Never miss an exam!

Keep on track with all your exams and tests with this friendly free iPhone app:
http://itunes.apple.com/app/exam-countdown/id372962356?mt=8

What colour are butterfly wings?

Butterfly wing scales. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of scales from the topside of a wing of an aega morpho (Morpho aega) butterfly. Layers of wing scales are transparent but tiny ridges on the scales break up and reflect light to give the scales their shimmering iridescent appearance. Magnification: x235 when printed 10 centimetres wide.
Credit: POWER AND SYRED / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Gained a few kilos? Don't be too hard on yourself - an invisible force field and a boson called Higgs could be the real culprits.

Newton thought he had gravity nailed when the apocryphal apple fell on his head in 1665. But 250 years later a young upstart called Einstein declared that gravity wasn't a property of the Earth or any other matter — gravity is what you get when matter distorts space-time. Read more...

Coke and Mentos Explanation - the results are in!

Ok -we tried to find just one winner, but it was impossible to decide between two of the explanations! So I will award one coke and mentos launcher to each person (I will send them to you in the internal mail!). Congratulations to the following students:

• Alyssa Campbell in 4G


• Jessica Lazaro in 4E

Their explanations are below:

Alyssa: "There is carbon dioxide in Coke. On the surface of the mentos there are tiny holes in which the carbon dioxide goes into and then creates bubbles. By the time the mentos reach the bottom of the bottle they go right back up and out in the explosion."

Jessica: "Here is what I think about the mentos and coke experiment. don't think that it was the chemicals that reacted. I think it was because of the mentos which had an incredibly rough surface [lots of miniscule little bumps]. When you add the mint mentos to the coke, millions of bubbles appeard at a very high speed. This is because of the rough surface on the mentos. When the bubbles appear the only place they can go is out of the hole in the top. This experiment does not work with fruity mentos because they have a very smooth surface. And that is why the coke comes out of the bottle like a fountain.

I used this website to help me under stand what happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_Coke_and_Mentos_eruption#cite_note-1

Thanks to all of you that emailed me with your explanations. Hope to see you next year!

Mr Taylor

Red blood cells

Stacked red blood cells, coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM). These stacks of red blood cells, known as 'rouleaux', are abnormal and symptomatic of an underlying disease or condition. The stacking occurs because red blood cells have large flat surface that enable them to stick together. Conditions that lead to this include infections, inflammatory disorders, cancer, diabetes and anaemia. Magnification: x1800 when printed at 10 centimetres wide.

C006/5948 Rights Managed

BBC News - 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first living cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA.

Read more...

Supermassive black holes......

Click this link to read more..........

Great Year 7 revision website

Click the image or here: http://www.scibermonkey.org/

Play & Learn at the same time?

This is the best website I have seen for a long time. Some great animations and good key word games in the Scientific Literacy section. Try some as part of your revision for your annual exams.....

http://www.freezeray.com/index.html

What will you look like in 20 years time?

This is a bit more fun that Science, but there must be some complicated face recognition software running behind the application? I put my photo in this and the results were not pretty, not to be shared with the world! Try it and see how you will look in 20 years time......

http://in20years.com/

Are you ready for the global school?

More information on this link: http://www.thinkglobalschool.com/

Viewing stomata on a leaf with Year 8

This is the x40 magnification view taken using an iphone of a nail varnish imprint of the underside of a leaf. Notice the stomata as small back dots. Why are there many more stomata on the underside of the leaf than the top? Why does a leaf need holes? Learn more about stomata on this link.