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01. PLANET SCIENCE WHODUNIT
 Congratulations to all forensic investigators who completed the challenge in time to submit your result online before the 24th of June. Here at Crimebusters Central, things have been extremely hectic what with the cross-questioning of expert witnesses and preparations for the court case that will see justice done. One of the celebrity witnesses in particular has been, let's just say, 'helping us with our enquiries' ... all very dodgy. The verdict will be announced next Friday 11th July, and you'll be able to check out a fully illustrated expose of the culprit on the Whodunit website. If your team have successfully deduced and registered the name(s) of the person(s) responsible for the theft, you will be entered into the draw to win prizes galore... (And if it's prizes galore you want, remember you still have time to enter the Super Sleuth Challenge. Visit the Whodunit website and click through where it says Sleuth School. NB you may only enter the competition once, so be careful...)  |
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02. MOUSES AT THE READY FOR: MEGABITES BOOKS! We're so lucky. We've been given a set of the Megabites books by our friends at Dorling Kindersley, and you could scoop the whole lot if you get a simple question correct... The books are all on sciencey topics, but written in an extremely kid-friendly style, with lots of illustrations. The titles are: MUMMIES - and the Secrets of Ancient Egypt MYTHS AND MONTERS - from Dragons to Werewolves BRAIN - Inner Workings of the Grey Matter PREDATOR - Animals with the Skill to Kill VILLAINS - Traitors, Tyrants and Thieves CODE BREAKERS - from Hieroglyphs to Hackers MICROLIFE - the Microscopic World of Tiny Creatures BODY - Bones, Muscles, Blood and other Body Bits Fancy stocking up your bookshelf? OK all you have to do is send an email to anne@planet-science.com with MEGABITES PLEASE! in the subject field and the answer to the following question: Which of the following is NOT the name of a type of tooth: a. canine b. femur c. molar All correct answers will go into a draw that will take place on Friday 11th July at 4pm. |
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03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: CAT'S EYES Make your own cat's eyes that 'glow' in the dark, and find out how they work. This is an activity which we think will particularly appeal to younger kids, say 6 and under - but they'll need adult supervision and help with the fiddly bits... What you need: • Tome cardboard - eg. from a cereal box • Felt tips or crayons. • Aluminium foil • Scissors • Glue stick or clear sticky tape • A torch What to do: • Draw a 'cats head' on your piece of cardboard. Make the eyes nice and big. (Try to make them at least 1 cm across.) • Colour it in however you like, all except the eyes. Dark colours will give the best results, though! • Cut out your cat's head by cutting all around the edge. • Cut two circles of aluminium foil the same size as the eyes. • Glue the foil onto the eyes on the cat's face. If you don't have any glue you can just stick them on with clear sticky tape. (If you find it difficult to glue the foil on, you can ask an adult to poke a pen from the back of the cardboard into the centre of each eye _ this will make the eye rougher and it should be easier to stick the foil on.) • Take your cat's head and your torch into the darkest place you can fit into - something like a cupboard with the door shut would be excellent. • Sit in the dark with the cat. Don't switch the torch on yet! Can you see any part of the cat? • Now switch the torch on. Point the light behind you and in front of you and then on the cat's head. When can you see the cat? Which part of the cat did you see first? • If your dark place was really dark, you probably couldn't see anything at all at first. If there was a little bit of light coming in from somewhere you might have been able to see the cat's eyes, but nothing else on the cat's head. • Then when you turned your torch on, you could see the cat's eyes shining. When you pointed the light at the cat's head you could see all of the cat's head, including the shiny eyes. What's going on? • You couldn't see the cat's eyes when it was completely dark, because the eyes don't give out any light, so they don't shine like the sun does or like a star does. But the torch gives out light, and the cat's eyes reflect light, like a mirror. So when the torch was on, you could see the eyes reflecting light back at you. • What this means is if you meet a cat on a dark night and see its eyes shining at you, they are really just reflecting light back at you - even if they do look quite alarmingly bright! • Things called 'cat's eyes' are found on motorways in between the lanes the cars drive on. These reflect the light from the headlights of the cars. So if there are no cars on the motorways to shine light from their headlights, the cat's eyes don't shine either. • Read more about the inventor of 'catseyes', Percy Shaw here PS: This activity was originally part of the ASE and ICI SHIPS project (School Home Investigations in Primary Science)written by Joan Solomon and Janine Lee. They say, "we are happy for you to try this experiment at home and to use it for educational or other non-commercial purposes. However, please note that you cannot reproduce, record, publish, modify or distribute this experiment for commercial purposes without the permission of the ASE" |
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04. SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS This week the glam cats at Science Line have been paying tribute to the stars of the new Charlie's Angels movie. As you may have read in the publicity, the three angelic stars, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu insisted on doing their own stunts, including some daring skydiving action. Skydiving of course, being an instance where laws of phyics and the technology parachutes are control of the whole show... Read all about it here on their attractive new website: |
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05. RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK And still on the subject of beautiful airborne creatures... July is the most active month for dragonflies in this country, and UK SAFARI have all information and links you'll need if you're beginnner in the subject. There's also a link through to read about the 'damselfly' which is often confused with those dragonflies. Have a look here: - as you'll see, they've got information on loads of other types of UK wildlife, so you could be browsing for a while! (PS You can also download free wallpaper for your computer from the site - lots of beautiful scenes to choose from). Secondly, anyone who's spent time in Australia will be familiar with their pop science guru 'Dr Karl' (or Karl Kruszelnicki if you want to be formal about it!) . He's a prolific webster, so this is just one tiny example of his treasure trove of imaginative nuggets, but it concerns that favourite game: Rock, Paper, Scissors. Apparently the movements involved in the three gaming gambits involve key parts of the hand's anatomy, and thus is being used by junior doctors in diagnosing hand injuries... Here's the link to that particular GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE |
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06. COMEDY CREATIVITY CHALLENGE You may remember last summer was brightened up no end by a visitation or four from world-renowned humour-ologist, Dr Comedy. Clearly Dr Com felt there was entertainment potential amongst the readers of the PS Newsletter, because she's back. So look out - and hide the gin! "Dear Readers - Dr Comedy here again, after a long gap during which I've been traversing the globe spreading further afield what we in the comedy business call "the gift of laughter". Hurrah for me eh! Reading through a few of the most recent newsletters it seems fairly clear to me that another Comedy formula might be in order - and since there's a 'funky' filofax knocking around the office to be won, might as well make it a competition. Here's the formula for you to try in a classroom, car or kitchen near you... What's the difference between a 'person' and an 'object'? For instance: what's the difference between Dale Winton and the Planet Mars? Possible answers include... • One glows red and orange the other is the Planet Mars • One is nearer the sun than we are on earth and the other is the Planet Mars • One is set to live happily ever after, sharing their universe with Nell McAndrew the other is Dale Winton So let's set a topical/science based question to win the filofax. Answers will be judged by a panel presided and heavily swayed by none other than yours truly. Here goes: What is the difference between Tim Henman and a school gas tap? answers to katie@planet-science.com Farewell! |
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07. JOKE OF THE WEEK Dr Comedy or no Dr Comedy, we do have two top jokes for your this week... both from Norfolk as it happens. The first was sent in by the very modest Dave Hart of the Institute of Food in Norwich. He says, "I know this is lame, but it's better than some." Here goes: Question What is 2+2 ? You can tell someone's discipline by the answer you get: Mathematician: Exactly 4 Physicist: There's a very high probability that the answer lies somewhere between 3.99 and 4.01 Engineer: I think its 4, but to be on the safe side we'll say 5. Meanwhile, from Mike Land, a KS3 Science Adviser with Norfolk LEA, we have: 'A skeleton walks into a cafe. " I'll have a glass of ginger beer and a mop please! " gettit? Oooh - and as if that's not enough he's also sent through a Science Tip of the Week concerning the drawing of graphs. He says, "When plotting graphs in science investigations remember:" "NAPPIES" "The things you are changing (Independent Variables) always go on the BOTTOM ( X axis)" |
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| 08. AOB and LUCKY WINNERS Thanks to everyone who entered the draw to win a year's free subscription to Focus magazine. The draw has now taken place and the winners were Dani Rosas from Croydon Linda McCormick from Tavistock in Devon. And we also have the winners of the PREDATOR exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. They are: Steve Nixon and Sandra Hayton from Manchester, Catherine Harper from Streetly and Dave Pickersgillfrom Sheffield. Congratulations to all of you - your mags or tickets are in the postal pipeline! That's all for this week, but next week's newsletter will be a special event what with the Whodunit results and many other exciting features and more freebies than you can shake a stick at. Joanna Edwards will be in charge of the show, so if you have any contributions for next week, send them through to her joanna@planet-science.com Bye for now - and have a great week! |
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