Improve Your Communication Skills
S’not Nice but Necessary – Dr Matt Knows How Noses Work
The last time Dr Matthew Piccaver wrote for Jump! Mag, it was on the topic of poo, and today he’s going to tell you a bit about the part of your body that you might just have wrinkled in disgust… the nose! Find out how noses work but don’t get too comfortable, because it snot over yet …
A Kid-Friendly Explanation of The Big Bang & An Amazing New Discovery by Scientists
Most scientists believe that the Universe began in a Big Bang around 14 billion years ago. The entire Universe was inside a bubble thousands of times smaller than a pinhead, and was hotter and denser than anything we can imagine.
When the explosion called the Big Bang happened, the Universe as we know it was born. In a fraction of a second, the Universe grew from smaller than a single atom to larger than a galaxy. It kept on growing, and is still expanding today.
Now researchers in America think they have found traces left in the sky that prove this that the Big Bang did really happen. It takes the form of a distinctive twist in the oldest light detectable with telescopes. These twists of light are called ‘gravitational waves’ – the effect is a little bit like how waves form on the surface when you drop a big stone in a pond. However, you also have to imagine that the Big Bang formed the pond itself.
The team leading the project, known as BICEP2, has been using a telescope at the South Pole to make detailed observations of a small patch of sky. The aim was to find evidence of ‘inflation’ – the idea that the cosmos grew rapidly in its first trillionth, or trillionth of a trillionth of a second – growing from something unimaginably small to something about the size of a marble.
The leader of the team, Prof John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said:
“This is opening a window on what we believe to be a new regime of physics – the physics of what happened in the first unbelievably tiny fraction of a second in the Universe.”
Over the coming years, scientists will work hard to investigate every aspect of this discovery. Other experiments will be carried out to see if they can replicate the findings of the American team. If this research is confirmed, it will be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time.
EDIT
Dr Sarah Bearchell drew our attention to this video, which explains the concept of gravity and gravitational waves with the help of a towel, an apple and a ping pong ball. Check it out
Tales From The Farm – Help Name Rosie’s Lambs
Yesterday we heard the sad story of the lamb that did not survive. Rosie’s mum has been in touch to tell us how the other little lambs are doing.
As you can see from the pictures, they are all doing great. It was cold on the farm yesterday, as the family went about their duties, making sure the sheep and lambs were healthy and content.
Rosie’s dad has been ploughing the fields, and getting ready to sew oats and barley. Do you know what they look like?
Oats
Barley
Can you see the difference between the two photos?
There is always work to be done on the Farm, and it is not a 9am to 5pm job. It is a way of life.
Rosie and her family are going to find out whether the lambs are male of female and have asked Jump! readers to help name them. The lambs are named in alphabetical order, so this year their names should start with a “D”.
What do you think? What names do you like?
Leave a comment to suggest a name and Rosie will pick the names she likes best.
Woolly Hugs
Sometimes sad things happen, and when that happens we need a hug.
Sometimes sad things happen to people we know, and we offer them a hug.
Sometimes sad things happen to people we don’t really know and we feel helpless. We want to offer comfort but don’t know how. We want to hug them, but they are too far away, or not really good enough friends so that we feel we can offer a hug.
Real Life Minecraft – What is Quartz?
