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 Guest Editor: Emma Lewis takes the reigns again... It’s nearly that time of year when people all across the UK will be subjected to a terrifying night of daunting disturbances, bloodcurdling cries and agonising overacting. You’re thinking teenage trick-or-treaters brandishing eggs and flour, but I’m thinking more along the lines of a whole night’s viewing of Most Haunted! So don’t turn on the telly and don’t venture outside — curl up instead with this issue of the newsletter and a nice cup of witches’ brew... Here’s what to look out for... 1. NOVEMBER QUIZ: Cure your cravings with our choccie prizes. 2. PLANET PICKS: Planet Goth’s Haunted House Revisited 3. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: Horrific Halloween Table Decorations 4. OUT AND ABOUT: Take a trip with your little wizards and witches! 5. MOUSES AT THE READY: Go batty for this week’s prize. 6. WHERE’S THE SENSE IN THAT? Cue Bruce Willis... 7. WINNERS WINNERS WINNERS: Have you won the star-spotting kit? 8. JOKES OF THE WEEK: Enough to turn your hair white! |
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01. CALLING ALL CHOCOHOLICS: PRIZES TO SATISFY YOUR SWEET TOOTH!
For those of you who are too old to go trick-or-treating, I know another way you can get your hands on oodles of chocolate — by taking part in November’s Planet Science Quiz instead! To enter, you need to know your facts about brown. Not Ian Brown or Derren Brown and certainly not Doc Brown (of Back to the Future fame), we’re talking about the actual colour brown. No other colour signifies autumn better so, considering the season is in full swing, we’re paying homage to brown. The questions range from fish to famous scientists and from bears to CHOCOLATE, which is why we’re giving 20 lucky winners the chance to win a tooth-decaying plethora of the stuff to cheer them up through the long evenings ahead! Check it out here.  |
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| 02. PLANET PICKS: DARE YOU ENTER THE HAUNTED HOUSE — AGAIN? We’ve all watched enough horror films to know the rules of staying alive; never split up, never say, "I’ll be right back" and of course, never go back inside. With these rules in mind, are you brave enough to enter Planet Goth’s Haunted House AGAIN? Click here if you dare: As you wander around the haunted house, you’ll find all you need to know about the science behind vampires, blood, black clothing, ashen-white faces, garlic and much, much more. Once you understand all that’s gothic, never again will you embarrassingly wish next door’s gothic daughter fun trick-or-treating (when really she’s off to the local cinema!). Instead you’ll be able to share make-up tips and suggest different shades of black that may suit her! When you’ve finished in the house (that is if you come out alive) why not try making Sticky Worm Balls, Fake Scabs and Scars, or Peppermint Scream Creams? Also, as mentioned in last week’s newsletter, don’t forget that Planet Science has more recipes and all the experiments and resources you need to hold a science-themed Halloween party, here. |
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| 03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK — SHRUNKEN HEADS! In celebration of Halloween and the find of the remains of a ‘Hobbit’-like human this week, here’s how to make your very own shrunken heads. They make gruesome table decorations! Note: If you are under 16 you will need to ask an adult to supervise. You will need: * Apple * Apple corer * Vegetable peeler * Cup of lemon juice * 1 tbsp salt * Bowl * Small knife What to do: 1. The first step is to core the apple and remove the skin, which will help the apple to dry quicker. 2. Next, mix the lemon juice and salt in a bowl and roll the apple around in the mixture for a minute. 3. Now, use the small knife to carve out holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. Remember that apples contain a lot of water so when dry they will shrink to half their size. This means you need to make the facial features big but without too much small detail, as this will be lost. 4. Once again dip the apple into the lemon and salt and then place them on a baking tray. 5. The quickest way to dry them is to place them inside an oven on its lowest setting and keep checking them until they are dry. Decorating Options: When the apple is nearly dry you could use a needle and thread to sew the mouth closed, or use grains of rice for teeth or raisins for eyes. Once the apple is dry you could make it a witch’s hat or add wool for hair! What's going on? The apple dries, shrinks and changes shape. Freshly cut apples turn brown when iron-containing chemicals inside apple cells react with oxygen in the air. The chemical reaction is called oxidation, and it is similar to the rusting of iron. When you soaked your apple in lemon juice, the acid in the lemon juice affects this reaction and keeps the apple from browning too much. Although there were many headhunting cultures throughout the world, only one group was known for ancient practice of shrinking human heads (tsantsa). They were called the Jivaro clan who lived deep in the Ecuadorian, and neighbouring Peruvian Amazon. The shrunken heads were used as trophies since it was thought the wearers harnessed the power of their hapless victims. The shrinking process (not for the squeamish!): After the head was severed, they peeled the skin off the face, turned it inside out and scraped it. Believing that violent death unleashed a soul bent on revenge, they carefully sewed up the lips and eyelids to trap and paralyse the spirit. The skull and brain were sacrificed to the spirit of the anaconda while the leftovers simmered in a pot of berry-cured water. The plant used is believed to be ‘huito’. After less than 2 hours, the head would shrink to about a third of its size. Then heated pebbles were placed inside the head and shaken to shrink the skin. When the head was too small for pebbles, it was placed between hot rocks (heated by fire) and the cavity of the head filled with hot sand several times. This has the effect of melting a layer of fat inside the head, and causes the skin of the head to shrink and to turn black. The face was rubbed with charcoal and berries to keep it moisturized, so it wouldn’t crack. After one night of smoking over a fire, the hair was carefully trimmed and the head was ready for the celebration. Much less disgusting to use apples! For information on the Hobbit-sized human visit the Science Museum, London’s website at: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/flores/ |
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| 04. OUT AND ABOUT: Get Spooked at a Science Centre Near you! If you’re not hosting a Halloween party but you want to find something for your little ones (and not so little ones) to do then you could visit one of these four science centres this weekend: Techiquest, Cardiff Sunday 31st October Celebrate the spookiest night of the year at Techniquest with a creepy treasure trail around the exhibition, performances of the spooky science show, freaky face-painting and ghoulish craft activities to make and take home. For more information visit Techniquest's website at: http://www.techniquest.org Glasgow Science Centre Sat 30th and Sun 31st October Professor Bedlam's Potion Show will keep the whole family entertained throughout the Halloween weekend. This magical and mysterious sorcerer puts on a show crammed full of whizzes, flashes, bangs and explosions. Not for the faint-hearted! Visit http://www.glasgowsciencecentre.org for more details. Science Museum IMAX Theatre, London Sat 30th and Sun 31st October Say "trick-or-treat" to staff at the IMAX ticket desk this weekend and you could win a free pair of tickets to watch Haunted Castle 3D. Or print out the voucher on their website http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/imax/promotions.asp and go along to a special viewing where you pay for 1 ticket and get 1 ticket free! Thinktank, Birmingham Until 30th November Experience The Dark! You are in pitch darkness. Disoriented, you are drawn towards eerie voices and sounds. Guided by your ears and imagination, you find yourself immersed in the story of a disease-ridden slave ship where sickness is rife amongst the human cargo, rendering many of them completely blind. Find out more here: http://www.thinktank.ac/explore/events/the_dark.htm |
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| 05. MOUSES AT THE READY: For Young Batworker Memberships Now for a competition that might drive you completely batty! This week I spoke to Ginni Little from the Cornwall Bat Hospital, and for those of us with long hair wanting to venture out during the dark nights, she put rest to a particular myth involving bats: "Bats are good creatures — they eat lots of annoying insects. Unfortunately they have a bad reputation because they only fly at night and there are many myths and horror stories involving bats. They certainly don’t get tangled in your hair, but you may experience bats swooping low over your head because you have just disturbed lots of tasty insects! Unfortunately, bat numbers are dropping rapidly because their homes are being destroyed. Old buildings where bats once roosted have been renovated into new houses and hedgerows and woodland that bats use for feeding and cover have been chopped down and bats are often poisoned by pesticides used in the countryside." If you want to help, you can get in touch with the Bat Conservation Trust. Here’s the link: http://www.bats.org.uk . There’s a great section for kids on there too. With this in mind, this week’s Mouses at the Ready competition is for three Young Batworker Memberships for children under the age of 16. As a member the child will receive a quarterly newsletter and a bat fact pack along with a badge and sticker. All you have to do is send your name and address to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘I’M A LITTLE BATTY’ in the subject box. If you win the membership, we will contact you for the name and address of the child. |
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| 06. WHERE’S THE SENSE IN THAT? Halloween Special What sense might Ian explore in this Halloween Special? Let me just tune my fine powers of ESP and I’ll surely come up with the answer. How spooky — that’s him on the phone now. This is just getting too weird! Appropriately enough our sixth sense is the sixth sense. The theorised sixth sense includes a variety of skills under the umbrella term of ESP (extra sensory perception). For example, ‘telekinesis’ is the ability to move or change objects by scientifically inexplicable means, an ability claimed by Uri Geller (despite famously being captured on camera using the heel of his shoe and a decidedly un-ESP contact force to bend a spoon). ‘Telepathy’ means literally ‘distance feeling’ but more usually ‘reading someone’s mind’. ‘Precognition’ is the supposed ability to know something that will happen in the future — for example the gibberish of Nostradamus that is often ‘shoehorned’ into an event to ‘predict’ it once it has happened. Unsurprisingly, this is an area full of cranks and charlatans but it is seriously studied by a small number of places in the UK, including Edinburgh, Goldsmiths College in London and the University of Hertfordshire. Despite this research, no evidence of the paranormal has been found according to Richard Wiseman, who is Professor of Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. Sometimes a more neutral term is used for paranormal effects (PSI) to distance these serious studies from the usual ‘mad as a fish’ connotations. The Koestler Parapsychology Unit in Edinburgh has attempted to describe some of the mechanisms by which ESP might occur, if it exists, and you can get some of the background here: http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/Physical_H.html A major problem is that only four fundamental forces are known in nature, and interactions between our sense organs and these forces are comparatively well understood. While it’s dangerous (and slightly arrogant) to suggest we already know pretty much everything there is to know about this interaction, it’s hard to imagine unknown forces which could exert effects on previously unknown sense organs in currently unknown ways. A powerful evolutionary argument against ESP is that if it occurred in nature it would confer a massive survival advantage for an organism with the ability. It therefore follows that evolution would favour such individuals over their less-well gifted peers. The occurrence of ESP in the wild should therefore have become widespread (a mouse with the foresight not to go in your back garden next weekend and avoid a fatal encounter with your pet cat Tiddles would undoubtedly live to fight many more days, compared to the next mouse who couldn’t tell big trouble was even only seconds away). Perhaps the final word on the sixth sense should go to James Randi, magician and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (http://www.randi.org). He’s offered 1 million dollars to anyone who can ‘show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event’. So far his money has been safe. Wait, James Randi doesn’t get the final word after all. My ESP tells me that next week’s sense could all be done with magnets! Thanks for that Ian. I just hope nobody tuned their minds into my computer to sway the results of the astronomy kit draw... |
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| 07. WINNERS The draw for the Young Scientist Astronomy Kit took place at 5pm yesterday and the winner (quite aptly) was: Peter Gann from Sproughton School Stargazers Society (try saying that ten times fast!). Congratulations! The runner-up prize was an Astronomy and Space book from Usborne, which will be making its way to: Sandra Price from Wilstead and Anne Duckworth from Kent. Look out for your prizes in the post soon! |
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08. JOKES OF THE WEEK |
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