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01. SPRINGCLEANING QUIZ - RUBBER GLOVES ON!
This month, Planet Science is cleaning up its act with a new March quiz created in the spirit of those two zealous ladies on 'How Clean is Your House?' It celebrates the diversity of yuk that loves to live with us humans if it gets the chance, and it also celebrates the age-old tradition of spring-cleaning. But while the sun's golden rays may be peeking in and revealing the true depth of the dust and caviar crumbs on one's grand piano, we have secured three grub-grabbing DIRT DEVILS to give away. These are very groovy mini-vacuum cleaners which, judging by the pictures on the box, make housework way more fun than either pubbing, clubbing or scrubbing - and you can use them in the car too. Fancy one? All you need to do to get in the draw is answer ten questions about mice, bugs Here's where you'll find it here.  |
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| 02. ACTIVITY: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE WEIGHTY BALLOON Speaking of domestic gods and goddesses, anyone ever told you your sponge cake was as 'light as air'? Quite a compliment you might think, but is air really that light? Here's an experiment to help you investigate the matter... You will need: A metre rule (or long straight uniform stick) String Sticky tape / drawing pins 2 big balloons What to do: 1. First, set up the balance. Tie one end of a piece of string around the centre of the metre rule and attach the other end of the string to the ceiling, or a doorway with a drawing pin or sticky tape. Now move the loop of string until your metre rule balances - this should be around the 50cm mark. 2. Once it's balanced, use a bit of tape to stick the string loop in place around the rule. 3. Take an uninflated balloon and tie a piece of string firmly around its neck and loop it about 5cm from one end of the metre rule. This will completely unbalance the metre rule, but don't worry about that at this stage! 4. Take your second uninflated balloon and tie a piece string VERY LOOSELY around its neck and make a loop over the other end of the metre rule. 5. Move each of these balloons along the rule slightly until it's nicely balanced again. Stick your string loops to the metre rule with sticky tape. 6. Carefully untie the second balloon, blow it up and tie it so it stays inflated. Now re-tie it in its place. You will notice that the balance has tipped. After all that work how come it no longer balances? Any guesses? What's going on: The inflated balloon actually weighs more than the flat balloon. This is because air has a weight! When we fill the balloon with air it pulls on the balance and tips it over, very, very slightly. The smaller the balloon the harder it will be to see the change, so make sure you fill the balloon up as much as possible. For advanced balloonists: You may have noticed that balloons do not drop like stones and that is because they have something called 'buoyancy'. As we fill a balloon with air, the air around the outside gets pushed out of the way. The total weight of the air that is pushed out of the way actually forces the balloon up, acting against the weight of the balloon itself. The air inside the balloon is denser than the air outside, so balloons drop to the floor because there is more force acting downwards than acting upwards, but they drop slowly because of the buoyancy force. The balance is very delicate, because the extra force tipping the balance is tiny - not the weight of air in the balloon by itself but the weight of air in the balloon minus the weight of the air displaced by the balloon, the force down minus the force upwards. This is Archimedes' principle... Read more about this, and why helium balloons float at: http://science.howstuffworks.com/helium1.htm |
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| 03. MOUSES AT THE READY: HORRIBLE EXPERIMENT BOOKS OK, so what would YOU do with a banana, a balloon, a funnel, a knife, some bicarbonate of soda, some vinegar and a pencil? Some answers may be quite refined or even edible, but Nick Arnold, creator of the Horrible Science books, would use these items to recreate the bulging bubbliness of a sick human stomach ... Bleurrrrgh. If that's the kind of thing that turns you on, look out because we have another bagful of Horrible Science books to give away, thanks to the generosity of Scholastic Books. This time, the edition on offer is Nick Arnold's 'REALLY ROTTEN EXPERIMENTS', described as a "bumper volume of Horrible experiments to keep children entertained for hours." (But why bother keeping children entertained for hours, you may wonder, when you can lock yourself in the kitchen and try all the experiments out for yourself...?) Either way: it's a nice big book (more A4 than normal paperback sized) and it's divided into sections with the titles: * Bloody Body Experiments * Baffling Brain Experiments * Wicked Wildlife Experiments * Crazy Chemistry Experiments * Foul Physics Experiments Each one gathers together a range of activities, from 'make a disgusting drink' to 'how to do a skunk dance', and finishes with some science facts that'll help explain the hows, whys or wherefores of the experiments. We have ten of these shocking books to give away, and if you'd like to go in the draw, just send an email to anne@planet-science.com with the words YUK THAT'S DISGUSTING in the subject heading, and a note of your name and address. The draw will take place at 5pm next Thursday (4th) and please note that multiple entries from the same person or email address are not acceptable. Sorry to be strict, but it's only fair. |
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| 04. BRINGING SCIENCE TO LIFE - PRIVATE VIEW! I Calling all teachers! A new collection of information, ideas and links has just been posted up on the Planet Science website, and we'd like to invite a few constructively-critical teachers to have a look and feed back their comments to us before the whole thing goes global! |
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| 05. THIS WEEK IN SCIENCE HISTORY: THE FORTH RAIL BRIDGE March 4 1890 saw the official opening of those famous orange zigzags that bestride the Firth of Forth... The bridge was a supreme engineering triumph of its time, and remains an icon to this day. Our roving reporter Alison Begley has been finding out more: The Forth Rail Bridge is one of the largest cantilever bridges in the world and it contains 55,000 tonnes of steel, all of which had to be riveted together so it could span the 1.5km kilometres of the Firth of Forth. Bridge design is all about absorbing forces; and the longer the bridge, the harder it is to support the weight of the bridge itself and the traffic it will carry. The Forth Bridge, which had the longest span when it was built, used a cantilever design instead of either the traditional 'arch' or 'beam' designs. In 'arch' or straight 'beam' bridge designs, the weight of the bridge is supported at the ends. With an arch bridge, the weight of passing traffic is transferred down the two curved supports at each end safely into the ground. These have been successful for millennia, but a long bridge needs lots of arches, which makes it harder for them to span great lengths. With a beam bridge, the weight is transferred down straight supports. Again, a longer bridge needs many supports, because as the supports get further apart, the less weight is supported, and therefore the more likely the span will collapse. With a cantilever design, however, the bridge isn't supported at its ends, but in the middle. The Forth Bridge has been engineered so that the supports transfer the weight down to the ground, and each piece of steel is kept in place by a carefully calculated push or pull force. Find out loads more about how bridges work: http://www.howstuffworks.com/bridge.htm/printable Want to try making your own cantilever? And see whether yours could support the weight of a train...? http://www.yesmag.bc.ca/projects/strong_arm.html To find out more about the Forth Rail Bridge have a look here: http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/queensferry/forthrailbridge/ |
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| 06. RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK First of all, many apologies for the lack of url for last week's recommendation, the biological FACTS OF LIFE site. The address is: http://www.factsoflife.org.uk The current cold snap, with spring around the corner, has prompted a repeat recommendation for the Met Office's brilliant Education site. This is part of the main Met Office website, with all its weather forecasts, features, news items and (right now) several 'severe weather warnings'. The Education pages are aimed at both primary and secondary teachers and their pupils, and the resources they've put together include lesson plans, worksheets, activities, links around the world and a more quizzes than you can shake a barometer at... Topics include thunderstorms, satellites, clouds, observations - and why not make a sundial, make a rainbow (and a rainbow cake) while you're at it? Here's where you'll find it: http://www.met-office.gov.uk/education/index And finally: a quick fun psychology-based one from BBCi. Think you can spot a fake smile? Well, have a go! There are 20 film clips of people smiling at you - and all you have to do is hit 'play' and decide whether they're fake or for real... NB: Pay attention, because they don't let you play the clips more than once! Here it is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml :-) Good luck! |
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| 07. AWKWARD QUESTION OF THE WEEK Coming up over the next few weeks we have assembled a number of brainteasers, or AWKWARD QUESTIONS. We'll give you the answer next week, but meanwhile, have a think! Here's our first scenario: If the number 43 hasn't come up on the lottery for 20 Saturdays running... does this mean that next Saturday it has more chance of coming up than average? And why? Or, why not? There are no prizes, but if you have a particularly nifty answer, feel free to send it in to anne@planet-science.com. The answer will be along next Friday... There are two ways of looking at this puzzle, one is right and one is wrong! |
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| 08. EVERYONE'S A WINNER... The winners of the February Filter quiz were: Carol Hughs of Fareham, Eleanor Greenfield of Nuneaton and Sue Howarth of Bath. Congratulations on getting all the answers right - not many people did. Your desktop coffee machines are on their way. |
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| 09. JOKE OF THE WEEK First of all, not so much a joke as an urban tale send from Marianne Turner at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich (sent in by her lovely colleague, Dave Hart!) As Maureen says, "There are teachers, and there are educators." Here's the story: According to a news report, a certain private school recently was faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the janitor would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally the head decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the janitor. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the janitor who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the janitor to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirrors.  And finally to snakes: An old snake goes to see his Doctor. "Doc," he says, "I need something for my eyes, I can't see very well these days." The Doc fixes him up with a pair of glasses and tells him to return in two weeks. The snake comes back in two weeks and tells the doctor he's very depressed. The Doc says, "What's the problem? Didn't the glasses help you?" "The glasses are fine Doc," replies the snake, "but I just discovered I've been living with a water hose for the past three years!" That's all for this week. Please get in touch if you have any contributions for next week or beyond. Send them to Anne McNaught on anne@planet-science.com. Thanks very much... have a great week! |
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