Planet Science news ... issue 115
stardate: friday 17th december 2004
Q. What kind of candle burns longer, a red one or a green one?
A. Neither - candles can only burn shorter!
Ho ho ho! Here come the holidays, and here come your emergency science quiz and activity rations for the coming three weeks:
1. DAZZLING E-CARD - you're not too late to show them you care ...
2. SEASONAL SHENANIGANS 1: MAKE A FESTIVE FLYER
3. LET'S GET QUIZZICAL with 25 seasonal teasers
4. SEASONAL SHENANIGANS 2: SALT VOLCANO
5. WINNERS 'What Makes Me Me?' books.
6. QUIZ ANSWERS
7. JOKE OF THE WEEK
Ready? Here we go ...
1. click click - bob's your uncle
And Jeanette's your auntie, hand Kevin's your Kiwi cousin and Cassie's your best mate. And they'd all love a card from you (especially Auntie Jeanette, you know what she's like.) But what if there are no nice cards left in the shops? Or you've spent all your postal budget on Secret Santa presents and party frocks? Or you've just not got time to stand in the lunchtime queue for stamps?
Luckily - help is at hand.
The Planet Science elves have been hard at work creating an e-card you can personalise and instantaneously send to all your loved ones right now.
It features a moving light display radiating out like a golden snowflake - have a look and send it wherever you like by visiting:
http://www.planet-science.com/greeting.html
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2. seasonal shenanigans 1: festive flyer!
What's more fun than a cracker? Ooooh, that's a tricky one - but here'sa possibility ...
You will need:
* 1 cardboard inner tube from a cracker (or a tube from a toilet roll or kitchen roll)
* 1 straight plastic straw (or cut the bendy piece off a bendy straw)
* Sticky tape
* Scissors
What to do:
1. Cut the tube into three sections (ie three mini tubes). Each section should be about 2cm wide.
2. Set one of these hoops aside, you'll need it later. If necessary, tape the ends together to make sure the hoop is secure.
3. Cut the other two sections so that they form long strips then tape the ends together so it forms one long strip.
4. Tape the two remaining ends together so that it forms a large hoop.
5. You should now have one small hoop and one large hoop.
6. Place the large hoop across the top of the straw at one end and tape it in place.
7. Place the small hoop in front of the large hoop and slide it forwards on top of the straw until it is at the opposite end.
8. Make sure the small hoop is in line with the large hoop. This is important. If the small hoop is a bit twisted the plane won't fly properly. Tape it in place.
9. Pick up the Flyer like a dart, with the small hoop at the front, and hold it in the middle of the straw.
10. Draw back your arm and throw - zoom! Who would have thought such a strange shaped thing could fly?
What's going on?:
How do planes fly? It's all down to thrust, drag, weight and lift. Thrust is what keeps the plane moving forwards whereas drag (or air resistance) acts against it to slow it down. The weight of a plane is the force of gravity causing it to fall which is counteracted by lift which is the force pushing the plane up. In the case of our oddly shaped plane the drag is minimised since the plane is practically all wing. The shapes of the wing provide lift. As the air moves over and under the wings the wing pushes downwards on the air and in return the air pushes back.
In other words it is all due to Newton's Third Law of Motion - for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
What happens if you shorten the straw? What happens if you change the size of the hoops?
Go on! Give it a go!
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3. fingers on the buzzers - let's get quizzical!
Coming up are 25 themed questions designed to challenge your friends' and family's festive faculties. The answers can be found further down the page - but no cheating now.
Here we go:
ROUND 1: ICE & SNOW
1. Where is the deepest layer of ice in the world?
a. In the Antarctic
b. In the Arctic
c. In the Alps
2. According to the Met Office, to be an 'official' White Christmas, how many flakes have to be seen falling on the 25th December?
ROUND 2: FIR TREES & PINE CONES
3. Where do most partridges prefer to nest?
a. Pear trees
b. Decorated fir trees
c. The ground
4. What is the technical name for a pine cone?
a. Arborial pineapple
b. Strobilus
c. A conical
ROUND 3: FIREWORKS & STARS
5. A firework is made of a fuel and an oxygen source, but what does adding compounds of calcium, copper, barium or sodium do?
6. Which of these is the nearest star to the Sun?
a. Proxima
b. Sirius
c. Betelgeuse
ROUND 4: DARK & LIGHT
7. What does it mean when an animal is 'nocturnal'?
8. Which famous physicist who worked on light, gravity, space and time said "Imagination is more important than knowledge"?
ROUND 5: CANDLES, FIRES & FLAMES
9. What shape would a candle flame be aboard the International Space Station?
a. Square
b. Spherical
c. Same as on Earth
10. What element in the air is necessary for things to burn?
11. Which of these substances will melt instead of burning?
a. Ice
b. Wood
c. Turkey
ROUND 6: WRAPPING PAPER & RIBBON
12. About how many 1m x 4 m2 rolls of wrapping paper would it take to gift wrap the Moon?
a. 10
b. 10,000,000
c. 10,000,000,000,000
13. About how long would a piece of ribbon need to be to tie it around the Earth's equator?
a. 4 km
b. 40,000 km
c. 4,000,000,000 km
ROUND 7: GREEN & RED
14. What is the chemical in leaves which makes them green?
15. True or false - Santa's red suit appears red because red light is reflected from it. ?
ROUND 8: GLITTER & TINSEL
16. When shiny silver combines with sulphur it turns a dark colour - chemists call it silver sulphide but we know it as what?
a. Tarnish
b. Varnish
c. Burnish
17. True or false - the largest Christmas cracker in the world was just over 73 metres long?
ROUND 9: SINGING & DANCING
18. True or false - you burn more calories shopping than you do dancing?
19. Who out of the following was NOT a member of Band Aid 20?
a. Robbie Williams
b. The Sugababes
c. Kylie Minogue
ROUND 10: SUGAR & CHOCOLATE
20. True or False - an average bar of milk chocolate has more caffeine than a cup of black coffee?
21. What hormone in the body keeps blood sugar levels under control after munching through an entire selection box?
a. Adrenaline
b. Insulin
c. Oestrogen
ROUND 11: EXCESS & INDIGESTION
22. How long does a giant panda have to spend eating each day to get enough food?
a. 3 hours
b. 15 hours
c. 23 hours
23. How much fizzy drink can an average adult swallow in one go before their stomach fills up?
a. 1 litre
b. 5 litres
c. 10 litres
ROUND 12: WARM & SLEEPY
24. Which of these animals hibernates for nearly 9 months out of the year?
a. Polar bears
b. Arctic ground squirrels
c. Blue whales
25. True or false - the giant anteater wraps its huge furry tail around itself to keep warm at night?
a. true
b. false, its tail doesn't have muscles
c. it doesn't have a tail
--- end of quiz ---
Answers coming up in a moment!
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4. seasonal shenanigans 2: salt volcano
Ever wished you had a lava lamp at the dinner table? All the time, right? Well, here's how to recreate the effect, using only some standard kitchen equipment. Yeah baby yeah!
You will need:
* A clear drinking glass
* Vegetable oil
* Salt
* Water
* Food colouring
What to do:
1. Pour about 3 inches of water into the glass.
2. Pour about 1 inch of oil into the glass. What happens?
3. Add a couple of drops of food colouring to the glass. What happens?
4. Shake salt on top of the oil while you count slowly to 5.
5. Wow! What happens to the food colouring? What happens to the salt?
6. Keep adding salt to keep the action going as long as you want.
What's going on?
Why does the oil float on the water? Oil floats on water because a drop of oil is less dense than a drop of water the same size. Even though oil and water are both liquids, they are immiscible - that means they don't mix. The food colouring is water-based so it doesn't mix with the oil either.
What happens when the salt is poured on the oil?
Salt is heavier than water, so when you pour salt on the oil, it sinks to the bottom of the mixture, carrying a blob of oil with it. In the water, the salt starts to dissolve. As it dissolves, the salt releases the oil, which floats back up to the top of the water. The salt also carries the food colouring down with it too and this dissolves in the water making the bottom layer coloured.
In 'real' lava lamps, the wax does not mix with the liquid in the lamp. A lamp at the bottom heats up the cool wax. As it warms up it expands a little. Now it has the same mass but as it takes up more space than it did before, it is less dense and so it begins to rise. At the top of the lamp it starts to cool, becomes more dense and drops down, before heating up again ... and cooling down again. Mesmerising ...
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5. winners winners winners
Last week we had five copies of Robert Winston's fabbie book 'What Makes Me Me?' to give away.
The entries rolled in ... and the draw has just taken place.
The winners are:
Stephen Willmoth of Pevensey, E Sussex
Mary Smith
John Dodd from Dean Hole CE Primary School, Notts
MarkAndrew Dearden, from Quethiock C of E VA School, Cornwall
Tessa Halliwell
Congratulations, your books will be on their way shortly (Mary, Tessa - please send your postal addresses asap, thanks!)
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6. quiz answers
Ok you can stop scratching (your head, that is). Here are the answers to the quiz ... Look away now if you don't want to know the result!
1. a
2. At least one
3. c
4. b
5. Gives the firework colour
6. a
7. The animal is most active at night.
8. Einstein
9. b
10. Oxygen
11. a
12. c
13. b
14. Chlorophyll
15. True
16. a
17. False, it was 'only' slightly over 63 metres long (and it contained one giant hat)
18. False
19.c
20. False
21. b
22. b
23. a
24. b
25. a
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7. joke of the week
It was Christmas Eve at Aintree...
Conditions were good to firm, and the 2.30 race was going well. When suddenly, the leading jockey noticed a Christmas pudding flying through the air, straight at him. He ducked out the way and managed to avoid it, give or take a few specks of custard. He regained his posture and continued the race. But 30 seconds later, his head was almost knocked off by an airborne ovenready turkey. Cursing slightly under his breath, he swerved out the way, and it sailed by. He got back on track, but moments later a volley of mince pies flew towards him.
What a race. Despite being bookies favourite the jockey came in last, and stormed off to talk to the steward about it.
"I demand you do something about this," he fumed, "I was severely hampered."
- o - O - o -
And that's it for this year! Very many thanks to Alison Begley who compiled the quiz, and Katy Hewis who provided this and several previous weeks' seasonal activities.
We'll be back in January with more science-related news, offers, freebies, ideas, inspiration and unsung heroes. If you'd like to contribute to any 2005 newsletters, just email Anne McNaught on anne.mcnaught@nesta.org.uk.
Meanwhile HAPPY HOLIDAYS from all at Planet Science.
And may the force of groovity be with you always!
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