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 Can it really be a whole week since the last newsletter? Hmmmm, feels like less! Welcome back once again - hope you're ready for yet more news, activities, free tickets and dodgy jokes ... Here's what's coming up: 01. UK MAMMAL SURVEY - results released 02. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK - SEASONAL SHENANIGANS: Part 1 03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK - SEASONAL SHENANIGANS: Part 2 04. Mouses at the ready for: DR BUNHEAD LIVE IN LONDON 05. Grants available for EINSTEIN YEAR projects 06. RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK 07. UNSUNG HEROES: A vaccinator in the days before Edward Jenner 08. WINNERS OF A 'COOL DAY OUT' in Newcastle 09. COMEDY CREATIVITY CHALLENGE: win a book token! 10. JOKES OF THE WEEK Ready? Here we go... |
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01. GOOD NEWS FOR RABBITS AND POLECATS, BAD NEWS FOR WILDCATS
Just a quick mention for the survey, published this week by the Mammal Society, into mammal populations throughout the UK. As the name suggests, this is a wide-ranging survey that estimates the current populations of each of the UK's mammals, from water voles to deer, rabbits, otters and polecats. The last such survey was back in 1995, and there have been dramatic changes in many of the species' numbers since that time. Polecats and rabbits have thrived - but many other species have fared less well. There may, for example, only be a total of 400 Scottish wildcats left, and dormice too are seriously in decline. For a summary of the whole survey, have a look at the press release on the Mammal Society's site at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal/population%20estimates.shtml (While you're there, have a look at the rest of the site. The Whale Song collection in the Fun Zone is a particular highlight ...)  |
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| 02. ACTIVITY OF THE SEASON 1: THE SMOKELESS SNUFFER Ready or not, the festive season is officially coming our way, and for the next three weeks we'll be featuring a selection of activities that are particularly suitable for the forthcoming holidays. Wine glasses, crackers, condiments and cutlery have never had it so good, as we'll be revealing how to impress your dinner guests and play with your food in whole new ways ... Here comes the first one: the Toroidal Vortex, or 'Smokeless Snuffer' we call it. Blow out a candle without even moving your lips! NB: As this activity involves a lighted candle, adult supervision is advised at all times. You will need: * 1 2-litre plastic drinks bottle * A candle * Matches What to do: 1. Light the candle. 2. Position yourself about a metre away from the candle. 3. Take careful aim at the candle flame, hold the bottle steady against your chest, and tap the side gently but sharply. 4. Don't try to squeeze out the air. There's no need for the plastic to be deformed any more than a couple of centimetres. You are generating a vortex, not "blowing". 5. Watch the flame. There is a time-delay before your spinning air-ring reaches it. 6. When you miss, the flame bends towards the vortex. If the flame flickers to the right, you missed to the right. If the flame flickers to the left, you missed to the left. 7. Adjust your aim and keep trying. It's much easier to make the flame flicker as your vortex flies past, than to snuff it out with a direct hit. Don't try to tap the bottle any harder: concentrate on careful aiming. Persevere, because success is so rewarding! 8. After careful practice, you can snuff out a candle from as far as two metres (~six feet), just by tapping the side of a plastic bottle. Easy when you know how, eh? What's going on? A smoke-ring is a spinning, doughnut-shaped mass of air (a "toroidal vortex") spinning in an inside-out kind of way, so the air in the middle of the ring is always being blown forwards. This is the concentrated energy that puts out the candle flame. It's like a smoke ring ... but of course a bit trickier, as you can't see the ring of travelling air. All part of the fun, if you turn it into a party game! At a range of 1.5 to 2 metres, you'll probably need quite a few shots before you hit the target successfully, but it's surprising how much of the initial energy is still contained in the ring of spinning air, even after travelling that distance. Persevere. This activity was taken from Ian Russell's Interactives site at: http://www.interactives.co.uk/me_toroidalvortex.htm. Thanks for that Ian! |
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| 03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: FAST FOOD And so to nuts. Q. What are the chances of picking out a Brazil nut when you plunge your hand into a jar of mixed nuts without looking? A. Considerably better if you tap the jar on the table a few times first. But why ...? You will need: * A jar of mixed nuts * A tabletop * A hand What to do: 1. Unscrew the lid of the jar and see which nuts are on the surface. There's sure to be at least one Brazil nut. 2. Push the Brazil nut(s) down below the surface. 3. Screw the lid back on and give it a gentle thump on the table a few times. 4. Now look inside again. Aha!! How did that happen? What's going on? The Brazil nut(s) are larger than the other nuts in the jar. As you tap the jar the Brazils move upwards which allows the other smaller nuts to fall beneath it and take up the space it leaves. Since the Brazil nut is fairly smooth, the friction between it and the other nuts is low which makes it easier for other nuts to slip beneath it. As you continue to shake the jar the Brazil nut will gradually move upwards until it is finally sitting on the surface. Cunning eh? PS You can also try this trick with a jar of rice and a marble. |
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| 04. MOUSES AT THE READY for MR BUNHEAD'S 'RECIPES FOR DISASTER' If it's experiments with everyday implements you're after, but on an even bigger and much noisier scale: you need DR BUNHEAD. You may already be familiar with Dr Bunhead (aka Tom Pringle) from Blue Peter, or Sky One's 'Brainiac' programme. If not, all you need to know is that he's a scientist/demonstrator/entertainer extraordinaire - and he likes his experiments EXTREME! In addition to his tv work, the Doctor has recently been travelling around the country with his live show, 'Recipes for Disaster'; a feast of explosions, flames and hair-raising stunts and demonstrations. All loosely based in and around the Bunhead home kitchen ... The heady brew of exploding underpants, ricocheting potato chips, and cereal box fireworks have proved so popular that Dr Bunhead is now going where few science communicators have gone before: the West End of London. He'll be doing two shows daily at the Comedy Theatre in Panton Street, from December 20 - 2nd Jan (excluding public holidays). The tickets normally cost between £10 and £15, but we have secured two 4-person family tickets to give away. If you'd like to read more about exactly what's going on in the show, click to BUNHEAD ONSTAGE at http://www.bunheadonstage.co.uk To get into the draw for the family passes, send an email to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk entitled BUNHEAD 4 ME! with a note of your name and address. The draw will take place next Thursday at 5pm. Good luck, Bun-lovers! |
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| 05. EINSTEIN YEAR: FUNDING AVAILABLE FOR OUTREACH PROJECTS Einstein Year is peeking around the corner at this very moment, and the organisers have just announced their second round of funding for a number of outreach projects. Here's what they say: "Einstein Year is the UK & Ireland's contribution to the world-wide celebrations marking International Year of Physics. It is a unique opportunity to enthuse young people about physics and to highlight the contribution of contemporary physics to society. "To make Einstein Year truly national, the Institute of Physics is encouraging individuals and organisations to run their own physics-based outreach activities in their communities during 2005. "To support these activities, the Institute is offering awards of up to £1,500 through the Einstein Year grant scheme. Application forms and further information for Round 2 of the Einstein Year grant scheme are now available online at www.einsteinyear.org/get_involved/funding. "The closing date for Round 2 is 25 February 2005 and priority will be given to activities taking place in the second half of 2005. (Please note that funding decisions will not be made in time to support activities during National Science Week.)" For more information on Einstein Year please see www.einsteinyear.org or contact Caitlin Watson, Einstein Year Programme Manager, caitlin.watson@iop.org |
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| 06. RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK First of all: apologies for the crucial typo in last week's RWW. The featured Cassini-Huygens website can be found at: www.pparc.ac.uk/chsr - and it's well worth a look, so please revisit it! ---------- Also well worth a look is this week's recommendation. Regular newsletter correspondent Andrew Harmsworth, who's Head of Physics at The Leys School in Cambridge, gave us the tip off ... "I've just come by an AMAZING free resource," he says - and we agree. If you're a teacher, particularly with a whiteboard or digi-projector at your disposal, you are going to love this. It's called E-CHALK, and basically it's an online goldmine of interactive programmes that will help bring science to life on a screen near you." One example would be the Virtual Ripple Tank: you set up the parameters, and moving waves ripple out colourfully across the screen. Want the waves to emanate from more than one source? No problem, just add in what you want, and watch the resulting interference patterns. Explore diffraction by adding in a single or double slit set up, and play around with refraction, resonance and phased arrays. It all happens in vibrant green and red patterns, and whenever you want to freeze the action, you can. Other applets include: Additive and subtractive colour palate 3D models of both the Earth and the Moon An asteroid game underpinned by Newton's First Law of Motion An interactive Eye and Ear A Cell image bank A 'Build Your Own Atom' demo A universal indicator scale for household products ... and more more more. You'll need a Java enabled browser, and some of the applets might take a few moments to download, but they're well worth it. Here's the url: http://www.echalk.co.uk PS: Art teachers might enjoy the site too, as many of the displays are visually stunning, never mind educationally useful! Thanks again for the tip Andrew. |
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| 07. UNSUNG HEROES No 3: LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE This week's unsung hero is a woman who helped save thousands of lives in Britain in the 18th Century, by noticing and importing an effective disease-prevention technique from abroad. Ian Francis has been investigating: Edward Jenner's name is the one most often linked with vaccination. He'd noticed that milkmaids affected by the mild disease of cowpox seemed immune to the far worse disease of smallpox, which killed up to 30% of those who contracted it. Most who survived smallpox would remain pock-marked with its scars for life, and could become blind - hence the legendary prettiness of milkmaids was at least partly due to their lack of smallpox scars. In 1796 Jenner tried his famous experiment - one that medical ethics would never allow today. He infected an eight-year old boy with cowpox and then, six weeks later, deliberately tried to infect him with potentially deadly smallpox. Fortunately for all concerned, the vaccination worked and we presume the boy lived happily ever after, with Jenner becoming a hero of science as the father of vaccination. But someone else deserves an honourable mention in the history of preventing disease, if not as a direct parent, perhaps as a grandparent of vaccination. This person in question is the aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montague. In 1717 she travelled to Turkey with her ambassador husband. She immersed herself in the culture of her new country, and noticed that the locals engaged in a practice of rubbing scabs from a victim of a mild form of smallpox into scratches made on the skin of someone healthy (or alternatively, blew the scabs up their nose!) This conferred good protection from the disease. As someone who had had the disease herself, (as well as losing her brother to it), she leapt at the chance of protecting her children from the pox. Her son was 'variolated' in this way by the Embassy doctor. The name comes from the variola virus, the cause of smallpox. It's believed that variolation may have developed in India and China and was brought to Turkey by Arab traders. Lady Montague worked hard on her return to England to publicise the idea, having her 4-year old daughter variolated in the presence of the Royal Court's doctors. Then in 1721, several abandoned children and six inmates of Newgate prison were variolated in a medical trial prequel to Jenner's famous experiment. (The prisoners earned release as well as smallpox immunity for their part in the trial). The promising results encouraged the upper classes of Britain and Europe to try it, although there remained a small risk (1 or 2%) of actually contracting a fatal form of the disease. King George III lost a child due to the procedure, but it was a vast improvement on what went before and a life-saver for many of those variolated until Jenner's work at the end of the century. A good history of the war on smallpox can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/index.html The World Health Organisation tells the story of the fight to eradicate smallpox here: http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/smallpox/factsheet.html and you can read about how smallpox has brought down empires at: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/127/8_Part_1/635 |
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08. ICE COOL WINNERS |
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| 09. A CRACKER OF A CREATIVITY CHALLENGE FOR YOU Fancy exercising your joke-writing skills and perhaps winning a £5 book voucher? We are looking for five jokes on the theme of strangers coming to the door during the festive period ... You may recognise the format already: Knock knock! Who's there? XXXXX XXXXX who? XXXX funny punchline! As it's a creativity challenge though, you may improvise on this format or even use a different one. So long as the basic surprise-guest-at-door theme is maintained. We're looking for originality and genuine funny-ness, and extra marks will be awarded for jokes that incorporate science in some shape or form ... Dr Comedy, our regular in-house judge on such matters, will adjudicate. In the past, the standard has been very high, so fingers crossed. Send your entries to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. Entitle your email KNOCK KNOCK, and make sure to include a note of your name and address, so we can send you your voucher if you win. |
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| 10. JOKES OF THE WEEK This week, we're revisiting another favourite format: the Doctor Doctor joke. Next patient please! Doctor Doctor I swallowed a bone. Are you choking? No, I really did! Doctor, Doctor I think I'm suffering from Deja Vu! Didn't I see you yesterday? Doctor, Doctor my son has swallowed my pen, what should I do? Use a pencil until I get there. Doctor, Doctor I think I'm a bell? Take these and if it doesn't help give me a ring! Doctor, Doctor I've got wind! Can you give me something? Yes - here's a kite! Doctor, Doctor I feel like a sheep. Ooh, that's baaaaaaaaaad. And finally, overheard in the GP's surgery: Patient: My tongue tingles when I touch it to a cracked walnut wrapped in aluminium foil that's been heated several times in the oven. What's wrong with me? Doctor: You have far too much free time. - o - O - o - That's all for this week's newsletter. Hope to hear from you on the joke-creativity front, and as ever we welcome all other contributions or thoughts you may have for future editions. Just send them through to Anne McNaught on anne.mcnaught@nesta.org.uk. Have a great week! |
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