SCIENCE YEAR NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 54 Week ending Friday, 15th Feb 2002 Fun, Love and Money feature heavily in this week's newsletter ... plus plants, job opportunities, genetics and heavenly bodies. Here are the news headlines: • FREE SCHOOLS’ EQUIPMENT for Scotland too! • New online MONEY QUIZ • DUNDEE LECTURE – date amendment from last week • BBC/Wellcome GENETICS Open Houses • ASTRONOMICAL offer for SCIENCE CLUBS • Grow a beanstalk for science – with the ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY • Behind the scenes at THE BRITISH MUSEUM • MAKE A MINI-BOAT engineering challenge • Job opps at NESTA • What is this scientific concept called LOVE? • Primary School Palindrome Challenge • 4 Recommended Websites of the Week • Joke of the week • Your CHANCE TO WIN £25 voucher FREE SCHOOLS’ EQUIPMENT – FOR SCOTLAND TOO Three weeks ago, we highlighted the £1 million of schools’ lab equipment which is to be given away FREE by the Royal Society for Science Year. (As a reminder, this is the scheme whereby secondary schools throughout the UK will be able to choose one piece of science kit and one piece of design & technology kit from a pre-selected range. Teachers will also have access to training and resources relating to their chosen equipment, and will have the chance to purchase other kit at heavily discounted prices.) Anyway! It’s a great offer – but it’s come to our attention that Scottish schools may feel they’ve been excluded since the form asks applicants for their LEA number. We would like to stress that this is NOT the case, and if you’re at a maintained secondary school in Scotland, you’re eligible and very much encouraged to apply. All you need to do to order an item of equipment, is enter your 3-digit Education Authority number, followed immediately by your 4-digit School Number. Information packs are currently being sent out to all schools, and you can find details on the science equipment to choose from at: http://www.sep.org.uk - just click through where says Science Year KitPot. > top NEW ONLINE MONEY QUIZ From free kit – to free money*. After several weeks of raging out of control, our ‘Hot Hot Hot!’ online Fire Quiz has finally been extinguished. The winner was 15 year old Sarah Crowley from Enfield. Congratulations Sarah, a state of the art smoke detector will be on its way to you very soon. Sorry to everyone else … BUT replacing the Fire Quiz is our new 'Show Me The Euros!' science-based money quiz. And as most of our European friends prepare to cash in their very last lire/guider/schillings, the prize we’re offering the three luckiest-lucre-lovers is a lockable money box containing a bagful of Euros and a couple of gold bars. *Should just mention the Euros and the gold bars are in fact made of chocolate (because many people believe this to be more desirable than actual money). > top SCIENCE YEAR’S DUNDEE LECTURE This lecture, by sisters Kate (developmental biologist) and Helen (ex-fashion designer) Storey, is taking place on Tuesday 23rd April at Dundee Arts Centre (not 26th as previously mentioned). The tickets are free and can be obtained from Science Year in Scotland. If you’re interested, contact them at scotland@scienceyear.com > top ALL IN OUR GENES? As part of their Gene Stories season, the BBC have teamed up with the Wellcome Trust (the funders of the Human Genome Project) to run a series of Open Houses on genetics. These six events will take place at Science Centres in Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, London and Belfast. The events will be led by BBC presenters with contributions from a local geneticist and ethicist as well as members of the audience. The format of the evening will be informal, accessible and entertaining (and includes a complimentary glass of wine). Admission is free - ticket hotline is 01453 833668 All details can be found in the Calendar of Events on the Science Year website by clicking here > top A STARRY OPPORTUNITY FOR SCIENCE CLUBS The Science Discovery Clubs Network (SDCN) invites astronomy clubs and science clubs to come to a day of space exploration at The Observatory Science Centre at Herstmonceux, East Sussex on the 20th March. The Blue Peter Astronomer, Anton Vamplew, will be explaining what can be seen in the night sky in his engagingly-titled talk 'What's that through my telescope?'. Other highlights will be a telescope-making workshop, a chance to explore the hands-on exhibits and a tour of the telescope at the observatory. For night owls, there will also be an evening session of night sky viewing, using everything from the naked eye, to the large telescopes at the Observatory. If your astronomy or science club would like to come along please contact Ros Mist on ros@scienceyear.com. (And if you’d be interested in attending the evening session as a family, let Ros know, and she’ll try her best fit you in.) * For more information about the SDCN on the Science Year website, click here. * For details about The Observatory Science Centre go to http://www.the-observatory.org * And Anton Vamplew's website is at http://www.vamplew.co.uk Oh and PS If you can think of a better name than the Science Discovery Clubs Network, please email us asap! > top HORTICULTURAL HOPPORTUNITIES Science meets gardening in a new green-fingered investigation beginning this spring - all schools are invited to get involved, and it doesn’t cost anything. The project’s called ‘Growing Points’ and the idea is that every school that’s signed up for it will be sent some dwarf French bean seeds, which they will then all plant on the same day around the country. As the magic beanstalks grow, pupils will be able to monitor and record all sorts of information – and upload it onto a central website where analysis can take place. The project is being run jointly by the Royal Horticultural Society and Actis (lovely friends of Science Year who you may remember already donated the ‘Energy House’ and ‘Potometer’ as free software, and have given all secondary school ASTs a free year’s subscription to www.scienceonline). If you’d like to take part, all you need to do is visit the Science Online website at http://www.scienceonline.co.uk , click through to ‘Growing Points’ and you’ll find a downloadable application form, to be filled in and sent off. (If you have any problems downloading it, don’t worry there’s an address you can write to too.) > top BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM Ever wondered what the conservationists at the British Museum get up to? If so, here’s your chance to find out. The British Museum is offering an opportunity for a small number of students to go behind the scenes and explore the conservation laboratories. Run as part of the ‘Lab Days’ initiative, this great opportunity is appropriate for GCSE and A level students with a passion for science. The tours are available on Tuesday 12 March, 10.30am-12noon, or 2-3.30pm. If you would like a chance to win a place on these tours email labdays@scienceyear.com with the name of the teacher, the number of students you would like to bring and why you’d like to take part. We’ll be in touch to let you know if you’ve been successful. > top MAKE A MINI-BOAT CHALLENGE For a totally different kind of ‘SEED’ challenge, why not have a look at ‘Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development’ site and it’s ‘Engineering Challenge of the Season. The address is: http://www.slb.com/seed/en/lab/engineer/index.htm and all you need is 100g of a well-known type of modelling clay (have a guess!), some water and as many paperclips as your boat (made out of the modelling clay) can hold without sinking… You can send in any particularly innovative top performing designs, or just have a bit of fun on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Whatever floats your boat! > top ‘TALENT NURTURERS REQUIRED’ If you’ve been keeping an eye on the job vacancies in the papers lately, you may have seen this headline already… If not, let us put you in the picture … NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is a UK-wide public organisation (amongst many other things, NESTA manages Science Year). It was set up three years ago, with the purpose of supporting and promoting talent, innovation and creativity in the fields of science, technology and the arts. A major component of NESTA's work is its Fellowship programme, the aim of which is to support talented individuals identified through a nomination process. All sorts of innovative and groovy individuals are already NESTA Fellows, and this number will be expanded shortly, as the Fellowship Programme aims to become the UK’s leading resource for spotting and nurturing talent in science, technology and the arts. The team responsible for handling the Fellowship Programme currently needs two new members: a Programme Manager and a Programme Assistant. If this sounds like your kind of thing, email: vacancy@nesta.org.uk and they’ll send you all the information you need. And if you’d like to know more about NESTA, their web address is: http://www.nesta.org.uk. > top WHAT IS THIS SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT CALLED LOVE? Strictly speaking this weekend is Valentine’s weekend, so we’re still bang on time to feature a loved-up question from Science Line this week. They have trawled their archives for us once again, and have bypassed the questions about thunderstorms, food and party tricks to bring us a query and answer of a romantic nature. The question is: ‘What is the biological explanation for love?’ And the answer can be found at: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Biology/0202/b01022d.html (And see – we were right about chocolate being better than money!) If you have any scientific queries of your own you'd like answered, Science Line will sort you out … and there’s no charge for their amazing service, they just want to fan the flames of scientific curiosity at all times! Their phone number is 0808 800 4000 and lines are open 1pm - 7pm Monday to Saturday. Alternatively visit their website at http://www.sciencenet.org.uk. > top PRIMARY PALINDROME CHALLENGE Sadly, no entries have been received for our Palindrome Challenge. But John Rodway, who is Education and Training Officer at Create, wrote in with an idea for a fun challenge for primary classes to think about. He says, "Have you realised that Wednesday of next week is doubly palindromic: 20-02-2002? And here's a puzzle for primary pupils (and others). How many times will this happen again? Is the next one due late in 2112, or is there an earlier one? The thirtieth of March, 3003 also comes quickly to mind. What effect does the date notation have? (i.e. DD-MM-YYYY, MM-DD-YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, etc). And what about systems that have different Year Zeros, such as Islamic (AH1423 is expected to start on March 15, 2002) and Jewish (AM5763 starts on 7 September)." (PS John did you say you were happy to provide generous prizes on that one? Only kidding!) > top RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK Thank you very much to Saffiya Sheikh who sent in the following nomination to us: "I would like to recommend the ‘S-cool’ website which can be found at http://www.s-cool.co.uk . It is really great and it provides GCSE and A-level revision which is really useful to me and my friends and it gives you information about careers, especially engineering careers. I found it just by accident in a Maths lesson. Thank You!" Meanwhile, for teachers - here's a good site we found. It's called 'THE pH FACTOR' and it features all sorts of activities, experiments and extra resources. There's even an online interactive tongue which you can use to discover whereabouts sour and bitter tastes are registered. THE Ph FACTOR can be found at http://www.miamisci.org/ph/ Thirdly, it's almost too obvious to mention and you may know about this already, but have a look at http://www.newscientist.com any time you want an update on some of the biggest stories in science - and some of the quirkiest and more fun as well. This week for example, there are stories on how the nutcracker bird manages its phenomenal memory tricks, just how much sleep is healthiest and more on the 'copy cat' cloned kitten that's all over the newspapers today. And finally, a fun site. The virtual Rubik's cube. Still as aggravating - er, easy-peasy - as it ever was, plus you don't have to leave your computer, and you can keep one had free for a cup of tea... 'Rubik Unbound' is ready and waiting for you to press S to 'scramble' and start at http://www.javaonthebrain.com/java/rubik/ > top JOKE OF THE WEEK Short but – we think – possibly the best one yet. Here it comes: "All of you who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand" > top ANY OTHER BUSINESS? Please let us know about any news, recommended websites, jokes or anything else you think would enhance the lives of other newsletter readers. Meanwhile – hope you’ve enjoyed this one. And have a top week!