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By Rok Willesee Difficulty: Tricky A scientist was looking back at notes they made about their experiments. Unfortunately, in one experiment the scales didn’t work. Can you help them work out what the weight should be in the final experiment?

Here’s a quick sliding puzzle to get your brain pumping. See if you can separate the light and dark counters in as few moves as possible!

There’s something afoot in this quiz! Can you get 5/5 and become a leg-end?

This month, CSIRO released its latest collection of favourite hands-on activities for kids. The Double Helix editorial team explains the thinking, splashes, scares and surprises they encountered while testing their new book: More Hands-On Science.

Difficulty: Taxing Jenny found a strange sum written on a piece of paper: EGG + EGG = PAGE Each letter represents a different digit, so P might be 1, for example. Can you work out what the sum really is?

The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting a wet spring and summer for Australia. How can they be confident in these long-term predictions? It’s because they’re not just watching weather as it happens, they’re also looking at what causes the weather.

Are you a science trivia buff? See if you know these fun factoids!

In this sample from More Hands-on Science, we’re looking at infinitely detailed shapes known as fractals. If you do this activity, you can discover a fractal called the dragon curve!

Difficulty: Taxing Grab a calculator (or a pen and paper) Choose a three-digit number (e.g. 123) Multiply it by 7 Multiply the answer by 11 Multiply that answer by 13 You will get your starting number written out twice! (e.g. 123 123) The question is, can you work out why?

The Sun is a colossal raging ball of heat. Atoms are fused together in its crushing depths, releasing awesome amounts of energy and spewing gigantic flares from its surface. But for the past few years, the Sun has been calmer than usual.