New Chemicalguy!
OK well I’m now back. I’m going to be working the way through the A-levels with you, giving you free help and support and advice. If you’re doing biology try my bio blog at www.howscienceworks.wordpress.com.
I’m also writing new text books that I’ve advertised here! If you find you need materials that are not available, tell me here and I’ll fo my best to include the material in my new books.
See you around!
Latest books from me available at amazon or CT Publications
Starting your AS level in Chemistry or biology? The maths parts of the specs from AQA, OCR, Edexcel and WJEC ALL demand a good knoweldge of maths principles. These books cover everything you need and have tons of worked examples and exam questions from the four boards.
Hop along to www.writingthesynopticessay.co.uk for tons of help on the essay preparation and some free essays!
Visit my A-level biology blog here … www.howscienceworks.wordpress.com
Weird ‘n wonderful from New Scientist- Zoologger: Strange reptiles saw heads off seabirds May 31, 2012Equipped with a chewing style that's unique among living animals, tuataras are the masters of mastication – and they have three eyes
- Zoologger: Infrared-sensing beetles born in fire May 24, 2012Seeking a smouldering fire in which to breed, charcoal beetles have infrared sensors that can sense heat from vast distances
- Zoologger: Bug evolved a self-propelling corkscrew May 11, 2012The marine bacterium Synechococcus has no flagellum to propel itself, but it still gets around thanks to a twisted rod inside its body
- Zoologger: Jesus bugs evolved hooks for grappling eyes May 3, 2012Male Rheumatobates rileyi have special antennae that restrain reluctant females, giving them a chance of mating
- Zoologger: The ant that dives into digestive juices April 26, 2012While most ants struggle to swim, one species dives head first into a pool of digestive juices that is designed to kill it. Why?
- Zoologger: Meet the polar bear's replacement April 20, 2012As the sea ice retreats, the little-known Greenland shark could take the polar bear's place as the top Arctic predator
- Zoologger: The soldiers that double up as doctors April 12, 2012In one insect species, the soldier caste also secretes antifungal chemicals that protect the colony from disease
- Zoologger: Meet the amphibian with sexual kidneys April 5, 2012Red-spotted newts are one of the few animals that rely on their kidneys to help them reproduce
- Zoologger: First animal with ovaries on the outside March 22, 2012A newly-discovered marine worm has external ovaries, and may use them to keep its young close until they're grown
- Zoologger: Unmasking the Zorro of the avian world March 15, 2012Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, wait, it is a bird – just one wearing a face mask, like the swashbuckling fictional hero. But why?
- Zoologger: The worm that looks like a tree March 2, 2012A newly discovered worm lives inside sponges and has hundreds of branches
- Zoologger: The bird that cares for its rival's chicks February 23, 2012New Zealand's iconic pūkekos often allow other females to lay eggs in their nests, and care for the resulting young. What on earth for?
- Zoologger: Itsy bitsy teeny weeny chameleons February 15, 2012They've got independently rotating eyes, a curiously curly tail, and strangely depressing names. Meet some of the world's tiniest – and cutest – chameleons
- Zoologger: Don't bite - how the zebra got its stripes February 9, 2012An enigma that puzzled Darwin may have been solved – experiments suggest that zebras have stripes to fend off biting insects
- Zoologger: The only males with more brain than females February 2, 2012In one Icelandic lake, male three-spined sticklebacks have much larger brains than females – no other species shows such a big difference between the sexes
- Zoologger: How a blurry-eyed spider pounces on target January 26, 2012The Adanson's house jumper is the first animal found using out-of-focus vision to judge the distance to its victims
- Zoologger: Gecko's amputated tail has life of its own January 19, 2012Faced with a predator, the leopard gecko can jettison its tail – we explain how it keeps moving without a body
- Zoologger: Unique life form is half plant, half animal January 13, 2012A newly discovered single-celled organism isn't an animal, isn't a plant, and isn't even a neat hybrid of the two
- Zoologger: Transgender fish perform reverse sex flip January 6, 2012Boys will be boys… or girls, if it's convenient. From female to male and back again, gender bending means dwarf hawkfish can find a mate in any situation
- 2011 review: The year in Zoologger's extreme beasts December 22, 2011Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world. Here's our top 10
- Zoologger: Strange reptiles saw heads off seabirds May 31, 2012
- News from SciAm
- With Willpower, and a Jolt of Electricity, Paralyzed Rats Learn to Walk AgainThe rat stood on its hind limbs at one end of a narrow runway. It wore a tiny black vest attached to a robotic arm that hovered above its head. Without such mechanical support, the rat would have fallen over--its spinal cord had two deep cuts, rendering its back legs useless. Rubia van den Brand , then a doctoral candidate at the University of Zurich, stood […]
- Ethanol Scheme Bids to Clean Up CookingA farmer in Mozambique grows peas, beans and cassava in rotation--enough to feed the family with a little to spare. The farmer then sells that excess to CleanStar Mozambique, which dries and packages the produce for sale in the capital, Maputo. But the company also takes the surplus cassava , a starch-filled root and local food staple, and sends it to an eth […]
- Baby Boom: Did Retained Juvenile Traits Help Birds Outlive Dinosaurs?Birds are the only dinosaurs that have survived into modern times. Why is that? Of all the dinosaur species, how did they manage to make it through the catastrophic events of 65 million years ago, whereas all their fellow dinos perished? A new study, published May 27 in Nature , hints at an evolutionary phenomenon that may have played to birds' advantag […]
- Rewarding Research: Top Scientists Share $3-Million in Kavli PrizesMildred Dresselhaus, the so-called “queen of carbon science,” took home the $1-million Kavli Prize in Nanoscience today. The materials scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was awarded for her work in revealing the strange thermal and electrical properties that carbon develops at the atomic scale. These discoveries helped lead […]
- Scents and Senescence: "Old Person Smell" Is Real, but Not Necessarily OffensiveWait a minute. There's something unusual about the subway seat you just claimed. It's awfully warm, and a peculiar odor seems to hover in the air nearby--a stale, musty odor tinged with something as acrid as mothballs. You know this aroma: it's "old person smell." [More]
- Rhinoceros Undergoes Assisted Reproduction to Rescue Species from ExtinctionFrom Nature magazine [More]
- White House Petitioned to Make Research Free to AccessFrom Nature magazine [More]
- Blowing Its Cover: Crystallized Volcanic Rocks Provide a Window into Mount Saint Helens's PlumbingThirty-two years ago this month an explosive eruption reshaped Mount Saint Helens in a matter of seconds. An earthquake under the volcano in Washington State on May 18, 1980, triggered the largest landslide in recorded history as billions of cubic meters of mountainside tumbled away, initiating a massive release of gas, lava and ash. The cataclysm killed 57 […]
- Biosecurity Panel Flailed in Oversight of Mutant Bird FluFrom Nature magazine [More]
- How Can We Cope with the Dirty Water from Fracking?The nation's oil and gas wells produce at least nine billion liters of contaminated water per day, according to an Argonne National Laboratory report. And that is an underestimate of the amount of brine, fracking fluid and other contaminated water that flows back up a well along with the natural gas or oil, because it is based on incomplete data from st […]
- With Willpower, and a Jolt of Electricity, Paralyzed Rats Learn to Walk Again
