PLANET SCIENCE NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 05 Stardate: Friday 11th October 2002 Did you know you can choose to receive this weekly news update free by email? sign up here Hands up who wants another top 10 of science-related news and things to do? Is that your hand up or were you just scratching your ear? Can't quite tell, so to be on the safe side, here it is, all the news you need this week. <cue: TOTP chart run-down music> In this week's Top Ten, you can see there are quite a few climbers and new entries... 1. SCIENCE RESOURCES for primary teachers 2. MAGNETISM QUIZ - online now 3. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK - Get Peel Appeal 4. MOUSES AT THE READY - Lookout Discovery Centre 5. MADE FOR SHARING - teachers' great ideas 6. GET BOOKWORMY - at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature 7. SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS - the tide is high... 8. RWW: Physics and magic ... 9. JOKE OF THE WEEK 10. AOB Wotsits, that's NOT what ... so, lots of good stuff coming up, pop-pickers. But we can't go any further without first saying Planet-sized "CONGRATULATIONS!!" to the UK's two brand new winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Sir John Sulston and Sydney Brenner - and to their American co-winner Robert Horvitz too. You can read all about them and their work into the behaviour of cells on the official Nobel website at http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/2002/ (click through to the Press Release for a bite-sized version of their discoveries). What top stars - and two years in a row for the UK too, not bad at all. PRIMARY SCHOOL RESOURCES Every Nobel prizewinner was a primary age pupil once, and no-one knows this better than the Association for Science Education who have been hard at work over the last several months creating an extensive new set of online materials specially for teaching this age group. The Primary Resources can be found online at http://www.sycd.co.uk/primary/index.htm and include all kinds of imaginative stuff from projects about materials, living things and physical processes, to an assembly plan, revision quizzes and insider information and tips regarding the whole business of teaching science in primary schools. All in glorious technicolour and downloadable too. You'll probably be aware that a free CD version of these resources has already been sent out to all state primary schools in England and Wales, and they've been going down well. So well in fact that many schools have been requesting extra copies. If that's the case in your school, or if your original one has been mislaid, the ASE want you to know that there are copies still available but due to lack of rich sugar-daddy type sponsor at this stage, they're having to charge for them. Not tooooo much though fortunately. The cost is £10 to ASE members including post and packing and VAT, and £15 to non-members. To purchase a CD please ring ASE Booksales on 01707 283001. (The CD will also be for sale through the ASE website shortly - http://www.ase.org.uk ) >top MAGNETIC QUIZ Meanwhile, if you're fond of north and south, homing pigeons, radiology, fridge magnets and the like, chances are you'll be ATTRACTED to taking part in our new online quiz. We call it 'Magnetism Magic' and all you need to do is answer 10 questions ranging from oh-come-on-that's-easy level to grrrrrrr-where's-that-Pears-Encyclopaedia... The prizes are suitably up in the air - they are Levitation Kits. Yes they are. LEVITATION KITS. And if we can get them back down from the ceiling, we'll be sending them off to the first three winners drawn out the hat in two weeks' time... Click here to try your luck. PS if it's levitation you're interested in, make sure you check out this week's Recommended Website of the Week - coming up below. >top ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FUEL One little quiz won't keep you occupied right through til the next newsletter, so here's a fruity old practical activity you can have a go at too. Flaming Fruit If you don't want to eat your fruit, you can always try toasting it... What you'll need: • Some matches. • A birthday candle. • Citrus fruits, such as lemon, orange, satsuma or lime Warning! Handle these ingredients with care and ALWAYS pay attention to safety when using candles. You can do this by: • Protect your eyes by wearing glasses or goggles. • Conduct the experiment in a well-ventilated area, away from flammable materials. • Attend to a lit candle at all times. Extinguish the flame as soon as you have finished the experiment, and make it's out before putting it away. • Warn observers to stand back before you try the experiment. What to do: Peel the rind off your fruit. Light the candle, and hold the outside of the rind close to the flame. Gently fold over then squeeze the rind - and keep your eyes peeled for a flash of light! What's happening: The skin of a citrus fruit contains oil, which is forced out when you squeeze it. The oil vapourises when it's heated, and when it ignites will burn with a bright light. Many plants contain volatile oils which have been useful to humans over the centuries. Some, like olive oil, we eat. Others, like rosemary and citronella, are known to keep biting insects at bay. Teatree and eucalyptus are both used for medicinal purposes, and many more are put to a variety of good uses, such as cleaning and aromatherapy. Still got your eyebrows? Good - well done for adhering to the safety advice! >top MOUSES AT THE READY This week we have four family passes to give away for the fabbo Look Out Discovery Centre in Bracknell. This is a hands-on science centre, where not only can visitors conduct their own explorations of sound, perception, forces and the human body, but they can run about and explore 2600m of woodland outside and chill out in an inflatable planetarium where you can listen to stories about the planets, stars and constellations. For more information have a look online at http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/lookout And if you fancy going along... what are you waiting for??? Email David Tasker right now on david@planet-science.com with 'LOOKOUT I'M ON MY WAY!' in the subject field. Make sure you send him your name, postal address and phone number too. And be quick! Only the first four through will be lucky winners... >top COLLECTIVE GENIUS AND IDEAS-SHARING ONLINE Calling all teachers! Shaun Allison, Head of Science at Bognor Regis Community College, has been in touch to alert you to a resource that you may find helpful - and may care to contribute to as well, for the good of colleagues everywhere! He says, "Never mind INSET, Performance management meetings, target review meetings etc, we all know that the most useful discussion between Science teachers happens over coffee in the prep/staff room - 'you know that enzyme practical, how do you....? etc etc'. "Well, imagine a global website where science teachers/technicians could pick each other's brains, discuss issues/practicals et etc?? Wouldn't that be great? "Well, here it is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scienceeducation/. Not only is this a great e-mail contact site, but members can also file away their resources for others to use, leave links to recommended websites, add their own databases etc. "Come on folks," he says, "let's all share our collective genius!!" Nice one, Shaun. >top SCIENCE ON THE PAGE The Cheltenham Festival of Literature gets underway today, and this year for the first time ever, they've teamed up with the 'Aventis Prizes for Science Books' to present a series of events entitled 'Science on the Page.' There will be three of these special events, taking place over the second weekend, 18-20 October. Hannah Holmes, who was shortlisted for an Aventis Prize this year for her book 'The Secret Life of Dust', will be flying in from the USA to talk about the book and how she came to write it; the question of how science is portrayed in contemporary fiction will be discussed by a panel comprising Kate Mosse, Raj Persaud, John Carey and Maggie Gee; and a workshop will be run for budding popular-science writers, led by the ever-lovely, ever-literary Georgina Ferry. Check it all out here. >top THIS WEEK'S SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS It's not just Atomic Kitten who are concerned about the Tide being High at the moment. The highest tides - real tides, in the sea - for 40 years are said to be on their way in the next few days, and Science Line have been finding out all about it. Here's where all the information is stored: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/slup/CuttingEdge/Oct02/hightide.html Check it out. (And they write their own material too, Science Line - that's the difference between them and those Kitten girls...) >top RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK As mentioned last week, Monday sees the start of global Earth Sciences Week. If you've not checked out Planet Science's very own set of activity resources to help you make the most of the wonderful world of The World, do so now - click here. Meanwhile, Ros Mist of SciZmic, the discovery club network has been in touch to alert us to the 'PHYSICS APPLETS' site - and we like it! It's not the most colourful site on the web, and it doesn't have the most arresting graphics on the homepage either, but don't be put off because inside, it does house some pretty cool applets. (Or 'animated interactive groovy stuff' as we say in the web business.) You do need to have Java enabled on your computer. For more info on this go here and click on 'What is It?' Link and scroll down. What the applets show is what's going on down at the molecular - or even photon - level. From X-rays, to microwave ovens and televisions, to an interactive version of Richard Feynmann's famous 'Two Slits' experiment. There's also something called 'Dave's Whizzy Periodic Table' which shows you what each of the elements look like close up... REALLY close up! On a lighter note, for any fans of stage and tv magic, have a look at MAGIC: THE SCIENCE OF ILLUSION . This is the site belonging to the 'California ScienCenter' - and just one more reason why a holiday trip to the West Coast of America would be very nice... However, you don't need to visit the building itself to learn the secrets of the world's most famous illusions, because you can do so online. Those famous magicians Penn & Teller have advised and spilled the beans on four top illusions: mind-reading, levitation, transformation and the 'Disembodied Head'. And it doesn't all get annoyingly vague when they get down to the nitty gritty as you might predict! It's all very clear, with diagrams and everything. Look out David Blaine, we're coming through... So, ladies and gentlemen, who'd like to be first to have their head removed? It's all p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y safe I assure you... >top JOKE OF THE WEEK >top A.O.B. - HURRAY FOR WOTSITE LOOKALIKES Last week we mentioned that Tawny Owl Pauline Britton had been in touch with the insiders' tip that making your own compass is easier if you use a polystyrene packaging chip rather than a bit of cork as we suggested. But she qualified her advice slightly by clarifying, "do not use the ones that look and smell like 'wotsits' because they dissolve in the water and you get a mess that resembles vomit". We should have explained more fully, as the Institute for Food Research has now contacted us to explain, that the reason these 'wotsit'-style chips do what they do and turn vomit-like in water, is because they are biodegradable and therefore a Very Good Thing. Just not for home-made compasses. Hope no wotsits or wotsit-manufacturers were offended by our oversight. If you want to know more about the wotsits (real name 'GreenFill') you can read about them here or at http://www.greenlightproducts.co.uk/about.html Thank you Jo Belsten for that eco-info and also for putting the Planet Science team straight on a rampant office rumour, namely, that you could actually eat GreenFill chips in extremis. Apparently not. She says, 'We think there are some non-food additives in the product, so probably not a good snack!' So, just a couple of bags of polystyrene quavers then, barman. * * * * * * * * As you can see, this is an interactive newsletter so please do interact with us! All news, comments, jokes, forthcoming events should sent to Anne McNaught on anne@planet-science.com . Back next Friday ... so have a great Earth Science week! (And don't forget it's Seed Gathering Sunday this weekend - details in last week's newsletter.) >top