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01. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: THE BLUBBER GLOVE
Here's an activity that lets you find out for yourself how whales, seals and penguins all manage to stay warm in the cold. It's gross but it works... You will need: * Four waterproof plastic bags, big enough to get your hand in, eg freezer bags. * Parcel tape * A big bowl of ice and water - good and ch-ch-chilly * A few packs of solid vegetable fat, at room temperature * A spoon (unless you really want to get your hands dirty!) What to do: 1. Cut the tops off two of the plastic bags if they have any handles or flaps and place one inside the other. 2. Start to fill the gap between the bags with vegetable fat. Mmmmmn - nice! 3. Once the gap is filled with about 2cm of fat all around, seal the gap between the bags with parcel tape leaving the inner bag open so you put your hand in it. You've now made your blubber glove. 4. Put one hand inside the blubber glove. Squodge the fat around as necessary so as to cover your hand completely. 5. Put your other hand inside the two other plastic bags. Now dip both hands into the icy water. Which one do you have to pull out first? Don't leave either in there too long as they will start to hurt! What's going on? You should notice that you can keep your blubber-gloved hand in the bowl of ice much longer than the hand protected only by the plastic bags. This is because the fat acts as an insulator, keeping the heat inside and not letting it pass through to the icy water. In the wild, many sea animals have a thick layer of blubber to protect them from the cold.  |
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| 02. TEST YOUR PET And speaking of clever animals...whether you've got a cat, a dog, a snake, a salamander or a stick insect; it's time to test your pet's intelligence! Well, its intelligence as us humans see things anyway... The reason for this IQ-testing is that the BBC is currently undertaking what it claims will be the biggest ever survey of pets in Britain. You're warmly invited to take part, and all you need is a pet, and a load of 'treats' that your pet will be keen to try and retrieve... The survey takes place online at www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/pets/. First you'll be asked to register yourself and your pet, and answer a few questions about your life together. "Does your pet ever sleep in the bedroom with you?", "Do you talk to it?", and even "Do you buy (name of pet) a birthday present?" Next come the tests. These range from testing your pets pawed-ness (ie is their right or left paw dominant?), whether out of sight means out of mind, and whether they can figure out an alternative way to get to a treat they can see but can't quite reach... Two Planet Science testers have already put their animals through their paces and report that the tests were well described and very interesting to do. It should be noted that the pets tested were all cats - Sebastian, Helena and Quincy - you might have less joy testing a snake or goldfish, even though those ARE on the official list... One of our testers however reported that because the vet has banned Sebastian from getting treats due to his kidney problem, it was hard to sustain his interest. There are a lot of challenges to be got through, and even with treats on offer, Helena, our 'mastermind' cat, got tired of the tests part way through and her owner felt it wasn't clear how to come offline and go back to continue later. Those were the quibbles though; the overall verdict was MEOWINGLY GOOD FUN! So, why not have a go? The tests will all be demonstrated on TV on 1st May, with a follow up programme coming later... NB please do read the guidelines on the site carefully before you begin - and as they say, don't fret if your animal does less well than you'd anticipated. It's still got a great personality, right? |
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| 03. MOUSES AT THE READY FOR TECHNIQUEST TICKETS And so to racing an electric cars, launching hot air balloons, and bumping - sorry, navigating - your way through a maze of mirrors... If you're in or around the Cardiff area, now's your chance to try any or all of these, as we have four free family passes to the Techniquest Science Discovery Centre to give away to good homes... There's a total of 160 hands-on exhibits in the centre all year round, but if you visit at the weekend any time between 1st May and 4th June, you'll also be able to visit a special theatre show called 'The Brain Drain'. This is, as the name suggests, all about how the brain works, how it remembers what's happened in the past, co-ordinates your body and keeps checks on your orientation in the world. The brain is an amazing organ, but as you'll discover it can, at times, be fooled... If you don't just want to explore your inner space, but your outer space too, you might be able to cram in a visit the Planetarium for a voyage around our solar system and the stars beyond. The planetarium show is called 'Space Trek' and it's on between Saturday 24 April and Sunday 13 June. For more information about what's on and when, visit the Techniquest website at: www.techniquest.org And if you want to be in with a chance of winning those tickets, send an email to anne@planet-science.com entitled TECHNIQUEST TICKETS PLEASE! with a note of your name and address. The draw will take place next Thursday at 5pm. |
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| 04. ANYONE FOR A FREE POSTER? This week's mini-offer is a Visions of Science publicity poster. These are related to the Association for Science Education's topical 'Science UPD8' service, and the Visions of Science photographic competition that you may have read about here a few weeks ago. The address for UPD8 is www.ase.org.uk - click on the bottom right hand corner for details and free sign-up area; the website for the competition is www.visions-of-science.co.uk - and you've still got until the 7th May to enter, by the way... Back to those posters, they are A2 in size and gorgeous in colour... They feature four fab examples of photos of nature in action, and captions written by Adam Hart-Davis to explain a bit about each picture and provide a little food for thought... We have eight posters to give away, and if you'd like one, send an email, as above, to anne@planet-science.com with the words VISIONARY POSTER PLEASE! in the title, plus your name and address. Again the draw will take place at 5pm on Thursday... |
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| 05. THIS WEEK IN SCIENCE HISTORY San Francisco's a beautiful place, but as they say, it's got its faults. Alison Begley has been investigating events 98 years ago this week: On April 18, 1906 San Francisco was shaken by one of the most famous earthquakes ever. The quake didn't just shake the city, it also started a fire, which was perhaps the most devastating consequence. As with nearly all earthquakes their severity is linked to how many people live in the region and most of the fatalities in 1906 were in San Francisco, although its earth-ripping vibrations were felt along the seaboard from Los Angeles to Oregon, and inland to Nevada. We now know that the Earth's crust is made of huge rafts of rock, or 'plates' that float on the Earth's molten mantle. As these bump and grind into each other earthquakes are felt along the boundaries. In California, the San Andreas fault separates the North American plate from the Pacific plate and the movement between these plates is what caused the devastation. Surprisingly, no-one knew about the science of plate tectonics in 1906; the theory was first proposed a few years later and was only officially accepted in the 1960s. So in 1906 nobody had any idea why there should have been an earthquake in San Francisco, and there was certainly no way of predicting it. Nowadays earthquake-prediction is a huge area of science, and quakes can be predicted by measuring the seismic (shaking) activity in a particular zone and also by looking at the history of earthquakes in the area to see how much tension may have built up between the plates. Earthquakes don't just happen along plate boundaries though. Pressure and tension can build up within a plate and its release can cause destructive quakes in completely unexpected places. Because of this, even though the UK is nowhere near a plate boundary, we're not immune to earthquakes - between 200 and 300 are measured here every year. The worst was in 1931, though fortunately there were no fatalities even then, so unlike California we're unlikely to ever be asked to hold earthquake drills at school or in the office. |
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| 06. RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK The NATIONAL SCHOOLS OBSERVATORY website is a brilliant resource which offers UK schools the chance to observe the nightsky via robotic telescopes located in astronomically drool-worthy locations such as the Canary Islands, Hawaii and Australia. Pupils can even take live control of one of these faraway telescopes to scan the sky for themselves. If you'd like to find out more, or register to have a go, have a look at the website at: www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk - and click to 'New User' at the bottom. The site has lots more up its sleeve that this however, and we particularly like one particular page called: the PHASES OF THE MOON DEMONSTRATION. Find it here. By means of a neat animation, this micro-site shows how the moon spins around the Earth during each lunar month, and how the resulting 'phases' of the moon appear to us earthlings down below... |
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| 07. AWKWARD QUESTION And so to matters of a brain-bending nature... Last week's not-so-sciencey holiday brainteaser went like this: Two boys fall in a hole, and when they come out one has a clean face, and one a dirty face - but it's the one with the clean face that goes to wash himself. WHY? ... the answer is that when they got out the hole, they looked at each other and not in a mirror. So the boy with the clean face thought his own was dirty like his friend's was, and vice versa. Hence clean-faced boy went off to wash himself and dirty-faced boy didn't think he had a problem. Dastardly! But not as dastardly as this week's question, which has been known to wrong-foot even the odd science teacher... Ready? The pirates on the Grey Marlin have a problem. They are in a landlocked lagoon, but the King's onshore men have spotted them from afar and are galloping ever closer to the lagoon. They only way the pirates can save their ill-gotten hoard of gold, currently hidden deep in the bow of their ship, is by throwing it overboard. The captain plans to hide a map on a nearby sandbank and come and find the treasure later. But not everyone is happy with the idea - surely by throwing the treasure overboard the water level will rise and the sandbank will disappear? The pirates are threatening to mutiny. What is their best course of action? PS you are kindly asked to accept the whole pirate scenario and not look too closely at the plot details - the important thing is that water level... Will it rise, fall or stay the same? NB there are no tidal forces in the lagoon! |
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| 08. 'SCIENCE OF SPORT' WINNERS Two weeks ago, we had on offer two family passes to the Science Museum in London to see - or rather take part - in their new 'Science of Sport' exhibition. The draw has now taken place, and the winners were: Tracey Oakley of Croxley Green in Herts, and Mr A J Wilde of Stafford. Congratulations to both of you - your tickets will be sent out shortly. |
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| 09. JOKES OF THE WEEK Very many thanks to Kimberley Novak who's been in touch to share three jokes this week. She says, "These are OLD bad jokes but they are still my favourites...." That's no excuse though, but ok just this once. Here we go: Q. What do you call a mushroom that walks into a pub and buys everyone a round of drinks? A. A fun-guy Q. You are invited to an all-nude party and told that Adam and Eve will be there - you want to meet the famous couple but how do you recognise them from everyone else? A. They don't have belly buttons 3. A physicist wants to visit his biologist friend but the door says "staph only". Thanks again Kimberley! How cruel of your students to tell you not to give up the day job... Just time for one more: The animals were bored. Finally, the lion had an idea. "I know a really exciting game that humans play," he growled, "It's called football. I've seen it on tv." He proceeded to describe it to the rest of the animals and they all got excited about it and they decided to have a game. They went out to a clearing, improvised some goalposts and a ball, chose their teams and got ready to play... The lion's team stormed ahead thanks to the decisive left foot of their gorilla striker. Within five minutes he'd scored their first goal, then managed to nab then a second, and then - oh my word - a third! In the second half though, the aardvark's team began to improve. The midfield gazelles got their confidence up and they began to feed balls forward, enabling the zebra to score, score again, and then equalise. 3-3. With two and a half minutes to go, the game hung in the balance. The gorilla decided it was time for him to sort things out. He pounded up the pitch, managed to get hold of the ball, and began charging up the field, dribbling like a professional, ready to grab the decisive goal for the Lion's team. But just when he was in sight of the goal, he started to wriggle and jump about like a loonie. The gazelles effortlessly cruised in and cleared the ball away. The two captains bounded over to see what on earth had happened. It turned out a small centipede had attempted to tackle the gorilla - who turned out to be extremely ticklish. The aardvark was ecstatic, "What a great tactic - but why couldn't you have done that earlier?" And the centipede replied: "Because I was still putting my boots on..."  And that's it for this edition of the newsletter. If you have any contributions for future newsletters please send them in to Anne McNaught on anne@planet-science.com. Have a great week! |
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