Help me put Mrs Bones together! I need to label her skeleton and then you can put pom poms in for her kidneys.
This site might help, at abcya.com, as will teachpe.com. Here's vertebrae at Gray's Anatomy (via Bartleby).
Nearly there... her clavicle is held on by sellotape, her ribs fell out and both knees are wobbly.
Monday, 19 December 2011
Monday, 12 December 2011
So this week our water supply was cut off, mostly due to the way we live in a building site where no-one tells us anything. More fool us, we ethnic minorities, we should learn Cantonese.
Find out how water towers work.
Actually, it's quite interesting once you get into it.
Find out how water towers work.
Actually, it's quite interesting once you get into it.
Monday, 5 December 2011
Monday, 28 November 2011
Choose one or all of these food stuffs from the menu in Have You Eaten Rice Yet? by Doc Elizabeth Stevenson. Read and follow them through to remind yourself of her talk.
Tight lipped mussels in a curdled sauce.
Problems with your mussels? Like all marine creatures, they are susceptible to red tides. Some humans can also be allergic to tropomyosin, a protein that helps the mussel shell contract.
Protein is made up of a long chain of amino acids arranged into coils. Cooking disturbs these chains, and this is denaturing. The amino acids stay linked together, but their arrangement changes. Denaturing can be reversible, but often with cooking, it is not. (People have built a whole subculture from modelling protein chains by computer. Watch this one for the graphics.)
As an example of protein 'unfolding', add vinegar to soya milk and see what happens. The proteins come together and form curd.
Roast meat.
The Maillard Reaction is the chemical process that is responsible for the colours and flavours of food. The reaction is between proteins (chains of amino acids) and sugars.
For us vegetarians, the same applies. We can have fried onions on toast.
Unnaturally green veg.
Soaking plants in copper sulfate to gain a greener colour then cooking them is a bad idea says the Doc. Why? Because at the centre of chlorophyll - the part that makes plants green - is the element magnesium. Heating copper sulfate plus magnesium produces a compound that is toxic in large doses.
Side salad.
No, you can't have lettuce from the freezer. A lettuce leaf is 95% water. Freezing the water causes the water to expand and burst out of the cell wall. So your lettuce leaf loses structure and goes all floppy.
Haggis.
Basically, don't eat haggis. Just don't. Offal, onion and spices cooked in an animal's stomach has nothing to recommend it. It's not the Doc saying that, it's me.
Incidentally, if you want at this point to research the history of the microwave, then start with Percy Spencer. The first microwave was the size of a small car and the weight of a baby elephant.
Microwaves are increasingly used by chemists to cook their haggises and heat their waters. But bear in mind that microwaves will heat polar compounds, but not non-polar compounds!
A polar compound is where there is an unequal sharing of electrons.
Water is polar, you can heat that. In water, the oxygen has a greater pull on the electrons in the bond than the hydrogens. See? Polar. Hmm. Nope, I'm not really getting this.
Except don't eat haggis and don't cook it in any means at all.
Neeps and tatties.
Starchy foods? Test for starch! With the iodine test!
You did this already. Exciting. Yesindeedy.
Fast ice cream.
With liquid nitrogen. How else.
Your choice of fizzy drink.
Except that the standard is Coca Cola with a Menthos mint. You can do that.
Outside, please, not in the front room. And don't tell your sister to stand over it 'to get a better view'.
Tight lipped mussels in a curdled sauce.
Problems with your mussels? Like all marine creatures, they are susceptible to red tides. Some humans can also be allergic to tropomyosin, a protein that helps the mussel shell contract.
Protein is made up of a long chain of amino acids arranged into coils. Cooking disturbs these chains, and this is denaturing. The amino acids stay linked together, but their arrangement changes. Denaturing can be reversible, but often with cooking, it is not. (People have built a whole subculture from modelling protein chains by computer. Watch this one for the graphics.)
As an example of protein 'unfolding', add vinegar to soya milk and see what happens. The proteins come together and form curd.
Roast meat.
The Maillard Reaction is the chemical process that is responsible for the colours and flavours of food. The reaction is between proteins (chains of amino acids) and sugars.
For us vegetarians, the same applies. We can have fried onions on toast.
Unnaturally green veg.
Soaking plants in copper sulfate to gain a greener colour then cooking them is a bad idea says the Doc. Why? Because at the centre of chlorophyll - the part that makes plants green - is the element magnesium. Heating copper sulfate plus magnesium produces a compound that is toxic in large doses.
Side salad.
No, you can't have lettuce from the freezer. A lettuce leaf is 95% water. Freezing the water causes the water to expand and burst out of the cell wall. So your lettuce leaf loses structure and goes all floppy.
Haggis.
Basically, don't eat haggis. Just don't. Offal, onion and spices cooked in an animal's stomach has nothing to recommend it. It's not the Doc saying that, it's me.
Incidentally, if you want at this point to research the history of the microwave, then start with Percy Spencer. The first microwave was the size of a small car and the weight of a baby elephant.
Microwaves are increasingly used by chemists to cook their haggises and heat their waters. But bear in mind that microwaves will heat polar compounds, but not non-polar compounds!
A polar compound is where there is an unequal sharing of electrons.
Water is polar, you can heat that. In water, the oxygen has a greater pull on the electrons in the bond than the hydrogens. See? Polar. Hmm. Nope, I'm not really getting this.
Except don't eat haggis and don't cook it in any means at all.
Neeps and tatties.
Starchy foods? Test for starch! With the iodine test!
You did this already. Exciting. Yesindeedy.
Fast ice cream.
With liquid nitrogen. How else.
Your choice of fizzy drink.
Except that the standard is Coca Cola with a Menthos mint. You can do that.
Outside, please, not in the front room. And don't tell your sister to stand over it 'to get a better view'.
Monday, 21 November 2011
Try the Science Kids site. Scroll down the bullet list on this page to pick a fact; go and explore it.*
The bar across the top of the page is also worth exploring; I found this video annoying and helpful.
*Come on, three interesting facts from each of you about the human body and I'll buy you a pack of Oreos. (That is a bribe. Not a reward in advance.)
The bar across the top of the page is also worth exploring; I found this video annoying and helpful.
*Come on, three interesting facts from each of you about the human body and I'll buy you a pack of Oreos. (That is a bribe. Not a reward in advance.)
Monday, 7 November 2011
Go to Kelly's space and scroll down the right hand side until you arrive at the links under The geek in me.
She has a good selection of science links here. You might find some too easy and some just right. Will you find any too hard? Choose a place that is different from your sisters and tell them whether you would recommend it.
Of course I'm going to recommend the interactive rock cycle!
(And to better answer that question, Why does skin form on heated milk? explore WiseGeek.)
She has a good selection of science links here. You might find some too easy and some just right. Will you find any too hard? Choose a place that is different from your sisters and tell them whether you would recommend it.
Of course I'm going to recommend the interactive rock cycle!
(And to better answer that question, Why does skin form on heated milk? explore WiseGeek.)
Monday, 31 October 2011
I had a great time with this.
Click around the sites from Science Spot Kid Zone and find something else to thrill us all!
Click around the sites from Science Spot Kid Zone and find something else to thrill us all!
Monday, 24 October 2011
Monday, 17 October 2011
Monday, 10 October 2011
There are hundreds of programmes on youtube for flowers, pollination, fruit, plant botany.
I found a song about photosynthesis!
Can you find one to recommend to me?
Talk to me about plant biology. I love hearing words like stomata.
I found a song about photosynthesis!
Can you find one to recommend to me?
Talk to me about plant biology. I love hearing words like stomata.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Watch this video. I know the voice is difficult to follow, and it's a bit academic, but it's from the Hong Kong University, and identifies some of the ferns you can find on the paths we walk.
And why don't plants have things like hearts and brains or lungs?
Or maybe they do? What's your idea?
And why don't plants have things like hearts and brains or lungs?
Or maybe they do? What's your idea?
Monday, 26 September 2011
Conduct some experiments on leaves you can pick up outside.
Remove or add water, soil, sunlight. Examine the CGP book on plant cells. Can you see any of these features in the leaves you can find in a sub-tropical environment?
I notice that the leaves here seem more waxy than at home. What do you think?
Remove or add water, soil, sunlight. Examine the CGP book on plant cells. Can you see any of these features in the leaves you can find in a sub-tropical environment?
I notice that the leaves here seem more waxy than at home. What do you think?
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