Doodle Science - October 2010

Circulated to schools, organisations and individuals - covering science and related bits and bobs.

Dracula orchid

A flower for Halloween.
This is the orchid Dracula vampira.

It is not really a blood sucker, the name means little dragon and it come from the cloud forests of Ecuador, where it does a more than passing impression of a mushroom.

It is not the easiest thing to grow but mine is still alive, or should that be undead.

There is a slightly macabre story that when it was discovered the plant hunter sent the specimen back and then disappeared into the forest never to be seen again.

Might be true!

Great Dates in Sci and Tech for November.
13th of November 1971 ~ Marina 9 goes into orbit around Mars, the first space craft to orbit another planet
20th of November 1905 ~ Einstein publishes the paper that leads to the most famous equation in science, E=mc²
21st of November 1859 ~ Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" goes on sale in London
24th of November 1969 ~ Apollo 11 splashes down in the Pacific having taken the first men to the Moon.
28th of November 1520 ~ Magellan and the crews of his three ships become the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans

Something to try.

For this you will need a saucer, some milk, food colouring and liquid soap. Pour the milk into the saucer, not deep - under 1cm will do. Then carefully pour in some food colouring, not so it mixes but just makes its own "pool" in the milk layer. Then just touch the food colouring with a finger with liquid soap on it. Most peoples reaction is to go "OOOH".

Health and safety - Food colourings can stain other materials, liquid soap can cause irritation in some individuals and milk, like all biological materials should be handled with care.

A good idea

Look up at the sky and count how many aircraft or their trails you can see. Once near Basingstoke I counted 47 in one hour. That's a lot of people in the air.

A Web site worth a visit.

Life Time Line
A wonderful time line of life on Earth from National Geographic