The British Council's Science Alive! lectures are on again. From April 26-30 at the Science Museum, three boffins from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, will consider questions like how the human brain works and why we have legs at the end of our bodies instead of on the side.
The ninth Science Alive! will feature one talk twice each day, covering how autopsies help us find out how someone died, through the way bodies regulate themselves, to smart materials that adjust to the environment - or even alter it.
The lectures are aimed at showing students and teachers that science can be fun.
They are sponsored by the British Council, the Education Department, the Science Museum and Imperial College.
Rice bonus Russian chemists claim they can turn rice husks - the waste that Asian farmers discard - into high-purity silicon dioxide, used for glass and in electronics. And they have already tested their environmentally friendly method on Chinese and Vietnamese husks.
Researchers at the Institute of Chemistry in Vladivostok told the Post that they first leached the husks in mineral acid, rinsed, dried and burned them. They argue this new product is better than currently available silica produced from sodium silicate or quartz, because their product does not contain any iron oxide impurity.
