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01. PLANET SCIENCE WHODUNIT
 Well, today's the day we've all been waiting for. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls (drum roll please, and a fanfare wouldn't go amiss) the announcement to the question on everybody's lips... Who stole Busted's guitar?! We at Planet Science towers had our suspicions (about all the dodgy suspects frankly) but as the schools of Britain started to send in their results, one name above all others clearly emerged. The Planet Science officers were dispatched to the suspect's house, where they soon spotted a suspicious black biro and a guitar amp! The suspect was speedily taken to court, tried, found guilty and given various suitable punishments. You can read all about it, see photos of our culprit doing the punishments and even download some related teaching resources at the Whodunit website . Justice has been served. And for those with prizes on their minds, we've got the details of all the teams that got the right answer under lock and key (and there were lots of them - well done!) awaiting transportation to a secret location where next Monday a minister of Her Majesty's Government will randomly pick out the lucky winners. So if you’ve entered then you could be in line for science books & equipment, computer equipment and microscopes from our wonderful friends at Dorling Kindersley, Intel, Phillip Harrisand Bio-Rad. Don't forget you've still got until the 18th to enter the Super Sleuth Online Challenge (where - now we've got it back - you can win Busted's guitar!)  |
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02. LENGTH QUIZ  Ahhhh the LONG hot days of summer eh? What better way to spend those sticky evenings than sweating over the last in our trilogy of quizzes - the Length Quiz. We were flooded with entries for the Depth Quiz but you’ll have to go further down to discover the lucky winners! So if you’re longing to get started just click here and you could be in with the chance to win a funky set of snake-like lighting ropes to brighten up your home. Don’t forget you need to get all 10 questions right to be in with a chance. Good luck and don’t take too long about it! |
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03. BRING IT ALL BACK TO YOU Ð School books that is! BBC Radio Five Live have launched a new campaign to get ‘borrowed’ school library and textbooks back to school. According to their website: "Every year, schools spend thousands of pounds replacing books which are lying under beds, in cupboards, on shelves and in bags across the UK" So what are you waiting for? As an added incentive (as if saving valuable cash for your school wasn’t enough) Five Live are giving away £10,000 worth of books from Dorling Kindersley & Penguin to be shared out between 10 schools randomly chosen from those registered for the scheme. So get a wriggle on and by the end of term you could have loads of old books back and a whole heap of new ones! Go to BBC website for more details, registration form and a poster you can download and put all over your school to make sure everyone knows about it! |
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04. MOUSES AT THE READY – LIFE’S A BEACH We’re all going on a summer holiday……………la la la la. Yes that’s right it’s time to head for the beach – in Birmingham! One of our favourite science & discovery centres, ThinkTank, has a fab new exhibition entitled ‘On the Beach – Under the Sea’. Just as an aside – ThinkTank have been named as Discovery Centre of the Year, 2003 by The Good Britain Guide, so prepare to be amazed at this award-winning museum! Kids of 6 & under will be thoroughly over excited as they can dress up as a jellyfish or a diver , hide in a giant shell or explore life beneath the sea in an underwater cave! Older children and adults will also be spoilt for choice – should they investigate rock pools, discover flotsam and jetsam or get artistic with sand! You've got from 19th July to 14th September to splash down to this exhibit. Go to Think Tank for full details. We, of course, have two fantastic family passes to give away. Just e-mail joanna@planet-science.com with the words – OH I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE in the subject line and your name and address details in the message. The winner will be picked at 5.00pm Monday. |
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05. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK – Sunny Days Measure the sun! With this activity, taken from the wonderful Club Activity Pack, you can find the diameter of the sun or the moon by building a simple pinhole viewer to project an image of the sun. What you need: • Sheet of white card • Sheet of white paper • Square of aluminium foil (approx 3cm) • Drawing pin or sharp point • Some sticky tape • Scissors • Ruler •Candle What to do: • Cut a square of about 2cm out of the centre of your piece of card. • Place the aluminium foil over this opening and tape it down at the edges. • Using the pin or sharp point, puncture a small hole in the centre of the foil. You now have a pinhole viewer. • Test this by holding it a few centimetres away from a lit candle and holding up a piece of white paper on the other side of the card to the candle. You should see an image of the flame projected onto the piece of paper. • To measure the sun’s diameter, hold the pinhole viewer so that the sun is shining through the hole and falls on a sheet of white paper on the other side. HINT: Try to make the distance between the pinhole viewer and the paper as large as possible. • Using your ruler measure:
• Now calculate the diameter of the sun using this simple equation:  What's going on? The distance from Earth to the sun is 149,680,000km. You can use the same method on a night of a full moon to determine the diameter of the moon (the distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 384,000km). The pinhole viewer works like a camera. Light comes in through the lens (the hole) and projects onto the film (the paper). For more experiments like this click here. |
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06. SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS This week we look at the science behind the news that a man in Arkansas, USA has awoken from a coma after 19 years. With his family by his bedside, Terry Wallis regained consciousness at the age of 39 having been in a coma for 19 years since a road traffic accident at the age of 20. He has a wife and a daughter he’s never met and is still catching up on important events over the last couple of decades. This week Science Line This week Science Line take a look at the public’s perceptions of comas and whether it really is just a long sleep. |
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07. AVENTIS SCIENCE BOOK PRIZES Remember this? For those who missed Newsletter Issue 38, here’s a quick recap! These awards are managed by the Royal Society and sponsored by Aventis. They were designed to recognise and honour the best in popular science writing. There were six fantastic books in each category, Junior Science Writing and General Science Writing and after much careful consideration (by children in science clubs for the junior prize) the winners have been decided. Hem, hem (expectant hush please) and the winners are………………………… DK Guide to the Oceans By Dr Frances Dipper (junior prize) Right Hand, Left Hand Chris McManus (general prize) Congratulations to both winners and if you want to find out more about either book or the awards themselves click here. As a special treat we have FIVE copies of the Junior prize winner – ‘DK Guide to the Ocean’ to give away as prizes. So, if you want to be in with a chance to win just answer the following question. Question: Approximately what percentage of the Earth’s surface is covered by open ocean? This is the fourth year in a row that one of publisher DK’s books has won and as a special treat we have FIVE copies of the Junior prize winner – ‘DK Guide to the Ocean’ to give away as prizes. So, if you want to be in with a chance to win just answer the following question. Send an e-mail with your answer to joanna@planet-science.com with ‘SCIENCE BOOKS’ in the subject line. Don’t forget to include your full address details so we know where to send the prize if you win! |
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08. RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK First this week a great science site for kids, EXTREME SCIENCE. Although the site has many interesting features, the best bit (and the bit that the link above should take you to) is the ‘World Records in the Animal Kingdom’. This has some fascinating facts about the largest, the strongest and the most ferocious creatures to name but a few! The deadliest creature, for example, is a Sea Wasp. This is actually a jellyfish that kills its prey by releasing tiny poison darts from its tentacles. The interesting part is that these darts are released due to a chemical reaction on contact with the surface of another creature (skin for example!). So, even a thin barrier can prevent the deadly poison being released. Apparently our Australian friends have known this for ages and its quite common to see a hunky Aussie lifeguard wearing women’s nylon tights over his arms and legs!!!! The second site this week isn’t very sciency to be honest but it is very interesting and the perfect way to while away a few minutes on a hot afternoon, when your brain’s too addled to manage coherent thought of any kind. The ingenious ‘AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 CLICKS’ has some fab pictures and you browse through a number of topics including Architecture, Nature and Bridges. This link should take you straight to the coastline search and you can even have a look at Mahatma Ghandi’s memorial in Delhi! |
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09. COMEDY CREATIVITY CHALLENGE  Hello! Dr Comedy here again with the results of the 'Whats' the difference between 'Tim Henman' and a 'gas tap' joke experiment. Well, jolly good effort everyone, there were some corkers such as John Platts 'One supplies gas, the other runs out of it....' or there was the tremendous 'One's always going off and on, on and off, off and on, and the other one's a gas tap' That was from Max Fishel or how about 'One gives off heat, the other can't get through heats!' from Mark Langford or 'They both blow up under pressure' from Dale Robinson. But the winner of the so called 'funky filofax' has to be Jackie Rea for her splendid two jokes, short, witty and to the point... What is the difference between Tim Henman and a gas tap? 'One is easy to put out, the other is a gas tap' What is the difference between Tim Henman and a gas tap? 'One is useful, the other is Tim Henman' Knock-out Jackie! I'll have my girl send you the filofax. Super! Bye from me then, Dr Comedy. |
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| 10. AOB and LUCKY WINNERS Thanks to all the readers who entered the ‘DEPTH QUIZ’ a couple of weeks ago. There were a number of 10/10 results so we randomly generated (with the aid of a hat) three lucky winners! They are: Victoria Wigmore from Northants, Sandy Creighton from Bristol and Richard Dean from Warwickshire. Congratulations to you all, you can expect your funky Casio Diver watches soon! As for the ‘Mouses at the Ready’ challenge for the Megabites books – unfortunately, you’ll have to wait for next week for those results due to some holiday confusion here in the office! Still, it’ll be worth it! Don’t forget to enter the depth quiz and keep your eyes peeled for next weeks newsletter as I have a strong suspicion there may be many more freebies and competitions on the way! Any questions or comments e-mail joanna@planet-science.com Bye for now - and have a great week! |
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