He’s a Mighty Mollusc, a Colossal Crustacean – we give you Super-Scorpion!!! It sounds like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean IV - a super-sized sea monster bigger than a person! However, it’s true.  The remains have been found by scientists in Germany. The scary looking scorpion was around 2.5 metres long, and grabbed its food with claws that measured 46cm.

It's the biggest sea scorpion ever found, and experts think other beasties like insects, spiders and crabs were loads bigger millions of years ago.

The creature has been given the name Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, and lived between 460 and 255m years ago.

Scientists aren't sure why some of the beasties around millions of years ago were so huge, but think it may have been because they had bigger food to snack on.

This story came from CBBC Newsround and checkout this site to see computer graphics of the sea scorpion scuttling about.

From sea scorpion to Robo-roach.  Yes apparently robotic cockroaches can make the real creepy critters change the way they behave, scientists have found. The robotic roaches were coated with a chemical to make them smell the same as real cockroaches. Then they scuttled about amongst them, pretended to be like them, and eventually the real cockroaches started to follow them. Poor dumb critters!

Now scientists reckon their results suggest it may be possible to use technology to change animal behaviour.

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Magnus Effect

What you need

• Two polystyrene cups.
• Sticky tape.
• Two large rubber bands.

What you do

1. Use sticky tape to fix the bottoms of the polystyrene cups together.
2. Knot the rubber bands together.
3. Hold the rubber band in the centre of the cups and wrap the bands around about twice. Finish with the end of the elastic bands on the bottom pointing away from you.
4. Hold the cup in one hand and the end of the elastic in your other hand.
5. Pull back the cups and let go.
6. With enough practice you should be able to make the flying cups loop in the air.

What's going on?

This is known as the Magnus effect, and it is the reason why top footballers can make balls curve in the air and how golfers can make golf balls perform some amazing aerodynamics.

The cups are fired forward because of the stretched elastic band. If we ignore the fact the cups are spinning we can see that air will flow over the cups from front to back in a fairly uniform way.

However, in this system, when the cups are released the bands unwind and the cups are forced to spin. If the bands are wound correctly the cups will be given back spin; the bottom of the cups move forwards while the top is moving backwards. Because of the rough surface of the cups, air is trapped near the surface and moves with the cups as they spin.

The top of the cups has air moving from front to back as they spins, and the cups also have air flowing over them from front to back because they are flying through the air. The bottom of the cups also have air moving from the front to the back because they are flying through the air, but, crucially, the bottom also has air moving back to the front because of the direction of the spinning cups. Therefore, the cups are sitting in air which is moving very differently at different parts: there is fast moving air at the top while the air is close to being stationary at the bottom.

Faster air has a lower pressure, so the cups have low pressure above them and higher pressure underneath. The cups are forced upwards.

As improbable as it seems, it is possible to make the cups travel backwards. To understand how you have to realise that the force making the cups lift is at right angles to the cups' forward motion. As the cups starts to rise vertically they also experience a force at right angles to their new 'forward' motion. This lift force actually makes the cup move back towards you. On this return part of the loop the flow at the top and bottom of the cups are reversed, the cup is forced down, and then eventually forward along its original path.

The air resistance which allows the layer of air to stick to the surface of the cups also slows the cups down. It slowly stops the cups from spinning and as the spin is reduced so the lift vanishes. The cups start to drop and eventually hit the floor.

Watch as the Scicasters show how. And while you’re at it, why not think about contributing your own film to the site?  Early bird prizes for all films submitted before the end of November! Go on! You know you want to!

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