0:00

It's the time of the week where we

0:02

get very bored with life down here on

0:04

planet earth so we search through the solar

0:07

system for some secrets.

0:09

Let's get on with a brand new Fun

0:11

Kids Science Weekly. My

0:14

name is Dan, this is the only show

0:16

that discovers everything about science that no one

0:18

really has gotten to the bottom of. Apart

0:21

from us, can't wait to bring it

0:23

to you. This week we're trying to

0:25

unpack one of the simplest, but

0:28

hardest questions we've ever had really. How

0:30

does our brain work? All

0:35

of these signals going on in all the

0:37

different parts of the brain is what makes

0:39

our brain work, it's what creates behaviour. That

0:41

then gives us all of the experience that we have of

0:43

the world around us. And

0:46

in our mission to discover the best

0:49

science ever, we're heading into space. I'm

0:53

able to see the results of processes that

0:55

we see going on on the earth, but

0:57

studying them going on on other planets. Sometimes

1:00

we have rock as we have on earth,

1:02

sometimes we have ice behaving like rock. One

1:05

big thing at the moment is I'm looking

1:07

at great holes ripped in the ground by

1:09

explosions on mercury. And

1:12

you can hear why bananas are

1:14

a bit radioactive, it's all on the way

1:16

in a brand new Fun Kids Science Weekly. Let's

1:24

kick things off with your science in the news. Experts

1:26

say that people in the UK should get another

1:29

chance to see the northern lights soon. People

1:31

were amazed a couple of weeks ago

1:33

to see huge sweeping lights streak across

1:35

the sky, which you might have spotted.

1:38

Normally that only happens in the very

1:40

far north and only occasionally, but you

1:42

could see it way down south in

1:44

the country too. Experts

1:46

say that a huge sunspot cluster that hurled

1:48

energy and gas towards earth will come back

1:51

around in a week or so, which means

1:53

if you missed the aurora borealis

1:55

last time, you could get

1:57

another chance. How amazing is that?

2:00

Sometimes people spend a lot of

2:02

money, they travel across the world to see

2:05

the northern nights, they go to Iceland, the

2:07

very northern tips of Norway, but

2:09

you can see it here in the UK if that's where

2:11

you are. Also, still looking at

2:13

the sky, a blue fireball

2:15

lit the sky above Spain

2:17

up last week. Many

2:20

cameras show a suspected

2:22

meteorite streaking across the night

2:24

sky. The European Space Agency said that the

2:26

object looks to be a small piece of

2:28

comet. Isn't it amazing that we know so

2:30

much about the world and so much about space,

2:33

we've got so many technologies to find things up

2:35

there. Yet there's a massive

2:37

bit of rock, a comet flying

2:40

across our sky, and

2:42

it surprised everyone. I'm a big fan of

2:44

that. And our final story this

2:46

week, scientists have made an incredible 3D

2:49

model of what a Neanderthal woman might have

2:51

looked like when she was alive. It's based

2:53

on the flattened, shattered remains of a skull.

2:56

And Dr. Emma Pomeroy from the University

2:59

of Cambridge Department of Archaeology was vital

3:01

in this project and joins us now.

3:03

Emma, thank you so much for being

3:05

there. Just start us off and tell

3:07

us what we know about Neanderthals already.

3:10

So we know that they're one

3:12

of our really close cousins in

3:14

terms of evolution. Essentially, they evolved

3:16

in Eurasia about 400,000 years ago or a

3:18

bit before. At

3:21

the same time as our direct ancestors,

3:23

modern humans, were evolving in

3:26

Africa. And Neanderthals lived here a

3:28

long time. So they were around until

3:30

about 40,000 years ago. Then

3:33

we're not sure why. They went

3:36

extinct while modern humans, obviously us,

3:38

have continued to the present day.

3:40

And Neanderthals are pretty interesting. They're very similar

3:42

to us in many respects. But

3:44

there are certain characteristics that really make

3:47

them different from us. Things

3:49

like they have quite a big brow ridge. They're

3:51

forehead slopes back a little bit more. And

3:53

they're generally kind of heavier built and a bit more robust.

3:56

So how smart

3:59

were these? I guess animals, right? It's

4:01

weird to call someone so close to us animals.

4:03

But how smart would they have been? Would they

4:05

have been chatting away like we are right now?

4:07

I mean, that's a great question. And also in

4:09

terms of them being animals, I mean, ultimately, we

4:11

modern humans are animals too. But I think we

4:14

definitely think of them as being people like us.

4:16

One of the big debates in

4:18

our field is just how much

4:20

like us were they. And when

4:23

they were first recognized back in

4:25

the 19th century, people saw Neanderthals

4:27

as really sort of your archetypal,

4:29

knuckle dragging caveman who wasn't very intelligent,

4:31

and wasn't able to do most of the

4:33

things that we can do. But in the

4:35

last kind of 50 years, our view of

4:37

that has changed. And we're seeing them as

4:40

much more similar to us. So it

4:42

seems very likely actually, that they were,

4:44

they would have been kind of sitting and chatting away just

4:47

like we do. They have big

4:49

brains like us, I mean, on average,

4:51

maybe slightly bigger. And from what

4:53

we can tell, it's really hard to see that

4:55

from things like some of the bones in their

4:57

throat, and also from the structure of their ear,

4:59

they'd have been able to make sounds

5:01

like we do, they'd have been able to hear the

5:03

kind of sounds that we do. So yeah, I think

5:05

they'd have been sitting around chatting

5:07

and talking about whatever's

5:10

happened that day. And you've slightly brought

5:12

one to life. Now, there's an amazing

5:14

line in this story. So you've

5:16

used the flattened shattered remains of a

5:18

skull, whose bones were so

5:20

soft when found that they were like

5:22

a well dunked biscuit. So where

5:25

did we find some

5:27

small bits of bone to

5:29

start the process of bringing it to

5:31

life with this 3D model? Yeah, I

5:33

mean, it's been really tricky. So the

5:35

remains were actually found as part of

5:37

a bigger project called the Shahid Al

5:40

Qave Project. And we've been excavating in

5:42

this part of Iraqi Kurdistan for I

5:44

think 10 years now. And there've been

5:46

previous excavations there in the 1950s,

5:48

led by an academic called Ralph Zolecki. And

5:51

he'd found the entire remains there. So we knew

5:53

there was a possibility that we might find more.

5:55

And actually during our excavations, we noticed

5:57

in the wall of the that

6:00

we were working in, there were these little bits

6:02

of bone sticking out and we could tell that

6:04

there was probably a rib cage there, but

6:06

it was only when we excavated them fully,

6:09

which was really tricky because we're

6:11

about seven and a half metres from the

6:13

surface where we find these bones, so that's

6:15

really challenging in itself. And

6:17

yes, as we excavated down from the

6:20

top, we could see that there was

6:22

a relatively complete skull, although it had

6:24

been completely squashed flat and then broken

6:26

into many pieces. And as I said,

6:29

the bone was very

6:31

soft, which made it really hard to excavate.

6:33

I mean, if you touched it with a brush,

6:35

some of the bone would just start falling apart.

6:37

So yeah, how to get that out of the

6:39

ground and make sure we preserved as much as

6:41

we can was a massive challenge. So you've got

6:43

the bones out of the ground, you've managed to

6:46

keep them as well as you can. What

6:48

happens next? How do we get

6:50

this 3D model? So it's a

6:52

lot of painstaking, really hard work.

6:55

And I've got to give big

6:57

credit to the conservator on our

6:59

project, Lucia Lopez-Pauline, and she spent

7:01

over a year working on the remains

7:03

from this person. And the skull

7:06

itself took pretty much nine

7:09

or 10 months to clean all

7:12

the little fragments, what we

7:14

call a consolidant on them. So it's kind

7:16

of a glue that soaks into the bone,

7:18

and that helps it sort of stabilise from

7:20

the inside. And that means then we can

7:23

handle the bone and start figuring out how

7:25

we put the bits back together. So that's

7:28

something that Lucia did a lot of work on.

7:30

And I worked with her trying to figure out

7:32

what goes where. And that's actually a

7:34

process that's still ongoing. So the skull,

7:37

as it is, we've got really well

7:39

reconstructed, but there's more work to do

7:41

and more fragments to

7:43

try and get back in. So yeah, a

7:46

long term project. Oh, so

7:48

I'm seeing a picture here of a Neanderthal woman,

7:50

I believe it's the model. So

7:53

the actual bones are in it.

7:55

It's not like a computer composite.

7:58

No, exactly. So what we do, once we do that, we do it. sort

8:00

of physically reconstructed the bones and sort of

8:02

stuck back together as much as we can,

8:04

we then make a surface

8:07

model using 3D techniques. And

8:10

from that surface model that's in 3D, I

8:13

can then send that digitally to the

8:15

amazing Kennis brothers, who are the guys who

8:17

actually did the reconstruction of the face and

8:19

what she might have looked like in life.

8:21

And yeah, that reconstruction of the

8:24

skull that we've made is in

8:26

the middle of that physical reconstruction of

8:29

the face. And the Kennis brothers did

8:31

their thing, they reconstruct kind of the

8:33

muscles on the face, the thickness of the

8:35

skin, the fat, all those kinds

8:37

of things to figure out what

8:40

she might have looked like when she was

8:42

alive, which is so exciting. Well, thank you so much

8:44

for joining us, Dr. Emma Pomeroy. It's brilliant to chat

8:46

to you. Great to talk to you too. Thank you

8:48

so much. Thank you so much to

8:51

Emma Pomeroy for coming on the show, for

8:53

telling us what a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal

8:57

might have looked like. Let's

8:59

get to your questions, shall we? This is

9:01

my favourite part of the show. If you

9:03

have anything sciency in your brain that you

9:05

are wondering, something that you're not sure about,

9:07

that you've heard and you're thinking, how can

9:09

that possibly be true? Well, let

9:12

me know. I will do the digging for

9:14

you. I will call up a genius that I know and

9:16

we will sort it out. Best way

9:18

to do that is by leaving a voice note on

9:20

the free Fun Kids app or at funkidslive.com. This one

9:22

first has been sent in as a message by

9:25

Etienne in Scotland. Happy birthday, Etienne.

9:27

I know that that's coming up

9:29

soon, so have a brilliant day.

9:31

It's a random question. Do

9:34

bananas make antimatter?

9:37

That's bizarre, isn't it? We've

9:39

kind of heard about antimatter. It's

9:42

always in sci-fi programmes and superhero movies. It's

9:44

normally like what the bad guy in a

9:47

superhero film wants to use to take over

9:49

the world and to blow everything up, right?

9:52

Antimatter is a form of matter, so

9:54

a type of thing that is like

9:56

ordinary matter, but with the

9:58

opposite electric charge. And

10:01

when it comes into contact with

10:03

matter, something called annihilation happens, where

10:05

they destroy each other and they

10:07

can release a huge amount of

10:09

energy. Now we could spend days

10:11

learning just about antimatter because scientists

10:13

still aren't too sure about it.

10:16

But they do use what they know about it

10:19

in medical scans to help us better, to understand

10:21

the body. And the idea of it helps

10:23

us understand the universe as well. And

10:25

it turns out, at the end, the

10:28

bananas do make antimatter, a small amount

10:30

of it. They make positrons. It's

10:32

because bananas have potassium in there, which

10:34

is a chemical and a tiny amount

10:37

of potassium is radioactive. And

10:39

when that decays, when the

10:42

potassium breaks down, some of that becomes

10:44

a positron, which is a

10:46

type of antimatter. So

10:48

there's a lot of antimatter talk. It's

10:50

very confusing, but that's the

10:53

start of what happens. And

10:55

that's how bananas make antimatter. Maybe

10:58

we'll get a genius on to tell us about

11:00

antimatter in the next few weeks or so. Hmm,

11:02

leave it with me. Talking

11:05

about geniuses, let's get one

11:07

on to help us answer this question from

11:09

Owen. What have you got, Owen? How

11:11

does your brain work? Well, Owen, thank

11:13

you so much for that question. How do

11:15

our brains work? Well, Owen, I have to

11:17

tell you, I've been asked this question quite

11:19

a lot, and I've never been

11:21

able to figure it out. I've almost

11:23

been scared to even try to understand

11:25

how our brains work because it just

11:27

seems like such a monumentally massive idea.

11:30

But we need to try. So let's

11:33

chat to Dr. Laura Bubair from the

11:35

University of Westminster, who knows all about

11:37

this stuff. Laura, as I said,

11:39

it's such a massive concept. How

11:42

do we begin? Right

11:44

now, maybe I'm thinking about

11:46

talking to you, and

11:48

I can't see you, but maybe

11:50

I have an idea of what you might look

11:52

like, and I can see that picture in my

11:55

head. What's happening in my

11:57

brain at that point? fired,

12:00

what chemicals are going on, where is the picture

12:02

that I'm seeing actually happening? Well that picture

12:04

we have no idea, most likely in

12:06

your visual cortex which is the back of your

12:08

head. What's happening all of the time is that

12:10

our brain is like

12:13

a bundle of cables, so if

12:15

anyone's seen a picture of a

12:17

brain or maybe seen a brain

12:19

that's cut, it looks like

12:21

a blob and that's literally what it

12:23

looks like and feels like, but that

12:25

blob is made up of billions

12:29

of what looks like electrical wires.

12:31

So like the inside of a NOLED

12:33

computer, not like a new computer, each

12:36

of those wires carries

12:38

electricity and those, just

12:41

like the inside of a computer, each of

12:44

those wires which we call neurons, so nerve

12:46

cells, neurons, carry

12:48

electricity and the combination of

12:51

all of these signals going on in all different

12:53

parts of the brain is what makes our brain

12:55

work, it's what creates behaviour. That then gives us

12:57

all of the experience that we have in the

13:00

world around us. So there are different parts of

13:02

the brain that we know do different

13:05

things, so a little bit like

13:07

a car, for car to

13:09

work it's got an engine but

13:11

it's also got doors and windows

13:13

and electrical, there's a you

13:16

know there's a chassis, there's all sorts of different parts

13:18

of it for the car to work and if one

13:20

of those bits stop working then you're

13:22

going to have trouble getting to

13:24

your destination. So the

13:26

brain is a little bit the same in

13:28

that it's got different parts of the brain

13:30

that do different things, so for instance the

13:32

windscreen in the car or the desktop of

13:34

a laptop, we have that

13:37

and that's what we see and as you just

13:39

said you can imagine seeing things or you can

13:41

see real things. So the image that

13:43

you've got of me is going to be

13:45

based on all sorts of different things, obviously

13:48

you've got my voice, so from my

13:50

voice you're going to build up an

13:53

image and that image is going to

13:55

be based on your entire lifetime of

13:57

experiences of people's voices. So

14:00

from my voice, even if you didn't know

14:02

my name, you might guess

14:04

that I'm female, I'm a woman. So

14:07

from that, you're already going to create

14:09

an image which is based on your

14:11

template or your stereotype of a woman.

14:13

It starts with your mum, but

14:16

maybe a sister, friends, and

14:18

so you're going to build up that image

14:20

of what you think I look like. As

14:23

you noted just now, my name is

14:26

actually French. So for instance,

14:28

s'ilce que monsieur paulien français, then

14:31

all of a sudden you might build a different image of

14:33

me. But also a different part of

14:35

your brain is dealing with language. So you've got

14:37

parts of your brain that's hearing the sound of

14:39

my voice, and a

14:41

very complex process then happens

14:44

to convert the sounds that you're

14:46

hearing, which are just a

14:48

bundle of sounds coming through

14:51

on the Ethernet, and

14:53

yet your brain is able to hear the

14:55

sounds, verify them, break

14:58

them down into all of the

15:00

individual components, match them up

15:02

to all the words that you know in

15:04

your own language, and then create

15:06

meaning from it. So

15:09

the brain, the left side, mostly the

15:11

left side of our brain, left hemisphere is

15:13

doing that. And what's really

15:15

interesting is that if you

15:17

have an injury to your brain, so

15:20

there are different causes, but it can

15:22

be through different illnesses, so through strokes

15:24

or maybe an accident, different

15:26

aspects of, for instance, our language can be

15:29

affected, so we can lose bits of it. You're

15:32

talking about imagery just now and

15:34

imagining what I look like. We

15:37

know that some people can't do

15:39

that, and that's something called aphantasia.

15:42

We know that other people, rather

15:44

than just hearing my voice, rather than

15:46

imaging, for instance, a person, they

15:49

might see colours, and that's

15:51

something called synesthesia. So that's where the

15:53

brain is wired

15:55

differently in different people.

15:58

So a little bit of an answer. Wow

16:00

and humans are hundreds of thousands

16:02

of years old and we still

16:05

really aren't close To

16:07

getting the full picture and the full answer

16:10

It's a fantastic start though. Oh and I hope

16:12

that's done a good job for you Laura boob

16:14

our thank you for joining us You're

16:17

very welcome. Thank you so much

16:19

to dr. Laura boob our Helping

16:22

us answer Owens question if you have anything

16:24

sciencey that you want answered next week on

16:26

the show make sure you leave as

16:28

a voice note for me on the free fun kids app

16:30

or at fun kids live comm and Remember

16:34

every month we do a very

16:36

special bonus episode full of your

16:38

questions That's all we do

16:41

and you can be a part of

16:43

that by subscribing to fun kids Podcasts

16:46

plus find out more on the fun

16:48

kids website Right,

16:52

let's get to this week's dangerous down where we

16:54

look at the mean weird strange unique and deadly

16:56

things Across the universe this week.

16:58

We're heading under the ocean way down

17:00

deep to take a look at the

17:02

frilled shark You'll find it across

17:04

the world in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific

17:07

Ocean It normally lives quite close to the seabed

17:09

and it looks sleek. It's got a long body

17:11

of it like an eel It can

17:13

grow two meters long which is long It

17:16

has frills of skin which flow out of the

17:18

side of its head. That's how it gets its

17:20

name. It's got this big flat fathead

17:23

too with loads of teeth 300

17:27

teeth in there jutting from its

17:29

jaw. They're perfect for grabbing and

17:31

slicing slippery squid and small fish

17:34

Now it's called a living fossil Because

17:36

it's stayed the same for millions of years

17:38

looking and acting almost identically to how it

17:40

would have done all that time ago Way

17:43

before humans were above them. It's just been

17:45

floating around the bottom of the sea not

17:47

really changing and because where it lives is

17:49

It's very dark. It's almost pitch bad Humans

17:52

have rarely come into contact with them now

17:55

the frilled shark. It's an ambush predator It

17:57

lies in wait for its prey and then

18:00

And when something swims along not knowing

18:02

what's happening just out for a little

18:04

early morning swim maybe, the frilled shark

18:06

gets to work, it opens its long

18:09

flexible jaws, swallowing its

18:11

prey hole, which is very important because there's

18:13

not a lot of food way

18:15

down in the deep sea. So

18:17

you need to make the most of what is

18:19

there and swallowing prey hole means you get energy

18:21

from every single part of the prey and

18:24

you don't need to share it. Which

18:26

is also important if there's not a lot around

18:28

but because of its behaviour as an ambush predator,

18:30

because of its 300 teeth, because it

18:33

looks so terrifying and so ancient, the

18:35

frilled shark goes straight onto our dangerous

18:37

stand list. It's

18:42

time for battle of the sciences then. Every

18:45

week we pit experts against

18:47

each other. We find who

18:49

should come first in their

18:51

field. Geniuses all round the

18:53

globe pit themselves to be

18:55

the very best. And this

18:57

week we've got David Rothery

18:59

from the Open University, Professor

19:01

of Planetary Geoscience. So

19:03

much to unpack there David. But first you have one

19:05

minute to tell me why your science is the best

19:07

and it starts in 3, 2, 1, go! Wow,

19:13

I like geology on the earth. I like

19:15

getting out and about in the mountains and

19:17

visiting volcanoes and the like. And

19:20

now I'm doing the same thing but

19:22

on other planets. I

19:24

mean when I was a kid I wanted to be an

19:26

astronomer. I've not made it

19:28

to the stars but I'm doing it virtually

19:31

using spacecraft images on other planets.

19:34

I roam around looking at landscapes and I imagine

19:36

what it would be like to be there. But

19:39

more scientifically I'm able to see the

19:41

results of processes that we see going

19:43

on on the earth but

19:45

studying them going on on other planets.

19:48

Sometimes with rock as we have on

19:50

earth, sometimes with ice behaving like rock.

19:53

And one big thing at the moment is

19:55

I'm looking at great holes ripped in the

19:58

ground by explosions on mercury. There's

20:00

a bit of volcanic eruptions blasting holes

20:02

in the ground because there's gas inside

20:04

mercury that gets liberated when magma molten

20:06

rock reaches the surface and the gas

20:09

expands violently and blows stuff out in

20:11

giant explosions and these pieces of ground...

20:13

And that is your minute Dave, that

20:15

is your minute. So I mean it

20:17

sounds like an incredible job and you've

20:19

sold it very well. I'd

20:22

like to start with the question that many

20:25

people will say there's a lot going wrong here

20:27

on planet Earth at the moment with the climate

20:29

crisis. Why is what

20:31

you do important? Why should we be

20:34

spending time and spending money

20:36

and energy on looking at volcanoes in

20:38

space? By studying other planets

20:40

we understand the Earth that bit better.

20:43

Mercury for example is closer to the

20:45

Sun so when there are solar storms

20:47

affecting Mercury's magnetic field in the same

20:50

way that they can affect the magnetic

20:52

field on Earth we can study those

20:54

processes from a different perspective. If we

20:56

want to be concerned as we

20:58

should be about changing climates you

21:01

can look at Venus which has got a

21:03

thick atmosphere, lots of cold dioxide and it's

21:05

got a greenhouse effect far, far

21:07

more severe than anything on the Earth but

21:09

that's how the Earth could potentially end up.

21:12

A runaway greenhouse effect getting so hot that

21:14

the oceans evaporate. We need to know about

21:16

these things and how they've happened. Mars has

21:19

gone the other way. It's lost a lot

21:21

of its atmosphere. It's

21:23

very cold but it's had climates which have changed

21:25

dramatically over time and we

21:27

need to understand how that's gone on.

21:29

So by understanding processes on other planets

21:32

we get a better perspective on what's gone on

21:34

on the Earth. So it gives us a sense

21:36

of proportion and it gives us insights. In

21:39

your career looking at

21:41

volcanoes and other parts of

21:43

the geology of different planets

21:46

what's something really amazing and

21:48

mind-blowing that you've discovered? I

21:51

go back to the volcanoes on Mercury. There's

21:53

one place on Mercury where there's a whole

21:56

three and a half kilometres deep

21:58

and 30 kilometres across. That's

22:00

been blasted out by a volcanic explosion,

22:02

well not one volcanic explosion, we think

22:04

a series of volcanic explosions that have

22:06

happened there over a long time period,

22:08

maybe over a billion years from the

22:10

first to the last explosion, each time

22:13

blasting some more stuff out. And if

22:15

you were there standing on the brink

22:17

of this pit, it would

22:19

be a spectacular sort of Grand Canyon on the

22:21

earth, but in this case not carved

22:23

by flowing water, but by

22:25

a succession of giant volcanic explosions and

22:27

the debris that's been flung out from

22:30

this has gone 100 kilometres in all

22:32

directions away from the hole in the

22:34

ground. I think that's an amazing landscape

22:36

feature, we didn't expect that on Mercury.

22:39

Mercury near the sun,

22:41

just a burnt out cinder of dead

22:43

rock, no it's not like that at

22:45

all, it's got all these volatile elements

22:48

in it which can escape violently. So

22:50

it's the big surprises that keep me

22:52

particularly attractive to doing planetary science. Now

22:55

David, my last question, you've had a brilliant career

22:57

looking at these things, if I were to throw

22:59

you forward 20-30 years, when you

23:01

hang up your lab coat and you

23:03

put down your dreams and imaginings of

23:06

volcanoes on other planets, when

23:08

it's all done, what's one question that you would really

23:10

love to answer? What do you really

23:13

want to find out about what happens on different

23:15

planets? It's not a geology

23:17

question, it's has life ever got

23:19

started on any of these other

23:21

bodies. Mars once

23:24

had warm wet conditions, did life start

23:26

there? It's nice and warm and cosy

23:28

below the ice on some of Jupiter's

23:30

moons and some of Saturn's moons. You've

23:32

got warm rock with water on top, did

23:35

life get started there like it got started

23:37

on the Earth? That's a really big question,

23:39

you can start life in at least one

23:41

other place in the same solar system and

23:43

it's probably started all over the universe but

23:45

we only know one example where life got

23:48

started and that's our effort at the moment.

23:50

Just finding one more would change

23:52

our whole perspective. Amazing,

23:54

a brilliant fight for why

23:57

planetary geoscience should be

23:59

first. Dave Rothery, thank you for

24:01

joining us. You're welcome Dan, it was great talking

24:03

to you. What do you think then? Is

24:06

planetary science the best kind of

24:08

science? Does it win our battle

24:10

of the sciences? I think

24:13

it's up there right? It's in the

24:15

conversation. We'll have another one next week

24:17

on the show for you. But hearing

24:19

about space and planets with Professor David

24:21

has got me thinking about other things

24:23

that might be up there and why

24:25

we look out into space, what we

24:27

are hoping to find. So

24:29

let's jump through a wormhole to

24:31

the smartest school in the solar

24:33

system. We're heading to Deep Space

24:35

High joining Professor Polsar, who's

24:38

telling us all about why

24:40

we look through space every day.

24:42

Deep Space High, the universe handbook

24:44

with the science and technology facilities

24:47

community. Deep Space High, the

24:51

moon and space. But

24:55

hey, we've been learning about the

24:57

Earth. Deep

25:00

Space High, the

25:02

moon and space.

25:06

Right class settle down, I'm about

25:08

to be extra nice and you won't

25:10

want to miss that. Yeah, it's like

25:12

plisté's orbit, only happens once every

25:14

248 years. I

25:17

heard that. Your universe

25:19

handbooks are looking superb. From gravity

25:22

to wormholes, pulsars to parallax, you've

25:24

done a cracking job of getting

25:26

to grips with the frankly mind-boggling

25:28

reaches of space exploration. To reward

25:30

all your hard work, you can

25:32

all go home early. How about

25:34

that? Alright,

25:36

that's enough. We're not quite done yet.

25:38

To finish off this term, I asked you

25:40

to come up with some great reasons to

25:43

get exploring space. Who'd like to go

25:45

first? Well, a really great

25:47

reason to explore space is because

25:49

it helps develop cool inventions that

25:52

you can use on Earth. Or

25:56

any planet you like. Sorry blurb,

25:58

I forget Earth's not the the

26:00

only planet? Um,

26:03

aren't all inventions super clever engineering

26:05

things like rocket

26:07

exhaust pipes? I'm

26:10

sure they're very impressive and all that but

26:12

I wouldn't call them cool. Nah,

26:14

nothing like that. I've

26:17

bought a few inventions I use

26:19

every day that are a result

26:21

of space exploration. Here, cat,

26:24

this is my cycle helmet. I wear it

26:26

to protect my head when riding my bike.

26:29

It's really light, isn't it? Shock absorbing

26:31

foam in it was developed in the

26:34

1960s as part of the Apollo space program.

26:37

Nice! Love the colours too. It

26:39

looks like a nebula. Thanks,

26:41

I painted it myself after we went

26:44

nebula diving last term. Here's something else

26:46

I like playing with when I'm at

26:48

home. A

26:50

games console? I don't think astronauts on the International

26:52

Space Centre would get much work done if they

26:54

were playing rocket wars all day. Not

26:57

the game, the microprocessor inside

26:59

it. If it wasn't for

27:01

the space exploration, computers

27:03

might still be as big

27:05

as a room. And the joystick

27:07

was originally developed for Apollo's Lunar

27:09

Rover in the early 1970s. I

27:13

think the Lunar Rover would have been more fun to

27:15

play with than a computer game. Well,

27:18

yes, definitely. But these are a little

27:20

bit easier to buy. Very

27:23

good presentation, Alex. Ten out of ten. I think I've

27:25

been extra nice twice in one lesson. I'm on a

27:27

roll. Don't spoil it for me now, Stas. What have

27:30

you got for us? A

27:33

great reason to explore space is

27:35

that it's a challenge. A

27:40

challenge is usually hard work. And

27:42

a bit, well, boring.

27:45

Is it tricky level on that computer game if

27:47

yours boring? Or is riding

27:49

your bike down a really bumpy hill?

27:51

Does it send you to sleep because

27:53

it's just such a boring thing to

27:55

do? Nah, I love doing

27:57

that. There you go. Sometimes

28:00

things that are a challenge are brilliant

28:02

fun. That's actually true. I once

28:05

got stuck in a game for five

28:07

weeks, and when I completed it, I

28:09

was so happy I fell off my

28:11

bike. Probably shouldn't have

28:13

been multitasking there. You see, me,

28:15

I love a challenge. It's

28:19

easy to measure the stuff in front of

28:21

you. Anyone can do that. But who

28:24

wants to be just anyone? Being

28:26

able to work out how heavy a

28:28

star is, or to work out the

28:30

temperature on a distant planet from millions

28:32

of miles away, now that's the

28:34

really cool stuff. Fantastic.

28:37

That's... Who's next up? Electra? Come on,

28:39

then, let's be having you. Good

28:41

to see you tightly screwed together today. Off you

28:43

go before something works loose. A

28:46

great reason to explore space is because

28:48

it's exciting. You never know

28:50

what you might find out there. Maybe a

28:52

binary star system, a black hole, or even

28:55

a nebula that looks like that. I

28:58

agree with you, Electra. One

29:01

of the most exciting things of all that you

29:04

might find out there is other

29:06

life forms. That's right. After all,

29:08

not everyone can come to Deep Space

29:10

High, but everyone can get involved in

29:12

space exploration. You just need a

29:14

dark night and no clouds. And

29:17

on that happy note, we shall end the

29:19

lesson for today. But remember, it's just the

29:22

start of your space exploration adventures. Class dismissed.

29:27

Deep Space High, the universe handbook.

29:29

The Science and Technology Facilities

29:32

Council. And

29:36

that's it for this week's Fun Kids Science Weekly.

29:38

Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back

29:41

next week on the show with another genius answering

29:43

one of your questions, someone

29:45

telling us why their science is the

29:47

best too, and we'll have

29:49

another brilliant episode on the podcast for you.

29:51

You heard Deep Space High today. We've got

29:53

loads more for you. Wherever

29:55

You get your podcasts, Google, Apple, Spotify, on the

29:58

free Fun Kids app or at funkidslive.com. They

30:00

went on. Kids were our children's radio stations Me

30:02

case this in all over the country on the

30:04

free fun kids out on our website and if

30:06

you go smart, sneak us, make sure you wake

30:08

up and off get a python. Good.