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Friday 9th December 2005 Issue: 37

Deck the Inbox up to the ma-ax tra la la la lah, la la la la – Wired Up’s stuffed with science fa-acts tra la la la la la la la la. Yes December is here and the festive season is upon us! The temperature is dropping and ice and snow are on their way. Narnia is on the horizon and that’s not the only film you’ll want to see, look what we’ve got for grabs! So let’s snuggle up with a mug of hot chocolate (don’t forget the whipped cream and marshmallows) and read on…

(BTW, sorry Wired Up is looking so, well, sorry, today. This is because our normal design whizz Neelesh is off to sunnier climes to loll about on a house-boat til January, and it was this ‘non-designer’ version of Wired Up or nothing, and we thought ‘nothing’ just wasn’t good enough for you. Hope you don’t mind toooo much!)

  1. GEAR FOR GRABS – IMAX tickets for the Polar Express
  2. THE WIRE – What’s so interesting about polar bears?
  3. TRY THIS! – The blubber glove
  4. SCIENCE NIBBLE – New mammal? Is it possible?
  5. WIRED BYTES – Ning has his say on physics

Christmas dinner is good for your teeth! It’s official. The British Dental Health Foundation says cranberries can help stop tooth decay and gum disease.

The little red berries apparently stop harmful bacteria sticking to your teeth, stopping them causing problems. However, don’t eat too much because cranberry juice is quite acidic, and could harm your teeth.

It's thought cranberries have lots of benefits for your health, like fighting infections, ulcers, and they may even stop heart attacks. You’ll never look at a jar of cranberry sauce in the same way again.
1. Planet Picks Happy Anniversary Quiz

New Year = New Quiz. We’ve put together questions about anniversaries that fall neatly into 2006. For Example…

5 Years Ago…  In July 2001 a Titanosaur skeleton was found in Madagascar. At 15 metres long, what were these dinosaurs thought to have eaten?
a) Take-out
b) People who couldn’t run fast or
c) Plants

Spot the answer? If you get all 10 answers right you go into the draw to win a clock that glows a different colour every hour, so you don’t need your specs if you wake up in the night, you just need to memorise 8 colours in the right order, and remember them when you’re half asleep – fantastic!
www.planet-science.com/quiz

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2. MAKE A DATE – Things to see and do…

Are you a happy snapper?  From the pink neon lights in your local fish and chip shop to the brilliant yellow of daffodils, the world around us is illuminated in all the colours of the spectrum. As part of National Science Week (10-19 March 2006), budding photographers are being invited to consider the science behind the colours they see as part of a national competition.

Illuminate is a UK-wide photography competition launching on 12 January 2006. It aims to spark people’s imagination and inspire creativity for all ages. Look at the world around you through new eyes, think about the science behind what you see, capture the colour in science.

You can submit a maximum of three entries per individual and submissions should include around 50 words explaining the reason for submitting each photograph.

Categories will include:

  • 7 years and under
  • 8-12 years
  • 13-16 years
  • Over 16 years
  • Best mobile phone picture (all ages)

The deadline for submissions is Friday 10 February, 2006. Prize winners will be announced during National Science Week 2006 (10-19 March), and the winning images exhibited.

Illuminate is organised by the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) and the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council).

For more information on the competition, including how to submit your entry, visit www.the-ba.net/illuminate.

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3. YOU WHAT? - Science facts that might make you go “Hmm?”

Did you know that New Year began one second later this year? Yes really. This is because the speed at which the Earth turns is slowing down. A "leap second" was added to the end of 31 December and 2006 started at one second past midnight. A day is about two thousandths of a second longer than it was 200 years ago, mainly because tides are causing the Earth to spin more slowly. Leap seconds keep the clocks in time with the Earth and the Sun, but this is the first to be used for seven years. The decision was taken by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, based at the Paris Observatory.

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4. THE WIRE  – Science news straight to your Inbox…

2006 is the Year of the Dog according to the Chinese zodiac. It runs from 29 January 2006 to 17 February 2007. The Chinese Zodiac consists of a 12-year cycle, each year of which is named after a different animal that imparts distinct characteristics to its year. Many Chinese believe that the year of a person's birth is the primary factor in determining that person's personality traits, physical and mental attributes and degree of success and happiness throughout his or her lifetime. The Chinese years run in cycles of 12 years so if you were born in 1994 then you are a Dog too!  If you want to know what animal you are then look it up in the table. Apparently Dog people make good leaders.

Talking of dogs…

I say, I say, I say – My dog has no nose!
Your dog has no nose?  How does it smell?
Terrible!!  (Boom! Boom! as Basil Brush would say)

Seriously though, dogs have a much better sense of smell than humans and that is why they are so useful in hunting and tracking. Read more.

The Beagle Brigade is a team of beagles and their human handlers who inspect luggage at U.S. airports searching for agricultural products. They make sure that meat; animal by-products, fruit, and vegetables that can carry diseases and pests harmful to U.S. agriculture are kept out of the country. Often travellers bring these products into the country. Beagle Brigade works in the baggage-claim areas at international airports. Dogs in the Beagle Brigade wear green jackets. Beagles were chosen for this work because they are small, easy to care for and not as intimidating as larger dogs such as German Shepherds. This is important in busy international airports where there are large numbers of people at all times.

Beagles are well suited to this task because of their superb sense of smell. Humans have an estimated five million scent receptors (cells used for smelling) concentrated in a relatively small area at the back of the nose. Beagles have an estimated 220 million scent receptors. Not only do beagles have an uncanny ability to detect scents, but after extensive training, they also are able to distinguish one odour from another and remember it. Because of this, they can be taught to distinguish between the scent of a "restricted" item (such as a fruit, vegetable, or meat) and a non-restricted item. When a member of the Beagle Brigade smells a restricted scent, it sits down next to the luggage to alert its handler, who then talks to the owner, and, if necessary, performs a search. Experienced beagles have a 90% success rate and can recognize almost 50 distinct smells. For more information on the Beagle Brigade.

Dogs not only have an exceptional sense of smell, their sense of hearing is pretty acute too. Our ears are tuned to a certain range of sounds—those with frequencies between 20 and 20,000 hertz. One hertz is equal to 1 cycle (or vibration) per second. As frequency goes up, pitch does, too.  Dogs can hear sounds up to 45,000 hertz.  Apparently at the end of the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life," an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs, was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog. They should have done it for “Who let the dogs out?”

But dogs pale into insignificance compared to bats who can hear up to 120,000 hertz. Dolphins and some of the fish they eat can hear frequencies greater than 200,000 hertz. Respect due!

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5. YOU WHAT? - Science facts that might make you go “Hmm?”

So you think you know everything there is to know about your canine chums?

Top ten doggy facts

  1. A dog's whiskers are touch-sensitive hairs called vibrissae and can sense tiny changes in airflow.
  2. Using their swivelling ears like radar dishes, dogs can locate the source of a sound in 6/100ths of a second.
  3. The ancient Chinese royalty loved the Pekingese, carrying them tucked into the sleeves of their royal robes.
  4. Dachshunds were bred to fight badgers in their dens.
  5. The Poodle haircut was originally meant to improve the dog's swimming abilities as a retriever, with the pom-poms left in place to warm their joints.
  6. Greyhounds can reach speeds of up to 45 miles per hour for short amounts of time.
  7. Every known dog except the chow has a pink tongue - the chow's tongue is jet black.
  8. Human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man.
  9. Dogs are not colour blind. They distinguish between blue, yellow, and grey, but probably do not see red and green. This is much like our vision at twilight.
  10. Dogs sweat through the pads of their feet.
6. TRY THIS! – Science experiments for you to try at home…

Yes it’s definitely winter.  The gritters are out in force.  But why do we salt the roads when it’s icy?  Maybe this will make it a little clearer…

Magic cotton

You will need:

  • 1 length of cotton thread (or a very thin piece of string)
  • Ice cube
  • Salt

What to do:

  1. Lay the cotton flat across the top of the ice cube with the ends hanging off either side.
  2. Take a pinch of salt (not too much) and sprinkle it over the top of the ice cube.
  3. Wait for a minute or so.
  4. Take hold of the thread, one end with each hand, and gently raise the ice cube.

PS: If it doesn’t seem to work, try making a loop in the middle of the cotton before placing it on the ice cube so that there is more cotton in contact with the ice.

What’s going on?

The cotton becomes attached to the ice cube because the salt lowers the freezing point of water and melts the ice. The top of the ice cube quickly re-freezes, trapping the cotton under a thin layer of ice - allowing you to pick it up.

If you add too much salt, you just get a layer of water on top of your ice cube and your magic trick doesn’t work.

In winter, salt is sprinkled on roads to melt the ice and make driving a little less dangerous.

So now you know!

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THAT’S ALL FOR NOW

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