PLANET SCIENCE NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 12 Stardate: Friday 29th November 2002 Did you know you can choose to receive this weekly news update free by email? sign up here Boo! Back again - these Fridays sure do come round quickly... And this time the situation is grave. The Festive Season is upon us. Alarming, but there it is. However, this does mean there are goodies in store for one and all. So saddle up those reindeer - here we come! Under starters orders... 01. £600,000 MORE KIT FOR SCHOOLS 02. SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE - get down tonight 03. Defy gravity with our ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK 04. SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS - fire awareness 05. RWW: Kids In Space 06. JOKE OF THE WEEK - no kidding O1. FREE SCIENCE EQUIPMENT FOR SCHOOLS Calling all Science and T&D teachers who could do with a some extra pieces of advanced science kit in their laboratories... You can put your name down now! As revealed in Planet Science News on October 11th, The Royal Society are overseeing another gigantic giveaway of school equipment for maintained secondary schools throughout the UK. £600,000 worth of equipment, including Geiger counters, microwave indicators and metal folding units are on offer this time, and while that may sound like an awful lot of resources, you should apply quickly as a). stocks are finite and b). HOW annoying would it be to lose out on a huge, no-strings-attached giveaway? If your school is eligible, your heads of Science and Design & Technology will have already have been sent a letter inviting you to select the kit of your choice and giving the hotline number. But don't worry if your letter has gone astray, you can download all the information you need - including descriptions of the kit available - from the Planet Science site right here. Hurry hurry hurry - repeat: HURRY HURRY HURRY - the closing date for applications is 20th December 2002, and equipment will be sent out during January and February. Back to top 02. BACK - BY POPULAR REQUEST It's funky, it's factual, and it's very very good looking... What is it? Dermot Murnaghan? No, we sadly do not have any dealings with Dermot on Planet Science (as yet). But what we can announce is … the Return of the December Shakedown. Cue fanfare! In case you missed the fabulous magical adventure that was last year’s version of the Shakedown, all you need to know is that this is an online daily countdown to the New Year that will get you tingling all over... It’s shaped like one of those snow-domes – with an array of snowflakes to be seen inside… Every day in December, a new snowflake will become activated, so that when you click on it, you will get a surprise! All sorts of surprises in fact… But all with a scientific twist. The shaking and surprising begins in WIRED on Sunday 1st December of course – but for now, you can only look but not touch! Find it here... Hope you like it! Back to top 03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK How to defy gravity! Poor old Isaac Newton. First he lands up a pitiful 6th on the BBC Great Britons poll, and then we feature a trick which appears to show that gravity doesn’t always work… You will need: • A group of slightly gullible friends who think they're clever • Two paper cones (which you can make yourself ) • Sticky tape • Two bits of string (both about 75cm-100cm long) • Blu-tak or similar • A table-top First make a wheel Cut two circles of thin card with equal diameter(about 15-20 cm), then from each circle cut out a segment like a slice of cake of about 45 degrees width. Bend each of the circles into cones of the same size and fix using either staples or sticky tape. Finally stick these two cones mouth-to-mouth, and you have your strange shaped wheel. Then make the rails Stick one end of both pieces of string to the edge of a table with lumps of blu-tak. Place them about 20cm apart, and hold the other ends out so they are stretched tight enough to balance the "wheel" on (but not so tight you pull them out of the blu-tak!) You need a hill for this wheel to "go up" Lean down so that the ends of the string you are holding are lower than the table-top (make a big deal of this to emphasis the hill to your audience). Most train-tracks are parallel, but for this trick to work, they need to be "tapered", with the ends you're holding quite close together compared to the 30cm gap at the top. Balance the "wheel" at the bottom of your "hill" where you are holding the string - and it will go up! (Experiment with the degree of slope of your hill before you try this in front of your friends, some slopes will give a more impressive result than others.) What’s going on? This is a classic optical illusion. The wheel is - as Newton would predict - actually falling down hill (you aren't defying gravity - it just looks that way). At the bottom of the hill the rails are close together so its the middle of the wheel that rests on them, as the rails get further apart, the wheel balances on its smaller (and lower) end. Really, it's the tracks that are rolling down the "hill" of the wheel, but your slightly gullible friends are unlikely to see it that way at first, and will be amazed at your magical powers… Back to top 04. SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS Fire and fire-prevention are playing heavily on everyone’s minds at the moment, so Science Line have this week compiled a ‘fire-file’ for us. Including an intriguing health warning … Check it out here (Or give them a ring on 0808 800 4000, Mon-Sat, 1-7pm if you’ve got any other scientific questions you’d like answered – they’ll be happy to help, and it’s a FREE service so don’t hold back! You can also post questions on their website or have a very enjoyable click through hundreds of previously asked and answered enquiries. The url is: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk) Back to top 05. RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK This week, space, the Final Frontier and a great NASA site for kids called … NASAkids! It’s animated and packed with real information and news relating to space and space exploration. However, it’s also full of instructions for fun hands-on projects sometimes only very loosely related to space, such as astro-cookery (El Nino Pudding, anyone?), projects like ‘make your own nanorover’ – and for little kids, print-offable colouring pages. For aspiring astronauts, the homeopage currently features an interview with Sally Ride, the first American woman in space in which she states clearly that without schools maths and physics she’d have got nowhere. NOWHERE. You tell ‘em Sally! Back to top 06. JOKES OF THE WEEK First of all, a quality mathematical 2-liner from (un-named) son of Hazel Cartledge, who is the Education & Outreach Officer at the Soho House Museum in Birmingham. "There's only 10 sorts of people, those that understand binary and those that don't!" Excellent. And a slightly longer one from the team at the Global Information Centre in Eastbourne (who you may hear more of, as they’ve been inundating us ever since the plea for jokes went out – thanks guys!) Here we go: “A hip young man goes out and buys the best car available: a 2002, vroommbeeb beeb. It’s the best and most expensive car in the world, and it costs him £700,000. He takes it out for a spin and, while doing so, stops at a red light. An old man on a moped pulls up next to him. The old man looks over the sleek, shiny surface of the car and asks, "What kind of car you got there, sonny?". The young man replies, "A 2002, vroommbeeb beeb. It sells at £700,000." "That's a lot of money," says the shocked old man. "Why does it cost so much? "Because this car can do up to 320 miles an hour!" states the cool dude proudly. The moped driver asks, "Can I take a look inside?" "Sure," replies the owner. So, the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Leaning back on his moped, the old man says, "That's a pretty nice car, all right!" Just then, the light changes, so the guy decides to show the old man what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds the speedometer reads 320 mph. Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer... He slows down to see what it could be and suddenly, whhhoooossshhh! Something whips by him, going much faster! "What on earth could be going faster than my 2002, vroommbeeb beeb?" the young man asks himself. Then, ahead of him, he sees a dot coming toward him. Whoooooosh! It goes by again, heading the opposite direction!!! And, it almost looked like the old man on the moped! "Couldn't be," thinks the guy. "How could a moped outdo a 2002, vroommbeeb beeb?" Again, he sees a dot in his rear view mirror! Whooooosh Ka-BaaaMMM! It ploughs into the back of his car, demolishing the rear end. The young man jumps out, and it was the old man! and the old man is hurt for certain. He runs up to the ailing old man and says, "You're hurt bad! Is there anything I can do for you?" The old man groans and replies, "Yeah. Unhook my elastic suspenders from your..... ... side-view mirror!" As promised, chocolate selections have gone off to both of this week’s contributors. And there’s more where those came from (Sainsbury’s) so keep those jokes coming! Back to top A.O.B. Also a winner this week is (un-named!) husband of Katie Hewis who has another Scrabble-Challenge word for all newsletter readers: XYLEM. Part of a plant, that is and a seriously good way of using up several duffish letters at once. Please send any contributions for future newsletters to Anne McNaught on anne@planet-science.com. Have a great week! And PS remember the December Shakedown starts doing it’s shakey thing every day in WIRED from SUNDAY 1st December. Back to top