Here are some pets that can be found in Australia, but are still a bit unusual!Weird Pets(JK Extra)

Long Haired Guinea Pigs You have probably seen plenty of short-haired guinea pigs, but have you ever seen one with hair so long, it drags along the ground behind it? The posh-looking little pigs are cared for just like short haired one, but a lot of extra attention is needed to keep their long flowing locks in tip-top condition. A daily brush and regular baths and trimming are necessary, but have a look at how beautiful they are!

Turtles In Australia, it is illegal to keep any turtle you find in the wild, but turtles can be bought from pet shops or breeders. The most common turtle kept as a pet here is the Eastern Long Neck. When they are babies they are about 4cm across the shell, but can grow as big as a dinner plate and live for 40 years! Turtles need to be kept in a special tank, with water at one end and a dry area of gravel, sand or rocks at the other, where they can get out of the water and sun-bake under a special lamp.

Bedlington Terrier These lovely little dogs look a bit like lambs when they have been clipped! Originally from England, Bedlingtons were originally bred to catch rats, foxes, rabbits and badgers. Today they are smart, loyal and reliable family pets. They can run extremely fast for such a small dog and love to be with

people. As an added bonus, they have non-shedding coats that feel like wool. Like all non-shedding dogs they need a haircut every 6-8 weeks to keep them looking and feeling great!

Sphynx Cats Remember the bald cat that Dr Evil strokes constantly in the Austin Powers movies? Well that was Mr Bigglesworth, a Sphynx cat. Developed as a breed in America in the 1960s, they are almost completely hairless. Some have whiskers and eyebrows, but all of them have soft skin that feels like chamois. Because they have no hair, they feel the cold and get sunburned easily, but don’t shed all over the furniture and your clothes!

(JK Extra)

All the information required to make you is stored in your DNA. In fact, the DNA in all organisms provide instructions about how to grow and go about millions of cellular processes each day.To find out how these instructions are communicated, researchers separate the DNA from the rest of the cell and examine how it interacts with proteins and other parts of the cell. The isolation, or extraction, can be done in about half an hour in your kitchen, but it took many years to learn how to do it.

Join CSIRO’s Double Helix Science Club!If science makes you smile, then join the club! Membership includes a magazine subscription to Scientriffic (age 7+) or The Helix (age 10+) full of news, activities and science fun, plus exciting events around Australia, holiday programs, email newsletters, discounts and lots more. To join call 02 6276 6643 or visit www.csiro.au/helix.

Follow these instructions to learn how to extract DNA from an onion.

Extracting DNA

in your kitchen

What you need• half an onion • salt • washing-up detergent • methylated spirits • warm water • coffee filter paper • a toothpick or wooden skewer • a knife & chopping board • a strainer or sieve • a blender or food processor • a clear drinking glass

What to do 1. Ask an adult to help you roughly chop the onion and put it in the food processor.

2. Dissolve one teaspoon of salt in half a cup of warm water, add to the onion and process for one minute.

3. Strain the mixture through the sieve into a cup, pressing the liquid out using the back of a spoon.

4. Add one teaspoon of washing-up liquid and stir. Leave for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Pour the mixture through the coffee filter into a clear glass. Let it drip through; you can squeeze the filter gently to speed this up.

This activity involves the use of a knife, blender and methylated spirits.

Methylated spirits is poisonous and knives and blenders can cut you. Have

an adult assist you with this activity.

WARNING!

6. With an adult’s help, carefully pour enough methylated spirits down the side of the glass to form a one-centimetre layer on top of the onion solution.

7. You should see a white fluffly layer form between the onion solution and the methylated spirits. Gently swirl the toothpick or skewer through the mixture and you will see little white strands moving around. These are bits of onion DNA!

8. You can also twist the toothpick and, if you are careful enough, you should be able to lift out some blobs of DNA. It looks almost exactly like white snot!

9. Try extracting DNA from dried peas (the type used for split pea soup), yeast (available in the baking section of supermarkets), cod roe (fish eggs), bananas (without the skin) and raw liver (from a chicken or calf). Is the DNA from the different organisms the same?

What’s happeningLike all living things, onions store their DNA inside their cells. Cells also contain other chemicals, such as proteins, carbohydrates and lipids, surrounded by a cell membrane. In this activity, we separated the DNA from the cells and the other chemicals in them.To start with, we had to break the cells open. The blender broke the onion into single cells. The detergent helped dissolve some of the chemicals in the cell membranes (the skin around the cell), letting the DNA and other chemicals out.Once the DNA was removed from the cells, we needed to separate the DNA from the other chemicals. DNA dissolves in water, but it doesn’t dissolve in alcohol. Adding methylated spirits (which is almost pure alcohol) causes the DNA to stop being dissolved in the onion liquid and become solid, forming the white strands you saw.DNA molecules have a slight negative charge, which would normally make them repel each other. The salt we added at the beginning of the experiment contains positively charged ions, which neutralized the charge in the DNA and let them clump together. If you’re lucky, you will be able to pick up the long strands of DNA.

How well do you know

Katy Perry1. Katy Perry was born in...a New York, USA

b London, England

c California, USA

d Paris, France

3. What year was Katy born?a 1983

b 1984

c 1985

d 1986

5. What is her most recent album?a Teenage Dream

b California Gurls

c One of the Boys

d Firework

2. What is her full name?a Katy Hudson

b Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson

c Elizabeth Katheryn Hudson

d Katy Perry

4. What is Katy’s pet cat’s name?a Hello Katy

b Garfield

c Whiskers

d Kitty Purry

Take our quiz, and find out how much you know about Katy Perry

True or False

6. Katy got married in India. True False

7. She is one of five children. True False

8. She has a voice role in the upcoming Smurfs Movie. True False

9. Katy’s hair is naturally Blonde. True False

(JK Extra)

1. c, 2. b, 3. b, 4. d, 5. a, 6. True, 7. False, She is one of three, 8. True, as the voice of Smurfette 9. True

(JK Extra)

Famous FriendsFriends rock! They are always there for you, and are great fun to hang out with. While you may

have a special group of friends, there are always one or two people that you could call your BFFs.

So, who are some famous BFFs

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning became firm friends on the set of the Twilight Saga, and are now BFFs.

Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift hang out loads

together. So do Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus.

And sometimes the girls all team up together

for a big day at the mall!

Katy Perry and Ke$ha are good mates... could

you imagine the trouble those girls get up to?

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson (from the awesome Harry Potter movies) all became great friends over the years of filming. There is a rumour that Dan and Emma even dated for a while!

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire have been BFFs

for years and love going to the basketball together.

Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes have buddied up

since Posh moved to Los Angeles. They live almost next

door to each other and both have a passion for fashion!

Australia’s

Terrifying Weather (JK Extra)

...of droughts and flooding rains...As the famous poet, Dorothea McKellar said in her epic poem, Australia is a country

Meanwhile, the mop-up continues across the country as people try to rebuild their lives and their homes. Our thoughts go out to all of you that are affected by flood, fire and cyclone. If you are feeling a bit stressed, nervous or sad about what has happened, you can have a chat to the cool people at Kid’s Helpline on 1800 551 800.

Cyclone Yasi was rated Category 5, the worst and strongest type of cyclone known in Australia. It was even bigger than Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,836 in America in 2005. (A hurricane and a cyclone are the same thing; they just have different names depending on where they occur.) Yasi has caused massive damage to homes, crops, livestock. A lot of good planning and a little bit of luck meant that no people were killed or seriously injured, but the storm itself was terrifying for people caught in it.

Cyclone Yasi hit the North Queensland coast on the night of the 1st of February. Scientists that specialise in weather (called Meteorologists) were able to give very good predictions about when and where the cyclone would hit. This gave people living in those areas plenty of time to evacuate or prepare their homes for the massive storm.

Much of Australia has recently got a frightening reminder of how harsh our country can be. While devastating floods swept through Queensland, New South Wales and northern Victoria, there were terrible bushfires in southern Western Australia and now Cyclone Yasi has hit Northern Queensland.

Scientists believe that this year’s dramatic wet weather conditions are caused by a natural weather phenomenon called La Nina (meaning “girl-child”). La Nina is the opposite of El Nino (“boy-child”), a weather pattern that brings warm dry weather. La Nina is the result of the heating and cooling of the Pacific Ocean, and the enormous air mass above it. La Nina brings wet weather to eastern Australia and south east Asia, causing an increase in rain, flooding, monsoons and even cyclones. This La Nina was one of the strongest in history, but the good news is that it should be over by March or April.

(JK Extra)

CSIRAC Modern Desktop Smart PhoneProcessing speed 500–1000 Hz 2000-3000 million Hz 500-1000 Million Hz

Memory capacity 20kB (or 0.00002GB) 500-1000GB 8-32GB

Size 40m2 up to 0.5m2 0.007m2

Weight 2500 kg 5-10 kg 100-200g (or 0.1-0.2 kg)

Power consumption 30, 000 watts up to 200 watts 5 watts

Technology 2000 valves Microchips, equal to millions of valves

Microchips, equal to millions of valves

Playing games on a computer from the late 80’s

The 1982 equilivent of a laptop

Pole Position, 1982 Gran Turismo 5, 2010

Gaming, Then & Now!

Old School Tech

No mouse! All commands needed to be

typed.

Most mobile phones and even mp3 players are more powerful than the early

computers.

Massive monitor

with a small screen!

Black and White Printer

How does this computer from the late 80’s compare to the one you are sitting at now?