Escape The Science Lab

People have been looking up at the night sky for thousands of years. There are records from ancient Chinese and Arabic scholars in the Middle East. People have found and translated these records, discovering clues to modern-day mysteries. One of these accounts was of a bright object suddenly appearing in the sky. Chinese Astronomers recorded that a ‘guest star’ about as bright as the full moon suddenly appeared on 4th July 1054 (Left an impression of what it may have looked like). In fact, it was so bright that it could be seen during the day for several weeks and was then visible at night for about two years before disappearing. It wasn't just the Chinese that saw this. There are records from Japan through to the Middle East. Some people even think that a piece of rock art in North America depicts the event. What was going on? What could cause an object to suddenly appear in the sky and then disappear? Was it a bad omen? (The Chinese didn’t think so, but the appearance coincided w...

  The brain is the most complex structure we know, so studying and discovering how it works is complex. For many years scientists have had to rely on dissecting brains when they're dead (we hope), which means they're no longer working. Not an ideal way to discover how something works. Another strategy is to study what happens to a person when something goes wrong with their brain, which brings us to the unfortunate Phineas Gage. At approximately 4:30 on 13th September 1848, Gage was working at clearing rock for a new railway. He was preparing an explosive charge, using a long metal rod to pack the explosives into a hole drilled into the rock. A spark caused the charge to explode, propelling the rod up through his cheek and out through the top of his head. The rod was blown 25m away from the accident. Miraculously Gage survived this. Stories of his treatment following the accident are full of brain matter falling out of wounds and infections. The doctors could even see his '...

 You may of heard how Galileo got into trouble for claiming that the Earth orbits the Sun. Did you know there were others that were saying the same thing? In the 16th century, Johannes Kepler was one of these. He was an astronomer who took measurements of the stars, but also an astrologer, producing horoscopes for the rich and powerful. Back then, the lines between science and mysticism were blurred and Isaac Newton himself was as much an alchemist as a scientist.  Kepler took measurements of the movements of the planets, checking the measurements of other natural philosophers*. You can easily see planets with the naked eye, binoculars, or telescopes. They look like bright stars, but they move from night-to-night, giving them their name 'planetai' or 'wanderer'. Back in the 16th century six planets had been discovered.  Kepler's idea of how they moved in their orbits was mixed with some ideas that we may find strange today. He combined his measurements with ideas th...

  Here's a really bad science joke that I've heard. Why don't ants get sick? Because they have little anty bodies.  I'll get my coat. That's not the only link between ants and disease prevention. I was listening to a podcast the other day where the discussion was about antibiotic resistance. This is a huge problem, which has lots of doctors and scientists are very worried. Antibiotic resistance is when antibiotics no longer kill bacteria. You can take the tablets, but they won't make you better. To understand why doctors are concerned we need to look back at what life was like before antibiotics.   In 1941 Police Constable Albert Alexander was injured in an air raid. A small cut near his mouth became infected and he was taken to hospital.  The infection got worse, and he developed sepsis, which is when your immune system overreacts to an infection and starts attacking your own organs. Most people who develop sepsis die. Doctors in 1941 were used to seeing people...

Electric Bees I heard something amazing today. Bees, have a positive static charge. They get this because they rub against the air particles as they fly, losing electrons along the way. You probably know that flowers tempt the bee to land by making a sticky, sugary liquid called nectar, but that's not all. Flowers also use fragrance to attract insects, and they respond to the charges from the bees that land on them by producing more fragrance. This in turn attracts more bees to increase the chances of the flowers being pollinated. Once bee lands on the flower, its positive charge attracts the pollen, which is negatively charged. This makes sure that as much pollen as possible is taken away when the bee leaves. Smart Flowers The flowers don't have this all their own way. Flowers have a negative charge, and guess what, bees can detect this. You can detect static electricity too, when your hair moves when it comes near to something that is charged. Try rubbing a balloon on a jumpe...

  Ever wondered how a rainbow forms? Raindrops act like a prism and split the light into the colours of the visible spectrum. The splitting is called dispersion. The splitting is caused by refraction. That's not the whole story though. After entering the raindrop, the light is reflected off the back surface. It then travels out of the front of the drop, refracting again at the boundary. If, when this light leaves the raindrop, it happens to travel to your eyes, you see the familiar bow in the sky. What this means is that nobody sees the same rainbow as you. A friend stood next to you sees the light that has been refracted in their direction. Ever heard of the famous double rainbow? They are formed when the light reflects twice inside the raindrop. Have you ever noticed that the colours in the second rainbow are reversed? The diagram above shows why. Other affects you may notice when you see a good rainbow are supernumerary bows (green and magenta bows underneath the other bows. The...

  The splitting of light when it travels into a prism is called dispersion. The splitting is caused by refraction. Refraction occurs when light moves from one material to another. Each wavelength of light is refracted through a different angle, so the colours separate. One of the most famous effects of dispersion is the rainbow. These are always good to see, but there are many more atmospheric light effects to look out for. In this image, you can see a halo around the sun, two sundogs (parhelia) on the left and right of the halo, an upper tangent arc (on top of the halo), a parhelic arc (going through the two sundogs) and infralateral arcs (far left and right of the image). These are all caused by ice crystals refracting light. Look  here  for some other light effects you may see in the atmosphere. I would really like to see the spooky Brocken Spectre. The light really is fantastic. Take up my escape challenge by clicking on the image below.