Science

News Science

IBM Produces World’s Smallest Movie–Made Of Atoms

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It’s about a boy and an atom.

And it may just be the world’s most impressive stop-motion film.

That’s because the film is made entirely of atoms.

Stop-motion animation is a way of making a movie using still pictures.

One company, a computer company called IBM, has made the world’s smallest—and arguably the most amazing—stop-motion video.

The video features a boy named Atom playing with a “ball” (really an atom) and bouncing on a trampoline. It’s a simple film, but its importance is enormous.

That’s because, rather than a doll, the filmmakers used atoms.

An atom is a microscopic piece of matter. Atoms can’t be seen with the naked eye, or even a normal microscope, because they are too small.

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Environment News

Earth Day Becomes Earth Month

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Yesterday was Earth Day.

The annual celebration of the environment was first held in 1970.

But it wasn’t until 1990 that 141 countries put on special events at the same time to make people aware of environmental issues.

Now Earth Day is celebrated every April 22 in more than 150 countries.

In Canada, because there are so many events happening to commemorate Earth Day, the country now celebrates Earth Week and even Earth Month in some places.

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Animals Science

Unlocking The Mysteries Of The Monarch Butterfly’s Incredible Journey

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Every year, Monarch butterflies fly more than 4,000 kilometres from Canada to Mexico.

Until recently, no-one was sure how the Monarch butterfly knew the exact path to take that would ensure it would end up at its intended destination after such a long flight.

Now Canadian scientists believe they have discovered the secret to the butterfly’s internal sense of direction.

Scientists wanted to know if the Monarchs used a type of “internal compass” or an “internal map.” Some animals and birds have both.

To find out, researchers tested the butterflies by starting them different locations than they normally would. Ryan Norris, an associate professor of biology at the University of Guelph, started them on their journey from Guelph, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta.

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Health Science

Calgary Student Wins National Science Prize For Cancer Therapy Research

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A high school student from Calgary has won the Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada competition for his research into an experimental cancer therapy.

Arjun Nair, 16, is a grade 11 student at Webber Academy. His winning experiment involved photothermal therapy (PTT), which is used to treat cancer.

With PTT, a patient is injected with gold nanoparticles. A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle of a substance, less than one-millionth the size of a grain of sand.

The gold nanoparticles collect in the patient’s cancerous tumours. When the tumours are bathed with laser light, the nanoparticles heat up and kill the cancer cells.

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Animals Science

Camel Fossils Found In Canada’s Arctic

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Scientists have discovered fossilized bone fragments belonging to a prehistoric camel that lived in Canada’s High Arctic about 3.5 million years ago.

The fossils were found on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, in a site near the Strathcona Fiord.

Scientists have also found the fossilized remains of mammals such as bears, beavers and deerlets (small deerlike animals) in this area.

The site is a polar desert now, but during the Pliocene era – the time when the when the camel was alive – it would have been a forest. The average temperature in the Arctic was 14 to 22 degrees warmer then, so it was warm enough for trees to grow, but still cold, snowy and dark for much of the year.

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Animals News Science

Giant Pandas Arrive In Toronto

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Two giant pandas arrived in Toronto on March 25 to begin a 10-year visit to Canada.

The pandas will spend five years at the Toronto Zoo, and then move to the Calgary Zoo for another five years. They are on loan to Canada from the Chinese government.

The pandas travelled by plane from their native China, along with several kilograms of bamboo shoots, boxes of apples and their favourite toys. The trip took 15 hours.

The pandas were greeted at the airport by a large crowd, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Zhang Junsai, the Chinese ambassador to Canada. A high school band played “O Canada” as the pandas’ crates were unloaded.

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Animals Kids News

Pterosaur Named After Girl Who Discovered It

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Like many children, Daisy Morris loves to collect fossils.

Unlike other children, however, Daisy’s hobby has led to a pterosaur being named after her.

A pterosaur is a type of flying reptile closely related to dinosaurs.

The species Daisy discovered is now known as Vectidraco daisymorrisae, or “Dragon from the Isle of Wight.”

Daisy, who lives in England, was five years old in 2008 when she and her mother were taking a walk along the beach. She noticed some black bones—about 40 mm long– sticking out of the mud and she dug them out.

The family took the bones to a fossil expert at Southampton University in England.

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Entertainment Science

Playing Video Games Can Make You A Better Searcher

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Want to be a great doctor or scientist? Make sure you play video games.

New research shows that certain video games can help people “find things” better and faster.

For instance, if a doctor is looking for something on an x-ray, or if a scientist is looking at a satellite image—they may be able to do it better if they’ve “trained” by playing video games.

Certain video games, like driving games, can improve a person’s “visual search skills.” That’s the ability to see something that’s hidden in the middle of a confusing field of things. Like finding “Waldo.”

Researchers at the University of Toronto studied three groups of people: 20 people who played a shooting game called Medal of Honor, 20 people who played the driving game Need for Speed, and 20 people who played a puzzle game called Ballance.

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News Science

Commander Hadfield’s Son, Evan, Helps Bring Space To Earth

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Chris Hadfield is the Canadian astronaut living and working on – and commanding – the International Space Station.

He’s the first astronaut to bring the “space experience” to Earthlings in the form of regular tweets, photos, Facebook posts, videos and even songs.

Hadfield lets us know what experiments he’s working on, what the Earth looks like from his vantage point and what it’s like to live in space.

Hadfield has three children, Kyle (30), Evan (27) and Kristin (26).

Evan lives in Darmstadt, Germany.

He has been helping his father communicate with Earth, via Twitter and other social media websites such as Facebook, tumblr and Soundcloud.

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News Science

Dragon Brings Fresh Supplies To International Space Station

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Did you ever wonder how the astronauts who are living on board the International Space Station get fresh supplies, like food, medicine and materials for their research?

A cargo capsule called SpaceX Dragon was recently sent up to the ISS to bring the astronauts fresh supplies.

Dragon was loaded with more than a thousand kilograms of science equipment, food and other materials.

It left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday.

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