1,244 search results

Do sperm whales speak with local accents?
Science, Maths & Technology

Do sperm whales speak with local accents?

...simple: chimpanzees have culture. Are animals born cultured? This discovery started the “culture wars”, largely between animal behaviourists and anthropologists, a debate which raised the question of when we could talk about cultural variations in animal behaviour. A scientific approach is to make predictions we can challenge with experiments and observations. For...
Gravity die casting
Science, Maths & Technology

Gravity die casting

...simple, and high production rates are achieved using carousels and automation. Energy requirement is about half that of conventional sand casting. Steel castings have been shown to be 15–20% cheaper than comparable sand castings. Cost of gravity die castings is comparable with other casting processes (see diagram). Typical products include cylinder heads, wheel hubs and...
Plastic materials, pollution and recycling
Science, Maths & Technology

Plastic materials, pollution and recycling

...simple but this is not very satisfactory or sustainable as it represents a waste of a potential resource. A slightly better option is to burn the plastic within a refuse-derived-fuel to recover the energy trapped within the materials, this is often the best option for highly contaminated plastics. A better solution to waste plastics, if simple reuse isn’t practical, is...
Doctor Who: Is time travel possible?
Science, Maths & Technology

Doctor Who: Is time travel possible?

...simple answer is: Yes!...This content is associated with The Open University's Science courses and qualifications. [Time travel, laser lights] In Doctor Who, our hero regularly travels forwards and backwards in time, visiting any epoch, anywhere in the Universe, thanks to his time machine the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). But is time travel really...
The science behind your Christmas dinner
Science, Maths & Technology

The science behind your Christmas dinner

...simple, it would seem, yet it is not. Some of the most popular food items hide some bedazzling science but worry not: we are here to unveil their secrets. Loathe Brussel sprouts? Blame your genes [Sprouts in a bowl] Every single cell in your body contains very important information written in the form of genes. Genes are made up of DNA, and they are passed on from our...
Back to the Future: Is time travel possible?
Science, Maths & Technology

Back to the Future: Is time travel possible?

...simple answer is: Yes!...[An angled close-up of a large outdoor clock face that has golden numbers of Roman numerals on it and shows the numbers twelve to three within in the image. The clock-face is a grey and green coloured metal. ] In the Back to the Future films, Marty McFly travels backwards and forwards in time with the help of Doc Emmett Brown and his souped up...
What happens to our brain as we age and how can we stop the decline?
Health, Sports & Psychology

What happens to our brain as we age and how can we stop the decline?

...simple steps. It is an urban myth that every older person will develop dementia and in reality, it is a spectrum from normal age-related decline through to a clinically diagnosable dementia.The parts of our brain responsible for learning and memory are particularly susceptible to change with age (prefrontal cortex and hippocampus). This is why many people report it feels...
How do musical instruments produce sound?
History & The Arts

How do musical instruments produce sound?

...simple. Instruments, one way or another, make sounds, and all sounds are vibrations which travel across particles that make up the air around us (for humans anyway). These vibrations are then transformed in our eardrum - itself a thin vibrating membrane, like you might find on a drum - to be translated, eventually, into something our brains ‘hear’. Phew, simple! A...