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1. Up For Grabs – You’ve got to be in it to win it!
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One person who didn’t stop smiling during Smile Week is Dr Robert Winston because last week he walked away with the Aventis Junior Prize for his book ‘What Makes Me, Me?’ If you watched ‘The Human Body ‘ or ‘Superhuman’ series on BBC then you’ll be familiar with ‘the doc’ who has to be the most famous science face of the moment.
Dr Robert Winston’s winning book asks what makes us so special, in easily digestible chunks of text with stunning photography and amazing facts. You could follow the recipe to make a human body, or test your spatial ability or even find out what makes us so different. Whatever your taste in human biology there is something in this book for everyone.
Now, here’s a reason for YOU to smile! Wired-Up has three copies of the book to give away. All you have to do is tell us what makes you, you! It could be your messy hair, or your wicked grin or the way you tell jokes – anything really, just something that sets you apart from everyone else.
Send your answer, along with your name, age and address, to: wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk The three answers we like the best will win the books and the winners will be announced in the next issue of Wired-Up.
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2. The Wire – Science news delivered straight to your inbox...
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Also in the news this week, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all been showcasing their 2006 console collection on the computer games red carpet. First, Microsoft displayed its new Xbox 360, which with three IBM microprocessors and a detachable 20-gigabyte hard drive, it promises to be vastly more powerful than its predecessor. Read about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4544321.stm
The second competitor in the console wars is Sony, with their Playstation 3, who claim the console is twice as powerful as the Xbox 360. It uses a special chip, called ‘Cell’, that will make it 35 times more powerful than the current PS2. Sony hopes this new console will allow people play games that look more like movies than ever before. Get the full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4554025.stm
Finally, Nintendo has offered fans a glimpse at its new console, called Revolution, but they gave very few technical details about the machine away so watch this space for more news & read what is out here:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000667043658/
The race is now on to be the top of the next generation games consoles, so let the battle commence!
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3. Planet Picks – News from Planet Earth and from Planet Science...
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So with Star Wars in mind and as it’s National Smile Week (with the emphasis being keeping your teeth healthy for a nice-looking smile) this next science news story ties the two in quite neatly...
Scientists have announced they are working on mini ‘light sabres’ which might one day replace the toothbrush. Researchers in the US have been working on a new tool, which emits a blue light that kills bad bacteria in the mouth. There is still work to be done on the dental ‘light sabres’ but here at the Planet Science office, we feel the ‘force’ with this invention is strong...
If you found that story hard to swallow then you’re just the type of person who should enter our May quiz on the Planet Science website. Some of the multiple choice answers MAY or MAY not be true so sort out science fact from science fiction and enter the quiz while you’ve still got time:
http://www.planet-science.com/wired/05_05_OrMayNot/index.html
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4. Try This! – Science experiments for you to try at home...
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Still on matters of the mouth, why not try this issue’s tongue-tasting experiment? All you need are a few simple kitchen ingredients...
You Will Need:
- Cotton buds
- Lemon juice
- Tonic water
- Water mixed with a little sugar
- Water mixed with a little salt
- Glass of water
- Paper and pencil
- Mirror
What You Do:
- Roughly sketch a picture of a human tongue. You will mark your experiment results on this picture.
- Next, whilst looking into a mirror so you can see what you are doing, take a cotton bud dip it in the lemon juice. Touch the front, back and sides of your tongue with the cotton bud. Draw on your picture the place on your tongue where you could taste the lemon juice the most.
- Take a sip of water.
- Now, take a clean cotton bud and dip it in the tonic water. Test the front, back and sides of your tongue. Mark on your picture where you can taste the tonic water the most.
- Have another sip of water before you test the sugar and water. Mark your results on your picture.
- Lastly, take a sip of water and then test your tongue with the salt and water. Draw your results on the tongue picture.
You Will Notice:
Taste buds on your tongue can sense four main tastes, which are: sweet, sour, salty and bitter and different parts of your tongue sense these different tastes. Not everybody’s results will be the same, but most people will taste:
- the tonic water (bitter) at the back of the tongue,
- the lemon juice (sour) on the sides near the middle and back of the tongue,
- the sugar and water (sweet) on the tip of the tongue,
- the salt and water (salty ) on the sides near the front of the tongue.
Why not try the experiment out on a friend and see if you get the same results?
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5. Up For Grabs – You’ve got to be in it to win it...
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Here’s yet another reason to smile because this issue’s second competition is coming right up...
If you didn’t get a chance to catch Dr Bunhead on tour last year then Blue Peter’s resident extreme scientist is taking to the road once again in his mobile laboratory, ready to wow the crowds. Highlights of the show include his famous exploding hot water bottles, flaming underpants, DIY breakfast bombs, an electrifying Franken-gherkin and a re-creation of his recent Guinness World Record for the fastest chips in town (in which he fires a potato through a tennis racket at 200mph while volunteers stand by to catch the flying chips!)
Visit Dr Bunhead’s website and catch all the dates of his tour here:
http://www.bunhead.com/
One lucky Wired-Up reader can take his or her family along to one of Dr Bunhead’s forthcoming shows for free, by sending an email, along with their name, age and address, to: wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘DOCTOR, WHO?’ as the subject. The winner will be chosen at random at 5pm on Thursday 2 nd May. Good luck!
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6. Winners – Has your name been picked out of the hat?
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All we’ve got space left for is last issue’s winners. In Wired-Up issue 24, we ran two competitions. In the first competition, we asked subscribers to come up with a guide to the Earth in 5 words or less and we had some fantastic entries. Our favourite was sent in by Abbey Dawling (age 14) from Oxford, who wrote:
Nice planet – shame about weather!
Thanks for that Abbey, a family ticket for the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy exhibition at the Science Museum is on its way to you.
In the second competition we asked you to come up with a name for a new planet. Once again, we had lots of entries including: Red Dwarf, Chocolate Gateaux, Iroquoi, and Scaro.
The winning entry was sent by Tim Darwin from Gateshead who wrote:
“I would call a new planet ‘Thin Air’ so that we could say that astronauts were landing on Thin Air! I think it would be really funny!”
Thanks, Tim! A copy of Dorling Kindersley’s ‘Night Sky Atlas’ is on its way to you.
Finally:
Once National Smile Week is over, here are a couple of reasons why continuing to hold that smile may be impossible:
Reason 1: Akon is still number 1 in the music charts.
Reason 2: Nestle are getting rid of the Smarties tubes and replacing them with hexagonal packaging.
Boo Hoo!
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Got Wired-Up? Got clued up!
Don’t forget that Wired-Up will be hitting your inboxes every fortnight from now on, but in the meantime, send any questions, comments, jokes or experiment ideas to: wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk
Until then, why not pay the Planet Science website a visit, by clicking here:
http://www.planet-science.com
P.S. If you wish to unsubscribe from Wired-Up then reply to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE as the subject.
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