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Friday 27th January 2006 Issue: 36

Well would you believe it – a whale in the Thames?  What next, an elephant on the M25? Life’s full of surprises! So what surprises do we have in this week’s Haywire? Let’s have a look…

  1. UP FOR GRABS – Ding Dong King Kong! Read all about it in Flipside.
  2. THE BUZZ – Why did the whale swim up the Thames? It’s no joke.
  3. WEB WATCH – What is satellite navigation when it’s at home?
  4. SCIENCE NIBBLE – The wonders of whale sick
  5. WINNERS – What goes up must go down, unless you are the Antigravity Tube winner!
  6. TUMMY TICKLERS – A real bag o’ laughs

It seems that schools around the UK are taking part in a huge bird count to help keep check on bird numbers.  Is your school taking part?  If so, we’d love to hear all about it. During the survey pupils will set up feeders and write down the number of bird species visiting the food stations.

Last year around 32,000 children took part in the Big School's Birdwatch 2005 survey, counting 57,000 birds. The count is organised by the RSPB, a charity which helps to protect birds living in and around the UK. The schools survey will end on 3 February.

In last year's survey the starling was found to be the most common bird. Other birds often spotted around schools include crows and black-headed gulls. They like open spaces such as games fields and football pitches.
1. UP FOR GRABS – You’ve got to be in it to win it...

Look what we’re gibbon away this week? Only five copies of Flipside magazine! AND King Kong is on the cover. Aaaaaaaaaaargh! No it’s OK, it’s just a photo. Phew! There’s lots of great articles including one on the latest gizmos that just might feature on next year’s Christmas list.  So have a look through, nothing wrong with being prepared is there?

Flipside is aimed at those with an interest in science and technology, music and films, and sport and adventure. Is that you?  Of course it is!

You can’t buy Flipside in the shops but you can find out more about the magazine on the website here: http://www.flipside.org.uk/

All you have to do is send us an email with your name, age and address to: Hay-Wire.Clubhouse@nesta.org.uk with ‘KING KONG!’ as the subject. The draw will take place at 5pm on Thursday 9th February at 5pm.

Good luck!

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2. THE BUZZ –– Science news delivered to your inbox…

Did you hear about the whale found in the Thames this week? No?  Where have you been? It caused quite a stir but unfortunately the story doesn’t have a happy ending and sadly it died.

Scientists think that the whale mistakenly ended up in the North Sea, then headed up the Thames as it was trying to return to the Atlantic Ocean to eat squid. It appeared to be confused and distressed, so rescuers lifted her onto a barge so they could move her down the river towards the open sea.

Tests have found a combination of factors caused her death.  The female northern bottle-nosed whale was suffering from severe dehydration, which means her body had lost a lot of water, and her kidneys were not working well.

For more details see the Newsround website

In the meantime here are four facts about the whale:

  • Scientific name: Hyperoodon ampullatus
  • Length: 7.3 - 10m
  • Lives in Arctic and northern Atlantic oceans
  • Eats squid and fish
Poor whaley, if only she had had the latest Sat Nav technology fitted she would never have taken the wrong turning.  But how does GPS or Global Positioning Systems work?

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3. WEB WATCH – Don’t surf the Internet alone…

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) work by calculating your position from information sent from satellites orbiting the Earth. The satellites transmit radio signals and the GPS receiver receives and converts them to images we can understand like flashing dots on a map for instance.  You may have seen these gadgets like TomTom in-car navigation systems.

The GPS receiver has to know two things:

  • The location of at least three satellites above you
  • The distance between you and each of those satellites

It works out distances by timing how long it takes for the radio signal to arrive.  Radio waves are electromagnetic energy which means they travel at the speed of light (about 186,000 miles per second, 300,000 km per second in a vacuum). If you know how fast something is moving and how long it takes to travel then you can work out the distance travelled.  If you were walking at 2 km per hour and you walked for an hour then you would have walked 2 km. See?

In order for the distance information to be of any use, the receiver has to know where the satellites actually are. Thankfully the satellites travel in very high and predictable orbits. So the receiver simply stores an almanac that tells it where every satellite should be at any given time. An almanac is a table of information arranged according to the calendar.

It all works pretty well but every so often there are hiccups such as radio signals bouncing off large objects, such as skyscrapers, which makes the receiver think that that a satellite is farther away than it actually is. 

A standard GPS receiver not only marks you on a map at any particular location, but will also trace your path across a map as you move. If you leave your receiver on, it can stay in constant communication with GPS satellites to see how your location is changing. With this information and its built-in clock, the receiver can give you several pieces of valuable information:

  • How far you've travelled (odometer)
  • How long you've been travelling
  • Your current speed (speedometer)
  • Your average speed
  • A "bread crumb" trail showing you exactly where you have travelled on the map
  • The estimated time of arrival at your destination if you maintain your current speed

Yerk! Let’s hope schools haven’t got them installed – imagine having all your delaying tactics on the way to school rumbled!

If you want to know more about this fascinating topic and your brain hasn’t already been frazzled then try the following websites:
How stuff works GPS
How GPS works
Cool GPS for you

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4. SCIENCE NIBBLE– for great science websites you’ve come to the right place…

What would you pay for a lump of whale sick?  Euuuuuuagh! We know it sounds gross but did you know that it is actually very valuable? A lucky Australian couple struck  gold when they found a pricey pile of whale sick on the beach. Leon and Loralee Wright were curious about a weird waxy stone they found in Streaky Bay, South Australia.

A marine expert identified it for them as a 14.75kg lump of ambergris, which is used to make perfumes, after it's been vomited up by sperm whales.

The sweet-smelling sick is worth £11 a gram, meaning the Wright's find could earn them £165,300!

Sperm whales make ambergris in their stomachs to help them digest food, but eventually throw it up. It starts off soft and foul smelling, but after years floating on the ocean, it is slowly hardened by the action of the sun and salt water. This also makes it smell very sweet.

The hard beaks of giant squid, a main source of food for the whale, have often been found inside lumps of ambergris.

Incredible isn’t it?

Guide to protecting whales

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5. WINNERS – Has your name been picked out of the bag?

Remember issue no. 35? We had an Anti-gravity kit from Discovery Tubes to give away.  It contains items that demonstrate lift, drag and thrust – and it comes complete in its own little test tube.  The lucky winner is Oliver Hawes age 7 from Chepstow! Well done Oliver!  Your prize will be winging its way to you shortly! (That’s if it manages to stay in the postbox and doesn’t launch itself into space! It is ANTIgravity remember …)

So, keep entering – you never know! Next time - it could be YOU…

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5. TUMMY TICKLERS - It’s the way we tell them...

Here’s a fantastic joke from Thomas McCauley

What do you call a man with a spade on his head?
Doug.

Brilliant! Keep them coming in.

Did you hear about the giggling man who slipped over whilst carrying a jug of gravy?
He made a laughing stock of himself!

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Information Overload

Planet Science has gone Hay-Wire and now you have too!

That’s all for this issue. The next issue of Hay-Wire will be with you in two weeks time so until then, why not ask your friends to join the Hay-Wire Club?

They can visit the Clubhouse for more details at:
http://www.planet-science.com/wired/hay-wire/clubhouse

Bye for now!