Home, Health & Style

Easy Origami To Make Beautiful Decorations

If you fancy being creative today and you want to attempt to make some beautiful decorations to place around your bedroom, then try origami! Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper, however, it did not begin in Japan; this art actually began in the 1st or 2nd century in China. The name, Origami, is actually Japanese; ‘oru’ means ‘to fold’ and ‘kami’ means ‘paper’.
Origami can potentially be very difficult, but there are plenty of easier designs for beginners. The great thing about origami is that you can make practically anything, so you will be able to find a design that you love.
If you have never tried origami before, then you should start with a few of the following simple, yet effective, designs that will really brighten up your room.

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Science, Nature and Tech

Store Cupboard Science – Experiments at Home

While there are plenty of science kits in the shops, did you know that you can do loads of science with things that you already have in your store cupboard?  Science enthusiast Lisa White has put together a list of things that you need for a variety of basic science experiments.

 

 

store cupboard

 

 

 

You might need extra equipment but these are the basics. Having white vinegar, salt, bicarbonate of soda and washing up liquid in stock will be useful too!

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Language & Literature

Where Does the Word Candidate Come From?

Today is election day in UK, when the citizens of the country choose their new government. You can read all about how the elections work here. You wouldn’t think that dress codes of ancient Rome would affect the elections of today, but they do! Millie Slavidou explains.

Today is a good day to think about the word ‘candidate’. I rather like the etymology of this one.

It comes from Latin candidus, which is the past participle* of candidare, which meant ‘to make white, to make bright’.

Not because of whitewashing whatever the candidates might have said or done! It was because in ancient Rome candidates who wanted to be elected either to the Senate or any other office wore white robes.

If we take it one step further back, to a root meaning ‘white, shining’, we find that ‘candle’ is a cognate.**

 

*Past Particle

The past particle is the past form of the verb that can also be used as an adjective, like “a fallen tree”. In the case above, the adjective is like saying ‘whitened’ in English. Other examples of past particles are:

verb: bite
past particle: bitten
example: a bitten apple

verb: choose
past particle: chosen
example: aa chosen present

verb: crash
past particle: crashed
example: a crashed bicycle

 

**Cognates

A cognate is a distant relative, a word ultimately from the same root. Like a third cousin. Here are some examples of cognates.

 

14126405243_c179f6f9b8_qBook is related to beech. Well, actually, book means beech! Both come from Germanic word meaning beech tree, Buche.

Germanic runes were originally inscribed on tablets made of beech wood. Modern German for book is Buch!

 

2400500463_67988839f0_qWOOL and FLANNEL are distant cognates.  Today, fashion stores often describe plaid shirts as ‘flannel’, but it is actually a soft woven fabric, originally made of wool, but now often cotton or synthetic. You might have a flannel pyjamas, which are lovely and cosy in the winter!
The word wool is from a Proto Indo European root *wele meaning ‘wool’.
 In Welsh, the word gwlanen, means ‘wool’ and is from the same root. The word flannel comes from the woollen vests that were made, presumably by Welsh traders from Welsh sheep –  Gwlanen became fwlanen, and then flannel. So wool and flannel are distant cousins!

 

5556105449_ebe9616b47_q 14322245779_00c3428d73_qToday’s featured image is Marasmiellus candidus, a type of mushroom. You will often find the word ‘candidus’ used in botany or biology to describe something that is white, such as crocus candidus or the white woodpecker Melanerpes Candidus. There is even a white monkey called Propithecus candidus. 

Crocus Image

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Home, Health & Style, Written By You

The Cage of Society

What do you do when you see someone being bullied? And what happens when the bullies are your friends? These were the questions that were occupying the mind of 11 year old Kirsty. Here’s her story.

Not so long ago the only thing on my mind at school was to fit in with my friends and to feel like part of a group.We were a very close circle and I was positive that they were the most loyal, kind and caring friends I could wish for. However, there was one thing that concerned me, their behaviour towards a boy named Ryan.

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Science, Nature and Tech

A Trip to Mars!

Imagine being able to catch a flight to Mars as easily as we travel to another country – that was the idea behind the Trip To Mars session I attended at the Cheltenham Science Festival. It was conducted by Dr Suze Kundu and Dr Simon Foster and presented as a pre-flight safety briefing, with both of them dressed as pilots! There were a lot of humorous moments and sci-fi references but also some great science.

Suze and Simon suggested that in the future, flights to Mars could be far quicker than they are now, and explored how some of the bigger problems could be overcome. For example, the Sun’s magnetic field deflects a significant proportion of the cosmic radiation that could be harmful to humans on Earth; as spaceships travel further away from the Earth and Sun they will have less protection because the magnetic field weakens. To combat this it’s possible that spaceships will contain or be covered with large and powerful magnets, to produce the same deflective effect. This would have the added advantage of also deflecting radiation from solar flares.

Spaceships journeying to Mars would travel at such speed that even tiny fragments of rock and dust could be damaging to the hull. To combat this, and also the heat generated when the spaceship passes through an atmosphere, Suze and Simon discussed the possibility of spaceships being coated in aerogel. This amazing material is a solid formed from silicone dioxide but is 98% air; this means that it is extremely light but also strong. Its melting point is 1,200°C (equivalent to asbestos) and it is a wonderful insulator. Because it consists of large pockets of air between thin layers of silicone dioxide, any dust or rock fragments that hit it would be slowed and stopped before they could penetrate the aerogel completely.

Suze and Simon also discussed the possibilities and problems with cryostasis. Theoretically this is when a person’s body is cooled to temperatures so low that they enter hibernation, ideal for long journeys through space. Unfortunately our technology isn’t advanced enough to do this at the moment; any attempt would result in the cells rupturing and the person dying. But in the future it will be possible, perhaps after the person’s DNA has been altered slightly so that they can produce antifreeze proteins like some species of wasps and turtles.

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