’s frame of reference, as per Wikipedia. It is an important quality for a doctor to have. It allows the doctors to forge a bond with the patient they are trying to treat.

Unfortunately when faced with the task of passing on less than positive news about the illness to the patient or their care takers and family members, doctors can be at a disadvantage. Delivering difficult news about their health needs to be done in a caring and empathetic manner.

This usually comes with practice. Again, the new doctors and interns do not have the advantage of years of experience to learn this. So Michigan Medicine School at the University of Michigan has decided to give them some practice. By allowing them to speak to virtual people in a new science project.

Lifelike humans are seen on a computer screen and supposed to be patients and relatives. The medical student is told about the condition that they need to communicate in a supportive and caring manner. They are then judged on their delivery, words, body language, etc., to see just how good a job they did.

Long term habitats for astronomers on Mars will require some major creative thinking. How can living quarters be established quickly, with a minimum of resources and stay durable for the long time that they will be in use. This is a puzzle that scientists have been working on for a while to solve.

While one batch of researchers is working on turning Martian soil into bricks using pressure, another is wondering if constructing igloos is the way to go. NASA scientists have been working on reinventing the traditional Igloo in a manner that it works on Mars.

The concept is to have an inflatable domed structure which can be filled with water. Given the much colder temperatures of the Martian atmosphere, the water will freeze in place. This will provide the Igloo with a thick wall of ice that helps protect the inhabitants from dangerous cosmic rays that float around the surface as well.

The science project involving housing options on Mars has many more concepts under exploration by NASA scientists. Whatever the astronomers eventually use will need to be resilient enough to survive harsh terrains as well as easy enough to set up with a minimal amount of resources and fuss.

Parking at a mall or a crowded location is never fun. The stress and strain of actually finding a spot is just about equaled by trying to find the car again once you return. Some people even take photographs on their smartphones just so that they will be able to identify the place they need to return to.

Now here’s a little gadget that pairs up with your smartphone and works like a homing beacon for finding your car, no matter where it is parked. Called the Cariboo, the gadget simply needs to be plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car for it to be operational.

Once plugged in, it will need to be linked to an App which is available on your smartphone to trace exactly where the car’s location is. Not only does it make finding your car easy, it also ensures that if someone else drives off with your car, you can trace it.

Other features include being able to send your precise location to friends while waiting for them to find you, as well as being able to generate statistical data on your personal driving habits. This is one science project that is  on it’s way to financial success.

One of the primary concerns for humanity is the lack of accommodation for it’s growing masses. As our numbers grow the planet’s resources get strained to provide food, clothing and shelter for us all. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers have developed a system that can 3-D print the basic structure of an entire building.

Perhaps being able to make buildings with finite resources and in a quick span of time may be the answer to the housing problem that humans are already facing. The system has a tracked vehicle which is used to carry a large industrial robotic arm.  The huge robotic arm has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end.

The researchers claim that the building will be built cheaper and faster than regular construction. Plus it can be customized and modified as desired by the owner. Different materials are incorporated into the 3D printing as the process is carried out. This is no longer about simply shaping plastic the way you want it. The system can use a variety of materials.

Another advantage of this science project is that unlike older systems that were restricted to a certain area for printing, this one can move around freely. This gives the system the ability to construct all manners and sizes of things.

One of the primary problems that people who set out to colonize Mars will face is that of adequate building material. How are they going to construct homes, when they will have such severe restrictions on what they can carry with them from Earth.

Majority of the material they carry would be food, water and tools. So it would make sense to be able to build bricks from scratch on Mars. At least that’s what the researchers at the University of California – San Diego, want to do.

They have come up with a technique which uses pressure, similar to the kind generated by a blow of a hammer, to build a brick out of martian stimulant soil. This brick does not need to be baked like the traditional ones made back here on Earth.

To make the bricks without additives like polymers and without heating, two steps are necessary. First is to place the soil in a compact area and second was to create a pressure like dropping a 10-lb hammer from a height of one meter.

That is literally all it took to form the brick. Now the proposal to build solid habitats for human pioneers on Mars has become easier thanks to this science project.

The computer has always been a source of heat. The early computers had a tendency to overheat and switch off. To avoid this happening they were placed in cool rooms to combat the heat that they generated. Now there is a chance that the very heat that the computer generates is used to cool the area around it.

At least that’s what the researchers at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln are trying to do. Instead of combating the heat they are planning to use it as an alternative energy source. This is an interesting science project with many possibilities.

As electricity and heat are both essentially sources of power, they plan to use the heat generated when the computer is in use. Sidy Ndao is the assistant professor of mechanical and material engineering who is developing a nano thermal device or thermal diode to the effect.

Ndao feels that one would be able to use heat in the same way one is able to use electricity. By using the heat generated by the computer to power up the computer itself is one way to go. The heat expended is used to power the thermal diode which is fitted into the computer and acts sort of like a secondary power source.