Happy New Year to you all! So lovely to have you back. Come in, come in, don’t stand there on the step, you’ll catch a draught. Have you been well? Oh no – not the norovirus! You won’t want to read this then.  Still, plenty more to tickle your fancy eh? Yes we are a bit bulkier than usual. What can we do when so many titbits drop into our inbox?

The line-up this week:

1. National Farmhouse Breakfast Week
2. Five Kingdoms of Life: Norovirus
3. Scicast: Here they come...
4. Stump the Scientist: Chemical Conundrum
5. Activity of the Week: Redshift
6. Mouses at the Ready
7. Noticeboard: FYI
8. Recommended websites of the week
9. Joke of the Week

Farmhouse Breakfast Week is an annual campaign that emphasises the importance of eating a healthy breakfast every day. 'A Great Start' is the theme of this year's celebration to encourage everyone to wake up to a balanced breakfast as part of a healthy and active lifestyle.

Checkout the website for ideas about how to get involved plus some fantastic recipes:

How about a Blueberry and Banana Smoothie followed by West Country Cheddar & Onion Waffles with Lincolnshire Sausages. Aargh! Don’t! We’re starving.  Now you’ve done it – the gastric juices have started.  If only we’d had a decent breakfast this morning…

Plus how do you fancy a Breakfast Relay Race?  Or a game of Toss the Toast?  Oy! Toss a hot buttered slab over this way, mate! There’s plenty more ideas at Breakfast Games.

Did you know?

• The word breakfast literally means 'breaking the fast'. Overnight our energy stores are used up, so eating breakfast will top up the energy that has been used whilst sleeping and give us the energy needed to start the day.
• Most households have four different types of breakfast cereal in the kitchen cupboard.
• The world's first breakfast cereal was created in 1863 and comprised of dense bran nuggets that had to be soaked overnight in order to be chewable. Yuck!
• Essential nutrients missed at breakfast are less likely to be compensated for during the other meals of the day

If your digestive system hasn’t known whether it’s coming or going recently then presumably you are only too familiar with the Norovirus. This current outbreak otherwise known as “winter vomiting disease" (nice), has been all over the news in the UK this winter, since this year’s strain is very contagious and spreads quickly.  To help you understand it a bit better, we've added a Norovirus mask and some info about the disease to our Five Kingdoms of Life site.  There's also some new stuff about viruses in general , strange things that they are: they're not included in the five kingdoms of life at the moment, since no one can decide whether they're alive or not! Sounds like how the poor unfortunate victims of the Norovirus are feeling… 

New Year, new stumpers (is that a saying?). Here’s a great one to start off 2008:

From 6B / Julie Field

Well there’s one for all you chemists out there. Steady! Steady! Form an orderly queue now.

If you can help or have a burning question of your own then send us an email with STUMP THE SCIENTIST in the subject line to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk

The Doppler Effect

You will need:

• A tennis ball
• A 9V buzzer
• A 9V battery
• Leads and a battery clip
• A sharp knife
• String, about 50 cm long (or a metre if you are going to double it up).

What you do

1. Attach the leads and battery clip to the buzzer.
2. Cut a third of the way around the centre of the tennis ball.
3. Make a small hole in the opposite side of the tennis ball and thread the string through. Tie a knot and make sure the string is held firmly in place and won't fly off when the ball is swung in the air.
4. Pop the buzzer, wires and clip in the tennis ball and when you are ready attach the battery to the clip and shove it in too.
5. Now swing the tennis ball by its string horizontally over your head. Listen to the sound it makes and ask a friend standing in front of you what sound they hear as at swings in a circle.

What's going on?

If you are swinging the ball evenly about your head you should hear no change in tone but your friend standing in front of you will hear the note rise and fall depending on whether the tennis ball is travelling towards or away from them. This is the Doppler Effect.

As the tennis ball swings towards the listener the sound waves bunch up, effectively the sound cannot travel away fast enough before the tennis ball buzzer catches up with more noise. The wavelength of the sound from the advancing tennis ball is shorter than the sound from the stationary ball. A shorter wavelength means a higher frequency and a higher pitched note. The opposite is true when the tennis ball moves away from the listener. The wavelengths are stretched resulting in a lower frequency and lower pitched note.

The Doppler Effect is most pronounced when emergency vehicles with their sirens on go past a stationary car.

In astrophysics, a redshift is seen in the light when the object emitting the light is moving away from the observer. Red light has the longest wavelength of visible light. As the wavelength increases it is said to be shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, but in fact all forms of electromagnetic radiation can be Doppler shifted without it actually being 'red'. When a light emitting object is moving towards an observer its light is said to be blue shifted, the wavelength of the light decreases. Planets have been found around distant stars by watching how the star wobbles as the planet orbits it. The wobbling star moves towards us and away from us creating a tiny redshift and then a tiny blueshift in its light - in the same way that the pitch of the tennis ball changed as it swings around in its 'orbit'.

Light from distant galaxies is redshifted because the universe is expanding. This is similar to the Doppler effect redshift, except both the source of the light and the observer can be completely stationary. Instead, space is stretched in between them and the light travelling through it is also stretched, making its wavelength longer.

Special safety advice

Take care that the string is held firmly in place, and that you don't let go when swinging the tennis ball. You might also want to make sure that you aren't going to hit anything or anyone by doing the experiment in a big open space.

This film clip can be viewed at SciCast.

Keep checking back for new films and, whilst you’re about it - how about submitting one of your own? Films sent from now on this year will be eligible for the next round of awards.

This week we’ve got a great giveaway for you. A hardback copy of Bending the Rules: Robert A. Hinde (Oxford University Press)

Everywhere stealing, lying and killing are considered wrong. But in some contexts, in war for example, these codes can differ. Robert Hinde argues that understanding the evolutionary origins of our morality and how we bend the rules can help guide us away from global catastrophe and towards a more ethical world.

If you’d like to win it then email us with your name and address, and the words ‘RULE BENDER’ in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk.

You may find it difficult to get going again after the holidays – dark night, dark mornings, snow, ice … need we say more?  Well spare a thought for those aboard the RRS Discovery.  Between 6th January and 16 February 2008, scientists and crew are taking part in 'CHASING THE DUST Oceanographic Expedition'

The cruise diary has just kicked off for the next four weeks.

The goal is to take pupils virtually aboard and give them a taste of what oceanography is about and how the science fits some of today's topical issue like climate change and geo-engineering. 

As Claire Mahaffey from the University of Liverpool reports on 8 Jan

“Our typical day starts at 5.00am, when the ship comes to a halt and we start our first station of the day at 5.30am. The Principle Scientist, Eric Achterberg, and other senior scientists, coordinate the operation and plan where the stations will be and what experiments and activities will be performed at each station.”

There will be many short videos as they arrive from the ship, including already prepared educational videos on selected topics.  Also the scientists hope to establish a regular email link with keen students while the cruise is actually ongoing.

The project is looking for school classes willing to take part in the 'Chasing the Dust' Expedition 2008. So what are you waiting for? Heave ho me hearties!

The diary is open access and aimed at general public but particularly schools.

The local news station was interviewing an 80-year-old lady who had just got married - for the fourth time.

The interviewer asked her questions about her life, about what it felt like to be marrying again at 80, and then about her new husband's occupation.

"He's a funeral director," she answered.

"Interesting," the newsman thought. He then asked her if she wouldn't mind telling him a little about her first three husbands and what they did for a living.

She paused for a few moments, needing time to reflect on all those years. After a short time, a smile came to her face and she answered proudly, explaining that she'd first married a banker when she was in her early 20s, then a circus ringmaster when in her 40s, later on a preacher when in her 60s, and now in her 80s, a funeral director.

The interviewer looked at her, quite astonished, and asked why she had married four men with such diverse careers.

She smiled and explained, "I married one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go."