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Friday 10th March 2006: Issue 39

It’s Friday!  It’s also the start of National Science Week!  So what’s going on in your area?  What science can you do at home? Come and find out in this week’s Haywire…

  1. Out and About – Science Week - What’s going on near you?
  2. Crash Bang! – Make a rainbow fish
  3. The Buzz – left your pocket money at home? Help is at your fingertips!
  4. Up for Grabs – Five Flipside magazines
  5. Winners – Deep Sea 3D at the IMAX
  6. Planet Picks – Activities, games and much, much more…
1. Out and About – Things to see and do…

National Science Week 2006 runs from 10-19 March. Prime Minister Tony Blair will be turning down his thermostat. Olympic athlete Colin Jackson will be taking the train instead of flying. TV scientist Professor Robert Winston is going without his car. What will you be doing to help reduce your carbon dioxide emissions during National Science Week?

This year as part of the ten day celebration of science, as well as going to an event in your area, the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) and the Economic & Social Research Council are asking people across the UK to pledge to make a small change to their lives during the week – and make a big difference to climate change.

To find out more about Click for the Climate or to see what events are going on in your area, visit http://www.the-ba.net/nsw.

National Science Week is funded by the Department for Trade & Industry and is sponsored by BP and the ESRC.

If you’re itching for something to do then why not take a look at the National Science Week Challenge packs. Click here. There’s something for everyone.  Plenty ideas for the ‘Vertically Challenged’, those who enjoy ‘Domestic Science’ and don’t forget ‘Colour Chaos’.  Talking of which, let’s have a go at one of those activities right now!

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2. Crash Bang! – Exciting experiments for you to try at home…

Make a rainbow fish

You will need:

  • coffee filter paper
  • red cabbage
  • water
  • lemon juice or vinegar
  • bicarbonate of soda
  • paintbrush
  • wiggly or paper eyes
  • silver foil

What to do:

  1. Prepare some red cabbage water by breaking up the cabbage leaves into small pieces. Pour hot water over the cabbage and leave for half an hour or until the water turns dark purple.
  2. Once cool, remove all the chunks of cabbage, soak the filter papers in the cabbage water and leave to dry.
  3. Next, flatten out coffee filter on a plate and cut out a fish shape from it. Dip the paintbrush in lemon juice or vinegar and paint onto the fish. See the colour change?
  4. Make up some bicarbonate of soda solution by putting a couple of teaspoons of powder into a little water and mixing it up. Dip in the paintbrush and paint the fish. See the colour change again?
  5. Once the fish is dry, glue on some small strips and triangles of silver foil, glue on a wiggly eye and draw on a mouth and you have your rainbow fish!

What’s happening?

These colour changes are all due to acid-base chemistry. Red cabbage contains the pigment anthocyanin.  This changes colour depending on whether it is in an acid or an alkali solution. The cabbage water is purple initially. When you add an alkali, such as bicarbonate of soda, it will turn blue. Adding an acid, such as vinegar, will turn it red. Red cabbage water is a good simple indicator and can be used to tell you whether something is acidic or alkaline. 

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3. The Buzz –Science news delivered to your inbox…

Imagine if you were in a shop and realised you had left your pocket money at home. What if you could pay for your shopping by simply waving your fingers over a scanner? Sounds unlikely? Maybe not. Apparently fingerprints could replace money. Three shops are testing a new type of technology from America called Pay by Touch, which uses fingerprints instead of cash cards to let you pay for things. The system links fingerprints to bank accounts and when a print is scanned the shop gets the money from the bank.

For this trial only people older than 18 will be able to take part, but there are plans in the US to set up Pay by Touch accounts for kids to use, with money from their parents.

You might think that because children are still growing they wouldn't be able to use the technology, but that isn't the case as your fingerprint stays the same.

But it could be a while before you're using fingerprints to pay for things in the UK, as shops have only just spent millions bringing in the chip and pin technology.

Have you heard about Snuppy the world's first cloned dog? He’s an Afghan hound that is a true clone - an exact copy of another dog. Snuppy - short for Seoul National University puppy - was made when genetic material from the 'dad' Afghan hound was planted in an empty egg cell. The cell was then transferred into a non-related yellow Labrador 'mum' who became pregnant with Snuppy before he was born.

Lots of other cloned animals have been created by scientists, including Dolly the sheep, CC the cat and Ralph the rat. Scientists hope to use dog clones to help understand and cure some dog diseases - research which they hope may help cure human diseases too.

If you want to know more about cloning then click here

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

It’s been quite a while but they’re back!  Yes, we have some more Flipside magazines to give away. Stuffed full of science facts and features, not to mention the brilliant photos.  Don’t miss out! We have five copies up for grabs.

You can’t buy Flipside in the shops but you can find out more about the magazine on the website here: http://www.flipside.org.uk/

To enter, send an email with your name, age and address to: Hay-Wire.Clubhouse@nesta.org.uk with ‘FLIP FIVE’ as the subject. The winners will be picked at random at 5pm, on Thursday 23rd March.

Good luck!

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5. Winners – Has your name been picked out of the bag?

Remember issue no. 38? We had two pairs of tickets for the new IMAX film at the Science Museum called Deep Sea 3D to give away.  The two lucky winners are Simon Bateman (8) from Rochford and Jack White from Cambridge.

If you weren't lucky, want to book places or need more information visit

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/imax/deepsea3d.asp

So keep entering – you never know! Next time - it could be YOU…

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6. Planet Picks - News from the world of Planet Science...

If you are still scratching your head and don’t know what to do for Science Week then have no fear – Planet Science is here!  A nice little section called the Little Book of Experiments. Or why not go wild and throw a science party?  There’s plenty of great ideas in the Party section. Perhaps you prefer games or quizzes?  If so then have a look in Wired

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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:
http://www.planet-science.com/wired/hay-wire/clubhouse

Bye for now!