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News from the Wood Issue #1 February 2014

Discover how the

genes of wolves and dogs differ

Inside...

Is space exploration

good value?

Meet the new meat that could soon be landing on your

plate

Learn how mechanical body

parts provide hope to injured people

Could diabetes research spell the

end for insulin injections?

Welcome to the exciting re

-launch

of the new and improved E

insteins

Army magazine. The purpo

se of the

magazine is to enhance Ben

tley

Woodians experience of sc

ience

and science learning by pro

viding a

context through science in th

e

media. Our ultimate aim is

to

support the excellent learnin

g

that takes place in science

throughout the school and h

elp

to nurture our scientific und

er-

standing and enthusiasm fo

r

science in a broader contex

t.

- The Einstein

s Army Team

IN THIS ISSUE: Prosthetic hand provides sense of touch..1 Who said that chocolate isnt good for you?...............3 Cheetahs race to victory..4 Is space exploration good value?.....6 Whats happening to our Earth?..................................8 Birds winging it in New York.8 Closure of forensic science service.9 Dog evolution is rubbish!..........................................10 Diabetes research gets tails wagging.12 Skin cells reprogrammed into insulin13 Koalas bellow with unique voice organ14 Meat the new cultured beef...15 Virus looking sheepish as vaccine developed...16 Giant blob of hot rock hidden under Antarctic ice...18 Vision restored thanks to robo-eye.19 Could urchins help stop global warming?.................20 Fast food?..................................................................20 Puzzles..21 Science to take home.22

Prosthetic Hand Provides Sense of Touch To Man Who Lost His Arm

Scientists have created a prosthetic hand that has enabled an amputee to feel objects for the first time in nine years. A man named Dennis Aabo Srensen, aged 37 from Den-mark, lost his left arm in a firework accident but now with the worlds first prosthetic hand he is able to ex-perience the sensation of touch again. He was able to feel the differ-ence between a firm orange, a fluffy cotton ball and a hard piece of wood even while blindfolded and wearing earplugs. Researches implanted electrodes into the remaining nerves in Mr Srensens upper arm. This trans-mits electrical signals from the sen-sors on the fingers of the prosthetic hand, along the nerves and to his brain.

The prosthesis works using electron-ic sensors in the hand which detect tension in artificial tendons that con-trol the movement of the fingers. This information is turned into an electrical current and a computer in the hand sends an impulse to the sensory nerves in Mr Sorensens remaining upper arm. Ultra-thin elec-trodes were surgically implanted into these nerves to carry the signal from the hand to his brain. However, sci-entists were concerned about the reduced sensitivity in the nerves be-cause he hasnt used them for nine years. Fortunately, they were able to reactivate Mr Srensens sense of touch when he was wearing the prosthesis. It is hoped in the future that this re-search can be taken further into de-veloping and creating prostheses

which enable amputees to feel ob-jects and even temperature; so that this allows them to live unimpeded lives.

By Bhagya Leeniyagoda 12BMO

Find out more:http://www.telegraph.co.uk https://www.sciencenews.org/article/

prosthetic-provides-sense-touch-man-

who-lost-hand

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Contributors: Writers: Alexandra Gavrilla, Anamaria Grijincu, Bhagya Leeniyago-da, Bhavisha Pandya, Deergha Chennubotla, Deloram, Jemina Gaj-paria, Lisa Malki, Lizzie Pengelly, Noorpreet, Safiyah Zaman, Sarita Murji, Sneha Patel, Sugra Rashid, Xheneta Tahiri, Yasmin Foley

Chief Editor: Lizzie Pengelly With special thanks to: Mrs. Egan, Ms. Chesters, Mr. Mahoney and Mr. Kaye

Chocolate is often given bad press, but can it actually offer health ben-efits? According to new research from the University of Rochester Medical Centre, New York, the blue food dye that is found in Marss M&Ms could help to reduce the damage caused by spinal inju-ries, as well as providing an in-creased chance of recovery. Scientists discovered that when they injected the dye, a compound known as Brilliant Blue G (BBG), into rats with paralysis caused by spinal injuries, the ro-dents were able to walk again. While the animals didnt seem to recover completely, i.e. they moved with a limp, the only side effect was that the rats were temporarily turned blue. The treatment also had to be administered almost immedi-ately, and if the dye was injected

more than 15 minutes after the in-jury occurred then the treatment did not work. In order to carry out a fair test, a control group was used. This control group, made up of rats that were not treated with BBG, allowed the researchers to ensure that it was the dye affecting the animals ability to move, and it not another factor. The phenomenon seems too strange to be true, after all, Americans munch their way through over 100million lbs (45million kg) of the BBG each year. How can such a common dye, which is also found in Gatorade and many brands of jelly, have such a beneficial effect? In August 2004, scientists revealed that after a spinal injury, the chemi-cal Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is described as the energy currency of life rushes to the site

of the damage. This sudden rush of ATP kills off healthy cells, often causing more damage than the inju-ry itself. It was found that BBG blocks the effect of ATP, allowing the injured rats to recover from their injuries. Despite these findings, it is unlike-ly that BBG could have a practical use treating spinal injury patients. "While we achieved great results when oxidized ATP was injected directly into the spinal cord, this method would not be practical for use with spinal cord-injured pa-tients," said lead researcher Maiken Nedergaard, professor of Neurosur-gery and director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

"First, no one wants to put a needle into a spinal cord that has just been severely injured, so we knew we needed to find another way to quickly deliver an agent that would stop ATP from killing healthy mo-tor neurons. Second, the compound we initially used, oxidized ATP, cannot be injected into the blood-stream because of its dangerous side effects."

By Lizzie Pengelly12AEg Find out more: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/28/spinal.injury.blue.dye/index.html

Who Said That Chocolate Isnt Good For You?

When injected with BBG, rats suffering from spinal injuries were able to recover. The rats were also temporarily turned blue, shown in this photograph. The dye prevents Adenosine triphosphate from harming too many healthy motor neurones, which are

found in the spinal cord.

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Cheetahs and greyhounds are two of the quickest creatures on the planet, but how do they manage to run at such an amazing pace? New research by the Royal Veteri-nary College has shed some light on how these incredible animals manage to run so fast. Acinonyx jubatus, or the cheetah, is the fastest land animal on the planet. These magnificent felines are capable of reaching speeds of up to 64mph, fast enough to keep up with cars racing along on a mo-torway! The cat uses its incredible speed to chase down prey such as antelope in its savannah habitat, however due to a high mortality rate in cubs, and the fact that they are hunted for their pelts, cheetahs have become a threatened species. A greyhound is a breed of dog. Distinguishable by its long legs and slender body, like all dogs the greyhound was originally de-scended from wolves. Although the sighthounds are not quite as speedy as cheetahs, theyre still

pretty quick, and a combination of long, powerful legs, a deep chest, a flexible spine and a slim build mean that they are capable of reaching speeds of around 43mph. So how exactly are these animals able to run so fast, and what limits the speed that a certain animal can achieve? There are many theories that suggest that speed is limited by the amount of time it takes the animal to swing its legs (swing time), although other theories sug-gest that the limit is caused the forces that the animals limbs must withstand. It has also been proposed that the limit is imposed by the amount of muscular power available. (Think of it like a car. The bigger the engine, the more muscular power that is available, the faster the car, or animal, can travel.) It seems most likely that the limit is caused by a combina-tion of all three factors. Researchers at the Structure and Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College set out to com-pare swing times and limb forces used by the cheetah and the grey-hound, and aimed to see how the-se factors limited the speed of some of the worlds fastest ani-mals.

The researchers travelled to Whip-snade Zoo, Bedfordshire, and the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre, South Africa, where they encour-aged the cheetahs to get some ex-ercise with the help of some tasty chicken and a really long piece of string! In total nine cheetahs were trained to run with the mechanical lure. The animals ran a 90m track, underneath which eight force plates were buried, and they were filmed from both sides using four high speed video cameras. Simi-larly, six greyhounds were bought into the Structure and Motion Lab by the Retired Greyhound Trust. The dogs were also filmed also chasing a mechanical lure as they ran a similar 90m track.

Cheetahs Race To Victory!

How do YOU compare to some of the worlds speediest land animals?

Usain Bolt

23mph/ 37kmph

Average Human

12mph/ 19kmph

Greyhound 43mph / 69km/h

Bengal Tiger (Panthera Tigris) 40mph / 75km/h

Frames from the video showing, in high definition, the gait of a cheetah.

Note: Animals such as the cheetah may be fast, but they may not have the stamina to maintain their top speed for more than a few seconds. In a long distance race, the horse would be most likely to win, as they can keep a fast pace for quite a long time.

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Two slow motion video clips, showing in great detail the gaits of cheetahs and greyhounds were produced. To view these, go to http://www.rvc.ac.uk/SML/Projects/CheetahGalloping.cfm . It was seen that cheetahs and grey-hounds use a similar rotary gallop, where the limbs fall in a circular sequence around the body. There are two flight phases (times in a gait when the animal is complete-ly off of the ground), one where the animals had their limbs tucked up into the body, and another where the limbs were extended. While the gaits of both cheetahs and greyhounds were quite close, cheetahs tended to have a longer tucked up aerial phase than the greyhound, which enabled them to have a longer stride than the dogs. Unfortunately for the study, the scientists were unable to get the cheetahs to run much faster than the hounds, and both species achieved top speeds of around 40mph. As the cheetahs were cap-

tive rather than wild, they did not really have a reason to reach their top speeds, as they did not need to chase live prey. Despite this prob-lem, the researchers discovered many things about the gaits of both animals. One of the major differences between the two spe-cies were the number of strides per second. Cheetahs used a range of stride frequencies, between 2.4 and 3.2 strides per second, where-as greyhounds used a constant stride frequency of 3.5. Cheetahs increased their stride frequency when they ran faster, so as they used 3.2 strides per second when running at about 40mh, it is likely that they can actually do much better than that, probably beating the greyhounds 3.5. The combi-nation of this and a longer stride length may be what allows the cats to be so speedy compared to the hounds. The researchers also discovered that both animals sup-port more of their bodyweight with their hindlimbs than their forelimbs, contrasting with the

traditional view that it is the fore-limbs that carry the most weight. The cheetahs carried 70% of their bodyweight in their hind legs, compared to greyhounds, which carry slightly less, 62%. Support-ing themselves mainly in their back limbs helps the animals to grip and manoeuvre about, a use-ful gift to have if youre chasing antelope or rabbits, which tend to dart about to confuse their preda-tors. Want to learn more about how cheetahs outpace their canine friends? Go to: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/14/i.1 or http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/14/2425.abstract .

By Lizzie Pengelly - 12AEg

Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) 64mph / 102kmph

Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) 45mph / 72km/h

American Quarter Horse (Equus ferus eaballus) 55mph / 88km/h

Pronghorn Antelope (Antilocapra Americana)

62mph / 100km/h

Note: Animals such as the cheetah may be fast, but they may not have the stamina to maintain their top speed for more than a few seconds. In a long distance race, the horse would be most likely to win, as they can keep a fast pace for quite a long time.

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Have you ever wondered about going into space ?Well, of course that would be something that interests nearly all of us but if we want to travel to space we first have to explore space as we need to know if us as hu-mans can survive in those con-ditions. The only negative as-pect about space exploration is that it costs so much and many people dont see how this benefits Earth. Now you may start doubting yourself, is space exploration actually any value? There are many people who think it is and one of the main reasons to why they think this is it widens our knowledge of how to protect our world but also it gives us a better understanding of our complicated world that we are

living in. They also think that exploring and finding fascinat-ing facts about other planets such as Venus and Mars shows us not only how the climates of planets can change .Many be-lieve it shows us how special our planet is you have got to admit all of us take the planet for granted sometimes, dont we? Wouldnt you like to know if there was other living organ-isms in other planets- you could be their pen pal and maybe even visit them and vice versa. BUT dont get too excited as scientists have already found out that Mars consists of mainly carbon dioxide and so there can be no life on it. Well, I know that is very sad news but not to worry because with space ex-ploration we can explore other planets maybe we`ll have

some luck on other planets! Do you want to be the next fa-mous scientist or the next suc-cessful surgeon? Well, many believe that space exploration leads and influences the young-er generation to become doc-tors, surgeons etc, for example the Apollo missions inspired an entire generation of students. Dont you think sometimes we spend too much on Facebook and excitedly waiting to see how many people are following us on Twitter? Well, space ex-ploration will make sure that technology will continue devel-oping although Im not so sure our mums twill think that thats such a great idea...

Is Space Exploration Good Value?

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Never say Impossible! Space ex-ploration brings together the smartest people and they sit which are set impossible missions and some are successful whereas some fail miserably but its better to try and fail than to give up! Dont you ever wonder How did life being or How did the uni-verse begin. Well what we dont recognize is that without space exploration we will never be able to figure the answer to this ques-tion. By the fact that we ask these complex and philosophical ques-tions it just shows how smart we are. In the words of Carl Sagan We are starstuff contemplating the stars. Others disagree with the fact that we should be exploring other plan-ets when there are things about our planet that are yet to be ex-plored ,its a bit like you wanting to know what your friends grade is when you dont know yours. Is that logical? Many people say that we should fully explore our own planet because the seabed, espe-cially around volcanic regions, is mainly unexplored and so is the Antarctica. Many people use the phrase A commercial space in-dustry is taking over meaning that even if space exploration was a positive thing for Earth. it has turned into a growing target of venture capital and private inge-nuity. An example of this is when SpaceXs reusable rocket that is expected to reduce launch costs for commercial satellites.

Many people think that the NASAs missions are completely useless for example that time when they went exploring space and finding out that there was wa-ter on Mars-but how does that benefit us? Many people may say it actually doesnt and instead of spending millions of pounds, we could have helped the poor and starving. What do you think about this? Should we help just our own planet or is that being a bit selfish? My opinion is that space explora-tion could benefit the society in a positive way such as new technol-ogy means the younger generation being motivated to complete their education. Not only that but the new technology could save mil-lions of lives and even create more jobs now creating more jobs would lead a multiplier effect which could not only benefit the society or community but the whole world. Although there are many negative aspects of space exploration which may not mean that they affect us specifically

negatively but they do not benefit us. Many people do not see the need to spend millions and mil-lions of dollars on space explora-tion as it does not benefit us im-mediately but helping the poor will a long term effect and we will see that improvement imme-diately. Overall, I think that space explora-tion can never be categorized as either worthy or worthless but we do need to take into consideration of the fact that it does provide us with new technology, medical ad-vances etc. These benefits cannot be seen immediately which could re-sult in the reason to why people may underestimate space explora-tion.

By Xheneta Tahiri - 10NA.

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Birds Winging It in Scientists have explained the so called Bermuda Triangle of the homing pigeon world. For years people have wondered why the birds, which are usually very good at navigating, tend to get lost when released from a specific lo-cation in New York State. New research, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, has shone a light on the phenomenon, as findings suggest that the birds

use low-frequency sounds to find their way, and they are unable to hear the rumbles in this particu-lar location. It is thought that this can explain other instances where pigeons have lost their way, such as when 60,000 birds veered off course during a race across the English channel in 1997.

By Lizzie Pengelly 12AEg

Find out more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-

Pigeons like this one were getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

The greenhouse gases are harming our earth by forming a separate layer, above the ozone layer. As we all know that ozone layer re-flects some rays of the sun like UV rays in the space while some rays are absorbed through it. These rays are then absorbed by the atmosphere, oceans and earths crust keeping earth warm .These rays are emitted out of the earth. This process has a twist due to the greenhouse gases. The sun rays emit-ted from the earth are re-emitted back to the earth by the greenhouse gas layer above the ozone layer making earth warm. This is called global warming. How do re-emitted rays pass through ozone layer? Ozone layer is in danger. A big hole is forming, causing damage. This is where those re-emitted rays pass

through ozone layer. There is a big hole above Antarctica. From holes like this, not only those hot rays but the harmful UV rays can pass through. Those UV rays cause deadly diseases like skin cancer. What causes this? Someone has a big hand behind glob-al warming. Today you will know who, it is each and every person on the Earth. Well it is each and every person on Earth who uses its natural resources or something that harms it. A product that we use in our daily life makes holes in the ozone layer- Air sols. These aerosols contain a harm-ful gas called CFCs. Burning fossil fuels and deforestation help produce greenhouse gasses. Politics on our earths life? Politics harms people and countries but now it has crossed its limit and

taken a step towards the life of our Mother Earth. Many rich countries got developed while destroying the earth and using up its recourses but now when it's turn for the poorer countries these richer countries are now stopping them. Just because now these coun-tries will use the rest of the Earth and its recourses and by the time, they get fully developed our Earth will be so weak to take care of us. Looking at this these rich countries are paying the poor countries so that they stop developing. Is that fair? This argu-ment continues.

By Noorpreet - Year 10

Whats Happening To Our Earth?

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Do you watch CSI? Have any ambi-tions Ito get into the Forensic Science Industry? Well then youd be interest-ed in this: The Forensic Science Service, also known as the FSS, is known to be a government-owned company which provides forensic science to the police and the government. The organisation once had 1,600 employees. It had been losing approximately 2 million a month when its closure was an-nounced in 2010 and the government believed that criminal justice may be at a risk if the FSS was allowed to go into administration. The government had also planned for the private enter-prises in relation to forensic science to take over the role of the FSS. The Home Office recently stated that this closure would negatively impact the British economy by 95 million as their estimate, however, a leading re-searcher in the field, Dr. Michael Maguire, disagrees. Dr. Michael Maguire spent thirty years working in the FSS himself, before moving to an academic job position in 2010, so it is definitely safe to say that he does have a sufficient amount of experience in this field. He thinks that if you take

into account other costs as well, ( e.g. the FFS in the police force) the total cost would be 300 to 350 million, which is, undoubtedly a lot more than the initial figure of 95 million. The actual costs of FSS closure must lie somewhere between 300m and 350m, if all of the costs of the police in-sourcing of forensic science activities formerly delivered by [forensic science providers] are taken into account," -Dr. Maguire Dr. Maguire s estimate is one of the first independent ones in relation to this topic and he is writing a full paper on this particular happening in order to submit it to a n academic journal. So, other than the forensic scientists in the police force, where do all these extra costs come from? Well, you may have heard of something called In-house work. Its a practice whereby the police bring forensic scientists into a home to do their work in order to cut down on even more expenditure. The metropolitan police lab being run is about 60m worth of costs and only managed to transfer 120 forensic sci-entist from the FSS over ten years which makes it seem more like a cost rather than an investment. Also, an 18 million loan was signed off, not to mention the 21 million cost of build-ing a laboratory in Wakefield. So, overall, its not just the cost of sci-entists losing their jobs that we have to take into account there is also the

having to find them new places to work as theyre being made redundant, supporting them, etc. LCG, a private forensics firm estimat-ed that the market of forensics fell from 150m in 2010 to 70-80 million in 2012, not taking into account the work that the police force carry out themselves. However, a Home Office spokesper-son later stated: "The Forensic Science Service was los-ing 2m a month and had to be wound down in order to protect taxpayers from further costs. The total direct cost of closure is around 95m and the fig-ure provided by Dr. Maguire is not ac-curate." Do you think it was the right decision for the economy to take action in this way? Why/Why not? What would we do without forensic science? Information from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21251162

By Deloram - Year 10

Closure of Forensic Science Service

The FFS faces closure due to budget cuts, but will this impact criminal justice and the economy?

350m?

9

If youve ever had to drag your naughty puppy out of the kitchen bin and sweep up the resulting mess before anyone else sees then youll understand how irritating it can be, but new research suggests that dogs cant help it, their trou-blemaking streak is in their genes! There may be a good reason why Fido has this bad habit. A new study on canine genetics has revealed that domesticated dogs and wolves differ in the genes that control amylase production. For the research, carried out at Uppsala University, Sweden, scien-tists examined the DNA of more than 50 modern breeds of dog, in-cluding breeds such as the cocker spaniel and German shepherd. The researchers then compared the ge-netic information of the dogs to that of 12 wolves from across the world. They found two major dif-ferences between the animals; genes that control brain develop-

ment and gens that code the pro-duction of amylase, (the enzyme that breaks down starch) produc-tion. It was found that dogs have far more of these genes that wolves. These genes would have been useful for animals surviving by consuming the scavenged waste, such as wheat and crop products of early farmers. It appears that dogs literally evolved to eat trash, and their ability to do so is in their genes. Dr Erik Axelsson, of Uppsala Uni-versity said: Wolves also have these genes but they don't use them as efficiently as dogs.

When we look at the wolf ge-nome, we only see one copy of the gene [for the amylase enzyme] on each chromosome. When we look at the dog genome, we see a range from two to 15 copies; and on aver-age a dog carries seven copies more than the wolf.

That means the dog is a lot more efficient at making use of the nutri-tion in starch than the wolf."

The difference in the genes that control brain development could be the reason for the behavioural dif-ferences between the two canids. Dogs tend to be a lot more docile, probably a consequence of early humans preferring to work with (and therefore breed from) more placid animals that were easier to tame. "Previous experiments have indi-cated that when you select for a reduction in aggressiveness, you obviously get a tamer animal but you also get an animal that retains juvenile characteristics much long-er during development, sometimes into adulthood," said Dr Axelsson.

It is unknown for certain how ex-actly early humans developed such a close bond with dogs, but archae-ological evidence suggests that it was many thousands of years ago.

Dog Evolution is Rubbish!

All modern breeds of dog, from the tiny Chihuahua to the titan great Danes are derived from wolves. The differences in the breeds, and indeed the differ-

ences between dogs and wolves are due to artificial selection.

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One theory is that modern mutts are a result of hunter gatherers use of wolves as hunting compan-ions or guards, but another sug-gestion is that domestication be-gan when wolves that scavenged on scraps and leftovers came to reside permanently around hu-mans as a result of the easily available food. According to Dr Axelsson: "This second hypothesis says that when we settled down, and in conjunc-tion with the development of agri-culture, we produced waste dumps around our settlements; and sud-denly there was this new food re-source, a new niche, for wolves to make use of, and the wolf that was best able to make use of it became the ancestor of the dog, So, we think our findings fit well with this theory that the dog evolved on the waste dump," Despite this new research, the do-mestication of dogs remains a grey area for scientists, who are still unsure of exactly when and how it happened. Fossil evidence suggests that populations of do-mestic dogs were around tens of thousands of years ago, long be-

fore the emergence of agriculture, in contrast to what this new re-search appears to suggest. Some researchers have tried to use the regular rate at which error patterns appear in dog DNA as a kind of clock to time when wolves first developed into dogs, but this too has produced contradictory re-sults. Dr Carles Vila, from the Conser-vation and Evolutionary Genetics Group at the Donana Biological Station in Seville, Spain, said the debate was wide open.

"I think that modern dogs derived from multiple wolf populations," he observed.

"It could be that dog domestica-tion started once with some ani-mals staying with humans which were then regularly back-crossed with wolves and that could have the same effect. But there could have been completely independent domestications. What is clear is that the number of bone remains is very rare more than 14,000 years ago."

So maybe next time you should-nt be so hard on your canine companion when you next find him rootling about in a rubbish pile. Now all your dog needs is for science to come with an excuse for why he doesnt sit when you ask him to...

By Lizzie Pengelly - 12AEg Find out more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21142870 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11837.html Pictures: http://www.parikiaki.com/wp-content/uploads/rubbish.jpg http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/65432000/jpg/_65432538_c0138432-gray_wolf-spl.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oRyudYs_04A/TqvoPFAmXeI/AAAAAAAALP0/Jz1Q5zp1WR8/s1600/wolves--fighting--pic--07.jpg

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Your pet pooch definitely has something to wag their tail about - scientists have used gene therapy to successfully cure type 1 diabetes in dogs. This is the first time that the disease has been treated in large animals, and marks a landmark in the mission to find a cure in hu-mans. Diabetes is a health condition where the body is not able to cor-rectly control the amount of glu-cose (a molecule needed for respi-ration) in the blood. There are two types of the disease, and in type 1 is caused by the pancreas not pro-ducing enough insulin. Insulin is a hormone that makes that liver con-vert glucose into glycogen for stor-age, therefore lowering the concen-tration of glucose in the blood. In-sulin is important, as high levels of glucose in the blood can be fatal. Currently, sufferers of the disease are able to treat themselves by in-jecting insulin into their blood-stream before they eat. The extra insulin causes glucose to be taken up by the liver and other tissues, so when the person eats and consumes more glucose, the concentration in the blood stays normal. People with

diabetes may also have to carefully monitor their food intake, taking particular care with carbohydrates, which are broken down in the mouth and stomach by the enzyme amylase into smaller glucose mole-cules. New research by Spanish scientists could put an end to this, as gene therapy has enabled diabetic dogs to regulate their blood sugar with-

out medical help. For the study, type 1 diabetes was induced in beagles between 6 months and 1 year in age. The dogs skeletal muscles were then injected with viruses carrying genes for insulin and glucokinase, an enzyme involved in processing glucose. After being treated in this way, it was confirmed that the genes had been incorporated into the DNA of the animals, and they were now able to manage the glu-cose concentration in their blood by themselves. When the dogs ex-ercised they no longer had episodes of hypoglycaemia (the name given to periods when there is an abnor-mally low level of glucose in the blood). Other groups of dogs were injected with viruses containing only the genes for insulin or only the genes for glucokinase, but these contin-ued to show symptoms of diabetes, suggesting that the two genes work together.

Does this mean Im allowed more dog treats? Beagles like this one were injected with viruses carrying genes for insulin and glucokinase.

Diabetes Research Gets Tails Wagging

It is hoped that this research could bring closer a cure for human sufferers.

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Whoever thought that skin cells could be reprogrammed into in-sulin producing pancreas cells?

Recently, researchers at UNC Chapel Hill in the department of Biochemistry and Biophysics have been able to transform human skin cells into cells which secrete insu-lin. This is a major step up in medi-cine and this will one day after further studies, be able to help many people who suffer from dia-betes, as insulin is the hormone which treats his condition. Lead author Yi Zhang, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, professor of biochem-istry and biophysics at UNC and member of the Lineberger Compre-

hensive Cancer Center has said that Not only have we shown that we can reprogram skin cells, but we have also demonstrated that these reprogrammed cells can be differ-entiated into insulin-producing cells which hold great therapeutic potential for diabetes, There are two types of diabetes, type 1 which is the more severe of the two and type 2. Diabetes oc-curs when the body stops produc-ing insulin properly. As a result, diabetes patients need to have an intake of insulin in order to keep your blood glucose levels stable. Sufferers of type 1 diabetes need injections of insulin which help keep their blood sugar levels sta-ble. There was research going on re-cently into a possible long-term treatment for diabetes which in-cluded transplanting insulin- pro-ducing beta cells into patients. However, this form of treatment does have a negative side to it, such as a shortage of matched or-gan donors along with having to supress the patients immune sys-

tem. Having the insulin producing cells being made from the patients own reprogrammed cells can be a solution to these problems.

By Sugra Rashid 12BMO

Find out more: https://www.med.unc.edu/biochem/news/unc-scientists-turn-human-skin-cells-into-insulin-producing-cells

Skin Cells Reprogramed Into Insulin

It is hoped that after further tests the treatment could be carried out in humans, but sources warn that the treatment may not work the same way in people as it did in the canines. This is because diabetes was induced in the dogs by chemi-cally destroying pancreas cells that produce insulin, whereas in natu-rally occurring type 1 diabetes the-se cells are destroyed by the bodys own immune system. Still, this work is an interesting new avenue which may give us a completely new type of treatment, Matthew Hobbs, head of research at Diabetes UK, told New Scien-tist.

By Lizzie Pengelly12AEg Find out more: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34394/title/Dogs-Cured-of-Type-1-Diabetes/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_aqa_pre_2011/homeo/homeostasis3.shtml http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/01/30/db12-1113

Yi Zhang, Ph.D, the lead author for the study.

Currently, people with type 1 diabetes have to inject themselves with insulin.

13

It is a low, rumbling bellow that seems very odd coming from the mouth of a little koala. And now scientists have found that these famously sleepy marsu-pials have evolved a vocal organ that allows them to produce a very low-pitched sound. Researchers discovered Koalas have an "extra pair of vocal folds" outside the larynx, which they use to make their mating calls. The findings are published in the journal Current Biology. "The first time I heard a koala bel-low I was genuinely amazed that an animal this small could pro-duce such a sound," said Benja-min D Charlton, of the University of Sussex, who led the research. Just think of a guitar string: as you shorten the string by placing a finger on the fret board you raise the frequency of the sound pro-duced and the thickest strings pro-duce the lowest frequencies." Benjamin Charlton, University of Sussex The pitch of the bellow, Dr Charl-ton said, was about "20 times low-er than would be expected for an animal of its size". "It is more typical of an animal the size of an elephant," he told BBC News. The pitch of a call is generally as-sociated with a mammal's size, because vocalisations come main-ly from the larynx - an organ we sometimes refer to as our "voice box". This organ has a valve-like open-ing with two lips - or folds - run-ning across it. The vibration of

these folds creates most of the sound we make when we speak. Smaller mammals, like koalas, which can weigh as little as 8kg (18lb), tend to have a smaller lar-ynx with shorter, thinner vocal folds. And just like strings on a musical instrument, these make a higher pitched sound. But when the researchers dissect-ed the koalas' vocal tracts, they found a second, larger set of vocal folds. "[They] are located outside the larynx, where the oral and nasal cavities connect," said Dr Charl-ton. These folds, called the velar vocal folds are "over three times longer and around 700 times heavier than the laryngeal vocal folds", he added. Very low pitch might help koalas transmit information more clearly in their calls "Larger structures can oscillate at lower frequencies.

"Dr David Reby, from the Univer-sity of Sussex, who was also in-volved in the research, explained that the animals' "unique vocal folds" were part of the soft palate, and "much bigger than the laryn-geal vocal folds". He said that humans created a similar effect when they snored, but added that our own soft palate was "not specialised for the pro-duction of sound". The researchers think the very low pitched calls might have evolved, because it helped the koalas to transfer information more clearly in their vocalisations. Dr Charlton added: "Another pos-sibility is that low pitch acts as a direct cue to females of the male's quality, but this remains a topic for future studies.

By Sneha Patel - 10PL

Koalas Bellow with Unique Voice Organ

14

Meat the New Cultured Beef

On August 15, a chef and a scientist

were joined by two food tasters be-

fore a live TV audience in London.

They were asked to rate a hamburg-

er, they sniffed, tasted, then chewed

bits of the meat. Eventually, they

gave this burger a thumbs-up. In the

mouth, it felt like normal ground

meat, they said, and though it didnt

have the best taste, they concluded

that the patty certainly resembled

ground beef. Such comments actu-

ally started high praise, the reason:

This was no ordinary beef.

Conventional beef is muscle tissue

gathered from a slaughtered cow,

but no animal gave its life for this

meat. Scientists at Maastricht Uni-

versity, in the Netherlands, spent

the last five years perfecting meth-

ods to grow muscle tissue in a dish.

Mark Post, the lead scientist behind

the new burger, refers to his culi-

nary creation as cultured beef.

Marks team started with stem cells,

and as these special cells multiply

rapidly and can differentiate into

nearly any type of cell, Mark har-

vested his starting cells from a cow.

Using a needle, he removed some

muscle stem cells from a live cow,

and these cells normally replace lost

or damaged muscle tissue to help an

animal heal. In the lab, Post fed

those cells so that they would multi-

ply, producing millions more mus-

cle cells. Over time, the cells can be

formed into strips, however theyre

small and the scientists needed

20,000 strips to create just one pat-

ty.

Then, to make it better and to make it resemble ground beef, they added bread crumbs for texture and beet juice for colouring. The man who cofounded Google, Computer scientist Sergey Brin, funded Posts work on cultured beef. Posts mission for the first lab-grown burger came with a heavy price- more than $300,000.

As weird as lab-grown meat may

sound, he and physiologists like

Post see its development as one way

to plan for the future. A 2011 Unit-

ed Nations study predicted a dra-

matic increase in the worldwide

demand for meat in the next 40

years. But raising animals like cows

will require using large areas of

land and dedicating enormous

amounts of crops to feed the ani-

mals. Also, those animals produce

methane- that contributes to global

warming.

Post explained that cultured beef

may meet the growing worldwide

demand for meat without raising

and slaughtering livestock. The Au-

gust 15 demonstration showed the

technology exists. But cultured beef

in the supermarket wont be seen

just yet. Post says scientists still

need to design new technologies to

mass-produce and process the meat.

Although theyre off to a good start,

Post says he hopes that within 20

years, cultured beef will be afforda-

ble and widely available.

After the televised event, more than

60% of polled viewers in the United

Kingdom and the Netherlands said

theyd be willing to try cultured

beef.

Some people think this is science

fiction. Brin says. I actually think

thats a good thing. He argues: If

what youre doing is not seen by

some people as science fiction, its

probably not transformative

enough.

By Deergha Chennubotla - 10PL

15

Last year many lambs and calves were stillborn as a result of the deadly Schmallenberg virus which swept the nation. The virus, which was first discovered in the German town of Schmallenberg in Novem-ber 2011 spread across Europe and caused thousands of sheep and cows to give birth to dead or se-verely deformed young. Cases were reported as early as January 2012, and according to govern-ment scientists, it is believed to have been carried across Europe and over the English Channel and spread by midges during the sum-mer, although this has not yet been confirmed. The UK and Germany are not the only countries to be af-fected; the virus has also been de-tected in Belgium and the Nether-lands. There has been worry that Schmal-lenberg virus (SBV) will cause many deaths this year, and farmers are already reporting heavy losses as the lambing season (DecemberMay) gets underway. Around 1,000 farms across Eng-land and Wales, including 58 in Cornwall and 89 in Devon have reported cases according to DE-FRA. The disease is only fatal

when passed on to an unborn calf or lamb during pregnancy, but it in cows it can cause moderate fever, reduced milk yield, loss of appe-tite, loss of body condition and di-arrhoea. A myriad of abnormalities have been associated with the dis-ease in newborn animals and foe-tuses, including bent limbs and fixed joints (also known as ar-throgryposis), a twisted neck or spine as well as damage to the spi-nal cord, domed appearance to the skull, short lower jaw and some brain deformities including spaces filled with fluid in the cerebral hemispheres and abnormally small brainstems. There are also reports of animals which appear normal physically, but exhibit signs of nervousness, blindness, ataxia (loss of physical co-ordination), recumbency (lying down and be-ing unable to get up), inability to suckle and convulsions (uncontrollable shaking of the body). Foetal deformities vary de-pending on when the infection oc-curred during pregnancy. Farmers on infected farms should expect to lose between 2% - 5% of their lambs. Despite this, up to 45% of lambs have been affected

on certain farms, and some farmers have criticised a lack of govern-ment information about the dis-ease. The first sign that the virus is present is usually when livestock give birth to dead or deformed young, but these animals may be born months after the infection ar-rived so tracking its progress can be difficult. The virus was only discovered rel-atively recently and little is known about it, but Scottish scientists have successfully managed to syn-thesise a version of the virus in a laboratory, which has lead to a vaccine being developed and sent to European regulators for approv-al. A group of researchers led by Mas-simo Palmarini and Alain Kohl at the University of Glasgow, Scot-land made a synthetic version of the virus in order to study its ge-netics and see how it infects farm animals. Their experiments show that the virus replicates in the brain cells and spinal cords of unborn animals during pregnancy. The researches were then able to ma-nipulate the genetic sequence of the virus to create versions that were less virulent (less infectious), which allowed scientists at MSD Animal Health to develop a vac-cine.

Virus Looking Sheepish as Vaccine is Developed

16

Professor Massimo Palmarini of the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research told BBC News: "This is the first time we have been able to manipulate the genome of SBV in this way. We now know much more about how the virus causes the disease than we did a cou-ple of months ago." A spokesperson for MSD Animal Health said; "In the studies to date, safety and efficacy has been demon-strated in calves, lambs and pregnant ewes. The company is currently working closely with the regulatory authorities and we cannot speculate when the vaccine will be available. " A vaccine provides immunity to an infection by administering weakened or dead pathogens (harmful microor-ganisms, for example bacteria. ) When a pathogen is present, white blood cells produce protein antibod-ies, which bind to the bacteria or vi-rus, creating large clumps. These clumps are then engulfed by another type of white blood cell, called phag-ocytes. Antibodies cannot bind to any bacte-rium or virus; your body needs to make a new type of antibody every time a new pathogen invades. This is because the antigen, the place on a pathogen which the antibody binds to is different for each different path-ogen. The good news, however, is that once youve created that anti-body, your cells will remember how to make it, just in case youre infected with the same pathogen

again. This explains why most peo-ple usually have chickenpox once. When were ill, our bodies produce antibodies to fight the infection, caused by the varicella zoster virus. Even after the virus is gone, our bod-ies still contain cells which know how to produce antibodies against the virus. This means that we ever come into contact with the virus again, which is very likely, as chick-enpox is highly contagious (can be spread very easily), we can produce antibodies to fight the infection very quickly, and we do not get ill. When weakened or dead pathogens are administered, (usually injected into muscle, although sometimes administered orally, for example the polio vaccine), your body will start to produce antibodies to combat that certain pathogen. As the pathogens you are given are weak or dead, there is little chance of them making you seriously ill, but this will allow your body to learn how to produce certain antibodies so that if you ever encounter a stronger form of the dis-ease, you will be able to fight it. You will be immune. The earliest documented examples of vaccination date back to the 17th century, when people in India and China were given powdered scabs of people with smallpox to help prevent the disease. Technology has come a long way since then, but the princi-ple remains the same. Vaccinations are now used across the globe, and new vaccines are constantly being developed. Some previously deadly illnesses are now easily preventable, and if the new SBV vaccine gets the go-ahead, another one will be added to that list.

By Lizzie Pengelly 12AEg Find out more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20980094 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20914562 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20772957 http://vla.defra.gov.uk/science/sci_schmallenberg.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmallenberg_virus Photos from: http://www.bcxfour.com/2012/03/new-job-and-lambing-update.html Neurons (cells that form the central nerv-

ous system) infected with SBV

17

Mount Sidley is the youngest vol-cano rising above the ice in West Antarctica's Executive Committee Range. A group of seismologists(a geophysicist who studies earthquakes and the mechanical characteristics of the Earth) has detected new volcanic activity under the ice about 30 miles ahead of Mount Sidley. A big, hot blob hiding beneath the bottom of the world could be evidence of a long-sought mantle column under West Antarctica, researchers said Monday (Dec. 9) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The possible hotspot a column of superheated rock rising from Earth's mantle sits under Ma-rie Byrd Land, a broad dome at West Antarctica's edge where many active volcanoes above and below the ice spit lava and ash. The hot zone was discovered with seismic imaging techniques that rely on earthquake waves to build pictures of Earth's inner layers, similar to how a CT scan works. Beneath Marie Byrd Land, earthquake waves slow down; suggesting the mantle here is warmer than surrounding rocks. The strongest low-velocity zone sits below Marie Byrd Land's Executive Committee Range, directly under the Mount Sidley volcano, said Andrew Lloyd, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. "The slow velocities suggest that

it's a mantle hotspot," Lloyd said. The hot zone also matches up with Marie Byrd Land's high landscape and active volcanoes, Lloyd said. Mantle column? Many researchers have long sus-pected that Marie Byrd Land sits atop a hotspot, because the region swells above the surrounding to-pography like the top of a warm souffl (and it has lots of volca-noes). But with few seismometers sitting on the ice, scientists were left speculating about what lies beneath Antarctica's ice. The evidence for the new hot zone, called a thermal anomaly, comes from a massive, temporary earthquake-monitoring network called Polenet that was installed between 2010 and 2012, giving scientists a unique look at Ant-arctica's crust and mantle. (A gravity survey conducted at the same time also suggests there is a big warm spot beneath this part

of West Antarctica.) But confirming that Marie Byrd Land is truly above a hotspot may require a return trip to Antarctica for another seismic experiment, said Doug Wiens, principal in-vestigator on Polenet. "What's absolutely sure is there's a big thermal anomaly, a big blob," said Wiens, a seismologist at Washington University. "What's less sure is whether that anomaly goes deeper." The thermal anomaly extends 125 miles (200 kilometres) below Marie Byrd Land, Lloyd said. Below about 255 miles (410 km), where a mantle column's trailing tail would also leave a hotter-than-average mark in mantle rocks, there's little evidence for a rising hotspot, said Erica Emry, a post-doctoral researcher at

Giant Blob of Hot Rock Hidden Under Antarctic Ice

18

It may sound like something youd see in a sci-fi film, but Americans may soon be able to purchase restored vision as a Robo-Eye is revealed. The US Food and Drug Admin-istration (FDA) is set to approve the prosthetic device that compen-sates for failing photoreceptors, light sensitive cells in the retina at the back of the eye that convert

light into electrical signals which can then be read by the brain. The Argus Retinal Prosthesis Sys-tem, which was developed and produced after years of research by Second Sight Medical Prod-ucts, is already approved for use in many parts of Europe, and it will hopefully be given the go-ahead by the FDA.

The device uses a retinal implant paired with special glasses with a small camera integrated in. It has successfully restored at least par-tial sight to patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic dis-order that causes progressive vi-sion loss due to abnormalities in the retinal tissue. The device has been used in clini-cal trials, where is was mostly used to restore black and white vision to participants, although it restored colour vision in certain people.

By Lizzie Pengelly - 12AEg Find out more: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34336/title/Robo-Eye-to-Enter-US-Market/ http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/first-bionic-eye-sees-light-

Vision Restored Thanks To Robo-Eye

Pennsylvania State University. "There's no smoking gun," Emry said. However, more work remains to be done on the Polenet data, which could reveal new clues and further refine what the mantle looks like un-der West Antarctica, Emry added. Antarctica's thinnest crust The discovery is one of many new insights reported Monday into the geologic mysteries concealed by Ant-arctica's thick ice. Other findings in-clude extremely thin crust, just 10

miles (17 km) thick, in West Antarc-tica's Ross embayment (A bay or baylike shape) near the Transantarctic Mountain Range, said Xinlei Sun, a postdoctoral researcher at Washing-ton University. The Ross embayment is one of Antarctica's two big coastal lumps; the gap is filled by the Ross Ice Shelf. Here, the crust is as thin as in the Gulf of California, where con-tinental rifting (also called extension) is tearing Baja California from main-land Mexico and building a new ocean basin. "This is the thinnest crust [in Antarc-tica] and is probably related to an extensional environment," Sun said. On the other side of the Transantarc-tic Mountains lies the thick, old crust of East Antarctica, similar to the rela-tively stable interiors of continents such as North America and Africa. Antarctica's thickest crust is found

here, beneath the Gamburtsev Moun-tain Range. The Gamburtsevs are spectacular Alpine peaks completely buried in ice; the crust here is about 31 miles (50 km) thick. The crust beneath Marie Byrd Land is about 15 miles (25 km) thick, Sun said.

By Sneha Patel - 10PL

19

Researchers claim that sea urchins ability to absorb CO2 could help us to find a solution to the increasing prob-lem of pollution. Scientists at Newcastle University, Tyne and Wear, England have discov-ered that sea urchins, (small, spiny echinoderms that feed primarily on algae) use the metal nickel to turn car-bon dioxide into shell. They say that the technique could be used to turn emissions from power plants into the harmless compound calcium car-bonate. When observing sea urchin larvae, the scientists noticed that there were high concentrations of nickel on their exter-nal skeletons. Many sea creatures, such as clams, oysters and corals con-vert carbon dioxide dissolved in water into calcium carbonate, which is es-sentially chalk. When the researchers added tiny nickel particles to a solu-tion of carbon dioxide and water, they found that the nickel completely re-moved the CO2. "It is a simple system," Dr Lidija Siller from Newcastle University told BBC News. "You bubble CO2 through the water in which you have nickel nano-

particles and you are trapping much more carbon than you would normally - and then you can easily turn it into calcium carbonate. It seems too good to be true, but it works," CO2 is a greenhouse gas. When re-leased into the atmosphere it traps heat and contributes to global warming. Power plants generate a lot of CO2, especially when burning fossil fuels, which is why simple things like turn-ing off lights when you leave a room can help to reduce pollution, as you

are using less electricity. Currently, most carbon capture and storage (CCS) proposals are based on the idea of pumping CO2 into underground storage, but there are fears that it could leak back out again.

By Lizzie Pengelly12AEg Find out more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21320666

Could Urchins Help To Stop Global Warming?

A close up of the exoskeleton of a sea urchin. Scientists believe that they could hold the key to developing a new method of storing carbon dioxide, CO2.

Short Story 6 Headline

Chris P. Bacon, a little piggy born without the use of his hindlimbs has been given the chance to run around thanks to some creativity and KNex. A video showing off Chriss set of wheels has received more than 800,000 views in under a month. Hes cute. He grunts. And hes got a pretty cute little wheelchair, ex-plained owner and vet Len Lucero, who built Chriss wheels. Watch the video yourself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z-uO5TPQfM&feature=playe

r_embedded By Lizzie Pengelly12AEg

Fast Food? Chris P. Bacon Gets A Set Of Wheels

Meals on wheels? The video of Chris P. Bacon taking his new wheels for a test drive has been watched more than 800,000 times. 20

Puzzles... Did you know If you unwrap all the DNA you have in all

your cells, you could reach the moon and

back 3000 times! If the human genome

was a book, it would be equivalent to 800

dictionaries, and it would take a person

typing 60 words per minute, eight hours

a day, around 50 years to type it up.

Did you know Our genes are remarkably similar to

those of other life forms. For example,

we share 98% of our genes with chim-

panzees, 90% with mice, 85% with zeb-

ra fish, 21% with worms, and 7% with

a simple bacterium such as E. coli.

Want to write an article for us or have a suggestion for what we should write about next time? Contact Lizzie in 12AEg (Form room U7) or ask Mrs Egan. Were always on the lookout for articles to write about and would be re-ally grateful for any contribu-tions! Thanks to Mrs Egan, Mr Kaye, Mr. Mahoney and Mrs Chesters for helping with this issue of Einsteins Army!

Q W F M L B R Q S E T V N N Z U C N G J L

Y C R A S K J C C Q F G O O O T B I H Q C

I H V I R A R H I L M A I I E X T W F P W

B A Q J M B J R T O T G T T N A G R D N E

H R X V D S X O E I Z W C A S R L A D M R

E A T M L T U M N Z U I E I I G T D N T E

R C U F I M M O E H H I L R S A S S A D C

E T O E N X C S G K Y D E A O M T E N O E

D E U T H H J O Y Y U U S V I E I L O I S

I R X C E R P M Y D Z L L Y E T A R I B S

T I K H R D O E F A O O A W M E R A T B I

A S X B I B R V W B H F R O K S T H U D V

R T B T T V C R J O U Y U E J H E C L G E

Y I J E A N C K M K F X T M T I B Q O F Y

O C S R N E S O W W M D A Q Z E I T V E E

I S R S C Q Z Y F L B J N O N X H F E L B

F J H X E Y P U C A J M U T A T I O N E G

J H C M G R E E P Y T O N E G D U V A L V

X W T O G D O M I N A N T I V W R I G L J

T D U G N V W H E P Y T O N E H P R S A Q

C S X S O L K N H E R A U Q S T E N N U P

Genetics Word Search (by Lizzie Pengelly 12AEg)

GENETICS DNA CHROMOSOME ALLELE INHERITANCE DOMINANT RECESSIVE HEREDITARY MUTATION VARIATION EVOLUTION

NATURAL SELEC-TION

CHARLES DARWIN HOMOZYGOUS HETEROZYGOUS PHENOTYPE GENOTYPE PUNNET SQUARE GAMETES TRAITS MEIOSIS

21

Now try cupping some goop in your hands and rolling it quickly between themlike youre making a snowballthen open your hands and watch the ball of goop (that felt solid) turn back to a liquid before your eyes! One more thing, which is definitely best to do outside, is to give the goop a strong palm-slap! Now, you may expect this to go everywhere, given how it looks like a normal liq-uid Im not going to spoil this one for you, give it a go! Report back to Prep Room 1.

Im sure you all know what viscosity means: the thickness of a liquid, how resistant it is to flowing because of gravity. Golden syrup and ketchup are good examples of viscous flu-ids. Most fluids, as Isaac Newton described, change their viscosity with temperature; be-coming thicker when its colder, and thinner and runnier when its warmer. However, as you may have guessed, there are a few glooooooopy exceptions! Cornflour solution changes its viscosity when the temperature, but also the pressure is under changes. So, the harder you press it, the thicker it becomesalmost a solid if you press hard enough!

To see this science in action is spectacu-larly simple; to make this mind-defying goop, you will need: A box of cornflour A large mixing bowl A jug of water Lots of newspaperto cover the table

and floor, this gets messy! Food colouring, because everythings

more fun when its colourful. A zip sandwich bagto get rid of the

goop afterwards. You dont want it block-ing your sink!

Method Pour 1/4 of a box of cornflour into the bowl and slowly mix with around 1/2 a cup of water. Youre aiming for something like honey in thickness (to start with!), so add more flour/water/food colouring until you get it right. And now youre ready! Start by running your fingers across the surface, (this does involve you getting messy) swirling faster and faster. Youll be able to feel the resistance increasing the faster you go.

NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS

- Fluids that dont play by the rules of viscosity!

What now, Newton?!

Non-Newtonian liquid on a speaker cone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zoTKXXNQIU

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