Blog

This decoration and the size of A4 paper share an interesting property. Get hands on to find out more! You will need A4 sheet of light card Pen Scissors Ruler Sticky tape What to do Making the pieces Measure down the long sides of the sheet of card, and make marks at 50, 149 and […]

Written by Dennis Price In this activity, you’ll draw one long line that spirals and snakes around the page, known as a spirolateral. Start with a simple one, and then go on to invent your own spirolaterals!

Written by Julia Cleghorn Imagine you’re walking on your own through the forest, late at night, and suddenly stumble across a giant, hairy spider. Frightening thought? Best not to dwell on it too much then. It did happen, though, to an entomologist – and what better day to discuss it than Halloween!

What will make our future brighter? For thousands of years our lives have been lit by the Sun, by stars, by fire. Electricity brought new types of lights, ones we can summon at the flick of a switch.

It’s three in the morning. Nature calls. You stagger from your bed, squinting in the darkness as you blindly weave your way past a bookshelf, around the glass cabinet, and down the corridor into the smallest room in the house. Not only do the scientists John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser understand how your […]

Have you ever wanted to measure something truly ridiculous? With a lamp and a piece of paper, you can answer a silly sounding question: How bright is the Sun?

Getting out of bed some days feels like too much effort. If only night lasted all day, just like it does for the blind Mexican cavefish. Like the fish, you just might save some energy by living in an endless night.

Earlier this year, South Australia’s wheat growers in the Yorke Peninsula had one of the worst mouse plagues on record. Thousands of mice ate seeds that had been sown by farmers. The areas to the south and east of Australia are the worst places in the world for mouse plagues.

You will need Felt sheet Good scissors Cutting the felt Cut a rectangle of felt about 6 cm wide and 20 cm long. Fold the felt in half so the short sides match up. Make two cuts, equally spaced, coming in from the folded side. Stop cutting about 2 cm before you reach the short edges of the […]

Written by Caitlin DevorThere’s life under ice. Scientists found an entire community of bacteria living 800 metres under the surface of glaciers in Antarctica. These bacteria rely on each other to survive in the dark, isolated, subzero lake.