Improve Your Communication Skills
Cellular Communications
When we talk about ‘cellular communcations’, we are not referring to use of a cell phone, because before mobiles or cell phones there was a time when this only meant cell to cell interaction within an organ or tissue. This important cellular behaviour drives diverse functions from contracting cells in your heart muscle to the cells in your nerves.
Lightning Never Strikes Twice
Continuing our Fact or Fable series, today we take a look at the saying ‘Lightning never strikes twice’, with our Science Editor Samantha Gouldson investigating.
Lightning forms when excess amounts of positive and negative electric charge build up in storm clouds. This causes sparks, kind of like static electricity. Sometimes the sparks jump between the clouds but often they jump between the clouds and the ground.
It’s not just thunderstorms that have lightning either; snow storms, sand storms and even the clouds produced by erupting volcanoes can all cause lightning.
The idea that lightning doesn’t strike twice is a popular saying but one that it’s easy to disprove.
How to Jump into Politics
Are you interested in politics? Are you not sure?
Recently, we posted an interview with MP Hilary Alexander. where she talked about how she was inspired to get involved in politics and do positive things for people. She also said that if we don’t like the way things are, we have the power to change them. Sometimes, though, as a younger person, it can be a little bit hard to know where to start – especially if you’re under 16 and can’t vote yet. Here are a few things to think about if you want to ‘be the change you want to see’!
Twirling Skye
My name is Skye, and I am eleven years old. I belong to Riverside Reflections, which is a baton twirling team.
My mum teaches us how to twirl, and sets our routines for us. She started twirling when she was five years old, which is quite a long time ago!! I started doing it properly when I was about five.
If you don’t know what twirling is, I’ll try to explain. A baton is a metal stick that is weighted at both ends, and has rubber to cover these ends. It is quite heavy, and hurts if it hits you, so you have to practise lots so you don’t drop it on your head!
What is Juno?
There has been a lot of excitement about the Juno probe this week, but what is it and what is its mission?
What is Juno?
Juno is a spacecraft designed and operated by NASA, the US space agency. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on the 5th August 2011 and has taken almost 5 years to travel the 716 million kilometres to Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. Juno is 3.5 metres in height, and when its solar arrays are extended it’s more than 20 metres across. These arrays are covered in more than 18,500 solar cells, which allows Juno to operate even when it’s at such a great distance from the Sun.
(Image: NASA)
Why is it called Juno?
In Roman mythology Juno was the Queen of the gods. She was married to the king, Jupiter, who wasn’t always well-behaved. Juno had to peer through the clouds to discover what he was up to; the spacecraft is called Juno because it will be looking beneath the clouds that cover the surface of the planet Jupiter.
Aboard the Juno craft are 3 models of Lego minifigures: Jupiter, Juno and Galileo, who discovered in 1610 that Jupiter had moons.
From left to right: Galileo, Juno and Jupiter. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LEGO).
What is it looking for?
Jupiter is enormous; it’s two and a half times larger than all the other planets in our solar system combined. It’s made entirely of gases and is believed to have no solid surface. The planet rotates at an immense speed, completing one rotation every ten hours, and telescopes have shown us that it has a cloudy atmosphere with colourful spots and stripes. The largest of these, known as the Great Red Spot, is a storm that is several times the size of Earth and has been raging for more than 300 years.
Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is clearly visible. (Image: NASA).
This mission is the first time that humans will be able to glimpse what lies beneath Jupiter’s cloudy atmosphere. The main objective is to understand how the planet formed and evolved, which will give us more information about the formation of gas giants as well as the rest of the solar system. Juno will also measure the quantities of water and ammonia within the atmosphere, examine the magnetic field that surrounds the planet, observe any polar auroras and measure the gravity to see whether a solid core may exist after all.
For more information about the Juno mission you can watch this video from Nasa, and have a look at the Juno mission webpage.