How to Walk the Nile

The man who conquered the Nile, Levison Wood battled through blisters and exhaustion, he walked the length of the Nile, through war zones and completely deserted regions of Africa. He had to bypass a small section of the Nile because he found himself caught in the midst of a civil war in South Sudan, he also battled through temperatures as high as 62C, he raced to reach a well in the desert through dwindling water supplies, but he made it, 9 months and thousands of miles later. 

Lev had to stay hydrated, walking with guides and journalists covering his adventure, unfortunately an American journalist, Matthew Power collapsed due to heatstroke, hours away from help he died, Lev carried on, dedicating the rest of the expedition to Matthew and his wife Jess. The tragic incident was a stark reminder of the physical challenge which lay ahead, not only to get to the end of the Nile but simply to survive. 

Lev, a former British Army Captain was used to being around in war but he said this was like nothing he'd ever seen, he said "One guy tried to attack me, and threatened to kill me", in the Channel 4 series, he talked about the fact he became a target because they wanted to attack anyone accosiated with the UN, potentially supporting the other side. 

Months later he completed his expedition, although his hopes for being the first to walk the length of  the Nile were ended after he was forced to skip a 400 mile war torn stretch of the Nile. 

As he entered Egypt, he viewed it as a kind of respite, although he was consistently followed by two police cars and a personal bodyguard, all to protect him from extremist groups or any other problems which may have occured. Throughout the trip, he explored some of the treasures of Africa, even some pyramids that a Pharoh blew the tops off to hunt for treasure - all to no avail, as he found treasure in only one of the pyramids! 

So how do you walk the Nile? The answer? Walking the Nile is a battle, a battle with the elements, a physical and mental battle and certainly not for the faint hearted,with temperatures averaging 50C it's about staying hydrated, drinking as much water as humanly possible - but as Lev has proved, it's all possible. 

Levison's book, Walking the Nile is available to buy from all well known book stores and Amazon

Meet the people who want to head to Mars... (part 1)

It's crunch time, the Dutch firm called Mars One have just a few months left to decide whether they will launch the first unmanned mission to the moon in 2018. The firm has whittled 200,000 entries down to just 50 men and 50 women. Now, they need to cut this down to just 40 people, with four travelling on the first mission. Of these entrants, five are from the UK, including Maggie Lieu who's studying for a PhD in astrophysics, she said it would be a privilege to be the first woman to give birth on Mars which would give her, a baby martian. 

The story of the final four, who begin their new lives in 2025 will feature in a reality TV programme, the company that's behind Big Brother. It's thought that this is going to be "Big Brother on Mars", showing the difficult selection process, documenting the thoughts of these aspiring pioneers every step of the way, this is a journey that continues and will continue to do so as the final four embark on a journey of a life time.

Part 2 coming soon 

Richard III and his right to rule...

Richard III (1452-1485), Monarch of England he died on the Battle of Bosworth field - written into the history books until a couple of years ago when a mystery skeleton was discovered in a car park in Leicester (UK) in 2012. The previous year DNA tests made him the oldest man to be identified by genetic analysis. Scientists are pretty sure that this is him they've dug up, although last year a paper was published in the journal "Nature Communications". The research says that a false paternity occured somewhere between the 14th an 19th Century - which raises a whole load of questions - is the Windsor monarchy illegitamate? 

He died on in the Battle of Bosworth, he was the last English monarchy to die in battle - but since he was dug up from the car park, he remains buried at the Greyfriars medival church. Since 2012, scientists at the University of Leciester have managed to unlock some incredible secrets. When the remains were first discovered, they immediately were able to identify that the person had a curved spine (scolioisis), they also used radioactive carbon dating to identify the skeleton was from the 15th Century. They then identified the skeleton was male and bore scars which fit with a death in battle. At this point - the signs pointed to Richard III but no one could be 100% certain until they had concrete, genetic evidence. 

Although there was a problem. Richard III didn't leave any descendents, which makes tracing a person with any kind of genetic link virtually impossible. So, scientists had to painstakingly trace his family tree back four generations to Edward III in the 12th Century, then back down to people living today but the scientists found someone, Michael Ibsen, a London cabinet maker. They compared the skeleton's maternal DNA with Michael's and it was an exact match. They even shared one of the rarest types of mitochondrial DNA which is given the very long name of "haplotype J1C2C", only carried by about 1% of the population. They also tested a descendent of Anne of York - again a match, not as close match, but close enough. 

As the issue of paternity goes, the scientists working on Richard III's skeleton say there MUST have been a "false paternity" at some point after the reign of Edward III, so at some point in 19 generations. Even multiple scientific surveys suggest that one in 50 children are not the children of their believed to be fathers. Of course the papers where quick to jump on the face Queen Elizabeth II may not be entitled to the throne, but whatever you believe this has unlocked huge secrets behind the human genome. 

Processes Explained: The Movement of Water Through Plants

Water needs to travel up through the roots of a plant for photosynthesis in order for a plant to survive. Roots, like everything have cells, these are root hair cells. These root hair cells are long and a thin extension of the root epidermal cell. They only live for a few weeks before they die and are replaced by others growing near the tip. Because roots absorb water, minerals and ions they constantly loose water by transpiration so this needs to be replaced.
Every root hair cell is adapted to its function because:

• They have a large surface area because there's thousands of branches which come off of each root. 
• The root has a thin surface layer (made up of the cell membrane and the cellulose cell wall) which allows material to move across the plant easier. 

In damp conditions when there's more water, a solution forms which contains minerals and mostly water. 

In areas of high water potential in the soil means water moves by osmosis from the soil into the root hair. 

Once it's in the root hair cell it takes one of two paths - 

• the apoplastic pathway
• the symplastic pathway

To be continued...

This is based on AQA AS Biology Chapter 13 Movement of water through plants. 

Song lyrics you just Can't Get out of your Head...

To quote a famous song, Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head to be precise, there are just some song lyrics that you just can't get out of your head. They just play and replay over and over. Scientists call this phenomena an 'ear worm' (sometimes called involuntary musical imagery)- it can last for minutes or sometimes hours. They say these can be triggered through a whole number of ways, from stress to simply recalling a memory where perhaps the song was last played. Polls across the internet name Kylie, Adele, Abba and Queen as some of the worst offenders. A scientist called James Kellaris conducted research which found that up to 98% of individuals experience earworms  although they tend to last longer in women and are more irritating! Although we might see these as intrusions, songwriters love them because after all, it's what makes us buy the record!

Kylie Minogue one of the worst ear worm offenders performing on her Aphrodite Tour
in 2010

Happy Christmas! #SciSparksAdvent Day 25

Here's the last installment of my advent calendar for this year, I hope you are all having an amazing Christmas, while you are all tucking into your Christmas dinner here's some of the science behind Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer.

How did Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer get his red nose?

In 1939 an illustrator and author of children's books Robert May created the character of Rudolph (sorry kids!!) which  became an instant hit, in the decades to come Rudolph had a song, TV special, all of which cemented him in Christmas tradition. Although it's not all TV, Reindeer's do in fact have red noses!

To many people's surprise this has actually been researched and the results have actually been published in a science journal. There are  many reasons why this is the case, one of which being that they have densely packed blood vessels in their nose near the skin's surface. This in fact, is what scientists call "nasal microcirculation". Every Christmas Eve Rudolph pulls Santa's sleigh through every climate - so this kind of circulation is essential for all kinds of extreme temperatures. The tiny blood cells which are known as micro-vessels in the nose which mean the reindeer can control the amount of oxygen delivered and inflammation, as well as regulating temperature. Scientists even used infrared thermal imaging to show that reindeers really do have red noses!

Merry Christmas!! :)

SANTA DOES EXIST! #SciSparksAdvent Day 24

Christmas Eve really wouldn't be the same without Santa, but here's why Santa definitely DOES exist!

Let's assume that all 2.2 billion people are both "nice" and they all want a "typical" toy off of somewhere like Amazon. So if each toy weighs around 200g that means Santa would be hauling 500,000 tonnes of toys. So Santa stays up for around 36 hours in a row all in the same red coat, all in complete extremes of temperature, in some parts of Russia it can reach below -50 degrees Fahrenheit and as much as 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Dubai. But that doesn't make it impossible - even though Santa has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world!....

Post of the Year #SciSparksAdvent Day 23

Here is my most viewed post of all time on my blog!

Albert Einstein pencil sketch
 that I have drawn

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them"

 ~ Albert Einstein 

The German born physicist Albert Einstein was born on March 14th 1879 in Württemberg, six weeks after his birth he moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at Luitpold Gymnasium. As a child he enjoyed classical music and even played the violin. 

One story that Einstein enjoyed telling about his childhood was of a wonder that he saw when he was about four or five years old: a magnetic compass. Okay this may not seem much with today's technology but the compasses needle's northward swing, guided by an invisible force fascinated Einstein, this wonder could even have been what inspired him to bigger and better things in his adulthood. 

In 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich where he trained as a teacher in physics and maths. Later, in 1901 he gained a diploma which went on to earn him a Swiss Citizenship. Unfortunately he was unable to find a teaching post so he accepted a position as a technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. This led him to work towards a doctor's degree in 1905. 

During his time at the Swiss Patent office, and his spare time he produced a lot of his remarkable work including his famous equation. He also became 'Professor Extraordinary' at Zurich. In 1911 he became 'Professor of Theoretical Physics' at Prague. When he returned to Zurich he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and a Professor at the University of Berlin. 

When anyone mentions Einstein, his famous equation - E= mc squared is probably one of the first things to jump into your head, but what does it mean? 

This famous equation pops up everywhere, it even appears as the title of one of Mariah Carey's 2008 albums. For starters the 'E' part of the equation stands for energy and the "M" mass (which is a measurement of the quantity of matter inside something). The C squared  part of the equation stands for the speed of light squared. The whole equation breaks down into this: Energy is equal to matter multiplied by the speed of light squared. 

The speed of light is a colossal number, illustrating just how much energy there is in just a tiny amount of water. One common example that physicists use is just 1 gram of water (1 ml). If the entire mass of the water (1 gram) was converted into pure energy using Einstein's equation, then the water could contain as much energy as 20,000 tons of TNT (which is an explosive) exploding. This is why such a small amount of Uranium or Plutonium can create such disastrous effects, such as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster where one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl power station exploded. 

Einstein's equation does actually have relevance to twenty first century science. Einstein has provided, via his equation, a huge advancement in various fields of science including nuclear power. He has also allowed us to discover more about the inner workings of the Sun. This equation has shown us the relationship between Energy, matter and the speed of light like we have never before and this could well help us research into other areas of science in the future. 

10 tips to beat the new year sales! #SciSparksAdvent Day 22

Now is the time of year where billions are spent on buying that perfect Christmas present - but the only trouble is, how do you beat the crowds?? Many psychologists have actually published in research journals all to help you beat the crowds and bag the best bargains - or at least the stuff you actually want to buy!

1. Choose the right time
2. Read reviews
3. Don't be fooled by the packaging!
4. Leave the real world - shop online!
5. Shop around
6. Shop by yourself not in a group - you are less likely to be influenced!
7. Do your maths! Discounts can be deceptive!
8. Don't be controlled by the shop
9. Don't be a hoarder.... :)
10. Don't even bother - it's Christmas after all!!

Merry Christmas!