Issue 1

May 2015 Headington School Oxford

Headingtonium WELCOME

Welcome to the first edition of Headingtonium, HSO’s newsletter

covering the year’s main science events and much more.

It gives us great pleasure to share with you the diverse and innovative

approaches girls across the school have shown in their pursuit and

enjoyment of science.

Many of those participating in these events and initiatives have devoted

further time writing the articles here. We hope you enjoy reading the

articles as much as the girls enjoyed participating in the events. If you

like science and wish to find out more of what’s going on, why not speak

to one of our Science Ambassadors and get involved!

Best Wishes

Head of Science & Ambassadors

AMBASSADORS

This year a new team of Lower 6th Science Ambassadors was appointed

to spearhead whole school initiatives such as Eureka Science Club and

the Science and Medics Networking Event. Following the scheme’s suc-

cess we plan to offer a number of ambassador roles to girls in U5 during

2015-16. Our current team can be found on the back page.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Non-Newtonian Fluids.................2

Mummification.............................2

Clinical Medicine..........................3

Engineering Education Scheme . .3

Big Bang @RAL.............................4

Chemistry & Cancer Research......4

ISSC...............................................5

Young Scientists of the Year.........6

Interactive Science Fair................7

U5 Silver Crest..............................8

What goes on at Harwell..............9

Gods, Devils & Alcohols..............13

Oxford Climate Forum................15

Bath Bombs.................................16

The Science of Pain.....................17

Expanding Foam.........................18

Science Enrichment Lecture.......19

Eureka Science Club...................20

AND MORE…..

1

“Eureka is a fun and informative way to spend your lunch break”

At Monday lunch time this year I have been going to Eureka club. This term we have been having fun and researching non-Newtonian fluids. These are fluids that act like solids and like liquids. When you push your finger through it slowly, your finger just sinks in like a liquid. However, if you hit the fluid with your finger with force, the fluid seems hard and solid. We also looked at bouncing things off the surface. Once again, if you only drop the object it slowly sinks in but if you throw the object at the sur-face it bounces off. This is one of many of the exciting experiments and research topics that we do at Eureka and I am now working on flotation in air with balloon aerial photog-raphy. Eureka is a fun and informative way to spend your lunch break and there is a variety of different experiments to choose from so you can join whichever catches your eye, or even start your own!

Solid but yet liquid—Non-Newtonian Fluids

2

EUREKA CLUB

The 2014 Engineering Education Scheme (EES) launched with an event hosted by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (RAL). Headington’s team of four (Holly, Arina, Hannah and Jenny) met with their industry collaborators Oxford Instru-ments with whom they will be working over the next 7 months. The girls also rose superbly to school team challenges set by RAL’s leading space scientists, engineers and academics.

ENGINEERING EDUCATION SCHEME LAUNCH

3

Arina - “Coming to the RAL Laborato-ries was a scary experience, as I was-n't sure if I am clever enough, educated enough, prepared enough to participate in such schemes. But after the first day, I realised that I have great team mates, who I can get sup-port from and at the same time de-velop myself and solve a real life prob-lem, which is very interesting.”

Our girls are the first to complete and test their car design

Tour of the main neutron facility at RAL

EES team work with an OI engineer

Final touches

Caption describing picture or graphic

OTHER BIG BANGS

Most astronomers believe the

Universe began in a Big Bang

about 14 billion years ago. At

that time, the entire Universe

was inside a bubble that was

thousands of times smaller

than a pinhead. It was hotter

and denser than anything we

can imagine.

Then it suddenly exploded.

The Universe that we know

was born. Time, space and

matter all began with the Big

Bang. In a fraction of a sec-

ond, the Universe grew from

smaller than a single atom to

bigger than a galaxy. And it

kept on growing at a fantastic

rate. It is still expanding to-

day.

As the Universe expanded

and cooled, energy changed

into particles of matter and

antimatter. These two oppo-

site types of particles largely

destroyed each other. But

some matter survived. More

stable particles called protons

and neutrons started to form

when the Universe was one

second old.

Over the next three minutes,

the temperature dropped

below 1 billion degrees Cel-

sius. It was now cool enough

for the protons and neutrons

to come together, forming

hydrogen and helium nuclei.

After 300 000 years, the

Universe had cooled to about

3000 degrees. Atomic nuclei

could finally capture elec-

trons to form atoms. The

Universe filled with clouds of

hydrogen and helium gas.

BIG BANG @ RAL

While the rest of school went

back in time to 1915 two intrepid

teams of U3 and L4 scientists

were very much in the modern

world participating in a fun

packed day of Big Bang Science

at the Rutherford

Appleton Laborato-

ries.

Activities included:

designing a wind

powered car, a close

encounter with Blattodea, mak-

ing U.V. sensitive bracelets (see

above), Guess the Gadget (see

below) , STEM’s Got Talent and

making a comet in RAL Space .

4

On 6th March four lower sixth Headington

scientists presented at the 4th International

Student Science Conference (ISSC) at Radley

College. Hannah, Jenny, Arina and Holly

inspired their audience with an overview of

their collaboration with Oxford Instruments

within the Engineering Education Scheme

(EES).

Covering six months work the girls spoke lu-

cidly about their project management, R&D,

manufacturing techniques, computer aided

design (CAD), programming and 3-D printing

in their aim to re-design a heat exchanger for

ultra-low temperature components.

The girls will be presenting their work in Lon-

don later this term as part of their Gold Crest

Award.

Triton Dilution Refrigerator - in collaboration with the Engineer-ing Education Scheme (EES) and Oxford Instruments. The objective of this project is to de-sign a heat exchanger that can be attached to an Oxford Instruments (OI) Triton dilution refrigerator. This research is required in order for OI to compete with another company who have recently created an alternative all-welded design similar to their own. The research conducted involves looking into materials which would be suitable for various different appli-cations, some of which need to be excellent conductors of heat and oth-ers which should be high grade insu-lators. In addition to this, different welding and joining techniques are being investigated, including electron beam welding and metal additive manufacturing in order to join the various parts of our design. A CAD model has been produced over the course of a visit to Southampton University engineering department, permitting our team to learn and use ‘SolidWorks’ (a type of CAD package)

in a very short period of time. From these designs, blueprints were pro-duced which would allow a manufac-turer to construct the actual heat ex-changer which we designed. Using school 3D printers and driven by in-formation generated in SolidWorks, a plastic, scaled model has been cre-ated, comprising separate compo-nents of one section of the heat ex-changer; the foil, two layers of sinter and two outer shells. This model will be available for inspection at ISSC and eventually presented to the re-search engineers at OI.

Overall the project team researched,

designed and manufactured a model

of an alternative design of a heat ex-

changer for use in world leading, high

precision, ultra-low temperature sci-

entific research.

4TH ISSC

THE EES TEAM ABSTRACT

5

5

L-R Alba, Jenny & Alex

STEM

Over the course of the year

there will be a number of

STEM events, some national

and some local to Oxford.

STEM stands for Science,

Technology, Engineering

& Mathematics and is ex-

tremely important today since

there is such a crossover be-

tween these four areas in re-

search, industry, business and

at school.

The Science Faculty at Head-

ington is very keen to promote

STEM and offer you the chance

to get involved.

If you think you might be in-

terested, then why not search

up some of the STEM items

below:

The Royal Photographic

Society International Im-

ages for Science Competi-

tion

Royal College of Science

Union - Science Challenge

Nuffield Research Place-

ments

Headstart

The Year in Industry

Industrial Cadets

National Engineering

Competition for Girls

National Schools Geology

Challenge

WISE Campaign

Women’s Engineering

Society

YOUNG SCIENTISTS OF THE YEAR

Congratulations go to Head-

ington U6, three of whom re-

ceived awards for Young Sci-

entist of the Year.

Jenny Wark, Alba Landra and

Alex Emsley were selected for

their outstanding efforts and

achievements in Physics, Biol-

ogy and Chemistry respec-

tively.

This year’s high profile award

ceremony at Oxford’s Natural

History Museum hosted guest

speakers including the world

renowned Prof. Helen

McShane of the Nuffield De-

partment of Medicine who in-

spired the students with a fas-

cinating talk on her world-

leading vaccination research.

CHEMISTRY

6

INTERACTIVE SCIENCE FAIR @ NDM

7

L6 Medics

Making DNA bracelets

Phenotype Tree

Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine

Quotes of the day:

Joyce Lee—“We had such a great time visiting the Nuffield Department of Medicine. During the trip, we were allowed to see the working places of the scientists in the institution. The technology there im-pressed me a lot; there were many extremely powerful pieces of equipment that were running in real-time. We got a chance to explore the ways scientists investigate medicines and chemicals in reality. The tour guide gave us excellent explanations on how the processes actually work and the purposes of each of the machines present in the laboratories.”

Natalie Lau - “The Science Fair provided me with the opportunity to know more about the research in translational medicine that has been taking place within the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine. The interactive activities in the fair were interesting and were able to involve people of all ages in the world of science. One of the activities was to make bracelets which model the double helix shape of a DNA molecule. I was particularly impressed by the Structural Genomics Consortium which had set up a corner in the fair explaining its work for drug discovery by studying the structure of protein and the human genome.”

Allison Tai - “I particularly enjoyed building models for viruses in the interactive fair because it was much easier to learn the structure of viruses by visualising and making one by myself. Extracting DNA from strawberries was equally amazing as I realised how science is closely related to our daily life!”

U5 SILVER CREST

Conclusion: From isolating the total average growth of height and width from the cultures of broc-coli and cauliflower florets, the graph above was produced. It al-lowed us to compare the growth between the cauliflower and broc-coli tissues. Through the results one can infer that the broccoli cultures appear to have a higher growth rate than the cauliflower cultures. After speculations, we agreed that the reason for such a result is that broccoli floret cells contain more chloroplast than cauliflower, which, in turn, con-tains few or no chloroplasts, as one can see from its colour.

Therefore broccoli undergoes photosynthesis at a higher rate, and is able to produce more en-ergy and nutrients for cell regen-eration, ultimately leading to a higher growth rate. Furthermore, the results prove that the disin-fectants used are unlikely to cause severe damage to the plant cells that contain more pigment, which was our initial speculation.

U5 Silver Crest team mem-bers: Agnes So, Andrea Mak, Felicia So, Jenny To, Joy Chow and Shirley Chiu

8

Investigation on the rate of regeneration in different parts of plants (excerpts from a much larger investigation spanning several months)

Initial samples

Sterile preparation

Broccoli growth

A DAY AT HARWELL

Harwell is stranded in the middle of nowhere, throughout the minibus journey,

I could only see mostly fields and small houses. Therefore I was not expecting

what I actually saw. When we stepped down from the minibus onto the parking

lot in the centre, I was just awed by my surroundings. In front of me was the

Diamond Light Source building, behind me was the Rutherford Appleton re-

search centre, to my left was what will soon be the European Space centre and

ISIS, the neutron scattering source somewhere in the back corner. These struc-

tures are just what I saw standing from one spot. The site actually had much

more buildings and facilities, but unfortunately we did not have enough time to

look around (it would probably take days to look around all of them!)

We were led into the reception area of the Diamond light source centre — a

place which cost £383 million to build and has the annual operation cost of

around £40 million (2012-2013)1. The interior was actually as impressive as

how we portrayed professional labs in the movies. The atrium was large, allow-

ing you to see the higher floor above, tall glass windows, fully letting the light in

and a scaled mock-up of the Diamond light source prominent in the centre of

the atrium. I looked around the room: to my surprise, I saw such a variety of

people. People from all different corners of the world were gathered here, dif-

ferent genders, different ethnicity. One thing they had in common, their love for

science and their knowledge. I could just feel the brain power vibrating in the

place, and that was when I started to get very excited ; since I imagined that the

woman who just walk passed me might become the world’s most influential

scientist of the next century, and I’ve seen them in person!

We were then taken into a theatre by staff, and our day officially started with a

talk. The talk introduced us to the diamond light source, it being the one and

only UK’s national synchrotron light source. The talk explained the researches

that went on in the Diamond centre, focusing more towards the biological side

(being the biological open day). The researches at the centre range from: testing

the structure of the Rolls Royce’s plane component, under the simulated condi-

tion of flying, to looking at crystallised protein structures by x-ray diffraction.

INSIDE STORY

ISIS is the world’s most suc-

cessful pulsed spallation

neutron source. The facility

provides beams of neutrons

and muons that enable sci-

entists to probe the micro-

scopic structure and dynam-

ics of matter.

The benefits of neutron scat-

tering coupled with the

strengths of the ISIS pulsed

source have been responsi-

ble for the emergence of a

world-class research pro-

gramme at the facility, cov-

ering topics at the forefront

of Physics, Chemistry, Mate-

rials Science, Earth Science,

Engineering and Biology.

Lab work is multi-disciplinary

9

It was 8:30 in the morning. I was

sitting in the minibus with 14

other girls and Mrs. Quirk, to go

to the Harwell research complex.

I must admit I was not expecting

much, considering my past ex-

perience of lab visits were not

extremely inspiring. That morn-

ing I thought to myself, ‘Here we

go, walking around endlessly,

listening to people talk about

something sophisticated that will

not make any sense to me’, but

the day actually turned out to be

tremendously different to what I

had presumed it would be.

“Why don’t you have a play around with the digital microscope?”

The method of shooting x-rays at a

sample and looking at the diffraction

pattern to work out its structure actu-

ally has existed for a very long time. It

was the exact same method that

Rosalind Franklin used to find the

structure of DNA, and that Henry

Moseley used to form Moseley’s Law.

So the technique that the research

centre is based on has actually been

around since at least the 20th century;

when Max Von Laue, a German

physicist, discovered the diffraction

of X-rays by crystals he won the

Nobel prize in atomic physics in 1912.

However what makes the Diamond

light source more exceptional was the

intensity and quality of the electro-

magnetic waves that are produced.

The highly condensed rays allowed

the images to be crisper and clearer,

allowing the researchers to extract

more information from it. The more

advanced level of technology and

machinery allowed much more to

happen, such as creating 3-

dimensional images of the sample’s

structure by taking multiple images

and running it through computer

algorithms.

Our group started off in the Cell In-

vestigation Laboratory; where they

cultured, modified, engineered,

cloned, investigated cells. I looked

first at the cell culture lab. It is a level

one sterile environment lab, thus we

had to wear lab coats and gloves,

looking extremely professional. We

were shown the cells that they have

engineered and cultured. They used

insect cells and have input a fluores-

cent gene (obtained from jellyfish)

into the cell, and then allowed them

to multiply. The fluorescent gene

made the cells easier to observe;

these cells are then used for experi-

ments and observations. I was sur-

prised when the scientist in charge

said “Why don’t you have a play

around with the digital microscope?”

knowing that all these equipment are

very expensive. So when we were told

we can actually try to use it, we all

jumped with excitement, in contrast

with our teacher who looked quite

anxious that we might end up break-

ing something... We looked at the

engineered cells through the different

filters of the microscope and saw that

the cells accepted the fluorescent

gene quite well. About 80% of the

cells accepted them, but most of these

cells will end up dying rather quickly,

since to an extent, the foreign gene

can be toxic to them.

We were then shown electrophoresis

and gel chromatography. We were

instructed how to do electrophoresis

and we all had a turn in doing it using

a micro-litre pipette. (The micro-litre

pipette was definitely one of the best

parts of the day.) The scientists then

explained to us the process of cell

cloning; and to my surprise, I actually

understood what she was saying.

Since the day was actually designed

for A-level students, the staff knew

exactly the knowledge level that we

were studying and so they explained

it at the level they know we can un-

derstand, but they have stretched the

content further, so that it’s intriguing

and enriching. This was what made

the visit to Harwell different from

visits to many other labs.

We then went on to the next lab work

at the MPL (Membrane Protein Lab).

Here, they specifically research on the

membrane structures, meaning they

work with anything that is classified

as a membrane; whether it’s the

plasma membrane or the organelle

membranes. What made this facility

special was that it was located right

next to the synchrotron light source.

MPL looks at protein structures and

membrane structures by crystallising

them , and then shooting x-rays at the

crystals to look at their x-ray scatter

patterns.

10

After lunch we were actually let into the area around the synchrotron to have a tour. We

were lucky enough to see one of the researches going on, and one of the machines being

used for x-ray diffraction. Our tour guide happened to be a physicist, who was very

passionate about the physics behind the synchrotron. However, since none of us did

physics, he had to explain the logic behind the synchrotron to us very simply. The syn-

chrotron is basically source to produce very condensed beams of ultraviolet light, infra-

red and x-rays. It works like a grand scale microscope. Since light waves’ wavelength is

too long to investigate very small structures such as atoms or molecules, scientists need

to use special light generated by the synchrotron instead. The light from the synchro-

tron can be 10 billion times brighter than the sun, producing up to 3GeV (Giga-electron-

volt) electron beam, thus classifying as a medium energy synchrotron.

The light synchrotron works by having electrons generated by an electron gun. They are

then fired out into the booster synchrotron, where they are accelerated to nearly the

speed of light through a series of 3 particle accelerators. The electrons then enter the

storage ring where, they are moving so fast they could travel around the world 7.5

times in a second.2 Electromagnetic waves are released in the electron’s path when the

electron is deflected by very powerful electromagnets. Those waves are then filtered and

focused into more intense beams.

One of the most remarkable things was when we walked on top of the synchrotron, fol-

lowing the path the electron took exactly, which was marked on by a single yellow line

on top of the synchrotron. We walked then around the outside of the concrete lead walls

of the synchrotron, but unfortunately, we could not go inside, since the synchrotron was

operating and we would sadly die of over-exposure to x-rays if we were to go in.

We wrapped off the day with a brainstorming activity. We summarised what we had

learnt in the day and put it into context. We looked at different types of pathogens and

ranked disease according to different interests of different stakeholders; such as the

pharmaceutical interest, or the public interest, and looked at how they differ. We looked

at how research would be valued by different stakeholders, and how both target orien-

tated researches (such as cure for cancer) and blue sky researches (such as Higgs

Boson), are both very important to humanity as a community.

On the minibus journey back to school, I sat reflecting on the day. The experience con-

firmed that I chose the right subjects, I am now more confident on what study and ca-

reer path I want to have. It definitely has been a highlight for me, and if possible I

would like to go back to the Harwell research centre, but not as a visitor next time...

maybe as an intern…

Avika Pulges (6JL)

DIAMOND

LIGHT

SOURCE

Diamond Light

Source is the

UK’s national

synchrotron

science facility,

located at the

Harwell Science

and Innovation

Campus in Ox-

fordshire.

The facility is

used by over

3,000 academic

and industrial

researchers

across a wide

range of disci-

plines including

structural biol-

ogy, energy, en-

gineering,

nanoscience and

environmental

sciences.

We were lucky enough to get to try

the crystallography method for our-

selves. We crystallised Lysozyme,

since it was quickest and easiest to

crystallise, we were told however,

that some proteins may take days to

many months to crystallise (some

will not), just to be destroyed in half

a millisecond by the condensed x-

ray beam. We had a look at our crys-

tals under a microscope, and the

scientists then showed us how to fish

the crystals out using a pin, a skill

which few can do since it requires

very stable hands.

11

Naming: There was quite a lot of deliberation on the name of our rat especially as we had all finally agreed on Scabbers (inspired by Harry Potter) only to find out our rat was a girl. After realizing this problem we went back to the drawing board and decided on the name Scabetta. Dissection: Instead of using the typical ancient Egyptian method of removing the organs, through a small slit in the side of the chest, we decided to do a full dissection so that the younger students, who wanted to, could study Scabetta’s insides. However the brain is not normally removed in school dissections so we had to crack Scabetta’s skull to remove her brain. Salting: After we dissected Scabetta, removing all her internal organs, we filled her insides with linen salt packages and surrounded her com-pletely in salt, inside a box that we sealed and left in a biology lab for 3 weeks. After that we had to change Scabetta’s salt every weeks for about 4 weeks. Wrapping: We wrapped Scabetta in linen so she started to look like a real mummy. Burial: We buried Scabetta in her very own tomb, which we built her and plan to dig her up on our 10-year reunion to see the results of how well our mummification went. We thoroughly enjoyed doing our project and if anyone has any wacky ideas, it can be anything, come along to science club on Monday and join in. If you want to find out more about the science behind how the mummifi-cation process preserves the body here are some link to great websites. http://science.howstuffworks.com/mummy1.htm http://www.egyptartsite.com/mummy.html If you are more interested in the religion behind the mummification process here are some really great websites covering the basics of Ancient Egyptian religion and burial.

MUMMIFICATION

WHAT WE DID…..

12

Alba and Alex explain the dissection process to U3 and L4.

“We went back to the drawing board and decided on the name Scabetta”

Last term in Eureka a few students have been mummify-ing a rat. The project led by Alba Landra, Jenny Wark and Rose G-T involved many younger girls who took part at different stages, especially, in the dissection process. The project was inspired by a talk that we all went to in late September in the Ashmolean Museum. The speaker dis-cussed the many different and famous theories behind King Tutankhamun’s death.

A group of L6 and U6 Chemistry students attended a talk by the 2012

Royal Society of Chemistry Lecturer, Dr Peter Wothers, from the Uni-

versity of Cambridge. The talk was entitled “Gods, Devils, and Alcohols

– their influence on chemical nomenclature”. Students were im-

pressed by the talk and enjoyed it immensely, gaining a different and

wider perspective on organic chemistry.

Rebecca Colquhoun (L6) commented:

‘I found Dr Wothers’ talk … a great experience. It was particularly in-

teresting to see how he proposed swapping the names of hydrogen and

oxygen around, as “oxygen” in fact means 'acid creating'. However, we

now know that it is hydrogen ions that are responsible for acidity. And

“hydrogen” means 'water-creating', which oxygen is too, as they are

both present in water.’

Avika Pulges (L6) also reflected on the talk:

‘When we think of science, we mostly think of the present and the fu-

ture. What is and what will be. We never really thought of how it came

to be. The talk really taught me to understand the background and his-

tory of the elements and compounds we recognise today. How they

came to be, how crucial they are, and how long some of them have

been an important part in our lives! These elements are not just in

science, but they also influence and are embedded in history, religion

and nearly everything!’

Jenny Bae

GODS, DEVILS & ALCOHOLS

13

Organic chemistry is a

chemistry sub-discipline

involving the scientific

study of the structure,

properties, and reactions

of organic compounds and

organic materials, i.e.,

matter in its various forms

that contain carbon atoms.

Seventeenth century alchemical

emblem showing the four Classi-

cal elements in the corners of the

image, alongside the tria prima

on the central triangle

WORDSEARCH

14

14

“The forum opened my eyes to how there are so many actions we do every day that have an impact on the environment”

A group of sixth form students attended Oxford

University’s fifth annual Climate Forum, the

leading student-run conference that brings to-

gether top speakers to discuss climate change

and raise awareness of one of the most signifi-

cant challenges facing the whole of society. The

conference included a range of lectures, debates

and workshops to stimulate discussion. Stu-

dents were very impressed with the range of

talks on offer.

“ The forum opened my eyes to how there are

so many actions we do every day that have an

impact on the environment that we do not even

think about. It was amazing to see speakers

with so much passion about the future of our

planet that they want to invest in young people

to change the way we live”.

“I found the Food Security talk fascinating. The

current and future situation of food sources and

distribution was described as an "emergency".

The speakers covered many topics, such as the

sustainability of meat production, food wastage,

obesity and undernourishment, Genetically

Modified food sources as well as the role of gov-

ernments in regulating the food companies with

their so-called "dirty tricks". For instance, I

learned that the British government will, as of

next week, impose a law that companies must

specify the type e.g. "palm oil", rather than just

saying "vegetable oil" on a list of ingredients.

The panellists discussed how increasing level of

transparency between producer and consumer

will benefit us all in finding out more about

what goes into our food and where it comes

from. This conference was a real eye-opener as

to the urgency of the global food conundrum:

"What is the future of food?", motivating me to

take an active part in this change and become

more involved with the choices of food I con-

OXFORD CLIMATE FORUM

WHAT THE GIRLS THOUGHT

15

U3 discover the chemistry of the bombs

INGREDIENTS FOR

A BATH BOMB

2 cups of bicarbonate of

soda (baking soda).

1 cup of cream of tartar.

1-2 tablespoons of olive oil

or plain oil.

food colouring.

essential oils (lavender etc)

dried lavender.

water in a spray bottle.

BATH BOMBS ARE MADE

OF CHEMICALS WHICH

CAN CAUSE HARM TO THE

EYES DURING THEIR

CREATION—ALWAYS USE

GOGGLES AND SEEK AD-

VICE FROM A CHEMISTRY

TEACHER BEFORE TRYING

TO MAKE YOUR OWN AT

HOME

BATH BOMBS

I have participated in the Eureka

Club leading and planning the

sessions which has been a fun

experience for me. I am a bath

bomb addict, so bath bombs have

been a subject that I am particu-

larly interested in. Therefore, I

started investigating the chemical

theories behind it on how the car-

bonate within the bath bomb re-

acts with the water and make it

fizz. After all the research for the

list of ingredients needed, I

started an investigation with

some U3 girls which led them to

create their very own bath bombs.

They all enjoyed it a lot and had

excited smiles as they observed

how the bath bomb fizzes within

the water and listened closely to

my explanation on what is hap-

pening in the reaction.

I think what is most interesting in

this project is that it proves that

science is within everything we do

in daily life and Eureka Club is

indeed a newer way to approach it

by letting the girls have a hands

on experience with some fun sci-

ence.

Etain Au

16

“I am a bath bomb addict”

“ Do women have a higher threshold than men? And the answer was…..no!”

The world of anaesthesia and pain medicine was

unveiled to students in April when Dr Peter Cole

gave a master class on the biology behind why we

feel pain. He discussed and compared nociceptive

and neuropathic pain symptoms and treatments,

including Fibromyalgia, a long-term condition that

causes pain all over the body.

He gave us an insight into his typical working

week, including his work as an Anaesthetist and

pain consultant, and also described his work with

plastic surgeons. Everyone was fascinated by what

he said, and the images he showed gave us a true

insight into life in an operating theatre. We

particularly enjoyed the fascinating, but slightly

gruesome pictures showing before and after a

tumorectomy on a woman’s arm.

At the end of the lecture, there were some stimu-

lating questions asked by the girls. Dr Cole had

previously explained that depression can be a side

effect of pain, so one girl was intrigued to know if

depression can induce pain. However, the biggest

question on all of our minds was asked by the fan-

tastic Mrs Quirk – “Do women have a higher pain

threshold than men?” And the answer was......no!

PAINFULLY BAD

THE SCIENCE OF PAIN

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CRAZY EXPANDING FOAM In the expanding foam experi-

ment we made, each bubble was

filled with oxygen. The yeast used

acted as a catalyst, which speeds

up reactions to remove the oxy-

gen from the hydrogen peroxide.

Since this reaction happened very

fast, it created lots of bubbles. As

a result of that, the bottle got

warm, that’s because our experi-

ment created a reaction called

an Exothermic Reaction which

means it not only created foam, it

released heat energy

Markha Mezhieva and Mila

Mananolhar L4

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Q—WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH SURFBOARDS?

SCIENCE ENRICHMENT LECTURE

WHAT’S A VACCINE?

Vaccination involves expos-

ing the body’s immune sys-

tem to a weakened or harm-

less version of the pathogen

in order to stimulate white

blood cells to produce anti-

bodies. Antibiotics are used

to treat bacterial infections.

Bacteria can mutate and

become resistant to antibiot-

ics. This is one reason why

new drugs are constantly

being developed.

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On Wednesday 21st January 2015, it was a privilege to have Professor Helen McShane, Professor of Vaccinology and Wellcome Trust senior Clinical Fellow at Oxford University, visit Headington School to give students a science lecture. The presentation focused on the world lead-ing research on HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and Ebola, titled “Vaccines for old and new pathogens”. It was a precious opportunity to learn more about the scientific background of vaccines.

The main theme of the talk was the epidemiology of tuberculosis, which has always been one of the world’s major infectious diseases. It is a challenging task to develop vaccines for TB as Mycobacterium Tubercu-losis, the bacteria that causes TB, has many different types of strains. The current vaccine may be ineffective with other strains be-cause there are more than 400 types of pro-teins in the bacteria.

Currently, Professor McShane is working on alternative TB treatments such as an inhaled version of TB vaccine. Furthermore, she is one of the lead-ing scientists in the UK who work with people in Africa testing Ebola vaccines using various methods like efficacy and double blind trials.

At the end of her speech, students were eager to ask a wide range of questions, concerning how well the consent form for vaccine trials is understood by volunteers despite the high illiteracy rate in South Af-

rica. Questions based on topics in the news were also asked such as the relationship between MMR vaccine and au-tism. Professor McShane explained all the answers clearly with well sup-ported statistics based on her professional first-hand experience. It was a lovely evening and all the students greatly enjoyed it.

Smile 6MC and Charmaine 6JM

Ebola Virus

Tuberculosis Virus

Prof. McShane “I was really impressed with the girls...their questions were better than I often get from an undergraduate audience”

EUREKA SCIENCE

CLUB

If you would like to become more

involved with science outside your

normal lessons, then this weekly

club gives you an ideal opportunity

to do fun science of your own

choosing. The club is open to all

age groups in the senior school and

is essentially run by girls for girls.

Staff are merely there to guide you

and offer advice about equipment

and Health & Safety.

SCIENCE AMBASSADORS

Headington School Oxford

Headington Road

Oxford

OX3 7TD

Phone: 01865 759100

email:

enquiries@headington.org

email:

jmorris@headington.org

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