Improve Your Communication Skills
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
Girls Don’t Need No Education
‘WHAT?!’,I hear you cry. ‘Of course we need education!’ And you are absolutely correct.
Sadly in some areas of the world, this is not seen as a basic human right. Children, especially girls, are denied access to schools.
I am sure you have all heard of Malala Yousafzai, the young education campaigner from Pakistan who was shot by people who do not agree with her campaign for girls to be educated.
Malala is carrying on a fight for education that other countries have already fought and won. Tina explains how girls in her home country, United Kingdom, were once forbidden from going to school and when this changed.
Health Matters – How to Get Rid of Head Lice
Around one in three children in the UK is likely to get head lice at some point during a year. That’s a lot of itchy scalps! But what exactly are head lice and how can you get rid of them?
My Multilingual Life – Written By You
‘Do you speak English?’
For British and American girls who travel to a different country, that question is often the first sentence we learn.
‘Sprechen Sie Englisch’
‘Parlez-vous Anglais’
‘habla usted Inglés’
‘Вы говорите по-английски’
‘您说英语吗’
What is it like for the estimated two thirds of the world’s population who speak at least two languages? The people who we refer to as ‘bilingual’, if they speak two languages, and sometimes as ‘multilingual’, if they speak more than two languages.
The researcher and writer David Crystal estimates that of the approximately 570 million people in the world who speak English, over 41% are bilingual in English and some other language.
Today’s contributor knows all about speaking more than one language.
It’s genetic, isn’t it?
Genetics is the study of how genes are inherited in a population. A scientist interested in genetics is a geneticist. If something is genetic, that means it is passed to you by your Mum and Dad. You inherit genes from your parents.
Genes control most aspects of human life, from eye colour to how fast you can run. There are some fun ways to demonstrate genetics in your own family.
Take tongue rolling. The ability to roll your tongue is what we call a dominant trait. If you have the gene for tongue rolling you will be able to roll your tongue.