Welcome to a very unusual Randomised! Yes unusual because of the date.  You won’t get another of these in a hurry.  In fact you’ll have to wait another 28 years before another one of these babies comes along on a Randomised day. The 29 February only pops up every 4 years so make the most of it!

  1. Sooo Random – Wii is good for you
  2. Sci-text – ova 2 Galileo
  3. Over 2U! – Balloon Man
  4. Gear Giveaway – Flipsides a go-go
  5. Wot’s Hot? – the UK earthquake
  6. Winners – Darth Taters

1. Sooo Random - Science news straight to your Inbox...

After all the press about how bad computer games can be for you, it’s refreshing to hear something good.  The Nintendo Wii games console is being used as part of physiotherapy treatment for patients in South-East England. People with hand injuries and burns victims are being offered spells on the console to boost their recovery. Using the Wii requires physical movements when acting out sports such as tennis, golf and boxing, this brings back flexibility to damaged areas. And naturally the patients thoroughly enjoy this therapy! As an added benefit Wii can also be done at home which means the patients can continue to aid their recovery even after they have left the hospital. Let’s hear it for the Wii – whehay!

And more good news for plants - scientists have discovered a gene that controls the amount of carbon dioxide a plant absorbs. This could lead to crops that can survive in a drought. The gene also controls the amount of water vapour the plant releases into the atmosphere. This information could be important for food production and in regulating climate change.

Plants play a crucial role in the regulation of the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. They absorb the gas through tiny pores on their leaves called stomata and these pores also release water vapour as the plant grows. In extremely dry weather, a plant can lose 95% of its water in this way.

Teams in Finland and California are reporting in the journal Nature that they have found a crucial genetic pathway that controls the opening and closing of these pores. They say that this understanding could allow them to modify plants so that they continue to absorb carbon dioxide but reduce the amount of water released into the atmosphere, enabling them to thrive in very dry conditions.

>>> Back to top

2. Sci-text – what would they say?

Imagine if our most famous discoveries and inventions had been communicated by text.

How about Galileo who determined that the Earth moved around the Sun and not the other way around?

Lo m8

Cnt meet l8r. Gt prbs wth tlscp. Hd crzy idea abt Sn. Nd to wrte it b4 i 4get.

Y dnt u txt 2moro

Gal  :)

Got any better txts?  Or got another text from a scientist/inventor/discoverer? How about Marie Curie who discovered radioactivity?  Or maybe Thomas Edison who invented the electric light?

Send it to us at wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘SCI-TEXT’ as the subject.  We’ll print it – u neva no!

>>> Back to top

3. Over 2U! – Hot Air Balloon

You will need:

  • A balloon
  • A small empty water bottle
  • Some blu-tack, or plasticine
  • A large bowl
  • Some boiling water
  • A felt tip pen

What to do:

  1. Draw a face on the flat balloon.
  2. Stretch the neck of the balloon over the neck of the empty water bottle and pull down so it is held in place.
  3. Stick the bottle to the bottom of the bowl with blutac or plasticine
  4. Carefully pour the boiling water into the bowl around the bottle and watch as your balloon man comes to life.

What's going on?

The hot water heats the cold air in the bottle. As the air gets warmer, each of the molecules of air is given more energy, and so they travel faster. As the molecules are travelling faster they each have a higher momentum, which means they hit each other - and the side of the container - harder.

Without the bottle and balloon containing them, the air molecules would all start moving away from each other: the hot air would expand. Since the balloon is stretchy, the expanding gas contained in the bottle and the balloon forces the walls of the balloon out and then it starts to inflate.

Alternatively, you can look at this situation as an increase in pressure. The pressure of the air in a container is measured by the force that the molecules exert when they hit the sides. If they all have a greater momentum they hit the sides harder and the pressure increases. This pressure increase pushes on the inside of the balloon, and you have a slowly inflating balloon man.

Special Safety advice

Take great care with the boiling water.

>>> Back to top

4. Gear Giveaway – You’ve got to be in it to win it...

This time we have TEN copies of the March Flipside magazine to give away.  What a great giveaway!  Here’s a few highlights... The world's most gremlin like creature the aye-aye, split second photography, digital radio, and the girls’ best friend, diamonds.

www.flipside.org.uk

If you’d like to win one then email us with your age, name and postal address to randomised.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘COMPLETELY FLIPPED’ in the subject line. The winner will be picked at random at 5pm on Wednesday 12th March 2008.

>>> Back to top

5. Wot’s Hot? – Wicked websites and net-nonsense

Did you feel the earthquake at around 1am on the 27 February? It was the UK’s largest earthquake in 25 years. Read more about it.

For more information about earthquakes check out the How Stuff Works website. 

Plus if you fancy keeping tabs on what earthquakes are happening worldwide right now then look at the US Geological Survey (USGS) site.

And don’t forget the British Geological Survey

>>> Back to top

6. Winners - Has your name been picked out of the bag?

In the last issue we told you that one of the winners of a family pass to Inside DNA, Explore@Bristol was Alex James from Portishead but sorry that we missed off the other winner of the family pass who was Rich Graham from Weston-super-Mare. Very sorry (grovel, grovel) won't do it again, honest!

Last time we were offering two Darth Taters in return for your views on social networking sites. The winners are Laura Bender from Potters Bar and Brandon Neal from Leicester. Well done and may the spud be with you!

>>> Back to top

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW

You've been Randomised!

Send any questions, comments, jokes or experiment ideas to: randomised.news@nesta.org.uk

Bye for now!