Win tickets to walk on the Moon!

From 23 September the Science Museum IMAX Cinema will be showing a fantastic new film produced and narrated by Tom Hanks and Wired Up has two pairs of tickets to give away to see it. Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (U) uses CGI renditions, never before seen photographs and previously unreleased NASA footage to recreate the life-changing journeys of the twelve astronauts who stepped upon the lunar surface.

Featuring voices from Hollywood stars including Morgan Freeman, John Travolta, Matthew McConaughey and Matt Damon, Magnificent Desolation 3D brings these amazing stories to life, taking you back in time to experience the lunar landings virtually first-hand.

With a screen taller than four double-decker buses, state-of-the-art 3D technology and a six-channel surround sound system viewers are totally immersed in the action, transporting you into space without leaving your seat! It really is an experience not to be missed so make sure you enter our competition to win tickets by answering the following question:

In what year did man first walk on the moon?

Send your answer in an email with your name, age and address to: wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN!’ as the subject. The winner will be picked at random on Thursday 15^th September at 5pm.

Good luck!

Wow! Actually setting foot on the moon.  Isn’t space fascinating? And what about the Universe?  Cosmic man! Speaking of whom…

Move aside Foo Fighters, let’s hear it for Singing Sand.  It’s true! There’s tunes in them dunes! Yes, certain sand dunes will occasionally let out a loud, low-pitch rumble that lasts up to 15 minutes and can be heard up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) away. Some dunes are known to do it regularly, even daily. But why?  Bruno Andreotti from the University of Paris-7 took equipment out to the Atlantic Sahara in Morocco to find out.

Andreotti and his team studied one of the large crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans, which spontaneously sings all year long – sometimes two or three times an afternoon, if windy enough. Wind forces sand to accumulate at the top of the dune until the angle of the slope reaches a tipping point of about 35 degrees. The eventual avalanche of sand produces the bellowing noise. The sand must be sufficiently dry for the singing to occur. For smaller barchans, the sand must also be hot and the wind still.  Although sand avalanches were known to be the cause of the singing, the exact mechanism was still unclear. Not wanting to wait for a spontaneous episode, Andreotti and his team induced avalanches in the field by sliding down the dunes. Oh yes?  And they call it science?  Read more about this phenomenon
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050111_singing_dunes.html

But remember …

The mystery is not completely solved. Recent research has centred on a seemingly magical musical property of the singing grains. It is not known, for instance, why the sliding of glass beads is silent, while some rougher sand grains belt out a tune.  Slip Sliding Away by Sandy Doon?

Remember our cricket joke competition in issue no. 29?  Well congratulations to Ning Yu age 13 from East Ham for his sizzling sledge –

Captain of the cricket team: What's that farmer doing here?
Player: He's fielding for us.

And the Michael Vaughan (who’s he?  Only kidding!) ‘Hit 4 Six’ cricket set is winging its way to you even as we speak.  Who knows?  This could be the start of another glittering cricket career.  Well done Ning!

And well done to the England Men’s and Ladies Cricket Teams for bringing back The Ashes.

Got Wired-Up? Got clued up!

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