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01. RENEWAL QUIZ
As the Planet Science website sheds its old skin to continue its cyberlife beyond the official end of Planet Science, we thought it was timely to host a quiz all about renewables. Renewables of all sorts... animal, mineral and vegetable. Can't give too much away or an answer to one of the questions might just slip out inadvertently, but if you think you know your all-round science, and you'd like to win a solar battery recharger and a set of batteries, then you must have a go. Good luck!  |
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| 02. ACTIVITY: MAKE YOUR OWN TELEPHONE As we've mentioned, Alexander Graham Bell and his associate Thomas Watson enjoyed the first ever two-way phone conversation on 6 October 1876, and this was followed shortly after by the first long distance call (2 miles apart) on October 9, 1876. But what did they do BEFORE they invented the phone? Well it's possible they had fun with the next best thing. Which is a DIY version, as follows: You will need: 2 plastic drinking cups/big yogurt pot/tin cans (make sure they're empty and clean) 1 long piece of string or nylon twine. A friend you enjoy chatting to What to do: 1. Pierce the bottom of the cups with a needle or other suitable sharp object (the tins will need a skewer and hammer - be careful! 2. Thread the string through. Secure it by taping a loop of it to the inside of the bottom of the cup, or by tying a knot in it. 3. To work, the string has to be pulled tightly between the two cups. 4. You and your friend can now take turns to listen and speak to each other. To speak, hold the cup up to your mouth and speak right into it. To listen, obviously, hold the cup up to your ear. Can't hear? Pull the string tighter (and make sure it's not touching anything.) What's going on? Sound waves are vibrations that can be carried through the air and also through solid objects. When you speak into the cup, you cause air molecules to vibrate and the vibration is transferred to the cup and then the string. If the string is held taut, these vibrations can travel down the string to the second cup, where the vibrations set the cup vibrating and the cup causes the air to move. PS Want to tap your own phone?! If anyone ties a third string-with-cup to your string, they'll be able to listen in to your conversation as the vibration will travel to their cup as well as your friend's... |
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| 03. MOUSES AT THE READY: HOW TO CLONE THE PERFECT BLONDE 'How to Clone the Perfect Blonde' is the title of new book out this week... and we think you'll like it. The authors are science journalists Sue Nelson and Richard Hollingham, both of whose names you may recognise from BBC tv and radio, and the idea behind their book is to take eight everyday fantasies and use cutting edge science to explore what might be done to make them come true. Thus enabling one to avoid the daily commute, lose weight effortlessly, eliminate eyesores, or even rewind the tape to go back to the moment just before you said that embarrassing thing that lost you your job/wife/political credibility and do things differently. Obviously, extreme fantasies call for extreme solutions. So, particle physics, robotics, GM food, time travel, the biology of hunger, cloning, deep space exploration and many other topics from the forefront of science research are brought in to help, and along the way, you'll find out about a load of technological research going on in labs around the world right now. If that all sounds like quite hard stuff to get your head around, relax. The authors explain everything from scratch in a jargon-free way, and they know what YOU want to know too. (Who wouldn't, for example, want to know about the latest developments in 'knowledgeable knickers', undergarments that know more about you than you know about yourself and can control your environment for you? Ah, it' s all there...) The best thing is, it's very funny - the next joke is only ever a paragraph or two away. So: would you like to win a copy, hot off the presses? If so, all you have to do is answer one question, and here it is: In what year did the birth of Dolly the Sheep hit the headlines? a. 1995 b. 1997 c. 1999 Send an email to anne@planet-science.com with the title PERFECT BLONDE in the title, and a note of your name and address. We have six to give away and the draw will take place at 10am next Friday. |
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| 04. BRINGING SCIENCE TO LIGHT If you've got an interest in history, science or literature, and you're in or around the Birmingham area, here's news of a free event that's taking place on Thursday. The highly acclaimed author, Jenny Uglow, will be reading from her widely praised biography 'The Lunar Men' - a somewhat colourful group of eighteenth century scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs who formed the Lunar Society of Birmingham. They met on the Monday nearest the full moon, thus ensuring light to ride home, and kick-started the industrial revolution. Among them were local boys Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgewood, Erasmus Darwin and James Watt. The talk is free as it's being held in support of the BBC series, ~What the Industrial Revolution Did for Us'. It takes place in Thinktank'Theatre on Thursday October 9 (the day before October's full moon!) at 2.00pm. Tickets must be booked in advance For more information and to book your ticket call 0121 202 2222 or visit www.thinktank.ac. |
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| 05. THIS WEEK IN SCIENCE HISTORY: PRIZES FOR PRIONS Setting aside the telephones for a moment, this week in science history is also the anniversary of Stanley Prusiner's Nobel Prize for the discovery of 'prions'. If you've heard of prions, it's probably in connection with BSE and CJD, as prions are micro-killers that cause diseases in humans and animals by destroying parts of their brains. However, they're completely different from the viruses and bacteria that commonly cause illness and their existence was unknown until relatively recently. WHAT IS A PRION? A prion is just a protein, manufactured by the body like all other proteins, using its own DNA blueprint. Prions cannot reproduce by themselves, but they're still infectious and they can spread, so how do they do it? It appears that as the body produces normal proteins, a single abnormal prion can attach to them and change their shape. As more abnormal prions are formed by this corruption, the disease spreads. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS Although prion diseases are rare, Prusiner's discovery was vital because without knowing the cause of them, there could never be a cure. Recent results with drugs have been positive. A drug called 'Pentosan polysulphate' has seemingly slowed the rapid advance of the disease vCJD in one patient. With a way to arrest the prions' spread, new technologies may be found to repair any damage these tiny proteins have left behind. If you want to know about how bacteria attack the body have a look at this website: http://www.learn.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=Unit&WCU=1584 Or to find out more about prions: http://science-education.nih.gov/nihHTML/ose/snapshots/multimedia/ritn/prions/prions1.html And to discover what makes prions different from bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites, click to the Nobel site itself here: http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1997/illpres/novel-inf.html |
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| 06. RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK Back to those phones. If you want to know about the technology that makes a phone work, look no further than HOW STUFF WORKS - the relevant page is at: http://www.howstuffworks.com/telephones. And they've also got a section about cordless phones, which is at: http://www.howstuffworks.com/cordless-telephones. (The HSW site is packed with great information and has a very solid reputation. It used to be ad-free, but clearly isn't any more... but don't let the commercial look put you off, the factual material is still there at the heart of it all...) And secondly, here's something of a one-stop shop for all things Bell-related. It's the ALEX BELL LINKS site at http://www.e-znet.com/kids/AlexBellLinks.html. Whatever your age or level of knowledge about the man and his inventions, there's a site here with something for you, including kids' games, science projects, instructions for after-dinner science demonstrations Bell used to wow his houseguests with, and a fascinating account of Bell's early life and how it led him to invent the telephone. |
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| 07. DAN DARE WINNERS Here are the winners of the four family passes to the 'Dan Dare' and 'Destination Mars' exhibitions at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. They are: Angela Silcocks from Barrow-in-Furness, Ian Orry from Manchester, Mrs A Robertson from Margate and Heather Janes from Bridgnorth in Shropshire. Congratulations. Your tickets are on their way ... |
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| 08. JOKE OF THE WEEK We asked for 'man' jokes ... and we got them. And woman jokes too - hurray! Some are quite familiar, but hope they'll get your weekend off to a good start all the same... Here's a selection. From Julian Rouse: What do you call a man who floats around in the North Sea? Bob What do you call a man who lives on an oil rig? Derek What do you call a man who wears a paper bag on his head? Russell What do you call a man who always agrees with you? Roger From Carol Williams: What do you call a man with a spade in his head? Doug What do you call a man with a seagull on his head? Cliff What do you call a man with a wooden head? Edward What do you call a man with three wooden heads? Edward Woodward From Mike Ryan: What do you call an ex-miner? Doug What do you call a man who always makes his voice heard? Mike From Phil White: What do you call a man who props up cars? Jack From Andrew Clifford: What do you call a man with a rabbit on his head? Warren From Rosie Sergeant: What do you call a man with a number plate on his head? Reg What does his mum call him? Our Reg What do you call a man wearing a raincoat? Mac What do you call a man wearing three raincoats? Max From Clare Dudman: What do you call a woman standing at the end of a football field? Annette What do you call a scientist with his fingers stuck in his ears? Anything - he can't hear you. And finally, three more sciencey ones from Katy Hewis: What do you call a woman with plenty of energy? Jules (Joules) What do you call a woman with a digital display on her head? Elsie Dee What do you call a lady essential to solving equations? Constance? That's all for this week. As ever, the newsletter will be back next Friday afternoon. If you have any contributions for future newsletters please send them to Anne McNaught on anne@planet-science.com . Have a great week! |
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