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1. FameLab
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Do you get a guilty pleasure from competitions like X-factor, while secretly wishing you could get that much fun from something that stimulates your grey matter? Then you need NESTA backed project, FameLab. (It’s like Pop-Idol only… oh, you get the idea!)
FameLab challenges scientists and engineers to put their work across to an adult audience in just 3 minutes. Can it be done? Last year's regional heats attracted over 300 competitors, covering topics as diverse as lowland gorillas and catalytic cracking, all with verve and passion. This year's regional heats take place in March and April, and anyone can watch the regional final.
The regional winners go on to compete for a TV development deal, a tour of public events and £2000 cash. Go along and see the new David Attenboroughs and Carol Vordermans, before they get famous!
March 11th - Newcastle LIFE Science Centre - final at 3.30 p.m.
March 19th - Swansea National Waterfront Museum - final at 3.30 p.m.
March 26th - Edinburgh Dynamic Earth Centre - final at 3.30 p.m.
April 1st - London Dana Centre - final at 5 p.m.
April 22nd - Belfast W5 centre - final at 3.30 p.m.
For more details see www.famelab.org . The events are free, but you may need to book tickets in advance. FameLab is an initiative of Cheltenham Science Festival and NESTA, backed by Pfizer, RCUK, Channel 4 and the Daily Telegraph.
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2. Planet Science stuff
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 Webmaster Neelesh has been working really hard this week to make sure our library of links has been topped up with all the recommended websites of the week from the last few months, so if you’ve never visited, pop in for a browse www.planet-science.com/library, food and drink welcome!
There’ll be another romantic special quiz for St Valentine’s Day next month and it will be as slushy and soppy as the last two, don’t worry, but til then we’re going to keep the January Anniversary quiz up so if you haven’t already had a stab at the frankly peeesy 10 questions to win a colour changing clock you’ll find the quiz here www.planet-science.com/quiz
 The Planet Science Workshop on Wednesday was a lark, in the magnificently appointed IT suite at the Yorkshire and Humber Science Learning Centre.
Here’s what one of the science advisors said…. “I intend to bring the site to the attention of the Sheffield Science Subject Leaders, perhaps have a drop-in twilight session to explore.” So watch out Sheffield…
Places are still available on the West Midlands Workshop at Keele University (please note, there is a charge for the workshop here, but it is redeemable for a voucher to be spent at the West Midlands Science Learning Centre.)
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3. Notice board.
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Another smorgasbord of science education news you can’t afford to be without.
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Feel the Pulse – grants up to £50,000.
Pulse is a funding initiative to support young people's arts projects inspired by biomedical science, and if you’ve ever had the tingly pleasure of seeing Stan’s Café and a team of students deliver ‘Plague Nation’, you’ll know how very effective these projects can be.
The Wellcome Trust is now inviting applications to Pulse for 2006 from across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. This grants scheme aims to engage young people with biomedical science and its impact on society. Projects can include work by, with, or for children or young people (any age up to 22) and can involve any art form or combination of art forms, such as dance, drama, live arts, visual arts, music, film, photography or new media.
Applications can be made by educational institutions, arts or science organisations. You can apply for any amount of funding up to a maximum of £50,000. www.wellcome.ac.uk/pulse
Previous funded projects have included Plague Nation, Mind Map and Skin Deep, and you can find out more about these on the Pulse site.
"it’s about making connections, perhaps making connections between what young people see in the media and learn in science lessons and their own experiences, it's about feeling involved in all that and giving yourself permission to have a response. " (Project artist)
"you knew you were on about something that touched people’s lives, it had more of an aura to it, more excitement and wanting to do it." (Student)
To find out more about past projects and for information on how to apply go to www.wellcome.ac.uk/pulse .The deadline for applications to the Pulse grants scheme in 2006 will be 24 March 2006.
If you have a project idea and would like to have an informal discussion about it, the Wellcome Trust will be running funding surgeries in various venues around the UK and Ireland in January and February 2006. For more details and to book see http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX027852.html
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Free Democs
Science is getting less black and white, what with 21st Century Science and all. Democs are a sort of card game that enable discussion about these subjects, it’s a relatively new idea, but if you fancy giving it a whirl with your class then new democs kits for schools are now on the nef website and FREE to
download (you have to register though). For more info on democs visit
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/democs.aspx
The downloadable kits are on stem cell research, climate change, vaccination policy, gm food, animal experimentation and neuroscience. They can be used with young people in and out of schools, in science clubs, festivals and special events, and in science centres and museums.
Here’s what some teachers have said about using the democs:
“This activity is actually really important for the Year 9 group since they will be part of the new science in the 21st century national curriculum. “
“I have had a discussion like this before with the students, but not in such an extended form.”
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Attention Scotland!
Another snippet with a biomedical theme and a Wellcome connection. Biomedical Horizons: University of Edinburgh, the Wellcome Trust and partners invite you to a FREE hands-on science event in Edinburgh for S2-S5.
Is a biomedical career on your pupils' horizon? Would they know what one was if it poked them in the knees with a stick? Go along to this FREE Edinburgh-based event and you and your students can try some biomedical science for yourself and chat to people working in the sector.
There two, FREE events, here are the details of the first:
WHEN: Thursday the 2nd of March 10am – 4.30pm
WHERE: Edinburgh Corn Exchange, New Market Rd, Edinburgh (Please note: this event is taking place in parallel with Opportunities 2006, a large careers event organised by Careers Scotland in Edinburgh, your S4-S6 pupils may already be booked on a bus trip there!)
WHO: Invitation is extended to S2-S5 pupils; biology, physics and chemistry teachers; guidance teachers and careers advisers
WHAT: A 1.5 to 2 hour visit will include: hands-on workshops, talks from scientists, organization drop-in stands and a chance to find out about Biomedical work experience.
HOW: the booking deadline is THURSDAY 16th FEBRUARY 2006. Visit our website to find out more about the event and how to book:
http://horizons.bio.ed.ac.uk
or contact: Briony Curtis (Project Manager)
Tel: 0845 6 127 927
(Tuesday afternoons: 0131 650 7123) Email: briony.curtis@chiggs.f2s.com
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4. Mouses at the Ready – BETT specials
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We’ve raided the BETT store cupboard of delights this week to bring you one secondary and one primary piece of highly commended and award winning software. Thanks BETT!
SECONDARY
 Odyssey - Matter in Motion is a brand new software tool for teaching Advanced Chemistry which offers an exciting way to visualise the molecular world. It raises 3D molecular modelling to a new standard by displaying compelling visualisations of matter where molecules vibrate, spin and collide in stunning chaotic motion. Odyssey covers a broad range of topics through 80 user friendly interactive tutorials and it has a library of 700 3D models. It is mapped to all A-level chemistry courses so you can get to a great resource in just two clicks. What’s more the new version now contains a tool for building 3D molecules. To find out more see: http://www.fable.co.uk/odyssey.htm and take the introductory flash tour.
"Odyssey reveals the aesthetic beauty of chemical matter. It is fascinating"
(C Newman, Cardinal Wiseman School)
To enter the Mouses prize draw for your school, send an email to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with FABLE’S ODYSSEY in the subject line. Winner announced next week.
PRIMARY
 Granada Learning has kindly agreed to give-away a copy of Simulation Explorer - the recent winner of the BETT 2006 Primary Science Award.
Designed to introduce children to computer simulations, Simulation Explorer follows the criteria set in QCA ICT Unit 3D (Exploring Simulations) and enables children to explore situations that would be difficult or impossible to in practice.
Simulation Explorer allows children to make changes to conditions in six separate environments and observe the results. These environments are: Alien Plant, Braking Distance, Circuits, Pond Habitat, Throwing Snowballs and Tooth Decay. The Tooth Decay activity is one of the most popular, as children can see how food such as chocolate, raisins, apples and crisps can impact on dental care.
Each activity can be accessed at two levels, covering the needs of both lower and higher Key Stage 2 pupils. Teachers can also make use of lesson plans provided with the program and extension activities to reinforce learning for pupils.
If you’d like to enter the draw to win a copy of Simulation Explorer for your school, please email planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with Granada Learning’s Simulation Explorer in the subject line – winner announced next week.
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5. Activity of the Week: Unbelievable Egg Trick
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 Welcome back to Jonathan Sanderson, freelance kids science TV producer, last seen up to his eyebrows in bonkers props for the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures. Planet Science News thought a bloke like him, with all that TV background, must have experienced some really simple, sound and fun science activities. Maybe next week eh?
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Unbelievable Egg Trick
 That's 'unbelievable' as in, 'any claim to have done this successfully is unbelievable.' The trick is possible, but it takes months of dedicated practice. You think it's hard reaching your black belt in Karate? Try this, you wimp.
We did this trick - or rather, we tried - on an early series of the much-missed (by my bank manager) CITV show 'The Big Bang'. Typically, we had a couple of hours in studio to record an item lasting perhaps four minutes, and for a simple thirty-second trick such as this we'd usually allocate about forty minutes. We spent half a day on this. After which the presenter was blue in the face and suffering a splitting headache, and the crew were verging on the mutinous.
Enjoy…
You will need:
- Two sherry glasses. The flared kind your Auntie has.
- An egg. Hard-boiled if you're nervous. It's probably best to wash it, eggs being as they are.
- Approximately infinite patience.
The Challenge
Place the sherry glasses side-by-side. In theory they can be several centimetres apart, but let's not make this any harder than it already is: have them touching. Now place the egg in one of the glasses.
Your challenge is simple: blow the egg from one glass into the other. No, really.
What's going on?
You might think there's a knack, a secret that makes the trick easy. Perhaps you blow over the top of the egg, so the curved surface acts like a wing and the reduced pressure sucks it upwards? Go on, try it.
Doesn't work, does it?
Maybe you arrange the egg more-pointy-end-up, then blow straight down on it, hoping the airflow will... nope, that doesn't work, either.
No, you just have to blow ludicrously hard. Ah, but there is a bit of a technique. Look closely at the point where the egg touches the glass - that's where you're aiming to blow. Blow hard enough, and you'll tip the egg aside, just a little. That lets the air rush into the glass and get underneath the egg. That excess pressure will then neatly pop the egg out of the glass. Eggs are quite heavy and you wouldn't think you could blow one upwards, but applying enough air pressure in the right place, you can.
It seems to help a little if the egg is placed pointy-end down, and tilted towards you, very slightly. Then it seems more inclined to rock away from you, allowing the air into the glass.
It takes only a few hours' practice to be able to do the trick consistently, if by 'consistent' you mean 'about one time in twenty.' But then, you have to become sufficiently good at it that you can make the egg land in the other glass.
Good luck. If anyone can manage this on anything like a consistent basis, I'll be overwhelmingly impressed. But I'll need video evidence of your claim.
Oh, and if you're really good at it, you can make the egg somersault while it's in mid-air. There. That should keep you busy until next week.
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6. Recommended Websites of the Week
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This week’s recommended Website of the week has already hit the headlines, if reading other peoples papers in the tube is anything to go by. Yahoo have announced their ‘Finds of the Year 2005’ http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/finds2005/
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Thanks Roger.
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7. Winners Enclosure
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Field glasses out for a squiz at the fittest fillies this week. The families that will be taking up the free tickets for the Family Day this Sunday at the Oxford Science Festival belong to Gwen Pontefract of Malmsbury, and Jay Airey of Selly Oak, enjoying the Big Bugs there, whom Planet Science team members met at the ASE conference. For big creepy things, you know, they were jolly charming!
The winner of the Scienta Lancastriae book by Robert Williams and Jack Aylward Williams is Jane Griffin of Salisbury.
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8. Joke of the Weak
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 Old Planet Science chum, teacher Dale Robinson sent us this other worldly joke with the comment ‘This joke gets a groan or a delayed laugh from your class.’ I think you might get both!
Fairy married Pixie and soon they had a baby.
It had fairies ears, fairies eyes, fairies mouth and pixies nose!
Here’s Chris Parry of Summit Saturday School with a couple more of his one-liners.
I wondered why the buckyball was getting biggger, then it hit me!
Police were called to a kindergarten where a 3 year old was resisting a rest.
Hmmmm…and the best of the Christmas cracker Jokes so far
What’s the difference between a fish and a piano?
You can’t tuna fish!
And now a lesson for anyone foolish enough to over-indulge in alcohol which Webmaster Neelesh spotted on a message board this week. Can you science types spot the diagnosis before the end of the story?
“Went out and got totally trolleyed. Woke up the next morning and my legs wouldn’t move. Fearing I was paralysed (and still drunk) I called 999 for an ambulance.
I lay there in bed not daring to look down..imagine my embarrassment when the paramedics pulled back the sheets to examine me to see that I had put both my legs down one pyjama leg.”
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That’s all for this week, hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you have anything you'd like to contribute to next week’s Newsletter – particularly jokes - please send an email to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk
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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