Friday 6th November 2009 | Issue 121 It’s Friday and we’re all going Haywire! Do you know the world’s fastest sprinter Usain Bolt? Well he’s adopted the world’s fastest land animal, a baby cheetah as part of a campaign to protect wildlife in Africa. Let’s hope he’s fast enough to catch it! Crash Bang! - Sticky Books Up for Grabs - Body book Winners - Halloween pack Tummy Ticklers - Jokes to make you groan Planet Science Newsletters, Advanced Warning... Planet Science Website and Newsletter will be moving from NESTA to another organisation in the near future. Please be aware that we will be asking you to register for the newsletters again if you wish to continue receiving them. (We can’t legally hand over your data to another organisation, even if you might want us to!) Don’t try to sign up again yet or anything, look out for further instructions by special email and in the newsletters. “ Usain has called his baby cheetah Lightning Bolt ”   “That’s flash...” 1. Crash Bang! - Exciting experiments for you to try at home... Sticky Books What you need Two large, thick, paperback text books - the closer they are in size the better. A strong volunteer What to do 1. Lock the books together. You can do this as if you were riffle-shuffling a pack of cards (but much slower!). Alternatively flick through about 20 pages of one book and flick about 20 pages of the second book on top. 2. The deeper the books are inserted into each other the better the grip. 3. Now ask your strong volunteer to pull in the spine of one of the books while you pull on the spine of the other. 4. To take the books apart, you'll need to give them a shake and ease them apart. What's happening? Paper isn't quite as smooth as it seems. We can write on it because there is friction between a pencil and the paper - the friction rubs off some of the pencil's graphite. If you hold two pieces of paper together with flat palms and try to rub them together you get an idea of the amount of friction between just two pieces of paper. The dips and grooves in the surface of one piece of paper lock into the dips and grooves of the other. Each time a page from one of the books comes into contact with a page from the other book there will be friction when they are pulled in opposite directions. Multiply this friction by the number of pages in contact, and the amount of friction increases enormously. The spine, and the fact that you are squeezing the books to get a good grip, just pushes the dips and grooves in the interleaved pages of the books harder into each other. The result is books that can't be pulled apart. The only way to release them is the lift the pages apart - and you can do this by giving the books a bit of a shake. Special Safety advice Don't pull so hard that either one of you falls back. Also be careful if the books are important: the friction can hold them together very strongly and you could rip the spine off before getting them apart. This activity came from the Planet Scicast site. There are some fantastic films on there - why don’t you have a go and make one yourself? 2. Up for Grabs - You’ ve got to be in it to win it... This week we’ve got a copy of the fantastic book See Inside Your Body from Usborne. Have fun finding out how your body works and don’t forget to lift the flaps for extra facts! If you’d like to win it, email us with your name, age and address to: Hay-wire.Clubhouse@nesta.org.uk with ‘SEE INSIDE’ as the subject. The winner will be picked at random at 4pm, on Wednesday18 November 2009. 3. Winners - Has your name been picked out of the bag? In Issue 120 we were giving away a spooky Halloween pack. The lucky winner was Jessica Turner of Egham. Hope you were suitably spooked Jessica! So remember - keep entering because next time it could be you! 4. Tummy Ticklers - It’ s the way you tell them... How did the dinner lady get an electric shock? She stepped on a bun and a current went up her leg! What's the best day to fry eggs? Fry day. What sits in custard looking cross? Apple grumble. Why did the apple turnover? Because it saw the jam roll. See you next time! INFORMATION OVERLOAD Planet Science has gone Hay-Wire and now you have too! That’ s all for this issue. The next issue of Hay-Wire will be with you in two weeks time so until then, why not ask your friends to join the Hay-Wire Club? They can visit the Clubhouse for more details at: www.planet-science.com/wired/hay-wire/clubhouse The Password is sciwoof Bye for now!