How good are you at Scrabble?  Does your grandma beat you every time? Now it’s time to get your own back.  Find out some useful words that will take your score into the lead. Get all ten questions right and you could win a fantastic Scrabble Deluxe complete with rotating base and velvet tilebag. Oooooh! That will make you very popular at family gatherings

Ready, steady…grabble!

<< back to top

A top dinosaur hunter says he's found a real Tyrannosaurus Rex footprint in an American desert where the monsters lived millions of years ago. Dr Phil Manning discovered the massive 76cm-long footprint in a place called Hell Creek, in the middle of a scorching hot desert in Montana. The dusty print is now being glued together so it can be lifted out of the ground and studied by scientists. They want to see if it really does belong to the king of the dinosaurs.

A tiny dog from America called Boo Boo has been named as the smallest pooch in the world. At just four inches (10.16cm) tall, the Chihuahua is the world's smallest dog in height, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Boo Boo's owner, Lana Elswick, breeds Chihuahuas, and said Boo Boo was the size of her thumb when she was born. Boo Boo hasn't got much bigger since being born a year ago, weighing just 42.5 grams (1.5 ounces).

Mrs Elswick explained that she had her dog measured in May, but didn't send it to world record bosses until June. She found out that Boo Boo was the smallest dog in the world on 10 September in an email.

These stories were taken from the CBBC Newsround site.

Talking of mini animals…

Squeak squeak.  Is there a mouse in here?  Oh yes, it’s a mini wireless optical mouse from Rolls Royce.  Do you fancy a Rolls Royce (mouse that is)? 

Each year Rolls-Royce run the Rolls-Royce Science Awards so if you have a great idea for a science project for your school then point your teacher in that direction.  Why not print off this newsletter for them? – or better still get them to sign up for their own or maybe for the main Planet Science newsletter instead. Just go the Planet Science homepage and click on the Newsletter Signups section.

If you’d like to win it then send us your name, age and address to: wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘MINI MOUSE’ as the subject. The winner will be picked at random at 5pm on Wednesday 24^th October 2007.

Good luck!

Model Brains

Find out how cerebro-spinal fluid is an essential safety feature of our brain design.

You will need:

• An egg
• A small plastic container with a tight-fitting top. The container should be just a little bigger than the egg.
• Water
• Washing up liquid

What to do:

1. Put your egg into the container and then fill it up with water. Put the top on the container. Make sure it is on tightly.
2. Shake the container as hard as you can for about 20 seconds and see if you can break your egg.
3. Now open the container, pour out the water (assuming you haven't broken the egg yet) and put the top on tightly again.
4. Now shake again. How long does it take to break the egg?
5. Throw away the broken egg, and wash the container really well. Wash your hands too.

What's happening?

The egg is your model brain, the container is your skull and the water is your cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF).

Fluids are not very easily compressed (squashed), so the CSF protects your brain like a cushion or a shock absorber. Your brain and spine have CSF all around them, in every one of the little folds.

Remember Be Safe!

There is a risk of salmonella from the eggs. Use eggs stamped with lions to reduce the risk. Make sure you wash the container and your hands well after the experiment.

This activity came from the Little Book of Experiments.

<< back to top