The 2015 Davis Cup Final

Slightly off topic, but today Britain achieved the seemingly impossible. The GB Davis Cup team lead by Andy Murray and Coach Leon Smith beat Belgium 3-1 to win the Davis Cup Final. Young Kyle Edmund (20), world number 100  made his debut, surprisingly comfortably taking the first two sets of Belgian's number one, David Goffin, although he actually went on to loose in five sets. Nonetheless, the Davis Cup was just an amazing experience for an up and coming tennis player, whatever their nationality. Thankfully, the Murray Brothers conquered Steve Darcis and David Goffin in four sets to set up an unbelievable opportunity. Team GB had to win just one match on the final day to become Davis Cup champions - and they did.

One thing's for sure is that this was a far cry from five years ago, on the brink of relegation to the bottom tier of the competition and playing in tiny venues across the world - most not even televised. Congratulations Team GB!

How do scientists classify animals?

They use the binomial system. Every animal has a Latin name.

Every animal or species belongs to a:

• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species

Take the domestic cat for example, it’s Latin name is Felis Catus. The first section, in this case is Felis – this is the genus. The second section, Catus, is the species. These are then combined to give the Latin name of Felis Catus. Your first question may well be, why bother? But this is a great way for scientists to combine their thinking and get over the issue of different languages internationally.

#SciSparksAdvent 2015

Join me here for a new post every day, on everything from Christmas science to the things you've always wanted to know, in December as we count down to Christmas! 

Makes sure you're also following me on Twitter (@Sci_Sparks) and Facebook, Science-Sparks for the latest updates!

Happy Christmas!!

Gravity...Houston, we have a hit | Film Review

It's been exactly two years since the multi-award winning film, 'Gravity' was released in the UK. But here's my opinion of the hit film.

On the 28th January 1986 everything changed for America. The US news network, CNN carried live pictures of the routine challenger space shuttle launch. Although what was far from ordinary was the shuttle carried the first female civilian to go into space, 37 year old teacher Christa McAuliffe, chosen from over 11,000 applicants. What captured the collective imagination of the American people,soon, 73 seconds later ended in a tragic disaster. All seven crew members were killed and never made it into space.

The event, watched eagerly by millions worldwide shocked and tramatised the nation, just as the 9/11 attacks did some 15 years later. But the smash hit Gravity has the same ingredients, a female in space, Dr Ryan Stone played by Sandra Bullock going about her business with colleague Dr Kowalski played by George Clooney, when an onslaught of space debris hits the international space station (the ISS). First tethered to safety, the race is on to save the space station and more importantly to save their lives.

With the tilted Earth shimmering like a blue marble, circling them below, the film is a cinematic virtue and there's some science too.

The average space station commander logs around 4,000 hours at a time on board the football-field sized vehicle. Hollywood has officially accomplished the mission to make your children think space is cool.

Ocean Acidification on Urchin Larvae

Ocean Acidification is becoming an increasingly big problem. As we continue emitting carbon dioxide the oceans are becoming increasingly acidic. This is because around 30% of the carbon dioxide that's artificially emitted is absorbed into our oceans. Once in our oceans, it forms carbonic acid. This carbonic acid is harmful to sea life. In shelled species, acidic conditions the shell thins and the organism becomes more vulnerable to predators. In other species, the acidic conditions can disrupt their biological processes. There's even been research which suggests that acidity can impact communication in Dolphins for example.


Of course Scientists are determining whether this is a problem which warrants intervention. To do this - they need to understand the importance of the problem and what it actually is. One of the earlier investigations was carried out by a Belgian eco-physiologist, Sam Dupont. He put a batch of urchin larvae into a bath of highly acidic water to see how their skeletons would fare. Immediately, nothing obvious happened, he decided to check on them later in the evening, however he didn't remember until a few days later - at which point he thought they'd probably be dead. When he returned, he found the larvae swimming in their tank but their internal skeletons had dissolved away - but they still seemed to be functioning well. Even though this experiment doesn't provide any definitive conclusions, it does demonstrate the extreme case of what might happen if we let this problem develop. The article, published in Nature says how the acidity of sea water has climbed about 30% over the last 150 years. Some regions of the globe have already become corrosive to such an extent of where it has inhibited the growth of corals and some other species for part of the year. Projections have said that within a few decades’ creatures with calcium carbonate shells like mussels will run into problems within a few decades. Acidification might also impede the growth of plankton, potentially endangering entire marine ecosystems like fisheries and coral reefs.