POLL RESULTS
Even if it was more expensive, if a car powered totally by renewable energy was available now, would you want one?
Forty-seven per cent of you are all set for a car totally powered by renewable energy. Still, if you live in a city, ditching the car altogether and using public transport is probably a much cheaper option, for similar benefits. View the full results and add your commentsThis week’s poll: Was primitive life first seeded on Earth from space? Have your say
THE WEEK’S TOP NEWS STORIES
Milky Way ringed by ‘missing galaxies’
The Milky Way could be surrounded by up to 2,000 small galaxies, too faint to be seen with current technology, say astrophysicists.
Erosion of vast mountain range led to explosion of early life
Oxygen that allowed complex organisms to first flourish, hundreds of millions of years ago, came from the ‘extreme erosion’ of Earth’s largest ever mountain range, geologists have found.
Neanderthals hunted marine mammals
Animal remains from caves in Gibraltar show for the first time that Neanderthals regularly hunted and fished seafood from mussels and fish to seals and dolphins.
LHC out of action until 2009
The multi-billion-dollar machine designed to shed light on the nature of the universe will be out of action until at least the second quarter of 2009, says CERN.
Planets caught in “catastrophic collision”
Two planets about 300 light-years from Earth slammed into each other recently, marking the first time evidence of such a catastrophic collision has been seen by scientists.
Spacewalk will be giant leap for China
Flushed with success after a widely applauded Beijing Olympics, China will seek this week to further burnish its image with a new chapter in its quest to conquer space. |
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IN FOCUS: The fun of watching things blow up
 I’ve just managed to drag myself away from a great interactive web site to write this. I recommend you check out The Periodic Table of Videos, enthusiastically put together by chemists at the University of Nottingham, in England.It’s your standard periodic table, but with a brief YouTube video for each and every element. The guys behind this have gathered interesting factoids and filmed daredevil experiments, to walk us through the characteristics of all 118 elements from helium to ununoctium. Watch this short trailer to get a feel for what the videos are like.
See wild-haired professor Martyn Poliakoff explain why the periodic table is important, and watch the scientists having fun as they toss chunks of sodium into bowls of water. You’ll be fascinated by facts such as that an amalgam of the metals sodium and potassium is liquid at room temperature, and that if you attempt to pour it to the ground from a height, it will react with water in the air and burst into flames before it hits the floor.
The site says that its videos have already been watched 2.4 million times. I can see this being massive with schoolkids, and I applaud these guys for creating a fun and cleverly put together tool, which does a great job of communicating science. That’s aside from the fact it’s just plain fun to see things blow up!
John Pickrell
Online Editor
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