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 Your usual editor, Anne McNaught, is away on her hols for a few weeks, so filling in is guest editor Emma Lewis, usually found anonymously supplying Planet Science with the magic ingredients (science research and writing) for the elves to turn into enchanted games and features — she's also the editor of the Wired-Up newsletter and Hay-Wire — coming to a primary school kid near you soon. Hmm….wonder if she'll mention that in this week's Planet Science News……over to you Emma! This week’s newsletter is certainly worth its weight in Olympic gold (and silver and bronze too!), so drag yourself away from the television and savour a fantastic feast of science news, websites, competitions and activities. HERE'S THE RUNNING ORDER: 1. Thinking hats on — NEWSLETTER FOR THE UNDER 11s 2. RESOURCES — engineered by the University of Cambridge 3. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: something for the garden 4. MOUSES AT THE READY for a set of Usborne books 5. NATURAL WONDERS OF THE WORLD #4: the Matterhorn 6. RWW: it could be all Greek to you! 7. AWKWARD QUESTION — and last week’s answer 8. WINNERS WINNERS WINNERS 9. JOKES OF THE WEEK But first, there seems to be a problem with the systems... |
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01. PLANET-SCIENCE GOES HAY-WIRE!
While you've been sunning yourself in the garden this summer, spare a thought for us busy peeps at Planet Science HQ. We've been cooped up indoors in one brainstorming session after another. And believe me - our brains have been well and truly stormed! So what have we come up with? More Planet Science stuff for the under 11s - that's what! Now we don't want to give too much away, but we're putting together a newsletter for this age range so that they too can enjoy the 'Planet Science newsletter in the inbox' experience. The newsletter will be called Hay-Wire and there will be details of how to subscribe on the website soon. In the meantime, if you have any ideas to add to the ideas-moutain of possible content for Hay-Wire then please send them to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk  |
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| 02. FREE RESOURCES : CALLING ALL YOUNG ENGINEERS From the thinking department to the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge... Do you know a pre-teen who can make the meanest paper aeroplane? Can they build structures with their food that even an earthquake couldn't shift? If the answer is yes to the above then you've got a budding engineer on your hands, so tell them to log on to Engineering Interact - a new web resource from the University of Cambridge Engineering Department. The main areas to explore are light, sound and forces and motion, and for each section there is a fantastic game to play. In the light section, for example, the game is called Alien Attack, and the aim is to save the Earth from destruction, whilst of course learning about light! Here's the link: http://www.engineeringinteract.org/ |
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| 03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK : THE BIG DRIPPER In the meantime, why not get your young engineer to try and make a water roller coaster? Of course, it'll never catch on at Alton Towers. What's that you say? Log Flume...? * Plastic 'bendy' drinking straws * Small clear bowls or yoghurt pots
* Food colouring
* Water * Washing-up bowl 1. In one small bowl add a few drops of food colouring and fill nearly to the brim with water. This is Bowl 1. 2.Fill another small bowl a quarter full with water and place it next to the first. This is Bowl 2. 3. Half fill the washing-up bowl with water. 4. Immerse the straw completely in the washing up bowl so that it fills with water. You may have to jiggle or squash it to force out any air bubbles but take care not to split it. 5. Whilst still in the washing up bowl, fold back the two ends of the straw and pinch them tight so that you can take the straw out of the water without letting any air in. 6. Put one end of the straw under the suface of the water in Bowl 1. Make sure that it is completely in the water before you release it and no air gets in. 8. Do you see how the coloured water is now draining in to Bowl 2? Amazing eh? If not, then you may have air in the straw and you need to repeat steps 4 and 5. 9. Once Bowl 1 is draining in to Bowl 2, take an empty bowl and add a few drops of a different food colouring and fill it with a small amount of water. This is Bowl 3. 10. Connet Bowls 2 and 3 with a water-filled straw as before. Now Bowl 3 should start filling up. 11. Continue adding more bowls and straws, as you wish, to make your very own water roller coaster. What else? Try placing Bowl 2 at a lower level than Bowl 1? Does the water flow faster or slower? Arrange your bowls in steps with the fullest bowl at the top. Can you move the water from the top bowl to the bottom bowl using straws? Arrange a colourful water feature by placing different food colourings in different bowls. Remember that the colours will mix! Scale up and use buckets and washing up bowls with lengths of plastic tubing. Talk about larging it! What's going on? As you can see, the water has to travel uphill through the straw and down the other side to flow in to the next bowl. The fluid is behaving just like the carriages joined together in a roller coaster. This is an effect known as siphoning. In a conventional siphon a quantity of liquid can be moved from one container to another using a flexible tube. E.g. empyting a fish tank by submerging a length of plastic tubing in it and then sealing one end with a finger and placing it in a bucket on the floor. The bucket is at a lower level than the tank and so the water is siphoned out. Two things define a siphon: 1. The inlet is higher than the outlet. 2. A portion of the siphon tube is higher than the inlet. Find out more about how siphons work with these two links: http://www.science-projects.com/WaterCoaster.htm http://www.pump-flo.com/company/pumpcenter/siphon.pdf But in our water roller coaster all the bowls are on the same level. How does the siphon effect work now? Well the bowls themselves are all on the same level but the levels of water in the bowls are different. In Bowl 1 we have the greatest height of water and this drains into Bowl 2 which has a greater height of water than Bowl 3 and so on. Have you noticed what happens when the levels of liquid equal out? The siphon stops. But it all starts again when you add more water to Bowl 1. The siphon works because there is a pressure difference at the inlet and outlet ends of the straw. The greater height of water in Bowl 1 means a greater pressure forcing water up the straw towards the lower level water. When it reaches the high point of the straw arch, gravity can then pull the water downwards. Imagine the carriages on the roller coaster as they go over the peaks of the slopes. The combination of these two effects means that the water flows through the straw until both levels of water are equal in the bowls and hence the pressure at the inlet and outlet are the same. Thanks to Katy for siphoning that experiment out! |
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| 04. MOUSES AT THE READY : WIN A SET OF USBORNE BOOKS! Keep the siphone experiment for sunny days, and now on to something for rainy days - three fantastic biology books from usborne. The first, Mysteries and Marvels of Nature, explores the fascinations of the natural world. From fearsome fungi and intestinal intruders to rampant roaches and vicious viperfish, the book examines all manner of living things in gruesome detail. The second, Introduction to Genes and DNA, explains the science behind the headlines in clear and accessible language, and the third in the set, The Complete Book of the Human Body, explores everything from allergies and brain waves to x-rays and spots! If you'd like to enter the draw for the book set then please send your name and address to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk putting 'UZZY USBORNE' in the subject line. The books are Internet-linked so readers can complete further research, which makes them ideal as homework companions. Talking of companions, it's over to the natural wonder himself, Ian Francis, for the fourth part in his series... |
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| 05. RNATURAL WONDERS OF THE WORLD # 4 : The Matterhorn, Switzerland (near the Italian border) Unlike the seven wonders of the ancient world, there isn't universal agreement on which natural wonders should make this particular top seven. Our 4th wonder is one of those sometimes disputed, but after Australia, American and Africa it's about time we looked at natural wonder on our home continent... The Matterhorn in the central Alps is the archetypical moutain, a jagged pyramid in shape, sharp sided and almost 4,500m high with its peak always covered in snow. Indeed it looks somewhat like a cartoon mountain, and in fact probably was the inspiration for the 'Murderhorn' that Homer climbed in one episode of 'The Simpsons'. The Matterhorn isn't the tallest mountain around - by comprison 65km to the west, Mount Blanc, is the tallest mountain in the Alps at just over 4,800m high. (Incidentally, the Matterhorn's height has been measured to centimetre accuracy with the Global Positioning System, GPS). But something about the Matterhorn's perfect shape makes it a favourite among mountaineers and it gets the glory of being a natural wonder. The Alps were formed by the collision of Africa and northern Europe, an extremely slow process, started in the time of the dinosaurs and winding down only about 6 million years ago. The Matterhorn's shape (called a 'horn' by geologists, funnily enough) is due to glaciers wearing away the sides of a mountain peak originally thrust up by this collision of continents. The jagged shape of the Matterhorn tells us that geologically speaking, it is relatively young, not enough time having passed for other erosive forces to significantly smooth out the rough edges. The Matterhorn was climbed in 1865 during an era of enthusiastic mountain climbing. Edward Whymper, an Englishman, led the first successful ascent, although sadly 3 of his party died on the descent due to an accident. Now things are easier with sections of fixed ropes and ladders and it's possible for fit individuals with climbing experience and a guide to climb it almost as a daytrip. Around 2,000 people each year climb to the top, and a real hazard is the possibilty of climbers further up dislodging rocks which then fall on you. See here for a nice story of one such climber realising his ambition to climb the Matterhorn: http://webs.lanset.com/aeolusaero/Articles/ There’s a great picture of the Matterhorn at: http://www.ski-zermatt.com/mattnet/pics/april2000/pages/ And lots of pictures here too: http://www.peakware.com/encyclopedia/ Or try your luck with the weather at the Matterhorn webcam at: http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic |
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| 06. RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK : Its' all Greek to me! Now, from one beautiful country to another... All eyes have been on Greece over the last week, but of course people have been looking to Greece for centuries. The Ancient Greeks contributed to the scientific world in many ways, so the following websites focus on some of these Ancient Greek brainiacs! Eratosthenes http://k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/noonday/noon.html Eratosthenes was an astronomer and mathematician who used ihs knowledge in both areas to measure the circumfrence of the Earth with extraordinary accuracy. Pythagoras http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/ Okay, more famous in maths than science but worth a mention. He is most famous for his theorem, which states that the square of a hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Hippocrates http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/innovators/ Hippocrates, greatest physician of antiquity, is regarded as the father of medicine. His teachings freed ancient medicine from superstition. Archimedes http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/contents.html Archimedes was famous for his mechanical inventions and war machines. His best-known invention was a machine used to raise water, called Archimedes' Screw. He is also famous for his work on buoyancy, or floating bodies. Oh, and for running down the street naked of course! |
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| 07. AWKWARD QUESTION AND ANSWER Talking of Archimedes, did you have a 'eureka' moment with last week's Awkward Question or are you still mulling it over in your mind? Here's a reminder of the question: The year is 2012, and the Olympics will be held not in London, England, but London, Lunarville, an appropriate name, as it is a UK outpost on the moon. A wonderful enclosed, all-seater, air-filled stadium has been built on the moon and athletes can compete without being encumbered with space suits. On the moon, gravity is 1/6th that on Earth, so everything becomes 6 times lighter on the moon compared to Earth. How high can a high jumper junp in the moon Olympics if back on Earth they usually manage to clear the bar when set at 2 metres? Here comes the answer... It's tempting to reckon that the high jumper will clear a bar six times higher and come up with an amazing height of 12 metres. In actual fact, the high jumper is likely to do a jump of around 7 metres, still impressive, but somewhat short of 12m. The reason for the shortfall is that the 2m height on Earth only represents the height above the ground that the jumper is able to raise their centre of gravity (a.k.a. centre of mass) to. Your centre of gravity is in your belly button area, so when you're standing, it's already about 1 metre off the ground before you jump. On Earth, when you clear a bar set at 2m, you've only really added 1m to the height you raised your centre of gravity. The lunar high jumpers are able to increase this 1m jump to 6m as they are six times lighter when on the moon. Add the 1m which represents the height that their centre of gravity is already off the ground and you'll get a total high jump of 7 metres. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Moving on to this week's Awkward Question, sent in by Elizabeth Hayden... Little Jimmy is an intelligent five-year-old who loves jumping in and out of puddles. His mother, however, does not like little Jimmy getting his clothes wet. Little Jimmy has decided that when he grows up he is going to be a scientist. His first task, he decides, will be to stop wet clothes from looking darker. That way his mum will never know his trousers are wet and he can splash in and out of puddles all day long. Of course, this is impossible, but just why do things appear darker when wet? |
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08. WINNERS WINNERS WINNERS |
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| 09. JOKES OF THE WEEK Thanks to Susan in the States for this contribution: "Waiter," the customer said, "this coffee tastes like mud!" "Well," the waiter replied, "it was ground this morning." Don’t blame Susan for the following waiter jokes, even if it was her joke that inspired them: A man goes into a restaurant, sits down and starts reading the menu. The menu says: Boiled Chemist £5.95 per plate Fried Engineer £7.95 per plate Grilled Geologist £25.95 per plate The man calls over a waiter over and asks, "Why does the Grilled Geologist cost so much more?" The waiter says, "Are you kidding? Do you know how hard it is to clean one of those?" And of course those two science restaurant jokes you might possibly have heard before… A neutron walks into a restaurant and orders a drink. After finishing the drink the neutron asks the waiter, "How much?" The waiter replies, "For you, no charge." Two atoms were sitting in a restaurant. When they left, the first said, "Wait, I have to go back! I left an electron behind!" "Are you sure?" asked the other. "Yes" said the first atom, "I'm positive!"  That’s all for this edition of the newsletter. Keep in touch, especially if you have any news, ideas, recommended websites, jokes or indeed freebie offers. Please send them to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk Have a great week! |
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