BOY WONDERS

 My Grandson Junior wants to be a rock drummer like Neil Peart from Rush or a scientist like Stephen Hawking.

This winter we've discussed a few bits of science.

We wondered if Earth's mountain climbers would love to climb Olympus Mons on Mars and who might be the first to do it?

We also gawped at this amazing photograph online of a fly's brain and all its neurons. How fantastic! It looks like a peacock!

We also talked about the famous Brisbane pitch drip experiment, the oldest running experiment ever, in which pitch tar drips incredibly slowly over decades.

Junior wanted to do something like it in our kitchen, his own oil and water and food colouring upwards drip! Here's a few snaps I took of the start of the boy wonder's coloured oil in a glass of water experiment.

Enjoy!

Junior asked me which Marvel metal is rarer, Adamantium or Vibranium. I said I'd ask you! Anyone?

SENSE 7, 8 AND 9

I did some autism training tonight. I was surprised to find out that there are not just 5 senses but 8!

The other three where completely new to me!

• Vestibular - sense of balance
• Proprioceptive - sensations from muscles and joints
• Interoception - sense of our internal organs eg. thirst, hunger

I wonder if these three senses become more important during space travel or maybe in the future with the colonisation of Mars?

Maybe these other senses will come into their own in a future humanity.

What do you think?

THE WORLD'S MOST MASSIVE MAGNET

I was reading about the world's biggest magnet. Its humungous and weighs many hundreds of tonnes. Once in position in France it will assist in the proposed production of fusion energy at ITER, which has proved nigh on impossible to make effectively anywhere up to press.

What amazed me was the magnetic power of the magnet. It will produce a magnetic field 280 times larger than our own Earth!

Its the stuff of 1950's B-Movies and I can't help feeling a little terrified by such massive science just like I did when I saw those sci-fi movies back in the Sixties. There's something very DOOMWATCH and Gerry Anderson about it all.

What do you think of huge technological sites like the Hadron Collider and this colossal magnet reader? 

I CANNOT SEE CLEARLY NOW

A question was posed where I work today. What's the difference between transparent, translucent and opaque?

Well I got opaque completely wrong, thinking that it meant foggy or misty. Apparently it means no light passes through it or something like that.

Even more troublesome was transparent, especially when someone asked if a mirror was that, transparent. But no, mirrors could be said to be opaque as light doesn't pass through them.

A further slippery scenario given was where a obviously transparent object like a small window can be clearly seen in the opaque mirror. Does the mirror render the reflection of the window opaque as well?

And what about a lamp reflected in a mirror? Can the reflection be classed as a light source and thus make the mirror transparent?

I cannot see clearly and my head hurts!

A PERFECT LIQUID

I heard on the radio that scientists have created the perfect fluid, a quantum material with stellar properties. Scientists believe that stars contain perfect liquids in their cores.

No idea really what this is but I liked the sound of it. I wonder if it could be made into a toy like flubber?