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Friday 21st April 2006 Issue: 42

Hoorah! It’s Friday and time for another Haywire to brighten up the weekend.  Spring is here at last and those April showers are drying up fast. So why not get out and Springwatch? But don’t forget your umbrella…

  1. Out and About – the Hunt for the Seven-spotted ladybird
  2. Up for Grabs – Giant Plants yikes!
  3. The Buzz – Giant dinosaurs?  Double yikes!
  4. Winners – The Stunning Science of Everything.  Everything? Yes! Everything!
1. Out and About – Things to see and do…

Read about it, spot it, record it.  We’re talking about ladybirds here – seven spotted ladybirds to be precise. Look for a red/orange beetle, 5-8mm long with seven black spots.  It has three spots on each wing case (elytra) and a seventh spot at the front across both elytra.  You find them in gardens, woodland, hedgerows and meadows from February/March. They feed on early aphids (greenfly) and take pollen and nectar from winter flowering plants. You may spot them in flowering tubs or on hedges on the way to school. But don’t linger too long – we don’t want you being late!

Did you know that one ladybird can eat more than 5,000 aphids in its lifetime? Now that’s quite an appetite! But the ladybird needs to stock up because it has to start laying eggs in May/June and the more it eats, the more eggs it will produce. The relationship between aphids and ladybirds is of great interest to scientists.  It was even studied in a zero gravity environment on a NASA space shuttle in 1999. Houston we have a problem.  The ladybird has flown away home, we repeat, the ladybird has flown away home…

The ladybird's bright colours warn predators such as ants and birds that it's not good to eat. But the ladybird is not taking any chances - when disturbed or handled it secretes oily, foul-smelling yellow fluid from its legs as a further warning.  So it's best to leave ladybirds on plants where they belong. Now you know!  It’s not ladybird poo at all.  It’s a danger signal like skunks giving off a nasty whiff and octopuses squirting ink.

If you want to know more about ladybirds then look at the Springwatch website

You could even take part in the project by logging where you saw the ladybirds.

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2. Gear for Grabs – You’ve got to be in it to win it...

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?  Very nicely thank you now please get off the grass!! Do you like growing things? In that case look no further, we have for you a ‘Grow Giant Plants’ Discovery Tube which contains two plants to grow and monitor over the spring and summer months.

So if you fancy yourself as a bit of a green fingers then email us with your name, age and address to: Hay-Wire.Clubhouse@nesta.org.uk with ‘GIANT GROWTH’ as the subject. The winner will be picked at random at 5pm, on Thursday 4th May.

Good luck!

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3. The Buzz - Science news delivered to your inbox…

Scientists have revealed details about the remains of a massive meat-eating dinosaur discovered in Argentina. The bones of the two-legged beast, called Mapusaurus roseae, suggest it was more than 12m long and could have been bigger than the mighty T. Rex. The word mapusaurus means earth, and the roseae refers to the rose-coloured rock the fossils were found in. Fossil experts think the Mapusaurus might have hunted in packs, as the discovery included a cluster of bones from at least seven of the beasts.

It had been thought that dinosaurs were too ferocious to hunt together. It's not known whether the animals worked together during the hunt, or just gathered around to eat the animal once it was killed. The Mapusaurus bones are thought to date back 1 million years, and were dug up in Argentina in 1997-2001. Experts say it's difficult to know exactly how long the biggest specimen was because no complete skeleton was found.

But scientists say the new discovery was almost certainly a similar size to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Gigantosaurus and Spinosaurus.  But they are not sure exactly which size order the monsters came in.

And if you want to know more about dinosaurs then have a look at the BBC Newsround guide to dinosaurs or if you’d like to play some dino games then click here

Three amazing dinosaur facts:

  1. Dinosaurs lived about 230 million years ago
  2. There were more than 700 different types of dinosaur
  3. The word dinosaur means "terrible lizard" in Greek

What do you call a blind dinosaur?
Do-you-think-he-saurus.

When do dinosaurs eat you?
Chewsday.

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4. Winners – Has your name been picked out of the bag?
Remember issue no. 40? We were giving away a copy of Nick Arnold’s  ‘The Stunning Science of Everything’– a stunning gruesome guide to everything! And the lucky winner is Peter Mitchell (11) from Cleveland.  Well done Peter, we hope you enjoy it!

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

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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!