News
A new study out this week has revealed that there is literally no-where to hide when it comes to the damaging affects we are having on the seas and oceans, and that over forty percent of the world’s marine ecosystems are suffering from very high levels of threat.
A team of 19 international scientis...
Here is a nice story showing the cutting edge science you can find in the the most everyday items. You have probably made lots of sand castles in your life, but have you ever wondered why it is so easy? It's not necessarily easy to make the fortification of your dreams, but it is very easy to ...
Scientists in the US have discovered a novel way to tackle problem superbugs like MRSA - by disabling their defences with a cholesterol-lowering drug.
UCSD researcher Victor Nizet and his team initially noticed that bugs like Staph aureus (MRSA) produce a yellow-coloured family of antioxidants call...
Scientists in Canada have confirmed that oestrogens from OCPs in sewage water can spill over into rivers and feminise fish. Moreover it can have previously unrecognised impacts on other parts of the food chain.
Karen Kidd is a researcher at the Uni of New Brunswick. She added oestrogens to t...
QotW
The older the book, the better it smells, right? But just what is the smell of old books?
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Interviews
Organ Rejection is a big problem, overcome by immuno-suppressant drugs. But these drugs are quite toxic and leaves people vulnerable to infections and cancers. A new technique involving transplanting bone marrow along with an organ could change all that...
Donated organs need to be transported to the recipient as quickly as possible, and won't survive for long. Now, Oxford scientists have developed a technique that could extend the life of an organ outside the body...
A few weeks ago, we reported on the breakthrough where scientists in America had been able to build a beating heart in the lab. By using the scaffold of an existing heart, stripping out the old cells and seeding it with new ones, they've proven the principle that organs could be grown on demand fro...
Questions

Can we make plastic without oil?
Most of the plastics that we use at the moment are manufactured from oil. You break up long chains, and you tend to get small gases, things like ethane. Out of an oil refinery you can cook up crude oil very hot and get some useful gases. You can then react them together and then stick them together and the little units stick together. They form long polymers which is what pretty all plastics are made of.
There has been a lot of research recently into other ways of making plastics in case we do run out of oil: using biological foodstuffs mostly and also so you can make plastics which are more biodegradable because we’re making plastics from oil in a way very alien to organic processes. Organic things can’t break them down very well. There have been various things including genetically engineering bacteria to produce precursors to making plastics or even whole plastics themselves. If you mash up a bacteria extracts with plastic you can get a beautiful plastic out.
These plastics are doing the same job if not slightly better because they aren’t going to persist in the environment and cause huge pollution like normal plastics do.

Why don't my saucepans dry in the dishwasher?
When things dry out you’re making the water evaporate and this takes quite a lot of energy. So you’ve got a large amount of energy in a hot dishwasher, it’s going to be 70, 80, 90 degrees in there. What you need to do is transfer that heat to the water. The best way of transferring that heat to the water, is if it’s a thin sheet all over the surface is metal which conducts heat very well. So most of the heat should evaporate the water and it dries out really well. Things like china conduct heat reasonably well so if you’ve got hot china it’s got quite a lot of heat in it and it can conduct out well and the water should dry out. It tends to be in fairly small globules.
As he’s saying Teflon® is very, what’s called, hydrophobic so it doesn’t like water. The water tends to collect in great big globules so you’ve got to get lots of heat into a very small area which is difficult so heat’s being lost through the rest of the pan. Also, the Teflon® is quite insulating so it’s hard for heat to get through it. It will tend to actually go out through the metal on the other side and so probably that’s the reason why you’re getting water left in your pans.

Why are yawns catching?
That’s a very good question. Yawning is a really common reflex, actually that happens in lots of different animals. If you see someone yawning you want to yawn yourself which is very strange. We see it in all these animals including some that maybe aren’t so social. Maybe it isn’t something that’s learned but maybe a bit more inherent. Perhaps it just starts to arrive at some point.
Wild dogs in Africa get contagious yawning, where one will yawn and then the other will yawn and it tends to be about the time when they’re going to bed. It’s a nice way of getting the whole pack to decide to go to bed.
Often with very young babies, their eyesight isn’t very good. They can’t focus very well so it could be just she can’t see you yawning. She doesn’t learn how to yawn from that.
Kitchen Science
Do one of the experiments that helped to convince doctors that blood actually circulates around your body.
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