Stardate Thursday 20th March 2008 Issue 272

Surprise! We’re a day early! The Easter hols are here so we thought we’d give you chance to flick through your newsletter before you head off.  Plus the Planet Science newsletter is having a break too. We’ll be back with you on Friday 18 April. And for those of you wondering just why Easter seems to jump willy-nilly from March to April and back:
The simple definition of Easter is that it is the first Sunday after the Full Moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox. If the full moon falls on a Sunday then Easter is the next Sunday.

And if that means anything to you then you’re a better man than us! See you in three weeks.

The line-up this week:

  1. SciCast: The Pack!
  2. A Spot of Agri-Culture: egg-samples of this month’s farming
  3. The Five Kingdoms of Life: Worms and chicks
  4. Stump the Scientist: how much burp?
  5. Activity of the Week: Reebops
  6. Mouses at the Ready:  Beyond the Hoax book
  7. Noticeboard: FYI
  8. Recommended websites of the week
  9. The Winners’ Enclosure
  10. Joke of the Week

1. Scicast: The SciCast Pack

Even though snow has been forecast this weekend, it really is very nearly summer in terms of the amount of light that’s around. With this in mind, we have put together a free pack for anyone who registers an interest in making a SciCast film. We’ll also be seeing if we can persuade our potential ‘producers’ and teams to make use of all that summertime light and, completely co-incidentally, send us films before the next deadline!

The handbook is based on the experience we’ve had of running the project for a year now Although it’s not a heavy tome, it’ll help a lot if you’re thinking about running the project yourself. The pack also contains: a huge bright poster for drumming up interest, and a poster for SciCast Physics too, info about engineering in the creative industries, a ‘Scilence – SciCast filming in Progress’ sign, and we’ve gone all green by making the pack enclosure reusable, to send us your film back with our new freepost address.

Here’s where to register your interest in making a SciCast Film and to get the free pack.

There are only a limited supply of packs so please get in quickly if you’d like one, after that all the materials will be available as downloads from the site.

If you missed the announcements last week, you can find the nominations for the SciCast Awards 2008 here along with links to all the films.
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2. A Spot of Agri-Culture

Here comes the Easter bunny! Oh no, our mistake, it’s the eggs that threw us – it’s Farmer-in Residence, Guy Smith to tell us what’s happening this month…

Easter is a time we associate with eggs - usually chocolate ones. But it is only right that we associate the Easter period (early spring) with real eggs as well. It is at this time that wild birds are nesting and laying eggs.

In contrast to wild birds, farm chickens lay eggs all year round. This is just as well if we want farm fresh eggs. Most chickens will lay at least one egg a day, in fact the average chicken lays 300 eggs a year. The average person in Britain eats 170 eggs every year. 140 of these are eaten as shell-eggs and 30 are consumed in processed food. These facts could inspire some maths puzzles; it might also be a challenge to name some foods with eggs in where you cannot see the egg - i.e. custard and cakes.

Out in the fields spring is a time when the wheat and barley plants sown in the autumn start to grow rapidly. Having been sown around October the seeds have sprouted and established themselves as small plants that don't get more than ankle high and stay largely dormant through the cold, dark winter months. From the roadside such fields of wheat and barley crops look like endless acres of thin scrubby grass. As the days get longer after the spring equinox and the weather gets warmer the plants respond and by May they will be above welly-boot height. In the spring the farmer has to give his crops fertiliser to sustain this growth spurt so they will give maximum yield of grain at harvest time in August. The grower must also be careful not to give too much fertiliser or the plants will have grow too tall and then fall over. If a plant falls over it will not provide good grain in its ear. Also it is much easier for the driver of the combine to harvest plants that are standing up. Fertiliser is very expensive so it must be placed accurately so it is used by each plant to best effect. Fertiliser applications are done to the nearest 5 kg per hectare (100 x 100 m). Imagine how many bags of sugar that is spread over a football pitch? Fertiliser spreading is usually done by a spinner mounted to a tractor that throws the fertiliser granules evenly across the field as the tractor drives up and down the field. To help the accuracy of this the field has "tramlines" spaced every 24 metres in the crop which the tractor drives down. These farmer "tramlines" are simply gaps in the rows of plants where the tractor places its wheels. Sometimes you can see these from the road. The spinner is then set up to spread the fertiliser granules 24 metres at a certain rate calibrated according to the forward speed of the tractor. Sometimes farming can seem like a maths lesson!

Thanks Guy.

If you send us the right answer to this question you could win a packet of seeds from Garden Organic, the leading charity dedicated to researching and promoting organic gardening, farming and food.

‘How many eggs does the average person in Britain eat each year?’

Simply email us with your correct answer and your name and address, and the words EGG-SEED in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. The winner will be picked at random on Wednesday 16 April at 5pm.
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3. The Five Kingdoms of Life

Spring has finally sprung over in the Five Kingdoms of Life, and we've got two springy new masks for you: an earthworm and a fluffy young chick. The bird's a vertebrate-- an animal with a backbone-- and the worm's an invertebrate, since it hasn't got one.  You, however, can be either! The early bird gets the worm, so spring on over and have a go at making these new masks.
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4. Stump the Scientist

This week’s query comes from Janice Hodge of Greneway Middle School

“My maths has fallen by the wayside... When we are teaching year 5 about dissolved gases we cheerfully weigh a bottle of Fizz, give it a shake and gradually release the gas.  Repeat this several times it is surprising that you can see several grams difference before and after shaking.  Now in theory if we know the weight of carbon dioxide we should be able to work out how much volume of gas this represents at standard temperature and pressure.  You see - I really want to know how much burp there is in a can - and as you can understand - so do year 5.”

The answers came flooding in for this one.

Dr Roy Lowry says

“The answer to how much burp there is in a can of pop . . . .

We have to convert the mass of CO2 lost to a number of moles (molecular mass gram equivalents).  One mole of CO2 has a mass of 44g, so the sum becomes mass of CO2 /44 = no. of moles of CO2.  One mole of any gas occupies a volume of 24.8L at 1 atmosphere and 25oC, so the volume of “burp” = no. of moles of CO2 x 24.8.

For example, if the can loses 2g of CO2:

No. of moles of CO2 = 2/44 = 0.0455 moles

Burp volume = 0.0455 x 24.8 = 1.1L

However, explaining the concept of moles to year 5 could be interesting.  One way around this would be to say that one gram of CO2 has a volume of 0.56L (I’ve worked this out using the maths above).  Then all you have to do is multiply the mass loss from the can by 0.56L.

Good luck and happy burping . . . . . “

Peter Levitt responded

“You could find a solution for this by making one or two assumptions along the way and I think this could be done in a way that a Year 5 class would be happy with.

You know 'how much' gas there is - it is the mass of gas lost as a result of the shaking.

Shake the bottle repeatedly until the weighed mass doesn't change for 3 consecutive readings. You could then assume that you have shaken the bottle so much that the liquid is flat and so all the dissolved gas has escaped.

If you have done this with (say) a 1litre bottle then a can of fizz (typically 330 ml) will have about one third of that mass of gas in it.

Assuming that all this gas is released under room conditions of temperature and pressure (assume temperature of 20 degrees Centigrade and 1 atmosphere pressure) then the volume can be calculated from the re-arranged density formula, volume = mass / density.  The density of carbon dioxide is about 1.8 grams per cubic centimetre at standard temperature and pressure so the sum is fairly straightforward.

It might be a nice touch to compare this volume to the volume of something like an apple or a tennis ball to give an idea of how much gas is involved.

There will be more accurate ways of doing this I guess but this way will give a decent approximation.”

Tim Bloomfield says

“Density of CO2:

One mole of any gas at STP has a volume of 22.4 litres. CO2 has a molar mass of 44g, so you get a density of 1.96 g/litre, or, more usefully to you, we can invert it to give almost exactly 0.5 litres per gramme.

Correcting for body temperature give 0.54 litres – another 40cm3, which must be worth another burp!

The coke should be drunk ice-cold from an already wetted glass, to maximise the solubility of the gas, and minimise frothing, but beware of chilling your tummy.”

Dr Alan P Glaze agrees with this calculation and adds “Don't forget - soda makes you burp at BOTH ends...”

Dave Hart also agrees with this calculation as do Jon Boressen and Richard Cameron.

So thank you very much scientists – on this occasion the scientist was definitely NOT stumped!

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

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5. Activity of the Week:

Reebops

You will need:

  • Different coloured pieces of paper - pink and blue make the genders obvious.
  • A felt tip pen
  • Large pink and white marshmallows - more than you think you will need because you will eat some.
  • Small white marshmallows
  • Cocktail sticks
  • Coloured map pins (blue, yellow and red)

What you do

  1. Cut strips of paper to represent the reebops chromosomes. There will be 8 pairs of each length in each colour. If each strip is 2cm wide you'll need two pieces of each coloured paper. Start with the pink, cut two strips of each length…20cm, 18cm, 16cm, 14cm, 12cm, 10cm, 8cm and 6cm. You are left with 16 strips of pink chromosomes - repeat the process with the blue paper.
  2. Arrange the same length strips next to each other. Now write on each strip in felt tip. On the first pink pair write 'A' on one and 'a' on the other, do the same with the longest blue strips.
  3. Repeat this with the remaining chromosomes so you have…
    Aa on 20cm
    Bb on 18cm
    Tt on 16cm
    Nn on 14cm
    Ll on 12cm
    Ee on 10cm
    Hh on 8cm
    XX (pink) or XY (blue) on 6cm
  4. What you will end up with is a complete set of pink chromosomes - 8 pairs, and a complete set of blue chromosomes, again 8 pairs.
  5. To make this totally random you can turn them over so you can't see the letters.
  6. Now create the genetic make up of your baby reebop - pick one from each of the pairs of pink chromosomes to create the egg cell. Then repeat with one from each of the pairs of blue chromosomes to make a sperm cell.
  7. Now fuse the chromosomes from the egg and sperm cells by matching up the same length of chromosome until you have a new set of 8 pairs. Turn them over so you can see the letters.
  8. Now you can start to construct your baby reebop…
  9. The following list tells you the features your reebop will have…
    AA antennae Aa antennae aa no antennae
    BB 3 body parts Bb 3 body parts bb two body parts
    TT curly tail Tt curly tail tt straight tail
    NN red nose Nn red nose nn yellow nose
    LL blue legs Ll blue legs ll red legs
    EE two eyes Ee two eyes ee one eye
    HH one hump Hh one hump hh three humps
    XX Female XY male
  10. Follow the genetic instructions to construct your baby reebop - use the cocktail sticks to attach the body and head then attach any humps, legs, eyes and antennae with map pins. You may want to construct female reebops from pink marshmallows and male reebops from whites ones.

What's going on?

In meiosis, cells split to create egg and sperm cells which randomly contain half the genetic material of the parent cells. When these fuse to create the first cell of the new reebop they contain a random mix of both the mother's and the father's chromosomes.

These chromosomes contain dominant and recessive genes. The dominant genes, which are shown with capital letters, will express their characteristic - having a red nose or blue legs. It is only if this dominant gene is absent that the recessive gene can express itself - producing red legs or a yellow nose.

Special Safety Advice

Do not eat the reebops you have made as they may contain concealed cocktail sticks or map pins (always keep a supply of fresh marshmallows if you feel you have to eat some).

This activity was taken from the Planet Scicast site.

Keep checking back for new films and, whilst you’re about it - how about submitting one of your own?
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6. Mouses at the Ready

This week we have a great book ‘Beyond the Hoax’ by Alan Sokal (Oxford University Press) to give away.

“In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled: 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy.”

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

The draw will take place at 5pm on Wednesday 16th April.
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Noticeboard

 

March Magnetic Quiz

Aah... March! The month of magnetism! (Well, it is here on Planet Science anyway.) If you haven’t played Polarity yet then this is your big chance as it’s the prize for our new magnetic majestic quiz. Positive people who feel the force most strongly and attract all the right answers will go into the draw to win a game.
 

 

Making a Mint at the NESTA Event

Are you part of a Making a Mint team, with mint merrily a-sprouting and ideas coming out of your ears about what to do with it? If so we'd like you to be on the Planet Science / Planet SciCast stand at the NESTA event:

When: Tuesday 20th May, 2008
Time: 9.00-5.30pm
Where: Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London

We'll need a responsible adult or two, and a team of four to six students to spend the day explaining to the event's visitors what 'Making a Mint' is all about. When you are not on explaining duty you'll be free to explore the rest of the event. All your expenses and cover will be paid.

Drop us a line or two about why you'd like to nominate yourselves for this task to:  makingamint@nesta.org.uk

Meanwhile if you'd like some mint to grow for fun, there are packs still available. www.planet-science.com/outthere/mint
 

 

Two competitions for secondary school students

Teachers and students can either set up an easy and fun experiment in science to investigate the properties of materials, or explore a scientific discovery in the field of materials from 1800 to the present day.

The best entries will be awarded with a media player and a trip to Brussels!
Deadline:  7 April 2008
Details can be found on Xperimania

For any questions about the project, its activities and competitions send an email to xperimania@eun.org.
 
 

THE UK's LARGEST DIGITAL PLANETARIUM OPENS AT INTECH, 21st MARCH 2008

Reputed to be the largest digital planetarium in the UK, it has an enormous tilted dome screen which completely surrounds you, placing you right in the action. Relax back into a reclined seat and fly through the solar system, visit a black hole, or find out what you can see in the sky tonight. Both pre-recorded and live shows will be shown.

For full details please visit the website: www.intech-uk.com
 

 

Capture it! Film Competition

Are you up for a challenge to capture the 'Big Ideas' in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Maths (STEM)?
You can win school and individual prizes by creating and uploading your own film that addresses one of the Big Ideas in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Your film should be no more than 3 minutes in duration with a minimum resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. You can upload your film as a wmv, mov or mp4 file with a file size no larger than 150 Mb.

http://filmsforlearning.org/

Here is a list for inspiration. Feel free to choose one of these or generate your own big idea:
Cells, Energy, Forces, Interdependence, Water, Climate change, Sustainability, Electricity, Light, Stem cells, Cloning, Genetically Modified Foods, Nanotechnology, Genetics, Sustainable transport Systems, Time travel, Global Warming, Rising Sea Levels, Cern Particle Generator, Robotics, Bio Diversity, Other Intelligent Life, Planets, Buildings/Mega Structures.

Capture It! is a film competition for schools affiliated with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT).

The deadline for entries is June 13th 2008.

Winners will be announced at the SSAT's Annual Science Conference on July 1st, 2008. Prizes including web cams, digital video recorders and copies of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate are on offer to both schools and students. Please read more about the Competition and its Terms & Conditions.

Plus if your film is 2.5 mins or less then you could also submit it to SciCast.

Alternatively if you’ve already submitted a suitable film to SciCast then why not enter it into Capture It! too?

 

8. Recommended website of the week

This week, Ben Courtney (the man behind the masks!), alerts us to this interesting American spring-related web project; people all over the world submit details of when plants are budding and fruiting in their areas to gather data about climate change!

Blooming Thermometers (PDF) is a class activity looking at how many natural phenomena respond to seasonal weather changes.  In this case the blossoming of cherry trees.  As a result students will learn that cool spring temperatures occurred in the 11th-14th and 16th centuries according to records of when plants bloomed each spring.

If you’re looking for something more UK based then checkout the Woodland Trust Nature Detectives Springwatch.

By the way, if you’ve got a good website to recommend then send it along to us at planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with RWW in the subject line. Thank you very gladly.
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Winners Enclosure

Remember last week when we were offering you two family passes for Eureka!? 

The lucky winners are Sue Simpson of Lancashire and Sandra Clarke of Stoke-on-Trent.  Well done everyone!

The winner of the packet of seeds from last month’s Spot of Agri-Culture is Melody Jones of Southsea. Happy planting!
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10. Joke of the week

A guy walks into a coat-and-tie-only restaurant and asks to be seated. The waiter says, "Sir, you don't have a coat or a tie."

So, the guy goes out to his truck and gets a jacket. When he comes back in, he asks, "May I be seated?"

The waiter replies, "Sir, you don't have a tie."

So, the guy goes back out to his truck and puts some jump leads around his neck. He comes back in and says, "Now may I be seated?"

The waiter says, "OK, but don't go trying to start something."

Have a great three weeks and we’ll be back again on Friday the 18th April!
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See you on Friday the 18th of April – if you’ve got anything to add then drop us a line: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. We’re open to contributions 24/7.

If you would like to view the Planet Science Newsletter Archive click: www.planet-science.com/about_sy/news/ps_index.html You can read back issues of Wired-Up for younger teens here: http://www.planet-science.com/randomise/wiredNL/archive/ Or you can read back issues of Hay-Wire for Under 10s: http://www.planet-science.com/randomise/haywired/archive/

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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