Science

2017 sees our science group, which began over 8 years ago, still thriving.

In our four meetings so far this year we have each picked out a favourite scientist to tell the rest of the group about. Thus we have made the acquaintances of Michael Faraday, Ada Lovelace, Joseph Priestley, Blaise Pascal and Cecil Powell.

In February we each chose a planet or a moon and compared their atmospheres. Venus’s sulphuric acid clouds were judged the least hospitable. Jupiter’s swirling bands the most turbulent and Titan’s methane rain and lakes the most intriguing.

This month we talked about rocks, and each member brought samples of pieces of the Earth’s crust which they had picked up on holiday in various parts of the world. We learned about obsidian from the Great Rift Valley, conglomerate from the Australian outback, fluorspar from Derbyshire and limestone and millstone grit from the Pennines.

Next month we propose to look at telescopes, from Galileo’s and Newton’s original instruments to some of today’s most advanced radio and space telescopes.

Jill Taylor

Bumble Bees, Honey Ants and Naked Mole Rats –

What do they have in common?

Well, they were all discussed at the science group’s June meeting, along with termites and soldier aphids. We learnt a new word – eusociality. It means that all these creatures live in social colonies where each individual has its own job. There is a queen, who spends her whole life laying eggs; there are workers, who collect food and look after the young; and there are soldiers, who defend the colony.

Joe introduced us to soldier aphids, which inhabit black poplar trees and defend their home in the poplar gall to the death.

Sheila brought us bumble bees, which make little wax pots to store their honey in.

And Brian told us about compass termites, which construct tall, narrow mounds accurately aligned north to south to help them keep cool in the Australian desert.

Jill found out about honey ants, which store nectar in their own bodies to feed the rest of the colony during hard times.

And we were all surprised to hear that one of our more well-travelled members had eaten honey ants, which are a delicacy in Mexico!

And last, but by no means least, John introduced us to the naked mole rat, one of the very few eusocial mammals, which lives in deep tunnels under the African desert in Ethiopia and Somalia.

They eat roots and tubers, and they seldom venture above ground, except when it is time to found a new colony. Then, a “princess” mole rat braves the outside world after dark to follow the scent of a male mole rat with whom she will mate and become the queen of a new nest. Isn’t that romantic?

And isn’t science amazing!

Jill Taylor

Eight members of Burnham U3A made the pilgrimage to the home of British science, the Royal Institution, on 10^th October to hear three lectures, arranged especially for U3A members.

The first lecture was brilliant. Professor Jon Copley is the first British person to travel more than 5 Km deep into the ocean. He studies hydrothermal vents, underwater volcanic geysers spewing out chemicals from the Earth’s interior at temperatures higher than that of molten lead. Around these vents bacteria have evolved which feed on the chemicals, and feeding on the bacteria are a myriad strange creatures: crabs, fish, shrimps, limpets, barnacles, sea anemones, snails, all previously unknown to science.

He showed us a shrimp which has no eyes, but can sense the presence of light because the vent glows very faintly and that is where the food is.
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The science group this month chose to discuss “garden friends and foes”. Between us, we produced a wide variety of organisms from horsetails to badgers.

Most of our gardens suffer from an infestation of the primitive “mare’s tail” whose roots can reach 7 feet deep into the ground. Joe gave us some tips on eradicating it, but it has survived for 270 million years, since the carboniferous era, so we were not very hopeful of success. Some people apparently make a tea from it, which they claim cures every ill known to man, but our pharmacist member was sceptical.

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In April, the science group looked at the Cassini space probe and all that it has achieved since it was launched in 1997.

This mission has been amazingly successful and all 12 instruments on board have returned a daily stream of data since it arrived at Saturn in 2004. The mission was planned to end in 2008, but it has been extended three times. It will finally finish in September 2017, when the spacecraft will be destroyed by crashing it into the planet. This is to avoid any possible contamination of the moons Enceladus or Titan, which could have the beginnings of life on them.

Since its arrival, Cassini has orbited Saturn more than 200 times and has returned over 300,000 images, some of them quite stunning, like this famous one of Saturn backlit by the Sun.

Seven new moons have been discovered, and many of the known moons have been studied in detail, revealing astounding and unexpected characteristics.

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It is six months since the enlarged (and hopefully improved!) science group moved from its leader’s sitting room to the museum. The museum committee have been very welcoming, lending us their screen and constructing blackout boards for the windows.

We began at the beginning in April by looking at the structure of atoms and the periodic table, something we hadn’t done since the group first formed in 2008.

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