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"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.." Question of the week:
How are things heavy?
Created and presented to his year 10 our student answered this weeks question by explaining to us what the Higgs Field is. Please click on his presentation below to find out more about the fascinating topic. How are things heavy? presentation_ What happens to time zones at the North Pole?
Time zone lines do follow lines of longitude, and technically, they stretch all the way to both poles, so you could walk around the south pole in a circle and traverse all of the time zones. That's not very practical if you're going to be down there doing research or anything, though. Neither the arctic nor antarctic make up their own nation, in which case they could establish what time zone they would follow. The arctic region generally uses GMT (or UTC), but this isn't a hard and fast rule. Scientists from different countries travelling to Antarctica generally use their own country's time for ease of messages and data, etc. If there is a multi-national expedition, I'm sure they just come to an agreement of which one to use or use GMT. The South Pole station (Amundsen-Scott Station) uses New Zealand time, since the scientists who live and work there travel to Antarctica from Christchurch. Answered by the naked scientists from Cambridge University. Archived questionsWhat are gravitational waves?
When you drop your toy dog and it falls to the floor, that’s gravity pulling it down, the gravity of the Earth. You can’t see it, you can’t feel it, but it’s there. In the universe far away, black holes have a lot more gravity than the Earth’s. The gravity is so strong that even light, like from your flashlight, falls in it and can’t get out. And these black holes move around a lot in space. When they crash into each other, they send out huge waves that tell the universe what just happened. There was this pretty clever guy 100 years ago who said this is happening all the time. But we didn’t know for sure until we finally managed to build a machine – like a giant ear – so we could to listen to it. What is the significance of this discovery? If scientists at Harvard University have detected gravitational waves, it is significant for two reasons. First, this opens up a whole new way of studying the Universe, allowing scientists to infer the processes at work that produced the waves. Second, it proves a hypothesis called inflation. This can be used to give us information about the origin of the universe, known as the big bang. Why don't penguins' feet freeze?
Why do Antarctic penguins' feet not freeze in winter when they are in constant contact with the ice and snow? Years ago I heard on the radio that scientists had discovered that penguins had colateral circulation in their feet that prevented them from freezing but I have seen no further information or explanation of this. Despite asking scientists studying penguins about this, none could give an answer. Susan Pate, Enoggera, Queensland Answer: Penguins, like other birds that live in a cold climate, have adaptations to avoid losing too much heat and to preserve a central body temperature of about 40 °C. The feet pose particular problems since they cannot be covered with insulation in the form of feathers or blubber, yet have a big surface area (similar considerations apply to cold-climate mammals such as polar bears). Two mechanisms are at work. First, the penguin can control the rate of blood flow to the feet by varying the diameter of arterial vessels supplying the blood. In cold conditions the flow is reduced, when it is warm the flow increases. Humans can do this too, which is why our hands and feet become white when we are cold and pink when warm. Control is very sophisticated and involves the hypothalamus and various nervous and hormonal systems. However, penguins also have 'countercurrent heat exchangers' at the top of the legs. Arteries supplying warm blood to the feet break up into many small vessels that are closely allied to similar numbers of venous vessels bringing cold blood back from the feet. Heat flows from the warm blood to the cold blood, so little of it is carried down the feet. In the winter, penguin feet are held a degree or two above freezing — to minimise heat loss, whilst avoiding frostbite. Ducks and geese have similar arrangements in their feet, but if they are held indoors for weeks in warm conditions, and then released onto snow and ice, their feet may freeze to the ground, because their physiology has adapted to the warmth and this causes the blood flow to feet to be virtually cut off and their foot temperature falls below freezing. John Davenport, University Marine Biological Station, Millport, Isle of Cumbrae |
The Genius Behind...Check out the BBC's amazing series looking at the latest technologies and little known scientific breakthroughs! It's exciting stuff!
http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/the-genius-behind Discovery news:"In a nutshell" video of the week:Experiment of the week:Documentary of the week:To celebrate the 90th Birthday of Sir David Attenborough here is a stunning documentary about LIFE THAT GLOWS.
News articles:
The new frontier of medicine: hhttp://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151204-how-one-woman-made-a-tricorder-that-could-change-medicine Scientist grow Vocal cords in a lab!! Follow this link to learn more |