Innehållsförteckning för October/November 2023 från Brainspace

MATH Here's an easy way to square any two-digit number that ends in 5. Let's start with 35. Step 1 Take the first digit (3) and multiply it by the next higher number (4): 3 × 4 = 12 Step 2 Take the second digit (5) and multiply it by itself. In other words, square it: 5 × 5 = 25 Step 3 Now take the answer from Step 1 (12) and “attach” the answer from Step 2 (25) to get the final answer: 1,225. Try it yourself with the number 65. Did you get 4,225? Now try 45 squared. Check your answer using a calculator. AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS WITH THIS ALGEBRA TRICK! Based in the principles of algebra, try this fun trick: Think of a number (N) between 1…

GEOGRAPHY PART 3 OF A 3-PART SERIES In 1535, Fray Tomás de Berlanga, Bishop of Panama, a Dominican friar, was the first recorded person to visit what would later be called the Galápagos Islands. And it was by accident: currents pushed his boat toward the volcanic archipelago, according to Galápagos Conservancy. Since then, the Galápagos have been a destination for colonizers, scientists, industries, and more, including pirates and whalers. The hoards of treasure hunters and fishermen destroyed most of the islands' turtle population by hunting them for meat. The islands have also been penal colonies (prisons) for Ecuador. Prisoners were forced to work in sugar cane plantations on the islands in the 1800s. Many of these newcomers disrupted the Galápagos ecosystem and ultimately harmed many of its unique species. According to…

BOTANY Flesh-eating plants are an oddity of adaptation. To survive, most plants are photosynthetic, which means they absorb sunlight and use the soil's nutrients and energy to create food. Roots suck up elements, such as magnesium and potassium, to create glucose – their food. But what happens when the soil is poor or depleted of nutrients? Plants, like all other lifeforms, adapt to survive. Carnivorous plants have developed the ability to capture, kill and digest prey, but more importantly, they absorb the nutrients and continue to grow and thrive as a species. Why do insects fly towards these dangerous plants? The digestive enzymes and liquid bacteria in the plants smell like rotting matter or imitate the smell of nectars that attract small insects. DEADLY DEVICES Some carnivorous plants have adapted…

SPACE Gaze up into the night sky, and you're likely to spot the one and only moon our planet Earth has. Lune in French, mond in German, luna in Italian, fengári in Greek; our moon is beautiful in countries worldwide. But the moon is more than just a pretty face. The moon moves our ocean waters. Its gravitational force plays a crucial role in creating the tides on Earth. Tides are the rising and falling sea levels along coastlines. The sun's gravitational force also contributes to the overall tidal effects to a lesser extent. During the new moon and full moon phases, the Earth, moon, and sun align to combine their gravitational forces, resulting in higher high tides (spring tides). When the sun and moon are at right angles to…

CHEMISTRY INFUSED LAVENDER SUGAR MATERIALS -Small Mason™ jar -1 cup white sugar -1 tbsp dried lavender OPTION: SIFT THE LAVENDER PIECES OUT OF THE SUGAR. THE FLAVOUR WILL REMAIN. In a Mason™ jar or small container, combine the dried lavender and white sugar. Let the lavender infuse into this mixture for at least one week, two is better. Cooler weather inspires thoughts of warm treats and baking! Baking is a great way to learn about food chemistry and fractions. You could say it's an edible education! Gift an infused sugar like the one below. Or use the sugar for a sweet lavender cupcake on the facing page. And learn how to pipe icing like a pro using the methodology we've shared. Eat it, share it or gift it. Either way,…

BIOLOGY Flocks of pigeons vying for breadcrumbs in a park or perching serenely on statues are common sights, especially if you live in a city. You may also see them with their heads tucked in, catching a few Z's. And guess what? When pigeons are down for the night, it appears they dream about flying! Recently, researchers took a close look at dozing pigeons to see what was going on. Using video cameras to record eye movements and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines to measure brain activity, they observed 15 common pigeons (called Columba livia) as the birds snoozed. Here are a couple of the discoveries. Up, up and away! Like humans, pigeons cycle through two types of sleep. First, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep means that the sleeper's…

HISTORY Though robbery and crime have existed on waterways since ancient times, more than 5,000 pirates ruled the high seas from 1650 to 1720. Historians call this period of piracy the “Golden Age.“ It was an unsettling time of disruption on the seas, when robbing the rich, selling captives to slave-buyers and attacking tiny towns along coasts were common. Pirate ships flew gruesome flags with skulls and crossbones to warn everyone of their presence. Their terrifying ways threatened trade routes, Roman cargo ships and merchants from Greece. Some of the earliest and most notorious pirates were the Vikings, who were best known for pillaging lands far away from their homes. Pirates still exist today, mainly in the Pacific and Indian basins of the ocean. They steal an estimated 18 billion…

SPACE THE BIOSPHERE: OUT WITH THE BAD, IN WITH THE GOOD When different elements join, collide, break apart and join again, they produce a very ferocious stage in the life of any planet. Even after the Earth formed and the atmosphere began to stabilize, it was under siege. Early microbes, in their struggle for life, clashed with and consumed hydrogen gas. Hundreds of millions of years passed. These microbes evolved into prokaryotes and adapted further, finding energy in sunlight. Then, in a process called photosynthesis, they flooded the atmosphere with oxygen. The rise of oxygen formed a protective layer around the Earth and also helped cool the Earth, eventually encasing the planet with ice in a series of “Snowball Earths” 2.4 to 2.2 billion years ago. Some life forms survived…

Dreaming is a complex and fascinating phenomenon that has intrigued scientists, philosophers and psychologists for centuries. While the exact purpose of our dreams is still not fully understood, here are a few theories that may explain why we dream: ACTIVATION SYNTHESIS Proposed by psychiatrists J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley in 1977, this theory suggests that dreams are the result of random electrical activity in the brain during sleep. According to this view, the brain tries to make sense of random signals by turning them into a story, or a dream. It's our brain's attempt to find meaning in the random brain activity that happens while we sleep. MEMORY CONSOLIDATION In this theory, dreams may play a role in combining new memories with existing knowledge. During sleep, the brain organizes…

HISTORY The original Rapa Nui people arrived on Easter Island by sea canoe as early as 450 CE from Polynesia. For over a thousand years, the culture developed and the population grew to several thousand. But by 1877, the population was down to 111, the trees were pretty much gone, and carving statues had been abandoned. Perhaps the biggest Easter Island mystery of all is: How did this disaster happen? There are theories, but we may never be sure about the answers. The accepted explanation used to be that the people cut down all the trees to transport the moai. No trees meant no birds, soil erosion that ruined farmland, and no wood to build canoes to fish, leading to the starvation of the people. However, many experts now think…

THE HORSEHAIR WORM AND THE CRICKET Pictured here is a gnarly horsehair worm (gordian worm) swimming in a dish of water. How did it get there? It rode a tiny common cricket there, of course. Let's explain how that happened. It all begins in a river with a parasitic horsehair worm egg. The egg becomes a larva which is eaten by a mayfly, and that is exactly where the horsehair worm needs to be. Once inside the mayfly, the horsehair worm burrows into the fly's flesh and settles there to wait. The mayfly grows, and flies to dry land, where it is eaten by an unsuspecting cricket. Jackpot for the horsehair worm. Once inside the cricket, the horsehair worm goes to work eating the cricket's fat stores for about a…

FRANÇAIS KEY WORDS: au clair de la lune > in the light of the moon plume > feather (or pen) écrire un mot > write a word je n'ai pas de feu > I have no fire (flame) chandelle, morte > candle, dead Ouvre, porte > open, door lit > bed voisine > neighbour cuisine > kitchen briquet > lighter frappe > knock, hit chercha > look for Au clair de la lune, Mon ami Pierrot, Prête-moi ta plume Pour écrire un mot. Ma chandelle est morte, Je n´ai plus de feu, Ouvre-moi ta porte, Pour l´amour de Dieu. Au clair de la lune Pierrot répondit: — Je n´ai pas de plume, Je suis dans mon lit. Va chez la voisine, Je crois qu´elle y est, Car dans sa cuisine…

HISTORY FAST FACTS Sweet treats are part of many holiday celebrations – especially Halloween. But our long-ago ancestors would be amazed at how much sugar we use! What is sugar, anyway? Sugar is found naturally in fruits, some vegetables and even milk. But the sugar we add to baking and candy comes from either the thick stalks of the sugar cane plant or from sugar beets. It takes a lot of steps to get from a plant to the white crystals we put in our sweet baked goods and confections! Sugar cane, for example, is first washed, crushed and compressed to extract the juice. The juice is then purified and filtered, separating the sugar-rich juice from the more solid materials. It's boiled into a syrup and then a small amount of…