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Einstein’s Army Fe l lo w Be n t

le y Wood ia ns, t h is is

t he Fe b r ua r y 201 2 ed i t io

n o f Be n t-

le y Wood‘s sc ie nce jo u r na l ( a

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la u nc h o f a p re v io us po

p u la r pa pe r! )

Bo t h t he 21s t Ce n t u

r y a nd IGCS E

sc ie nce c u r r ic u l u m p lace a n i m p-

o r ta n t ro le i n sc ie nce i n t

he ne ws.

O u r a i m is to ma k e a r t ic

les

w h ic h a re re po r ted o n T

V o r i n

ne ws pa pe rs mo re access

i b le to

yo u. B y read i ng t h is we h

o pe to

b roade n yo u r ge ne ra l a w

a re ness

o f ho w sc ie nce i m pac ts o

n

e ve r y da y l i f e.

- T he E i ns te i n‘s A r m y T

ea m

Planets, Everywhere you Look!.....1

New Years Resolutions................... 2 Woman Gives Birth to 6 Babies.....2

Stem Cell Technology.....................3 Miracle Berries...............................4

The Bottom Line.......................... .5

10 Things You Didn‘t Know AboutStephen Hawking...........................6 10 Weird Food Ingredients...........10

What a Dream Looks Like...........13 Self Washing Clothes...................13

Horoscopes...................................14

Puzzles..........................................15

SEE INSIDE...

Everywhere you look there is another one...Astronomers say that every-where we look there is always a

planet to be seen in the sky

(even though we don‘t noticethe planets itself)

Around 700 planets beyond aresolar systems are found since

1995. This is known because ateam of scientists have been

studying data from telescopes.

Dr Martin led the team and ex-

claimed "So far, we have de-tected only a tiny fraction of planets out there. We expect

hundreds of billions exist in the

Milky Way alone."

The itching question is that is

there life on at leastone of those billions of planets? unfortunately

he is unable to give ananswer to this as the

answer is uncertain.

Did you know thatonly recently have as-

tronomers actually

started considering theidea of planets aroundstars outside our solar

system?

By Shifa Mugloo 10AE

There could be millions of planets out there...

1



Have you made any resolu-tions this year? Did youmake any last year? Did youkeep to them? Richard Wise-man ( a physiologist) saysthat 22% of resolutions arekept. That’s a staggering88% of resolutions broken.

But why? Why is it so hard tostick to them? It’s all to do

with what goes on up in thatlittle head of yours. There isa small area in your branwhich is called the prefron-tal cortex which is responsi-ble for your willpower. Thisarea of the brain is verybusy because it takes

charge of shortterm memory, be-ing focused, solv-ing problems andto top all of that ithas to keep yournew years resolu-tion. So, since thisarea of the brain isvery busy, it is get-ting overworked.

Poor brain!

Concentrating on one thingallows you to strengthenyour will power. This is likea mini exercise because re-searchers believe will poweris like a muscle which needs

exercising often. So don’t

over work yourself!

By Shifa Mugloo 10AE

2012 Resolutions and the

Complex World of the Brain

Imagine Giving Birth To Six Babies...Imagine how surprised SaraGul from Afghanistan was

when she gave birth to six babies. Doctors state that the

mother arrived in hospital onMonday 23rd January 2012 and

gave birth to three boys andthree girls. It was Gul‘s first

pregnancy, and she was un-aware that she was carrying

more than one child. Themother is said to be exhausted,

but recovering.

―Allah blessed me with six chil-dren, but I am worried about

their future,‖ said Gul's 27-year -old husband Shukrullah, who

is unemployed, like many oth-ers in the war-wracked coun-

try

She didn‘t receive any fertilitytreatment and I bet when she

gave birth they did not giver her entonox gas, a gas that makes

you laugh and relieves pain.(The Year 8s have been learn-

ing about entonox gas, a gasthat if often used to help with

labour pain.)

Entonox is a colourless, odour-less gas that is made of half

oxygen and half nitrous oxide(laughing gas). When inhaled,

has a mild painkilling effect,which is only very short lived.

Entonox works because of the

nitrous oxide that is in it. Theoxygen is only in it so that us-

ers do not suffocate. It is not

fully understood how nitrous

oxide works, but it is thoughtthat when you inhale it endor-

phins are released, which alter and divert the pathways that

pain takes through the nervoussystem.

By xxxxxx

(Tutor group)

The six babies are underweight but overall

they do stand a good chance of surviving.

2



WHAT WOULD YOU DO

WITHOUT YOUR EYES?Your eyes. Your wonderful andalmost magical doorway into the

world. What would you do with-out them? How would you sur-vive knowing there‘s a world outthere, but it‘s one you can‘t ex- plore?

Exploring aside, your vision

helps you overcome everydaychallenges you face in life. Whatmay seem like nothing to youmay not be so straightforward toa blind person- that‘s why I‘mdedicating this article to inform-

ing you about human vision andalso what‘s known as ophthal-mology, so that you can reallyappreciate what life is like for

the blind.

Einstein‘s Army, in general, is based on science in the news andit was, in fact, science in thenews that inspired me to writethis article. I was reading an arti-cle on the BBC about how fe-

male medics are predicted to out-number male medics by the year 2017. This really made me think

about how many people really doaspire to pursue this career. If you would like to read the arti-

cle, please use the link below:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8077083.stm

Thinking about medicine Istarted to think about ophthal-mology (I appreciate that most people aren‘t really too familiar with this- I‘m not either, I justheard about ophthalmology awhile ago and decided to do

some research).

What is an ophthalmologist?

An ophthalmologist is a physi-cian that deals with disease andsurgery of the eye. There are alsodifferent specialisms within oph-thalmology that deal with differ-ent aspects of it (e.g. the retina,the cornea, etc.)

Problems and how can STEM

CELL TECHNOLOGY solve

these problems?

Unfortunately, diseases of theeye and blindness are rather

common, (Stargardt‘s disease isone of them) but in the recentreport in the news which gives us

a spark of hope that such dis-eases can become curable in thenot-so-distant future.

I find it ironic how just a fewweeks ago, in our science lesson,we were discussing whether or not this would be possible in thefuture- I don‘t think that anyoneexpected that we were talkingabout the future of only a fewweeks, and not a few decades.STEM CELLS are unspecialisedcells and are usually found inembryos (unborn babies that

haven‘t yet been completely de-veloped into a human form).These cells do not carry out a

specific job but can be altered toreplace different specialised cellsthat may have been damaged.THIS is what scientists havedone for the first time for two partially blind people, however,as the stem cells have been ob-

tained from embryos, it hascaused a great deal of contro-versy. The altered stem cellswere injected into the retina of the eye and the patient has saidthat they are already finding a

slightly improved vision. For thewhole story, go to:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16708779

What do YOU think?

By Delaram Imantalab K 8NA

Stem Cell Technology Being used

in Ophthalmology

3

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8077083.stm


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16708779








People have been using a spe-cial ‗miracle fruit‘ to run what

they call 'flavour tripping par-

ties'. After you pay your money(£10 or so), and eating your miracle berry, you can start

tasting the range of food laidout: lemons, Brussels sprouts,

mustard, vinegars, grapefruitand blue cheese. If you pop a

miracle berry in your mouth

and chew it for a while, It does-n't taste like much. But the real

deal is what awaits – this is the berry that makes sour food

taste sweet. Yes ,this includesthe lemons which now taste like

sweet oranges and vinegar which tastes like sweet apple

juice. Mixing sour lemon sorbetwith Guinness (a beer) is

claimed to taste like a‗chocolate shake‘

The key ingredient is a protein

known as miraculin. Mostchemicals interact with your

cells via their shape. It's thelock-and-key theory. To open

your front house door with akey, it needs to be the right size

and shape to fit the lock. In the

same way, like all cells, the

taste receptor cells on your tongue, are covered with micro-scopic receptors. They're like

tiny locks which are hollow. If a chemical (the key) can make a

good fit into that receptor, that

cell will act.

Each taste bud holds about 50 –

100 taste receptor cells. Each of these cells will respond to only

one of the five basic tastes: um-ami (meaty or savoury), salty,

sweet, sour and bitter .

So when a sweet-tasting chemi-

cal lands on a taste receptor cellthat responds to sweetness in particular, that cell gets acti-

vated and sends a signal to the brain.

Under normal conditions

miraculin is a pretty bad fit into

the receptors and so does notactivate them. However it‘s a

great fit under acid conditions.

In normal conditions themiraculin would slot into the

sweet receptors very loosely onyour tongue. And if it doesn't fit

exactly, it doesn't work. So themiraculin therefore does not

send the impression of sweet-ness to your brain, even though

it has slotted into the receptor (or lock).

But in acidic conditions, the

miraculin suddenly changesshape so that it is now an al-

most perfect fit inside the re-ceptor and to top it all off,

makes the sweetness receptors

EXTRA sensitive. How much

of a perfect fit? A lot better than sugar for sure.

So that is why your brain is toldthat there's a lot of sweetness on

your tongue even in the pres-

ence of a very sour lemon. Thechemical (miraculin) is knownto stick around in your sweet

receptors for a little over anhour before it leaves and the

effect wears off. After theacidic food is swallowed, the

miraculin returns to it‘s inac-tive shape.

Its ability to make things tastesweet without containing thecalories that are present [for ex-

ample] in sugar, could make it a possible candidate to be used as

a non-calorie sweetener. So thenatural product could also be

used, for people like diabetics

to satisfy their sweet tooth.However it is quite expensive

costing around £2 for ONE berry!

However, "you can't fool na-

ture" as said by a great physi-cist named Richard Feynman.

So sure, you've had a fun blastgoing off in your mouth as you

have scoffed down vinegar, pickles and a couple of lemon

slices amazed by the strangenew taste sensations from your

easily fooled brain. But your stomach isn‘t fooled. It's full of

the sour food items that your taste buds would normally help

warn you about. Get ready for the evil master of all tummy

aches.

By Zahrah Massood 10AE

Miracle Berry Gets Sweet Success!

Miracles berries are grown in tropical Africa

4



The Bottom Line

Why Sitting Down Is Filling Us OutScientists have started to provethe theory that sitting around

leaves us with larger backsides!Researchers found that pressure

builds up in certain areas of the body leaving some places 50

per cent fatter. Even on ahealthy diet or even those who

exercise regally could be leftwith larger bottoms. They be-

lieve this is because of theamount of people with office

jobs, who inactively sit at adesk for large periods of the

day. A team of scientists foundthat preadipocyte cells, the fore

runner of fat cells, actually be-come fat cells and produce

more fat when subjected to long periods of ―mechanical stretch-

ing loads‖- the kind of weight put on to the body tissues whensitting or lying down.

By studying closely MRI im-

ages (Works with magnets andradio waves that send a clear

picture of all the tissue in the body) of the muscle tissue of

patients paralysed by spinal

cord injuries, the scientists no-ticed that, over time lines of fat

cells were invading large mus-cles in the patients body‘s.

This then led to an investigation

into how the amount of weight placed on a particular area, for

example your bottom that is oc-cupied by these cells, could be

encouraging fat tissue to grow.The researchers stimulated

preadipocyte cells with glucoseor insulin to turn them into fat

cells and then placed individualcells in a stretching device. The

test group of cells werestretched constantly as if to

show what a human would bedoing over periods of time,

while the control group waskept separate and not beingstretched. After two weeks, the

test group had developed quitea bit more and had larger drop-

lets of the preadipocyte cells.By the time the cells reached

maturity, the group that had re-ceived mechanical stretching

had developed 50 per cent more

fat than thecontrolledgroup.

Professor Amit Gefen

from Tel AvivUniversity

said: ―Obesityis more than

just an imbal-

ance of calo-ries. Cells

themselves arealso respon-

sive to their mechanical envi-ronment.

―Fat cells produce more triglyc-

erides (the major form of fatstored in the body), and at a

faster rate, when exposed tostatic stretching.

―It appears that long periods of

static mechanical loading andstretching, due to the weight of

the body when sitting or lying,has an impact on increasing fat

production.‖

The findings indicate that cells

mechanical environment should

be taken into account as well as

the amount of calories con-

sumed and burned when tack-

ling obesity, said Professor Ge-

fen. The research has been pub-

lished in the American Journal of

Physiology – Cell Physiology. It

said that children who stay in-

doors and skip breakfast are at

greater risk of developing type

two diabetes, according tostudy at the University of

Texas. Obese children, who

lack vitamin D which you get

from sunshine, were found to

be much more likely to develop

the condition. The researchers

also said the lack of vitamin D

was due to missing breakfast

and too many fizzy drinks!

By Millie Flashman

5

Sitting down is filling us out.



From those of you who do not know who Stephan Hawking, most people know as a brilliant mindin a paralyzed body, he's prided himself on making his complex physical concepts accessible to the

public and writing the bestseller, "A Brief History of Time." Even if you are familiar with his aca-demic work, however, there are many interesting facts you might not know about Hawking,

stretching from his time at school and gradual development of disability to his opinions on the fu-ture of the human race. Another interesting fact: Hawking was born on Jan. 8, 1942, which just

happened to be the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death, who was an Italian, physicist, mathemati-

cian, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution.

10: He Received Mediocre Grades in SchoolThese days Stephan hawking as a brilliant mind, this is why this may come as a stock to learn that

hawking was a slacker when it came to his school studies. In fact when he was 9 years old hisgrades could have been ranked among the worst in his class. But he with a little more effort he

bought those grade up to average.From his early age he was interested in how certain things work, such as clocks and radios, how-

ever he admit he was not very good at putting them back together so they could work again.Even with his poor grades both this teacher and his peer believed they had a future among them.

His nickname was even ―Einstein ―The problem with his mediocre grades was that his father wanted to send him to oxford, but unfortunately did not have the money without the scholarship.

Luckily enough when it came for the scholarship exams he had aces them all, even getting almost

perfect score on the physics exam.

9. He Had an Aversion to BiologyStephen Hawking took liking to mathematics, from a young age, he had wanted to have majored in

it, but his father had other plans from and hoped he would study medicine. But for all his interestin science, Stephan did not care from Biology. He believes Biology was ―too inexact, too descrip-

tive‖ He would rather focus his mind on more precise concepts. Stephan wanted to do mathematics as a major and unfortunately Cambridge did not have, the com-

promise was that Stephan would attend oxford and major in physics. Within physics, he focusedon the big questions; he was forced to choose between studying the tracks of particles physics,

which studies the behavior between subatomic particles, versus cosmology, which studies the largeuniverse as a whole. He chose cosmology; despite at the time is conceded an n unpopular topic.

8: He Was on Oxford Rowing TeamHawking had faced unhappiness during his first year at oxford. The thing that seen to have drawn

him of this funk was joining the rowing team, even before he was diagnosed with the illness thatwould eventually paralyze him, Hawking did not have an athletic build. However the rowing team

recruited smaller men like Hawking to be coxswains, a position that does not row, but rather con-trol steering and stroke rate. Became rowing was so important and competitive at oxford, Hack-

ing‘s role on the team made him very popular. His teams‘ mates had described him as ―the adven-turous type‖ But as much as the rowing team helped his popularity, it had hurt his study habits, oc-

cupied with rowing practice or 6 afternoons per week.

10 Cool Things You Didn’t Know About

Stephen Hawking

6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematician


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomer



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicist



7: He Was Given a Few Years to Live at Age 21As a graduate student, Hawking gradually started showing symptoms of tripping and general

clumsiness, his family became concerned and during his Christmas breaks them instead to see adoctor. However before seeing a specialist he had attended a new year‘s party where he had met

his future wife, Jane Wilde. She remembers being attracted to ―his sense of humor and his inde- pendently personality.‖ He turned 21 a week later, and shortly after entered the hospitals for two

weeks of tests to discover what was wrong with him. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateralsclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a neurological disease that causes

patients to lose control of their voluntary muscles. He was told he'd probably only have a fewyears to live. Hawking became more optimistic and started dating Jane. They were soon engaged,

and he cries their engagement as giving him ―something to live for‖

6: He Helped Create the Boundless Universe TheoryOne of Hawking‘s major achievements was to come up with the theory that the universe has no

boundaries in 1983. In 1938 the effect to understands the nature and shape of the universe, hawk-

ing and Harle combined the study of the behavior of microscopic particles, with Einstein‘s theo-ries about gravity and how mass curves space to show that the universe is a contained entity andyet had no boundaries. Hawking‘s tells people to think of the universe like the surface of the earth.

A sphere, you can go in any direction on the surface of the earth and never reach a corner. How-ever the one major difference is that the surface of the earth is two dimensional, while the universe

is four dimensional.

7



5: He Lost a Bet on Black HolesIn 2004, the genius had admitted that he had been wrong and conceded a bet he made in 1997 witha fellow scientist about black holes. What are black holes you say? Stars are gigantic that have so

much mass that their gravity is always incredibly strong. This is fine also long as long the star con-tinues to burn its nuclear fuel, exerting this energy outwards, thus counteracting gravity. However

once a massive enough star burns out gravity becomes the stronger force and causes that big star tocollapse on itself. This creates a black hole. But, he said at the time, information is lost in the black

hole that eventually evaporates. The problem was this idea that information is lost conflicted withthe rules of quantum mechanics, creating what Hawking called an ―information para-

dox.‖American theoretical physicists John Persil disagree with this conclusion that information is

lost in Black hole. In 1997 he made a bet with hawking saying that information and escapes them,thus not breaking the laws of quantum mechanics. Hawking is such a good sport that he can admit-

ted when hi‘s wrong, which he did in 2004.

4: He Has Numerous Awards and DistinctionsIn his long career in physics he had received numerous amounts of awards, here are some high-

lights. In 1974 he was inducted into the Royal Society (they royal academy of science) and a year later, Pope Paul VI awarded him. He also want went on to receive the Albert Einstein Award and

Hughes medal form they Royal Society. Hawking had also established himself in the academic

world by 1979 that he attained the post of the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at eh Universityof Cambridge in England. A position he would keep for the next 30 years. The chair dates all theway back to 1966, and the second person to hold it was none other than Sir Isaac Newton. In the

1980s, he was invested as a Commander of the British Empire, which is a rank in the UK just

8



3: He Is a Children's Book AuthorOne of the most unexpected facets of Stephen Hawking‘s resume is that In 2007 Stephan and his

daughter Lucy Hawking collaborated to write George‘s Secret key to the universe. This book isabout a young boy, George who rebels against his parent‘s aversion to technology. He begins to

befriend his neighbors, one of whom is a physicist with a computer. This turns out to be the most powerful computer in the world, which offers portal to see outer space. Of course much of the

books is meant to explain heavy explain scientific concepts, such as black holes and the origin of life to children.

2: He Believes in Possibility of AliensConsidering all the Hawking‘s works in cosmology, people are understandably interested in his

opinions on the possibility of alien life. During NASA‘s 50 th anniversary in 2008. He expressedthat given that vastness of the universe, there very well could be primitive alien life out there, and

it is possible, other intelligent life. ―Primitives life is very common‖ Hawking‘s said ―and intelli-gent life is very rare‖ Of course, he threw in his characteristically sharp humor to say. ―Some

would say it has yet to occur on earth‖

1: He Took Zero-gravity Flight to Save the Human RaceIn 2007 when Stephan Hawking was 65 years old he got to take the ride of a lifetime. H was able

to experience zero-gravity and float out of his wheelchair thanks to Zero gravity crop. This experi-

ence involved an airplane ride in which sharp ascent and descent allows passengers to experienceweightless in l fight for several rounds each last for 25 seconds. Hawking, free from his wheel

chair for the first time in 4 decades, was even able to perform gymnastic flips. But perhaps the in-teresting about this is not what he was able to do but why he did it. When he was asked why he

wanted to do this, of course cited his desire to go into space. But his reasons for going and hisoverall support for space travel went deeper than that.

By Aleesha Luthra 10AE

9



As common as these ingredients are, they're not exactly what you would expect. Some are not

even what you would WANT to expect. For all the times your mother asked, "Do you know what'sIN that? You‘ll be armed and ready with the answers.

No. 10 – PolydimethylsiloxanePolydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS as we will call it fromhere on out, is indeed a common food ingredient ... you'll

even find it at your favorite fast-food haunts (we wouldname them, but we're pretty sure you'll never go back,!)

Aside from its use as a food additive, other interesting places you'll find PDMS include Silly Putty, anti-foamingagents, breast implants, dry-cleaning solutions, silicone

and head-lice treatments. Hey, we never said it was a cohe-sive list! Is there anything PDMS can't do?

No. 9 - High-Fructose Corn SyrupRemember when your mothers taught you that high-fructose corn syrup was the devil and that it brought evil

upon any child to consume it? Well, maybe that was just

our mums. But hey, television argues it too! You see, inthe 1980, admitting something had "sugar" in it was one

of the seven deadly sins (the beginnings of gluttony, per-haps). It wasn't until high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) hit

the shelves that people got really confused, and thereforethrew money at the problem! Today, however, we're giv-

ing you the not-so-skinny on this substance, right here,right now.

In case you hadn't heard, HFCS is essentially sugar — more specifically a corn syrup that has un-

dergone enzymatic processes to increase the level of fructose (how they came up with the name for it we will NEVER know!). However, along with the high fructose came high levels of obesity;

around the same time as HFCS was introduced to the U.S., obesity levels rose steadily. Subsequenttests have found that "fructose" tends to cause this weight gain, meaning the sugar substitute sent

to save the day might have made things worse. Oops. Aw, shucks. Now we have to admit our mums were right.

No. 8 – Caffeine

Without this common ingredient, most of these Top 10 lists

would never get done! Therefore, thanks largely to coffee andRed Bull, it's a safe bet that No. 8 in our list can be found in

most people's tummies. And we have a sneaking suspicion over-use of this common ingredient is exactly what makes us so weird.

Top 10 Common Ingredients that

are just Plain Weird!

10



No. 7 - Carrageenan

You may know that carrageenan is a common additive used in ice creams, soy milk, toothpastes —

even beer; what you probably don't know is that this common ingredient is made of a substanceextracted from seaweed. That's right, you're eating sushi even when you didn't expect it ... in a

manner of speaking, anyway.

No. 6 - Monosodium glutamate(MSG)It's not just your local Chinese take-out ingredient anymore!Monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is actually a really cool

ingredient, even if it does cause some pretty nasty side ef-fects for some people. You see, some scientists believe that

glutamate, also known as "umami," is the fifth "essential"flavor detectable by the human palate. In fact, glutamate

doesn't have a taste on its own, and is best known for bring-

ing out the flavors of other things (like sesame chicken ...mmm!).

Despite years of complaints of "Chinese food syndrome"

however, (which does NOT imply that the sufferer is hungryagain just 20 minutes after consumption, but that it makes

the person physically ill), most of those negative claims thatMSG is harmful to your health have gone largely unsubstantiated. And while scientists have dis-

covered there are those who are allergic to the substance, the allergy itself is pretty rare.

No. 5 - Phosphoric AcidPhosphoric Acid is more commonly known as the substance that gives fizzy drinks

their acidity. To quench your thirst, consider this: phosphoric acid is also used toremove rust, in some cases employing what is called an "acid bath" (think "DIP"

from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and you'll understand).If that's not enough to keep you out of Toon Town, phosphoric acid is also used in

fuel cells, to remove hard-water stains, and as a pH balancer in your favorite cos-

metics, ladies.

Hazards to your health have never tasted so sweet. I mean, bitter.

No. 4 – SorbitolSorbitol, like many of the other common sugar alcohols (Sugar alcohols are one type of reduced-

calorie sweetener), can actually be more like a frenemywhen you hang out too often. You see, sorbitol, when

consumed in mass quantities, acts as a laxative — proving the adage "too much of a good thing."

Where do you see sorbitol hanging out? You can find S-tol in sugar free mints, medicines, gums and diet so-

das. Of course, that's barely scratching the surface ...you'll also see it listed as an ingredient in your make-up, mouthwash, toothpaste and even in some cigarettes.

11



No. 3 - Gelatin Next time someone offers you some jelly, con-

sider this: jelly‘s main ingredient, as I'm sureit's easy to imagine given the name, is gelatin.

But gelatin, for those who don't know, consists

of the collagen extracted from an animal's skin

and (mostly) bones. So if you've ever been told jelly is made of "horse hooves," you're par-tially correct (though actual hooves are not

used in the production process). And also probably partially nauseous.

But if you think it's just jelly you should be avoiding, you're sadly mistaken ... you can find gelatin

in everything from Gummy Bears to those marshmallow Peeps you get on Easter Sunday. Now perhaps it seems a wee bit less ridiculous when your vegetarian friends turn down the pastel-

colored cuties, because (to you're thinking) they're "animals." Uh, well. Yeah, they are actually."

No. 2 - Xanthan GumXanthan gum, which gets its name fromXanthomonas campestris (a strain of bac-

teria present during the fermentation proc-ess), contains bacteria similar to rotting

veggies. We wish that was a joke and/or exaggeration, but it's totally not. In fact,

when you think of molding veggies, it'sfairly easy to imagine the film of slime

forming. Yep. Like that layer of decay,xanthan gum acts as a thickening agent or

a gel. Yum!You can see xanthan gum in dairy prod-

ucts, sauces and salad dressings. As if the previous paragraph wasn't enough to put

you off of salad forever, now you have the

perfect excuse to order that burger instead.

No. 1 - CarmineCarmine, or cochineal (as it is perhaps more commonly known), consists of a mixture of ...

crushed beetles. More specifically, these dried insects are boiled in water to extract the carminicacid they contain (or did contain). Typically, due to the fantastic red hue the resulting potion gives

off, this ingredient is used to artificially dye foods red, purple and pink; however, you can tastethese little buggers in some fruit juices, berry punches, ice cream, yogurt and candy (so ya know,

all the good stuff).In terms of non-edible items that contain carmine, you'll see them in everything from ink to paint

to make-up. We'd say we hope that doesn't include lipstick, but hey, you're already ingesting the

stuff in everyday foods — gives new meaning to the phrase, "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup."

By Aleesha Luthra - 10AE

12



The ability to take a picture of a

dream sounds like somethingthat‘s impossible. Well that‘s

what we thought. BUT a team

of researchers in Germany havedone just that. This is the start

of a whole new world. Brain

scan images taken during spe-cific dreamed events may help

researchers understand how the

brain combines thoughts and

memories to fashion dreams.

The dreamer in this experimentknew he was dreaming; he was

capable of an activity called lu-

cid dreaming. His muscles did-n‘t move, his eyes twitched as

they do during normal dreams,

and he slept deeply. But on the

inside, a lucid dreamer drives the dream and can

create an imagined world

much different and probably much stranger than

reality.

fMRI (functional mag-

netic resonance imaging)

was used to record brainactivity. An fMRI scanner

tracks the flow of blood

through a person‘s brain, show-

ing when different regions areactive. It‘s a loud and clunky

device with a narrow tunnel inthe middle: A person has to lie

down on a flat surface, slide

into the tunnel, and remain mo-

tionless.

So next time you think you

want to know what you‘redreaming of just hop into one of

these machines. Especially if your one of those people who

has a memory like a sieve.

By Kayathrie Atputharajah

10AE

Usually cleaning clothes usu-ally requires soap and water to

remove stains and smells, and atumble in the dryer or an after-

noon on the clothesline to dry.The time and energy needed to

turn a heap of dirty laundry intoa pile of clean clothes might

make people wish for clothesthat just clean themselves.

Cotton fabric coated with theright mixture of chemicals can

dissolve stains and remove

odors after only a few hours inthe sun.

The fascinating fabric gets itsself-cleaning abilities from a

chemical mixture that coats the

cotton threads. The coating in-cludes substances known as

photocatalysts, which trigger

chemical reactions in light. Oneof those photocatalysts, called

titanium dioxide, helps sun-

screen block the sun and is usedas tattoo ink. Another, called

silver iodide, is used for devel-oping photographs. Researchershave previously shown that tita-

nium dioxide mixtures could

remove stains in clothes — butwith exposure to ultraviolet, not

visible, light

The scientists can‘t start selling

their self-cleaning cotton just

yet; scientists still need to makesure the coated cotton won‘t

harm those who wear it. Al-

though titanium dioxide is usedin some foods, recent experi-

ments have shown that it can

cause health problems if it getsin the lungs. So before the ma-

terial can be worn, scientists

need to find a way to make itsafe.

By Kayathrie Atputharajah10AE

What a Dream Looks Like

That’s Washing Off the Chores List!

13



Horoscopes originated with the

ancient Greeks thousands of years

ago. The reason it was done was

to predict everyday things such asthe right time to plant crops or

when it would rain. The Greeks

believed that a human beings life

was pre-determined this meant a

life was decided in an almost

timeline like layout. Because of this the Greek astrologers believed

they could predict or prevent cer-

tain events by reading what theythought of as heavenly bodies (the

sun and moon). This was done bythe positions of the moon and sun,

and very often, star constellations.

Nomadic tribes first discovered

the way of using stars for naviga-

tion, many then followed their ex-

ample. When the news of horo-

scopes reached Britain in the1600`s a man known as William

Lilly made the practice knownthrough the churches and called it

―Christian Astronomy‖. Only re-cently was a horoscope done tofind out your future or information

on things like relationships.

Star signs travelled the world be-

fore they reached Britain many

hundreds of years ago. For exam-

ple in China the star signs are

based on lucky animals. These

animals then determine what your

personality could be and how to

deal with foretold future events.These animals are the same as the

creatures that represent thenames of each New Year,

for example we are now in

the year of the Dragon.

The Chinese calendar

changes in the first few

months of our year, so it

starts later than our set

new years. This is becauseof the traditional way of

counting events back whenstars were used as pointers,

so that a festival was held on alunar based calendar or when stars

reach certain points in the sky.Whereas our new years are basedon when the days change and how

many days have passed.

Over time, the use of the stars as

so called markers became more

and more common until they were

used in everyday objects and in

newspaper articles. Horoscopes

now are not so much for naviga-

tional or religious purposes. As

the years changed so did the way people now read the stars. We

have all seen horoscopes (alsoknown as Zodiac signs) in maga-

zines and local papers; they are based around months and birthdays. The different months and

days are separated into twelve

parts all still with their original

names. These zodiacs are named

after star constellations that were

used in the Greeks time and now.

In horoscopes we are given both

bad and good points about upcom-

ing events that might happen, even

thousands of years ago peoplewanted to know about what excit-

ing pointers could be wait-ing for them, but only natu-

rally with positive will

come the negative!

By Millie Flashman 8MN

So, what's your sign?

In tradition, the twelve horoscope signs are:

Aries (March 21-April 19),

Taurus (April 20-May 20),

Gemini (May 21-June 20),

Cancer (June 21-July 22),

Leo (July 23-August 22),

Virgo (August 23-September 22),

Libra (September 23-October 22),Scorpio (October 23-November 22),

Sagittarius (November 23-December 21),

14



And... Don’t forget, if you have any suggestions

for the articles that we should write nexttime, or if you want to write one for us,contact Mrs Egan in room 307

Puzzles found by Nicolas Sharpe

A n s w e r s :

S p o t t h e D i f f e r e n c e : T u s k i s m i s s i n g , S p o t s o n c a v e m a n ‘ s

c l o t h e s a r e m i s s i n g , M a m m o t h ‘ s t o e

i s m i s s i n g , L i n e s o n m i c r o s c o p e a r e m i s s i n g , L i n e a t b o t t o m i s d i f f e r e n t , S p e e c h b u b b l e m o v e s

A n a g r a m : P h o t o s y n t h e s i s

R i d d l e : I t w a s d u r i n g t h e d a y !

D i n g b a t s : H i g h F i v e , C i r c l e o f f r i e n d s

Use the picture clues to guess the word or phrase.

15



CONUNDRUM NUMBER 1:

Two balloons are attached toeither end of a hose that is

pinched shut.One balloon is almost fully in-

flated, the other only slightly.

What will happen when thehose is released? More impor-tantly WHY?

a) The big balloon inflates the

smaller one until they are thesame size

b) The small balloon inflates

the large onec) Nothing

SOLUTION:

The smaller balloon inflates thelarger one. This unexpected re-

sult (for most anyways),is due to the counterintuitive

relationship between a bal-loon‘s radius and its internal air

pressure. While it may seemthat the internal pressure of a

fully inflated balloon would behigher as the rubber is more

stretched, the opposite is actu-ally true. The smaller balloon

has the greater internal pressureand therefore inflates the larger

balloon. The same effect ex- plains why smaller soap bub-

bles are more spherical than lar-

ger bubbles, and why very large

bubbles are so wobbly. The re-lationship between the internal

pressure, radius and tension in

pressure vessel is often referredto as the Law of Laplace. Par-

ticularly in medicine, it ac-

counts for, amongst other things, the bursting of aneu-rysms (An excessive localized

enlargement of an artery caused by a weakening of the artery

wall).

CONUNDRUM NUMBER 2:All the cars are facing forward

into the intersection.

The intersection is not largeenough for the cars tocross at the same time and miss

each other (this is possible on larger inter-

sections). There are no trickssuch as overpasses or tunnels.

SOLUTION: they all make a

left turn!

CONUNDRUM NUMBER 3:

Two agents: one tells the truth –

one always lies. Two exits: oneleads safely home, the other

will hurtle you into oblivion.

The problem: you don‘t know

who tells the truth or which exitto take but the agents do.One question: you may ask

only one question to choose anexit and

both agents will answer ... what

will you ask?

Notes: The agents will not

leave the room so you cannotask them to lead the way.

Asking who the liar is a wasteof your one and only question –

they will point at eachother and you still won‘t know

which exit to take. Any ques-

tion which results in the agents pointing at different doors iswrong. There is a question that

results in both agents pointingat the same door.

SOLUTION:

―Which one would your fellow

agent tell me is the safe exit?‖Both will now point to the

oblivion door. All you have todo is walk through the other

door. ALTERNATIVELY―Which would your fellow

agent tell me is the door whichwill lead into oblivion?‖ This

will result in both agents point-ing to the safe door. All you

have to do is walk through it.Think about it out, it does

work.

Suggested by Zahrah Massoo

Confusing Conundrums

16

einstein 2012

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