British Food Fortnight starts on 22 September and will celebrate all things foody that come  from the UK. As anyone who’s looked through the Planet Science Diner or tried out the new Smoothie Operator game knows there’s a lot of science to scoffing. So here’s some of it.

Get all the answers right and you’ll go into the draw to win a Horrible Science Disgusting Digestion Pack. Y – UK!

Wash your Hands…

Napkin over your best jeans…

GO!

Plus hold it right there! Don’t move a muscle until you have tapped in to the fabulous new interactive game from Planet Science -  Smoothie Operator .  Open up your virtual blender, chuck in anything and everything you fancy, and bleeeeeendddd.  In fact chuck in things you don’t fancy – how about a nice blueberry and lard smoothie with a hint of Branston Pickle?  No?  You do surprise us.  Have you got any better ideas?  Try them out; give them a name and checkout the health factor. You’ll be amazed at all the facts and figures hidden away in this little beauty.  You might want to submit your creation to our Hall of Fame where it can stand alongside the greats such as Phlegm-mania (not sure how many bottles of that you might sell)

http://www.planet-science.com/smoothie/blended.html

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If you and your mobile can never be parted then recent news might have cheered you up.

Researchers tested the effect radiation from mobiles has on people's balance and looked at whether using a mobile phone damages the inside of our ears. Their results suggest it doesn't, but they said more research was needed into the effects of mobiles on children. They also want to find out if long-term use increases the risk of cancer. Basically they think that mobile phones

• DON'T harm the cells in the body that we need to keep us healthy
• DON'T affect how our brain works
• DON'T increase the risk of us getting cancer in the short term

However bear in mind that tests have not been carried out for a long enough period to truly say there are NO long term effects on children. Just before you go skipping off to tell everyone it’s perfectly OK to gas for hours on end to your mates!

Sedimentary Sandwich

British Food Fortnight starts on 22 September so how about knocking up a quick sandwich? But no ordinary sandwich, oh no.  If you like the subject of rocks and the rock cycle, why not create a model? The Earth’s crust is made up of many different types of rock, including ‘sedimentary’ ones. These are formed in layers - a bit like a club sandwich.

To find out more about how rocks are formed, take a look at ROCKS FOR KIDS at http://www.rocksforkids.com/ , but in the meantime, here’s now to make a culinary version.You will need:

• A plate
• A knife and any of the following:-
• White bread
• Brown or granary bread
• Butter or margarine
• Salad
• Prawns
• Chicken or turkey
• Marmite
• Salt and vinegar crisps
• Jam
• Peanut butter
• Honey
• Mayonnaise
• Raisins
• Chopped egg
• Cheese

What to do:

1. Before you start: Check for food allergies, particularly regarding peanut butter. Substitute any fillings if necessary (you can even substitute the bread with lettuce leaves if necessary). And feel free to get creative, it’s your sandwich!
   
   
2. Sedimentary layers are formed with the oldest layer at the bottom and the youngest layer at the top. So first of all we have to ‘date’ our layers.
   
   
3. Arrange your sandwich fillings in date order, for example:
   - chickens and turkeys are birds which are the closest thing to dinosaurs that walked the Earth between 200 and 100 million years ago.
   - salad represents vegetation that made coal 300 million years ago.
   - prawns are Arthropods like the trilobites that swam around in the sea 550 million years ago.
   - Marmite is a yeast extract and the first organisms were single-celled like yeast.
   
   
4. Alternatively, you could assign each of your fillings a different rock name, for example:
   - Jam with seeds, raisins, granary bread = conglomerate rock which contains rounded rocks (pebbles, boulders) cemented together in a matrix.
   - peanut butter, chopped egg in mayonnaise = porphory rock when jagged bits of rock are cemented together in a matrix.
   - white or brown bread = sandstone, a soft stone that is made when sand grains cement together. Sometimes the sandstone is deposited in layers of different coloured sand.
   - honey, smooth jam, cheese = shale i.e. clay that has been hardened and turned into rock. It often breaks apart in large flat sections.
   - prawns, chicken or turkey = limestone, a rock that contains many fossils and is made of calcium carbonate &/or microscopic shells.
   - salt and vinegar crisps = gypsum, common salt or Epsom salt found where seawater precipitates the salt as the water evaporates.
   
5. Make your sedimentary sandwich by alternating bread and butter with the filling of your choice. Make as many layers as you like – who’s counting?
   
   
6. Eat it! Or if you don’t fancy that, try bending it and see what happens to the layers… earthquaaaaaaaake!!

What's happening

These rocks are formed when layers of sand, small bits of rock, clay, plants, bones, and mud are piled on top of each other and eventually get compressed and harden into rock. They’re often formed in river bottoms and lakes since the water carries materials from other places that then settle to the bottom in layers. This process takes a long time (hundreds of thousands of years), with the oldest layers being formed first.

Scientists can gain information about how climates and the environment have changed over time by looking at the changes in the rock layers. Some rock types may appear in several different layers – hence the alternate layers of bread and butter. What? Still hungry? If you fancy more geological science snacks try EDIBLE IGNEOUS ROCKS at
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ks73/Ediblerocks.htm

This activity came from the Planet Science Little Book of Experiments

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