Scientists in Israel recently announced that they had come up with a blood test that could predict a person's risk of developing lung cancer, particularly if that person is a s...
The last week has seen a handful of discoveries about sperm. Coffee speeds up sperm, cannabis makes them speed up and burn out quickly, and overweight men suffer from sperm DNA...
Good news this week for coffee drinkers because German researchers have tracked down a chemical in coffee that may help to prevent colon cancer- the second leading cause of dea...
Soon sufferers of heart conditions could be wearing super-smart electronic underwear that will call an ambulance when they need one. German researchers have developed bras and ...
American Roy Fausset returned to his New Orleans home on 23rd september to find that a meteorite had demolished his recently-renovated bathroom. It seems to be the season for n...
After a three years of farm-scale trials looking at the environmental impact of GM crops the results are finally out this week. These were the biggest trials carried out anywhere in th...
Radio show featuring Peter Brennan discussing the science of smell (2005) ...
Fact or Fiction
If you put mount Everest at the bottom of the deepest part of
the ocean, it's top would poke out of the surface of the water
It's False – The deepest part of the ocean is about 11km,
and is called the Marianas Trench, while Mount Everest may be the tallest
mountain in the world but it is only about 8km tall so it would be covered
up if you put it in the sea.
Birds are cold-blooded
It's False – Birds are
warm blooded, like we are.
There are sharks in the sea around Britain
It's True
– the basking shark is a frequent visitor to British Waters.
Penguins and polar bears live together on the North pole
It's False -Polar bears live in the arctic around the North pole,
but penguins are found on in Antarctica, around the South pole.
A triangle in which all of the sides are the same length is
called an isosceles triangle
It's False – when all of
the sides are the same length it's called an equilateral triangle. An
isosceles has 2 sides the same.
The frisbee the flying dish that people throw to each
other travels at over 70 miles per hour
It's True
– Boomerangs are slightly slower and average 50 miles per hour !
Cacti store water inside themselves so they can live in dry
conditions
It's True – in fact some giant cacti in Mexico
can store over 10 tonnes of water inside themselves.
Light from the sun takes 2 days to reach the earth
It's False
– light travels so fast that although it is 150 million km to the
sun (17 years by jumbo jet if you tried to fly there) sunlight takes only
8 minutes to reach the earth.
A Tsunami is a type of volcanic eruption
It's False .
A Tsunami is an enormous wave in the ocean that's usually set off by something
like an earthquake.
You can smell a skunk from 2 miles away
It's True
– The Skunk, renowned for its powerful smelly defensive spray, which
it can shoot up to a metre and a half, can actually be smelt up to two
and a half miles away.