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1. Organs a go-go: Innards Quiz
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 It’s what’s inside that counts, right? Well, it is in Planet Science’s fab new September Quiz. As a celebration of World Heart Day the quiz is dedicated to innards; ours and our animal friends’. If you know the difference between an appendix and a pancreas you are in with a chance to win a game of Operation!
http://www.planet-science.com/quiz
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2. Planet Sci-Spy
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So you think you know the Planet Science website? Here is your chance to test your knowledge with our new Newsletter feature - Planet Sci-Spy!
We’ll be posing you a tricky science question, and of course Planet Science has the answer. To receive a £5 book token you need to send your answer in an email to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. Please put ‘Planet Sci-Spy’ in the subject and include your name and address with the answer. The winner will be picked at random from the correct answers at 5pm, Thursday 15th September!
This week…
Where would you be, if speaking felt like talking with your ears blocked up?
Not sure where to start? Here’s a clue…
www.planet-science.com/outthere/
sound_check/sound_music.html
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3. Supersleuth: Brush up on your forensics
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To launch the 2005 Supersleuth Competition the Science Learning Centre in London is running a free twilight forensic event on September 12 at 5pm.
Supersleuth is a competition for primary to Post-16 pupils in which they use their enquiry skills to solve a mystery WhoDunnit. Supersleuth, the world's greatest detective, will attend the event to outline the competition and introduce Professor Jim Frazer, a leading expert in forensic science, to talk about his work. Professor Frazer has been an expert witness in many high profile UK and international cases. And to help with sleuthing, there will be an opportunity to ask questions about forensic science.
To book look at www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk/london and follow the Supersleuth link!
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4. BA Festival of Science Webcast
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The BA Festival of Science is in Dublin this year. It runs from 3 – 10 September, so unless you have your tickets booked you might be thinking it’s too late to get involved. But that’s where you would be wrong!
Cambridge University Science Productions (CUSP) are webcasting live from the event so you can participate online. They are broadcasting distinguished lectures and other popular content, including Ireland's deep water coral reefs, how to vacuum-pack a teacher, nanomachines, and much more.
There'll also be an opportunity for anybody to send in questions during the lectures. Through their video archive, many of the lectures will be available after the event too.
To see the webcasting programme, find out more, or to just start watching, go to http://www.cusp.org.uk/festival.
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5. Junior Café Scientifique
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 I, Robot: could it happen?
Mars probe: what can it really tell us?
Unravelling the rice genome: GM disaster or end to hunger?
Dramatic headlines that concern us all!
Junior Café Scientifique gives pupils the chance to talk about these concerns with working scientists. In an informal ‘café’ atmosphere, they can discuss these issues and many more in contemporary science and technology.
Anyone can come to a Café Scientifique – teachers and pupils, any age, any status, any interest. Cafés happen out of lesson time, in cafeterias, common rooms or libraries – any place where audience and speaker can meet face to face.
The speakers are volunteers from local universities and industry, ranging from professors to young PhD students and the cafés are organised and run by the pupils themselves.
This project is starting in schools across the north of England. If you are a parent, teacher, governor or pupil and you’d like to find out more, please visit their website http://www.juniorcafesci.org.uk/ or email ann.grand@juniorcafesci.org.uk
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6. Eggtivity: Turning a good egg bad.
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 There were two eggs being boiled in a saucepan. One egg said 'ouch it's hot in here...' The other egg said 'arghhhh!! A talking egg!!'
How do you tell a good egg from a bad one? Well, a good egg sinks and bad egg floats. Pretty much the same way as they tested for witches in the Middle Ages! Of course it all depends on what it is floating in…
You will need:
- A glass of warmish water
- Salt (around 50g)
- A fresh egg
- Something long for stirring
What to do:
- Pop the egg carefully in the glass of warmish water. Don’t drop it in or it will hit the bottom and crack.
- Start adding a teaspoon of salt at a time and stirring it to dissolve. You can take the egg out if you want, but if you choose your glass and stirrer carefully you won’t have to.
- Watch as your apparently good egg starts to rise to the surface.
What’s going on?
Firstly, why do bad eggs float? Eggshells seem pretty solid, but they are in fact slightly porous. This means that water evaporates from through the shell from its inside to the outside world. As an egg gets older the air space inside grows and this acts as a buoyancy aid. Pop the old egg in water and it bobs to the surface.
Buoyancy is what this activity is all about. Imagine the weight of an egg and the weight of the water that the egg takes up when dropped in the glass – the displaced water. These two things compete to be nearer the bottom of the glass. If the egg is heavier it will sink and if the displaced water is heavier it will sink, which means the egg will float. This is Archimedes’ principle.
So there are two ways to make an egg float. Either make the egg lighter, which happens when it is old, or make the water heavier. And how do you make water heavier? Add salt. The salt dissolves and the salt ions (sodium and chlorine) squeeze in between the water molecules. The weight of salty water displaced by the egg will then be greater than the weight of the egg.
Result – a bobbing good egg.
Thank you to the British Egg Information Service for the great egg joke! http://www.britegg.co.uk/beissection/startsection.html
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7. Mouses at the Ready for: Flipside No 5
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 What do microscopic seaside monsters, vomiting in free-fall and your chances of being attacked by a shark all have in common? They’re all in the latest edition of Flipside.
This brilliant magazine, aimed at 11 – 15 year olds and put together by the Institute of Electrical Engineers, will entertain you as well! It’s certainly a big hit in the Planet Science/NESTA office and that’s with the Arts team too! So if you aren’t squeamish and love fantastic science facts read on. You just can’t make it up… stroke a chicken – online… maggots in cheese… and a worm with three lips and only one mouth.
We have 10 copies of Flipside to give away and all you have to do to enter is email planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. Put ‘Yes please, Flipside’ in the subject and please include your name and address. The draw will take place next Wednesday, 7th September at 5pm.
Want to know more? Have a look at Flipside Extra: http://www.flipside.org.uk/
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8. Sport Science: Golf: Much more than a good walk.
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  While for many golf may be the makings of a good walk spoilt, it does give players a chance to wear gear from the darkest recesses of their wardrobes and allows Planet Science to point out some material of special scientific interest. Ian Francis keeps us on course…
Those little golf balls don’t half fly don’t they? This is due in part to the length of the golf club, and the mass of the head of said club. A longer club means that the club is travelling at a higher speed (around 100mph) when it hits the ball, as it has travelled round part of a large circle in a short time. The mass of the head is significant as it means the club has a lot of momentum. An object has plenty of momentum if it is massive and speedy. All that momentum has to be given up when the club slows and stops. The principle of conservation of momentum considers how total momentum is conserved in a collision. Although the total momentum stays the same it is split differently after a collision.
In comparison to the mass of the club, the ball’s mass is slight (about 45g). The momentum of the club is transferred to the ball when they collide. Because the ball is given most of the momentum of the more massive club, it can be imagined to be more ‘concentrated’ and this results in the ball attaining a greater speed than the club that thwacked it. So the ball goes a longer distance (and may or may not go in the right direction, depending on the skill of the golfer).
The dimples on a golf ball help it to travel further as they help to generate lift. This is due to the spinning of the ball (see last week’s newsletter). It compensates for gravity, which pulls the ball back to earth, and drag, which reduces the ball’s forward speed. The result is that the ball is airborne for a longer period.
 Pure maths suggests that from the tee, the ball will follow a graceful arcing parabolic path. In fact the motion is markedly different. Its initial motion is almost in a straight line. This is due to the effect of lift working against gravity while the ball has greatest spin. As the spin wears off, gravity becomes the greater vertical force and the ball starts arcing downward. In the final half of its motion the downward path of the ball is pretty steep as there’s little lift left and drag has robbed the ball of much of its forward velocity.
If you add all of this up, in theory a hole in one without a bounce or two on the green is more possible than you’d think… it might just take a little practice.
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10. The Winners’ Enclosure
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We’d like to congratulate Neale Franklin in Hull for winning the Gunn & Moore, Michael Vaughan ‘Hit 4 Six’ cricket set.
And…
Joseph Krogulec in Nottingham
Amy Stupple-Bagnall in Milton Keynes
Susan Gauden in Warwickshire
…have each won a left handed 'fun pack', for cleverly getting Planet Science’s Whatever is Left Quiz all right.
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11. Joke of the week
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We had this joke sent in this week…
A man walks into a butchers shop asks the butcher "Are you a gambling man?"
The butcher says, "Yes".
The man says, "I bet you fifty pounds that you can't reach up and touch that meat hanging on the hooks up there."
The butcher looks up at the meat hanging on the hooks. He says, "I'm not betting on that".
"But I thought you were a gambling man," the man retorts.
"Yes I am," says the butcher, "but the steaks are too high".
Thank you very much!
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STOP PRESS! Would you like to work at NESTA?
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'Are you looking for an exciting and varied role in science communication or science education? If so, NESTA is currently looking for someone with experience in either of these areas to work in our Learning Programme for up to eleven months on maternity cover. If you'd like to know more, check out the details on NESTA's website:
http://www.nesta.org.uk/insidenesta/jobs.html
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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Please send in your comments and contributions to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk, particularly if you can do better than these jokes!
PS if you would like to unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time, just reply to this email with the word 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the title.
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Planet Science – A Day in the Life
