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Just Chat! / Blatant, but relevant, physics event advertising...

« on: 29/11/2010 13:09:17 »

For anyone who's going to be within striking distance of Ipswich (Suffolk, UK... sorry, not any of the other available Ipswichs) next weekend, there's going to be a hands-on science event at Claydon High School on Sunday (5th December), with a planetarium, make-and-do, CHaOS, and more.
 
More details, including a map and information about the talks that will be happening is here.

One of the talks will be Dave (daveshorts) microwaving things that shouldn't be microwaved and generally doing fun stuff with electricity..

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Just Chat! / Science Events in Cambridge

« on: 09/03/2009 10:30:53 »

If you're in or around Cambridge this Saturday or next (or indeed generally around the next couple of weeks) there are lots of public science events on as part of the Cambridge Science Festival http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival/index.html )

There's an event called Crash, Bang, Squlech! that daveshorts and I are involved with organising, and Dave'll be doing some demo lectures during the day - details on http://www.chaosscience.org.uk/pub/public_html ) which is this Saturday (14th) 10-4 in central Cambridge.. it tends to get pretty busy and entry is constrained by legal limits on the number of people allowed into the building, so when it's full we'll be issuing timed tickets for later in the day.

There's also the physics open day on the 21st, which also has lots of fun hands-on stuff, also with a contribution from CHaOS.

Both Crash, Bang, Squlech! and the physics open day are suitable for a wide range of ages... more or less 5-adult. There are also lots really interesting sounding talks, aimed more at adults (and teenagers) on in the evenings all week that I'm not going to have time to go to...

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Chemistry / Solvent dipoles and dielectric constants tables

« on: 20/06/2007 17:19:46 »

This is probably aimed mainly at the practising chemists (tho' if anyone else knows anything helpful that'd be great):
I'm trying to find a link or ideally a published reference/text to dipole moments and also to dielectric constants for common lab solvents. Trawling around the web for individual numbers from questionably reliable websites is a bit unsatisfactory.
Cheers!
Rosy

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Complementary Medicine / Cardamom tea

« on: 26/10/2006 20:48:39 »

One of the guys in my lab says cardamom is a really good natural antiviral, and advocates "tea" made from cardamom pods in hot water to speed recovery from colds (and to ward them off if your partner/kids/officemates have got one).

Just thought people on here might be interested

5

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Red shift

« on: 10/04/2006 18:11:10 »

Right... I thought that because I don't have a problem with how Doppler shift works for sound (like what happens when an ambulance or police car or whatever goes past) that I understood how red shift works with light (like stars spreading out through the universe).
I realised about 1 o'clock last night that actually I have no idea at all how it works.

I understand this:
Whilst the siren thing works because if the source is moving away from you the distance successive peaks have to travel between the source and your ear is equal to the wavelength of the sound emitted plus the change in distance between start and end points during the period of the note.
So the new wavelength is now
wavelength(1) = wavelength(0) + T * velocity of sound source
(velocity measured in the frame of the observer)
So as the source moves away pitch goes down.

But my problem is this:
Red shift is supposed to be due to the expansion of the universe, right? And this universe expansion is happening everywhere all the time but we don't notice because, essentially, it's happening sort-of between atoms so a metre is in some way getting longer but we can't tell because everything's getting longer/bigger?
Or have I misunderstood that?
Anyway, if I am right about the first bit, how come it's being observed in the red shift? How come that isn't just lost in the general everything-getting-bigger and not actually observed?

6

Physiology & Medicine / Cleft palate

« on: 17/06/2005 18:03:40 »

First point to make here... I'm a clefty myself (unilateral cleft lip and palate) so obviously I have an angle on all of this. I've also just finished my third year undergrad chemistry exams, have a (slightly manic) extracurricular life based around science outreach activities and an entirely lovely boyfriend. In short, I'd say my quality of life was pretty high relative to the national average!

Given this, eighteen months or so ago I was knocked sideways by a high profile court case here in the UK in which someone was attempting to have some doctors prosecuted for carrying out a late term (third trimester) abortion.

From the press coverage, it appeared that the sole explanation given for the abortion (for late-term abortions [1] a reason has to be published) was the detection of a cleft palate.
I know that some fairly serious genetic diseases can lead to cleft palate, but if there's reason to suspect that in a particular case I'd have thought it might be sensible from the point of view of the doctors to indicate it in their explanation of the reasons for the procedure.

Clearly, since a decision was made that the doctors had done nothing illegal, there must have been more to it than was immediately obvious... but I was wondering if anyone who knew about this sort of thing could suggest some possible reasons!!


[1] Although I don't have an issue with abortion early in pregnancy I regard late abortions as really pretty extreme and have trouble with the idea that they can be justified for a condition that isn't going to leave to an inevitable early and painful death for the infant.

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Physiology & Medicine / ADH at night

« on: 23/05/2005 13:34:26 »

Am I right in thinking that it's the antidieuretic (sp?) hormone (ADH) that your body produces more of at night to help prevent you having to get up and pee at regular intervals?
Is there some other hormone that triggers this extra ADH? A few years ago (6 or 8 years ago, I think) I knew a child who was being prescribed some kind of hormone tablet to allow them to go to sleepover parties etc without embarrasment... but it wasn't the sort of thing I was going to quiz an 8 year old about! So now I'm curious... anyone know anything?
Will how much you produce depend on how deeply asleep you are?
(Of vague relevance to a discussion in this thread:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1982&whichpage=5 )

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General Science / Why do birds take dust baths?

« on: 24/04/2005 18:16:22 »

There are two small birds taking a "dust bath" in the dry earth under the tree outside my window.
Anyone want to tell me/speculate as to why?