It’s Festival Time!

2013 marks the 25^th year of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. It feels somewhat serendipitous that in my 25^th year I have joined the ranks of Science Communicators working to show children the joy of science in venues across the city.

I am based at the City Art Centre, the flagship family venue for the festival, all five floors of which have been transformed into hands-on workshops for children. These cover all aspects of science ranging from robotics to medicine, photography to polymerisation, mummification and jungle exploration to good old fashioned bubbles.

I am working at the ‘Blood Bar’. Staged in a mock cocktail bar we use a variety of demonstrations and activities to explore aspects of blood and the circulatory system with children from the age of eight. We dissect sheep hearts, deoxygenate blood to observe the colour change and make fake scabs and blood clots with the children to explore how clotting occurs in- and outside the body.

Working as a Communicator is a wonderful experience and it is a pleasure to get up in the morning to a job that I love! All the other Communicators are really friendly and there is a strong sense of community among the Science Festival staff which is lovely to be a part of. It is a joy to see the amazed reactions on children’s faces to the demonstrations and I’ve been really impressed by the curiosity of the children and the thoughtfulness of their questions. I was asked by a girl of about eight “Why do humans have red blood but insects have green blood?” – I only hope she maintains this scientific curiosity into her adult life!

Image Source: List Magazine

Watch very carefully…

Before you read this post, watch this video:

It’s about how close you can pay attention.  Go ahead, give it a quick watch.

Now, be honest, did you see the gorilla?  If you did see it, it probably looked quite obvious.  Yet roughly 50% of people who have never seen that video before will not notice the gorilla.

Inattentional Blindness

The reason for this is “Inattentional Blindness”.  Basically, humans can fail to see something when their attention is focused on something else.  However, when it’s pointed out to us, we can’t not see it.

Try watching another video, I guarantee that this time you’ll see the gorilla:

Did that get you?  It got me.

Inattentional blindness was first researched, accidentally, by a ghost enthusiast in the 1950’s.  Apparently, they wanted to find out if it was possible to make people think they had seen a ghost.  So they put on a white sheet and strolled along a pathway.  They reported that no one noticed anything strange (although some cows did follow the “ghost” around).  Even when they walked in front of a movie screen, only about 50% of people spotted it first time.[1]

This phenomenon seems to affect everyone, including people whose job it is to look for anything unusual.  Take a look at the picture at the top of the page.  See anything out of the ordinary?  Well if you didn’t, don’t worry.  83% of professional radiologists who were told to look for small cancer nodules on lungs scans, like the above, did not notice the gorilla.[2][3]

In one unusual case, a policeman was prosecuted for ignoring a violent assault that he claimed to have not seen.  Researchers were able to show that even in the daytime only 56% of people noticed a fake fight while they are concentrating on running. [4]

Has inattentional blindness affected you?  Try thinking about if this affects you in your daily routine.  Are you absolutely sure that you are seeing everything?  You could be missing a gorilla…

• [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/11/171409656/why-even-radiologists-can-miss-a-gorilla-hiding-in-plain-sight
• [2] http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/gorilla-in-the-bronchi/
• [3] http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2011/10/31/ghost-busters-parapsychology-and-the-first-study-of-inattentional-blindness/
• [4] http://i-perception.perceptionweb.com/journal/I/article/i0436

Payments over the phone

A lot of the parents have asked us if they could complete their payment for tuition by credit or debit cards over the phone. We listened, and as of today we can accept most major credit and debit cards, which will be securely processed over the phone using our card terminal.

If you would like to pay your next invoice online, please call our mobile office number: 075 8719 9529, our Project Manager Angie will process the payment for you.

Immediately after we authorize your payment you will receive an email confirmation.

GoCardless

Some time ago we started using a direct debit system called GoCardless to accept invoice payments as well.

Most of our clients are now using this system, where they click on a link included in their invoice.As part of setting up a payment, you will be asked to create a GoCardless account. From then on, you can log in to view your dashboard, including details of all your transactions.

How use GoCardless

• 1. Click on the payment link included in your invoice.
2. Enter your details (these are securely stored with GoCardless)
• 3. Choose a password

You can try the payment pages out for yourself on GoCardless example site at http://example.gocardless.com

Payment methods

To summarize, we are currently accepting the following payment methods:

• BACS payment, payable drectly into our account
• Cheques sent to our office in 18 Alva St, EH2 2QG Edinburgh
• Credit and debit card payments over the phone (call Angie at 075 8719 9529)
• Direct Debit payments operated by GoCardess

We are always looking at ways to improve our services, so please let us know if there is anything else we can do to improve your experience of working with Edinburgh Science tutors

You might have received a certain impression of maths from your school. You might think that it is a matter of following the rules. You do what you are told, and then you get the right answer.

This is very, very wrong.

It is more like painting, or sculpting, or crafting. Let’s go with the last one. Say you have been given a photo of a table and asked to recreate it. You have your tools and your materials. Now, there are many ways you could make the table. Which wood, which order, which tools? There are better ways to build the table, but as long as you have something that looks table-like at the end, it does not matter which method you used.

Mostly, at school, the subjects you are learning in maths are actually the tools. This is important of course. Learning what you can use and when is important – there is little point in trying to use a saw as a hammer. In the same way, you could try to solve a quadratic equation by trigonometry, but you would get nowhere fast.

However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t different ways to solve a quadratic.

Say we want to find the solutions of x2 + 5x + 6 = 0. How do you do it? Well, let’s guess, to start with. I guess that x = -1. If we guess that x = -2.5, we find that the left hand side equals -1/4. So at x = -2.5 the left hand side is negative and at x = -1 the left hand side is positive. So somewhere between -2.5 and -1 the left hand side must cross 0. Therefore there must be a root that is smaller than -1. So we try -2 and this gives us 4 – 10 + 6 = 0. Therefore, one solution must be -2.

Even if the right solution is some horrible number like 0.232352352165666, we can use this method to get as close to the right answer as we want. This can be slow, so how about a faster method, like factorisation?

We are looking for an answer of the form (x+a)(x+b).

We know that ab must be 6 and a+b must be 5, because when we multiply out the brackets we get x2 + (a+b)x + ab. So for a and b we need two numbers that multiply together to get 6, and add together to get 5. By looking at the factors of 6, you’ll see that 2 and 3 are our numbers. So the roots are x = -2, -3.

This method is faster for nice roots, but for horrible ones like the villainous 0.232352352165666 it doesn’t really work. You’d have to guess some pretty nasty numbers, and it’s harder to see if you are getting close.

There is a way to always get the right answer though.

There is something called the “quadratic equation” that we can get by mucking around with an arbitrary quadratic like ax2 + bx + c. An example derivation is on Wikipedia (you’ll see that there are many ways to derive it!). This equation is:

Let’s try this for our old equation of x2 + 5x + 6 = 0. We set a = 1, b = 5 and c = 6 and plug them into the quadratic equation. We end up with x = -2, -3. These are our answers from before.

So we can use the quadratic equation to find the solutions to any quadratic equation. Wait, any? Even ones like x2 + 5x + 7 = 0? This one doesn’t seem to work, we end up with a square root of a negative. Well, it does but in a rather unexpected way … but this is another story.

Which of these methods is the right one?

Any of them! Once you know how to use them, it’s up to you how you use them. Just like building a piece of furniture, or painting a picture, or writing a story, you can use any tools that work to get to the endpoint. You can even start using your tools to build more tools.

Mathematics is possibly the most important subject you will learn at school. It’s difficult to find a job that doesn’t use numbers, or more crucially could not be made better and/or more efficient with use of maths. But even more than that, like writing, painting or crafting it can be fun, a hobby even.

Thinking like this does have practical advantages too. Next time you face a maths problem that you have no idea how to solve, just play around with it. Use the tools you know and see what happens. This is what professional mathematicians do every day. In school, your teachers know the answers. Outside, it’s up to you to find them, however you can.

What I Did On My Holidays

Earlier this month I went to two physics conferences.  Previously the only conference I had been to was a shoulder and neck surgery conference.  Well, I sort of attended.  I was a waiter there.  That probably doesn’t count.

The first conference I went to was the ATLAS UK meeting in Lancaster.  This was for everyone in the UK working on the ATLAS detector at CERN.  The format was that each of the various research fields would present a summary of their findings over the past year.

My first impression was “My God, it’s full of laptops!”  Quite literally, everyone in the lecture hall had their laptop out.  Some looking at emails.  Some sneakily reading newspapers.  At least one person appeared to be writing their speech for later in the day.  Luckily I had brought along my laptop, otherwise I would have looked quite out of place.

It was quite an interesting experience.  I have only really studied a small part of particle physics, and this meeting really brought that into focus.  There were people talking about the Higgs boson, supersymmetry, hardware upgrades, exotic particles, all sorts of topics.  I must admit that I did not understand most of it.  Nonetheless though, it was fascinating.

The other conference I went to was the Higgs symposium at Edinburgh.  Given that I am studying Higgs physics, this one was a lot more understandable.  The other advantage was that as I know Edinburgh considerably better than Lancaster, I was able to sneak out during a break for a bacon sandwich from a cafe.

Whereas the ATLAS UK meeting was about the past, the Higgs Symposium was more concerned about the future.  Yes, the Higgs boson has been discovered, but what now?  It appears that the Higgs to have a very awkward mass – it’s just small enough that we can’t rule out anything strange like supersymmetry.

Supersymmetry is the theory that every fundamental particle has a much larger partner.  This could possibly be the next big theory in physics, but the problem is that no-one has found much evidence for or against it.  A large Higgs boson could’ve indicated some form of supersymmetry but instead it has chosen to be rather … unhelpful.

All of which means that nobody appears to be very sure what the future of particle physics will be.  And, if you remember what I said last week about surprise in science, that means that the next few years could be quite exciting indeed.

STOCK CLEARANCE

Official SQA Past Papers for just £1.50

With final exams only a few months away, why not give students the opportunity to buy Official SQA Examination Past Paper books for only £1.50 each?

We are currently clearing out all leftover stock from the 2010 season and at present have books available at all subjects and levels. These books contain up to five full years of Past Papers and answers from 2006–2010. At only £1.50 per book, this really is an offer not to be missed!

We are expecting great demand, so please order as soon as possible to avoid your students missing out on this amazing opportunity. To take advantage of this offer, either complete this form with titles required and return it to us or simply get in touch with us by:

HOW TO ORDER

Download the order form here

Phone: 0131 220 5804

Email: sales@brightredpublishing.co.uk

Fax: 0131 220 6710

Post: Book Orders
Bright Red Publishing Ltd
6 Stafford Street
Edinburgh
EH3 7AU

I do hope that you are able to take advantage of this offer and help deliver these books to your students at this great value price!

Yours faithfully,

Richard Bass
Bright Red Publishing IPG Education Publisher of the Year 2010 & 2011

New Year, New Blog

Welcome back from the Christmas break everyone.  I hope the snow is cheering you up, and I’m sure that if it does that has nothing to do with any school closures.

This year, I am thinking of introducing a new feature.  Occasionally when I’m in a tutorial, my student asks me a question that I just cannot answer.  It could be a topic that’s just too tangential for the tutorial – time is limited after all – or something that I simply don’t know.

That’s Funny..

This is only natural, and it shows how even after studying physics and maths at university there is plenty that still surprises me.  I like that: the best science is the surprising kind.  Isaac Asimov said that the most exciting phrase in science is: “That’s funny…”.[1]

However, as I said, a tutorial is not really the place for a thirty minute discussion on the Higgs Boson, or cross-country races, or the nature of photons, or anything.  So I thought that if a question or subject came up that a tutor didn’t want to talk about right then, they could pass it to me and I could write a blog post about it.

Email us!

If you’re reading the blog and want to ask a question, go for it!  Just send an email to hello@edscitutors.co.uk you could send one to our twitter @EdScienceTutors

I should say that if your question doesn’t get answered online, it is most likely because we have had so many emails that I cannot write about them all.  I assure you though, I will read every one.  If your question does not really work as a blog post, I will try to write you something personally, so you will get an answer.

The inspiration for this came from xkcd’s “What If” blog, which I heartily recommend to anyone around.  I hope to make this blog more personal, though.

So tutors, students, everyone, if you have a question or a curiosity, let me know and I’ll research it and post it up here.

I hope you have a very happy new year.

References:

My secret about studying Biology

Most students find Biology interesting. It’s easy to relate to our lives and learn more about our planet or how our bodies work. The problem with Biology, I find, is the vocabulary. Students tend to struggle with biological terms, which often discourages them from reading the textbooks and studying.

How to learn Biology?

I’ve studied Biology at university for 6 years now, and I’m going to share my secret about learning Biology: don’t memorise anything, try to learn biology as though you were learning stories. For instance, if you’re learning about protein synthesis, start by learning about the protagonists of the story: the DNA, mRNA, ribosomes, enzymes and finally amino acids and proteins.

Get to know them, say aloud names of all the participants of your story, look up what they look like on the Internet or YouTube. Move on only once you’re happy that you know who’s taking part in the story of protein synthesis.

Where is your story set?

Each biological process takes place in a specific environment. Learn about the setting of the process you’re trying to understand. Eg. in case of protein synthesis you will start in the nucleus and then move to the cell cytoplasm through a nuclear pore. The next part of the story occurs in the Golgi apparatus and then wherever the proteins are needed in the cell at a particular time. List the settings in the order of appearance in your story.

Divide your story into scenes

Scene 1. Transcription. Now that you know your setting and the protagonists of the story you can imagine them in scene number 1. List all the scenes (or stages) of the process you are trying to learn and imagine what happens in each scene. You can even draw a story board. Make sure you understand why the events take place in a certain order and who does what in each scene.

The finale

In biology, each process has a purpose. Make sure you know WHY and WHEN the story you are learning about is happening. Here, protein synthesis occurs whenever a cell receives a signal to produce more protein, for example before cell division or in response to growth factors.The last frame of your story board will be the great finale – the final result of your story – here, a polypeptide which folds into a protein after detaching from the ribosome.

Don’t forget the 3 Rs

Review, Remember, Recall. Once you’re familiar with your story, describe it to someone. Nothing works better as a form of revision than explaining what you have just learnt to someone else.

This technique can be applied to many subjects, but I find it works particularly well when learning biology. There are so many stories you can divide into stages and break down into storyboards.Not everyone will find this studying technique useful, but it’s worth giving a try.

Let us know in the comments how you got on!

The Science of Sleep

Surprisingly, there isn’t a proper answer to the question ‘why do we sleep?’.

Instead, it’s easier to answer ‘why don’t we not sleep’.  Research has shown lack of sleep can cause headaches, increased irritability, problems with memory, aching muscles …. The list goes on [1]!

Long term sleep deprivation in animals has even resulted in death. So we can definitely take from this that it’s very important to get enough sleep, especially with exam season coming up.

Bird migration is caused by circadian rhythms, the same types of rhythms in humans that contribute to how awake we feel.

The first is something called our circadian clock, found in the part of our brain called the Hypothalamus. This biological clock is found within all of us, has a period of 24 hours, is in sync with day and night cycles and drives circadian rhythms within our body.

 These rhythms are physical and mental changes within our bodies that obey 24 hours cycles and one such rhythm is our sleep-wake cycle. The second factor that controls our sleep is called homeostasis. This process is a balancing one, it keeps our bodies’ environment stable for example maintaining our temperature and keeping our blood at the right pH level. It also determines our sleep drive.

Your circadian rhythm dips at this time and, especially if you didn’t have enough sleep the night before, can leave you feeling groggier and wanting a nap. For some reason, I’ve definitely noticed this more since coming to uni and I like to think it’s why students nap so much!

Scientists even believe humans used to have 2 bouts of sleep during the night with a period of wakefulness in between [2]. Here’s a quick test that can help you to optimise your sleep.

As I previously mentioned, our circadian clock is in sync with the cycle of day and night. When light starts shining into your room in the morning, your brain get to work waking you up by raising your body temperature and preventing the release of hormones like melatonin which cause drowsiness and lower your body temperature.

On arrival at your new destination, the new time zone means your body is no longer in sync with day and night. This means your circadian clock is still telling your body to do things in sync with the old time zone, messing up your sleeping patterns along with your eating and even your body temperature.

Do you think you get enough sleep at night? Are you a night owl or a morning person? Let us know in the comments!

References:

• [1] Another article on why we sleep
• [2] A BBC news article on this topic Some more in depth articles on sleep can be found here from the National Sleep Foundation.

Welcome back

We hope you had a relaxing festive break and are ready to embark on the challenges of the new year.

Below is our list of resolutions and aims for 2013:

• To build on our success from 2012 and continue to gather the best science tutors in Edinburgh
• To spread our love for science and home tuition by continuous development of our blog
• To facilitate growth and professional development of our Tutors
• To ensure a smooth transition to the New Curriculum for our Tutees and Tutors
• To work in partnership with students, their parents and our tutors and make sure that student’s tuition goals are achieved

Here is to the New Year 2013, we have a feeling it will be a good one.