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Here are some photos of the crazy crew….enjoy!
On air broadcast presented by Dr Andi on Sunday May 4, 2008
Online article written by Michelle Kovacevic
Q: If you fell over and ingested a spider web, could you digest it?
A: Spider silk is made of a form of keratin, the protein found in human hair, which can be broken down into its constituent amino acids by strong acid at high temperatures for a long period of time. As you may know, our stomachs contain very strong acid (hydrochloric acid with a pH of 1-2 to be exact!) but obviously are not at very high temperature, so human hair would pass through the stomach undigested. The protein chains of spider silk keratin are folded in a different way to human hair, forming flat sheets (only 2 micrometers thick) as opposed to ropes 60 micrometers thick for human hair. Even so, I don’t think spider silk would be my choice of entrée!
Q: Does eating celery make you lose weight?
A: An average stick of celery only contains about 6 calories because most of it is cellulose- a fibre that is indigestible by the human digestive system. To extract the energy from the celery stick and move it along our intestine to digest it, we actually use more energy than we get back, namely about 4 or 5 calories more than we gain. But before you jump on the new famed Celery Stick Diet, you’d have to eat at least 20 sticks of celery to even cancel out a single chocolate biscuit!
Q: If I eat uncooked red kidney beans, could I get sick?
A: Red kidney beans actually are quite harmful when not cooked. They are quite rich in a chemical called phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) a carbohydrate binding protein that causes red blood cells to clump together. The red blood cell clumping power is measure in haemagglutinin units (hau). A toxic dose of PHA, which would cause vomiting and diarrhoea, is 350,000hau and one raw red kidney bean contains about 70,000hau. Cooking kidney beans denatures the PHA protein, making it about 200 times less potent! Don’t forget though that kidney beans are high in fibre, B vitamins and other minerals so don’t knock them ‘till you try them (cooked of course!)
Q: Could my cat taste my lollipop?
A: Unfortunately your cat’s tongue has malformed sugar receptors which don’t bind to sugar properly and hence it won’t be able to taste sweet things. This is due to a unique genetic mutation: cats are missing 247 base pairs from the gene that codes for the one of the sweet receptor proteins. That means cats probably don’t get sugar cravings either!
Q: Whenever I go to a fish market it always smells so bad! Why is that?
A: Many cold water, surface dwelling fish contain trimethylamine oxide, an odourless chemical on it’s own but once the fish dies, bacteria in the fish’s body break this chemical down into it’s ammonia derived components that smell pretty bad to us! This sense of bad smell may have evolved to warn us off eating old fish.
Q: Can I get ink poisoning from writing my shopping list on my hand?
A: Although not always the case, ink nowadays is generally considered non-toxic which means that unless you swallow a large quantity (more than about 29 grams) you should not get sick. However, the epithelia lining your digestive tract and your skin are two very different surfaces- your skin epithelia is waterproof and quite resistant whereas the epithelia lining your intestines is coated with mucus and highly absorptive so obviously it would be more harmful for you to swallow ink as opposed to writing it on your hand!
On air broadcast delivered by Chris KP on Sunday May 4, 2008
Online article written by Michelle Kovacevic
RESEARCHERS HAVE BEEN able to synthesise many new “superheavy” elements (namely element numbers 113, 114, 115, 116 and 118 ) over the last decade due to the development of highly sophisticated particle accelerators.
Unlike the first 92 elements of the periodic table, superheavy elements do not exist in nature and can only be created when scientists accelerate particles to very high speeds (faster than your average drag race) and smash their atomic nuclei together. If the nuclei of the two colliding elements fuse, then a new element is formed.
This has lead to the hypothesis of the previously unchartered “Island of Stability” a term that describes the possibility of elements having magic numbers of protons and neutrons, making their nucleuses stable, strange for elements so high on the periodic table which tend to disappear in the blink of an eye. This means that certain isotopes of some larger elements (with atomic numbers greater than 92) to be more stable than others and hence decay more slowly.
So why should we care? Well, previously synthesised elements, such as Americium (element 95) is used in smoke detectors and radiography so who knows what possible applications these mysterious elements could have. And as Ken Moody, the head researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California said, “Anything more you can learn about the periodic table is exciting. It can tell us why the world is here and what it is made of.”
Scientists have started working on the synthesis of Unbinilum, better known as element 120, the heaviest and most spherical element in the island of stability. In March-April 2007, the synthesis of element 120 was attempted at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Russia however, as yet, no atoms of 120 have been synthesised. Watch this space.
How to name an element….for dummies.
(care of www.chemicalelements.com/sup/sysname.html)
Ever looked at a periodic table and wondered what the heck those crazy element names are at the bottom that don’t seem to belong there? Uum, Uuo, Uuq, Uup ….. these are what we call “systematic element names” i.e. temporary names given to newly (and not yet) synthesised elements.
The chemical naming “government”, IUPAC (International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry) devised and regulates the naming system, based on Greek and Latin roots:
1) Break down the element’s atomic number into individual numbers. For example, element 120 would be separated into 1-2-0.
2) The element’s numbers are replaced by the Latin and Greek naming system i.e.
| Number | Name |
| 0 | Nil |
| 1 | Un |
| 2 | Bi |
| 3 | Tri |
| 4 | Quad |
| 5 | Pent |
| 6 | Hex |
| 7 | Sept |
| 8 | Oct |
| 9 | Enn |
3) All the roots are put together and –ium is added to the end. If bi or tri occur before –ium the I is dropped. If enn occurs before nil, the last n is dropped.
Example: 1-2-0 = un-bi-nil-ium or unbinilium
4) The chemical symbol is the first letter of all the Greek and Latin parts that make up the elements name. Thus the symbol for unbinilium is Ubn.
On air broadcast delivered by Dr Shane on Sunday 27 April, 2008.
Online article written by Michelle Kovacevic.
WITH RETRO BEING back in fashion, it is fitting that NASA is saying goodbye to their old space shuttles and introducing some hip, new technology that will take explorers to the moon and potentially to Mars.
Dubbed the “Constellation Program”, NASA is planning to set foot on the moon once again in 2020, aboard the Orion crew exploration vehicle.
Orion’s design borrows its shape from capsules of the past, being a retro combination of the old Apollo capsule and Saturn V boosters. It will measure 5 metres in diameter and have a mass of approximately 25 tonnes with an interior almost three times the volume of an Apollo capsule.
This means that Orion can transport 4 crew members on missions to the moon and can accommodate 6 passengers plus cargo to the International Space Station or (potentially) to Mars and beyond, compared to the older shuttles which could only hold a maximum of 3 astronauts.
Utilising current advances in renewable energy technology, Orion will orbit the moon with disc shaped solar panels which will track the sun to generate electricity onboard.
For missions to the moon, two separate launch vehicles will be used. An Ares V launch vehicle containing cargo will be launched before the Orion crew vehicle and will deliver the lunar module at a low-earth orbit. The Lunar module will take explorers to the moon’s surface. The crew vehicle will then launch and dock with the lunar module which is in the Earth’s orbit and both will be propelled on their journey to the moon.
Once the astronauts are in the moon’s orbit they will use a lunar landing craft to descend to the moon’s surface, with the Orion spacecraft staying in lunar orbit until their mission on the moon is complete.
The heat shield which protects the shuttle on it’s re-entrance into the Earth’s atmosphere is based on Apollo’s thermal protection system, however parachutes will also be used to slow Orion’s descent through the atmosphere.
Some newer features include:
Like a restored Cadillac, Orion marries tried and tested old world design charms with 21st century technology. Construction is currently underway.
Online article written by Michelle Kovacevic
A $3.1 BILLON desalination plant, the largest of its kind in Australia, has been commissioned by the Victorian government under the ‘Our Water, Our future’ water saving strategy.
With the last decade said to be the driest on record in Victoria, residents are being put under the pump with stage 4 water restrictions recently implemented in Geelong, making water increasingly precious as the months tick on.
Victorian Premier, John Brumby, has committed to providing $4.3 billion in major water infrastructure projects which is the most any Victorian government has committed to saving water in the last 25 years. “We have implemented the most successful water saving campaign in Australia”, he said, “with businesses and households jointly reducing their water use by 22 per cent in Melbourne and by similar amounts in regional centres.”
The plant will pump salt water from the Bass Strait that will be purified by reverse osmosis- a process that forces the salt water from a region of high solute concentration to low solute concentration through several semi-permeable membranes. The government plans to make the desalination plant carbon neutral by offsetting the 90MW of energy required to apply pressure greater than the osmotic pressure in order to force the salt water to flow against its concentration gradient.
The excess brine, a form of concentrated salt water that is generated from this process, will be pumped back into the Bass Strait. A spokesperson on behalf of the Department of Sustainability and Environment says that a range of environmental studies are currently investigating the effects of this salt water concentration discharge. The Department are working together with the Minister of Planning to ascertain whether an Environmental Effects Statement will be required.
When the plant opens, currently scheduled for 2011, it will produce an additional 150 billion litres of drinking water each year, providing Melbourne with approximately one third of its annual water requirements. Pipelines are being built to the Melbourne, Geelong, Westernport and South Gippsland areas.
However this is not the first project of its kind to be implemented in Australia. Perth’s Kwinana Desalination Plant is currently the largest desalination plant to be powered by renewable energy. It has been so successful that the Western Australian government plans to expand the plant to provide an annual 45GL of drinking water which will supply 17% of Perth’s water needs.
Desalination projects have also been successfully implemented in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the latter of which boasts the world’s largest desalination plant, capable of producing 300 million cubic metres of water per year.
Construction of the Wonthaggi plant will commence in mid 2009.
On air broadcast delivered by Dr Shane on Sunday 13 April, 2008.
Online article written by Michelle Kovacevic.
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT that global warming was causing enough problems, it seems that European scientists are about to add another cross to its name.
Scientists have calculated the effects of melting ice caps on the Earth’s crust and underlying magma and have found that magma melts faster as the pressure exerted by the solid ice sheets decreases.
This has a potentially serious effect on the risk of volcanic eruptions around the world. Magma (called lava once it rises to the surface) is molten rock that often collects in chambers beneath the surface of the Earth.
As the ice caps melt, the pressure exerted by the ice on the underlying rocks decreases and causes the occurrence of a process known as decompression melting. Every rock has a temperature below which it is solid (called the solidus temperature). This “melting” temperature decreases as the pressure is decreased therefore, theoretically, at a lower temperature, rock will melt more quickly, forming larger volumes of magma.
Carolina Pagli, from the University of Leeds and Freysteinn Sigmundsson of the University of Iceland have observed the rate of magma production occurring due to the melting of Vatnajökull, the largest ice cap in Iceland.
They found that an average of 1.4 cubic kilometres of magma has been produced every century since 1980, a 10% increase on the background rate. They say that this extra magma produced as the ice cap melts, could supply enough magma for large volcanic eruptions to take place every 30 years.
Explosive volcanic eruptions are driven by gases accumulating under great pressure. Hot magma rises through fractures in the mantle as it is less dense than the surrounding rock. As it rises, it interacts with ground water and the pressure increases until it explodes through the overlying crust, allowing molten rock, ash, and gases to escape.
Predicting whether particular eruptions will occur is quite tricky as the rate of magma migration to the surface is still largely unknown.
On-air interview with Kate Brennan (CEO of Fed Square) delivered by Dr Andi on Sunday 6 April, 2008. (Click here for an mp3 audio file of the show featuring the interview.)
Article written by Michelle Kovacevic
WITH AN ESTIMATED 41 million visits since its opening in October 2002, most tourists (and Melbourne residents) know that Federation Square is one of Victoria’s main tourist attractions. What they may not be so aware of, are the extensive sustainability projects that have been implemented around the venue, making Fed Square a hub for sustainability activities and community initiatives.
“We feel we have an obligation to reflect the views and interests of the community in their public space.” says Brennan. More recently, the views and interests of the community have tended to focus on sustainability and living a “greener” lifestyle, shunning the wasteful, materialistic urges that have dominated for so long.
With this in mind, The Federation Square Environmental Management Plan (EMP) was developed in April 2006 and is based on a commitment to protecting and improving the environment, particularly in the areas of water saving, waste reduction and energy consumption. In less than 2 years under this program, Federation Square has reduced water consumption by 14% (about 12-14 million litres per year…enough to fill 35 Olympic swimming pools!) and reduced their waste and energy consumption by up to 5% and 21% respectively.
This is a company that takes the phrase “every drop counts” seriously. Making water conservation and water recycling a priority, Fed Square has introduced waterless urinals and flow restrictors to all their public toilets and have installed 11 rainwater tanks around the site, managing to fit rainwater tanks “in places where people can’t imagine that we could squeeze in tank…and using that [harvested] water for our gardens and toilets.”
One of the bigger water saving projects has been reducing the amount of water going to the sewer from the Cooling Towers by a process called reverse osmosis filtering (more information on this filtering below) resulting in a 75% reduction.
Beyond their practical implementation of environmental sustainability initiatives, Fed Square is doing a lot of work in partnering with organisiations to get across the message they want to communicate about sustainability. Among countless other examples, their ongoing partnership with City West Water to stop water wastage and their support of companies who participated in Earth Hour, highlight the need for large corporations to support each other in their sustainability projects.
So where to from here? Will sustainability targets continue to be met? “We’ve set ourselves some pretty hefty targets trying to achieve carbon neutrality across the site by 2012…so we’ve got absolutely no intention of taking our foot off the accelerator.”
As long as it’s a hybrid car, Kate.
What is reverse osmosis filtering?
Solutions (particularly water) are purified by a process that forces the water from a region of high solute concentration to low solute concentration through several semi-permeable membranes. Energy is required to apply pressure greater than the osmotic pressure in order to force the salt water to flow against its concentration gradient. This process is commonly used in desalination plants – to turn salty water into drinkable water.
For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis
On air broadcast delivered by Dr Andi on Sunday 30 March, 2008.
Apple seed FAQ edited by Michelle Kovacevic
Online article written by Michelle Kovacevic
SOMETIMES WE FORGET about the importance of the origin of many of our food supplies. Wheat, maize, oats…what on earth would we do without these food staples? Come drought, nuclear attack or even a global warming disaster, we will be prepared because of seed storage centres known as seedbanks.
A seedbank stores seeds of importance, whether it be crop seeds or those of endangered plant species. The seeds are dried and then stored in subzero temperatures in order to preserve them for extended periods. However, because seed DNA degrades over time, seeds need to be replanted and fresh seeds need to be cultivated and stored.
At the moment there are about 6 million seeds stored in 1,400 seedbanks worldwide. Recently a new arctic vault was carved into the permafrost of a mountain on the remote island of Svalbard (famous as the setting for the movie, The Golden Compass). Nicknamed the “doomsday vault”, it is capable of storing up to 2.5 billion seeds, making it possible to hold twice as many varieties of agricultural crops than are currently known to exist.
The seeds are stored behind airlock doors at -18°C in airtight chambers, with the vault protected by high walls of concrete, an armoured door and sensor alarms…talk about high-security!
For more information about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, visit: http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed-vault.html?id=462220
Unfortunately not all seeds can be stored so easily. Cocoa (yes…chocolate) and rubber seeds must be periodically re cultivated as storing them at subzero temperatures damages the germplasm. They are known as recalcitrant seeds.
Did you know?
The oldest seed that has grown into a viable plant is a 2,000 year old Judean date palm seed, found in Herod the Great’s palace in Israel!
Indeed, seeds are amazing embryos, just waiting for the right conditions to help them live. Like a human embryo, the plant embryo within the seed can be thought of as the beginnings of a new baby plant, replete with its own food supply! The seed will start to develop into a seedling (the process of germination) when it has sufficient water, warmth, oxygen and light.
Hazy growth
As published in the journal Science, in 2004, a team of Western Australian scientists have been able to isolate the key chemical in smoke that initiates germination which explains why many Australian plant species germinate after bushfires. They have also found that plants from non-fire prone environments such as celery, lettuce and parsley also respond to this chemical! So it may not be long before we will be spraying our gardens with bottled germination fluid!
FAQs about apple seeds and apple trees!
Q1. Can you grow apple trees from apple seeds at home?
A1. Yes but its very tricky. You may need organic seeds and you need very special conditions. In the wild the seeds are activated after a cold winter. I have found three different methods you can experiment with at home.
Interesting point: Good apple trees only grow in the cooler and coastal parts of Australia. The seeds need a cold winter spell. It is no surprise to learn that Tasmania is called the ‘Apple Isle’.
The cool paper towel method
The indoor potting mix method (some people say this works too but it may depend where you live)
The chill method
Q2. How do market farmers grow apples?
A2. They don’t always grow them from pips. They graft apple tree branches onto other apple trees. Grafting means they join tree branches together by cutting them in a special way and bandaging them together so they eventually grow together and don’t need a bandage. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting for more information about plant grafting)
Q3. Can I use any apple seed?
A3. You may try two to three different varieties of apples to see which grows best. You may need to get a natural organic apple as supermarket apples may have been zapped to keep them fresh and the seeds are no longer any good for growing (viable to germinate).
Interesting point: Granny Smith is the Australian apple. Some sources also say that apple seeds don’t necessarily grow into the same type of apple. It also depends what type of apple pollinated the tree.
Q4. I grew one but it got mouldy. Why?
A4. If you over water the seedling, it can rot. We did say it was tricky!
Q5. If my apples seedlings grow … do I plant the tree outside?
A5. Yes, when your tree is around 20cm tall, you may plant it outside in a sunny spot with plenty of room to grow. Keep it moist and maybe put a jar over it to protect it from wind and animals. Sometimes heavy rain and wind can bend over young trees so when it gets taller loosely tie it to a stake it will also to help it grow straight. Late spring is the best time to plant. Keep plenty of mulch around the base, and don’t forget to water the tree. Protect it during the winter with a light covering.
Mature trees need to be pruned to rid of non-productive energy consuming branches. We want all the energy to go into the apple making. Some people find it necessary to spray the tree to keep them free of bugs and diseases.
Q6. How long before my tree starts growing edible apples?
A6. It takes about 6 years for an apple tree to mature before you start getting apples and maybe even longer to get tasty ones.
Q7. Are oranges easier to grow?
A7. Yes, and they don’t require any chilling. Oranges tend to grow in warmer climates. See the following website that will help you experiment:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2079932_grow-orange-tree-from-seed.html
Weird and wonderful science!
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