Science, Nature and Tech

Under the Sea with the RRS Discovery

Last month the The RRS Discovery, the most advanced research ship was launched in Southampton.
At £75 million it is one of the most expensive research ships ever commissioned. It measures at  just over 100 metres long, with seven main laboratories and a bridge like the Starship Enterprise! It has just begun expeditions around the British Isles, currently examining the UK’s continental shelf, a band of sea floor around 50m-100m deep.

“These shelves are really very important,” says Dr Sanders from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. “There is a lot going on in the shelf seas and we need to understand how they work so we can safeguard their future.”

Read More...

Art & History

POO-EE! Roman Toilet Seat Found Near Hadrian’s Wall

How would you like to root around in a 2000 year-old toilet?! The Romans created aqueducts, newspapers, and bound books… but did you know they helped create the toilets we have today?
Archaeologists at a Roman excavation site in Northumberland have recently uncovered a wooden toilet seat…that is 2000 years old! While it looks a bit more basic than the toilet seats we have today, it shows that they were very concerned with cleanliness.

 

Roman toilet seat

The Roman wooden toilet seat. Not looking bad to say it’s 2000 years old! (Source.)

Read More...

Home, Health & Style, Popular

8 Supermarket Tricks to Make Your Parents Spend More

You might have noticed that many supermarkets have a similar layout. This is no coincidence. Researchers have spent many years working out how to set out the store in order to get customers to spend more! See how many of these supermarket tricks you recognise, the next time you go shopping with your parents!

 

Huge Trolleys 

Shopping Trolley

Pic Credit

Shopping trollies are deliberately MUCH larger than needed for a weekly shop, which encourages customers to buy more. In fact, they’ve been getting bigger and bigger in the past few years.

 

The Bakery at the Entrance

2294642565_9156a43184_z

Pic Credit

That smell of freshly baked bread? Not only does it make you want to buy a yummy loaf, it also makes you hungry. It is well known that if you go shopping when you are hungry, you buy more!

 

Tempting Fruit and Veg

2520108278_25d12eabea_z

 

Pic Credit

After the bakery, comes the fruit and veg section. This often strikes me as a bit daft – by the time I get around to tins and packets of pasta, my salad is squashed at the bottom of the trolley! The bright colours tempt customers, and lots of supermarkets present fruit and veg in baskets or crates, to make it seem like they’ve come straight from the farm! Once you’ve filled your trolley with healthy produce, you’ll feel better about the packets of biscuits and crisps that come later!

 

Essentials Around the Store

2750785422_36e9cc8d38_z

Pic Credit

Just popping in with your parents to quickly to pick up some eggs, or milk? You might notice that these essentials, and others like sugar, salt and flour, are spread around the store. The supermarket planners want you to walk around the store as much as possible, passing all those tempting special offers at the end of the aisles.

 

End of Aisle Offers

12458644414_265849ee10_zPic Credit

The shelves at the end of the aisles are the ones that we pay most attention to, and so supermarkets stack their special offers there, to persuade you to buy them. These are often things like fizzy drinks, that you might not normally purchase.

 

Loyalty Cards

7226381024_ea30591518_z

 

Pic Credit

Supermarkets don’t just give their customers loyalty cards to encourage them to come back to their stores. They also use the data (information) collected to target their advertising better. If your parents have a loyalty card, have a look at the next letter they receive to see if they are giving discounts on products that your family often buy. Have a think about what the supermarket would know about your family – if you have a pet, when you have birthdays (e.g. if you buy a cake in the store), what toys you like, which interests you have (e.g. your parents bought a magazine about traveling to Italy).

 

Sweets at the Checkout

3058904416_228b3eb855_z

Pic Credit

Ok, hands up if you’ve ever asked your parents for sweets when you were at the checkout! In Germany, they have a word for this – Quengelware. The word is made up of “quengeln” which means “to whine” and “Ware”, which means products. Products that make kids whine or grump at their parents, who are fed up with the hassle of shopping and give in to their kids’ demands! Some supermarkets now advertise that they have lanes without sweets, so that parents can avoid this argument.

 

Kids’ Products at Your Eye Level

193889938_0ea7455630_z

Talking of kids in supermarkets, did you ever notice that products aimed at kids are displayed at your eye level? The cheese strings are placed at that height in the hope that you will ask for them!

 

How many of these supermarket tricks did you recognise? Next time you go shopping, take a good look at how the store is laid out and see if you can find some more.

 

Featured Image

Read More...

School & Career

So You Want to be a … Diplomat?

When you think of a diplomat, what do you imagine? For some, it will be posh frocks and parties. Others will think of exciting spying missions in exotic countries – Our Man in Havana, or perhaps Our Woman in Harare? If you want to be a diplomat, we have some great advice for you today. This was written from the viewpoint of UK Foreign Office applicant, but much of this will apply to citizens of other countries too.

Read More...