From the category archives:

General science

Mountain Answers

May 18, 2012 Earth and Beyond

1. The world’s tallest mountain is a little more complicated than it sounds. Mt Everest is the official highest peak, at 8,848m above sea level. But don’t forget it gets a significant leg up by being part of the massive Himalayan range, and the mountain peak is about 4000m above its base. For the [...]

Modern Moon Myths

May 14, 2012 Earth and Beyond

These pop up all the time, the moon has been just a little bit important in human history and we’ve had lots of time to tell myths about it. It would be nice to think that as a group we’ve grown out of werewolves and love spells, except we’re still doing it. There are new moon [...]

Write it Down

May 7, 2012 General science

I didn’t start on purpose, but this is turning into a little series on how some of the things we use the most have developed and changed. So far I’ve looked at cheese and milk bottle packaging. I enjoy history and archaeology, and I think the way we use materials and the effects of social changes [...]

Birds Walk on Their Toes

April 23, 2012 General science

In fact so do a lot of other animals, this walking on ‘feet’ business isn’t as simple as it seems. If you have a look at this photo something looks distinctly wrong about that bend in the middle. (Photo by Frank Vincentz) And this one, that looks right for a finch, but isn’t it wrong [...]

Greening My Home

April 20, 2012 Babies

On Tuesday I posted about ways to save energy at home with practical tips. Today I thought I’d look at our home and make some public commitments of things I can realistically change. The house is fairly well designed – it was a pre-airconditioning house for the desert so is up on stilts with all bedrooms [...]

Things to do Right Now to Save Money and Energy in Your Home

April 17, 2012 Babies

I have an addictive new app from Science Alert, which brings the latest science research in Australasia right to my phone. I’m sure you can guess why I like it. The other day it had this study from Wendy Miller at Queensland University of Technology showing that green homes use 80% less energy. Living in the [...]

Gondwana

April 9, 2012 Earth and Beyond

Quick quiz – do you think Australia’s jungles are more like the jungles of Indonesia (directly north) or the jungles of India (several islands away)? Seeing as there’s no point in asking a question with an obvious answer, you probably got it right by saying India, even if you have no idea why or how. The [...]

Movie Answers

March 27, 2012 Earth and Beyond

Sorry about the delay, we were without power for a couple of days last week, apparently a bird took out a whole transformer. The girls enjoyed the extra excuse to have takeaway While I catch up and rearrange, here are last week’s answers in place of this week’s quiz. 1. The Kessel Run is right [...]

Paragon of Animals?

March 19, 2012 General science

We fascinate ourselves, we want to know all about us. But we have a blind spot, an assumption that we must be the best. There’s something to back this up – after all, we dominate an entire planet and have reached beyond. Surely this means we are the pinnacle of creation? The topmost twig of [...]

Solar System’s Biggest Volcano

March 12, 2012 Earth and Beyond

It’s been said that the reason dinosaurs are fascinating is because they’re ‘big, fierce and extinct.’ Olympus Mons, or Mount Olympus, on Mars almost fulfills those criteria – it’s the solar system’s biggest volcano, it’s a volcano, and seeing it’s on another planet it’s as inaccessible as dinosaurs. Firstly the stats – Olympus Mons is [...]