Continue reading »]]> The Grim Reaper came for me last night, and I beat him off with a Vacuum cleaner.
Talk about Dyson with death.
—-oOo—-

Paddy says “Mick, I’m thinking of buying a Labrador .”
“Really, …” says Mick “Have you seen how many of their owners go blind?”
—-oOo—-

I woke up last night to find the ghost of Gloria Gaynor standing at the foot of my bed.
At first I was afraid…then I was petrified
—-oOo—-

The wife has been missing a week now. Police said to prepare for the worst.
So I’ve been to the charity shop to get all her clothes back.
—-oOo—-

A mate of mine recently admitted to being addicted to brake fluid.
When I quizzed him on it he reckoned he could stop any time.
—-oOo—-

I went to the cemetery yesterday to lay some flowers on a grave. As I was standing there I noticed 4 grave diggers walking about with a coffin,
3 hours later and they’re still walking about with it.
I thought to myself, they’ve lost the plot …..

—-oOo—-

My daughter asked me for a pet spider for her birthday, so I went to our local pet shop and they were £70! “Blow this,” I thought,
“I can get one cheaper off the web.”

—-oOo—-

Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarves are not happy.

—-oOo—-

I was at a cash point yesterday when a little old lady asked if I could check her balance, so I pushed her over.

—-oOo—-

I start a new job in Seoul next week. I thought it was a good Korea move.
—-oOo—-

I was driving this morning when I saw an RAC van parked up. The driver was sobbing uncontrollably and looked very miserable.
I thought to myself, “That guy’s heading for a breakdown.”

—-oOo—-
On holiday recently in Spain I saw a sign that said ‘English speaking Doctor’ – I thought,
‘What a good idea, why don’t we have them in our country?’

Continue reading »]]> This is my first cheese that I have ever tried so I thought I would share it!

This cheese is a soft roule style cheese which is relatively simple to make. However, you will need to assemble some items first.

Equipment / Ingredients

1. Animal Rennet (100ml bottle) 12 drops (buy from www.Ascott.biz)
2. Mesophillic Starter (1 sachet) about 1/6^th roughly of sachet. I have used Choozit MA4002 in this case. This is a freeze dried starter, which is added directly to the milk and not incubated before use. Each sachet is sufficient for 50 litres of milk. Used with rennet. It is simple to use as you add it to the mil at 32°C and leave for 30 mins soft cheese and 60mins hard cheese. This will provide the “cheesiness” which naturally would happen over time if you left the milk for the natural bacteria to come. (buy from www.Ascott.biz)
3. Large sheet of cheese cloth (buy from Amazon)
4. Cheese matting (buy from www.Ascott.biz)aq
5. Thermometer, sturdy glass standard science one will do. (Avoid mercury)
6. Large metal saucepan at least 8 litres in size
7. Large metal colander
8. Stirring Device and Slotted Spoon (metal)
9. Nice quality full fat Sainsbury Organic Milk 6.75litres or 12 pints
10. Cream if required.

Instructions

It is a simple process in which attention should be paid to the cleanliness to avoid bacterial contamination or your cheese (i.e. you are leaving it to grow bacteria) and also the temperatures for the enzymes as one denatured that is it!

1. Clean your pan till it is spotless, best dishwasher as it heat drys. Add milk and heat gently to 29-32°C stirring as you go make sure this is stable (i.e. heat from bottom of pan has evened out). If you “cook” the milk you change the chemical composition and change the cheese product.
2. Boil some water and then leave half a cup to cool covered.
3. Add the right amount of the mesophillic starter. In this case 1 sachet does 50 litres so about the tip of the knife is about right. Stir in and leave covered for 45 minutes.
4. Now if the temperature of the milk has dropped significantly you need to very gently heat it back to 30C for the rennet to work well. Check temperature of water is below 30°C Add 12 drops of rennet (no more or you get a nasty taint) to the water and then add to the milk stirring well. Now cover and leave for another at least 45 minutes without touching it (don’t be tempted to stir!). Now it might take more time than this as it is a natural thing. In this specific case it took 2 hours!
5. Now you should have a curd set and separated from the whey. Use a sharp knife to cut the curd into 1cm cubes. Then fish them out with the slotted spoon and gently drain them in a muslin lined colander. Save the whey you lose for making ricotta later. We are trying to lose the whey but not all the moisture and fat from the cheese.
6. Gently knot the cloth and hang up the cheese cloth to help draining (a hook might be helpful at this point).
7. Now unknot and salt salt the cheese curds to taste and return to hang for the final extraction of whey.
8. Now place into a metal bowl and mix in some cream if desired to make a creamy paste.

Seasoning / Ripening

It might be worth now dividing the cheese into separate bowls and mixing herbs, garlic, paprika, sesame seeds or crushed peppercorns to the outside of the cheese before placing into a mould and shaping.  Remember more is often less!

The cheese will take a better flavour if allowed to ripen in the fridge on a small piece of cheese matting overnight and then wrapping in cling film. In this case they have been put into a shaping mould.

Extra Information

Mesophile is an organism that grows best in moderate temperature, neither too hot nor too cold, typically between 20 and 45°C (68 and 113 °F)

 The habitats of these organisms include especially cheese, yogurt, and mesophile organisms are often included in the process of beer and wine making.

The starter culture has a crucial role to play during all phases of the cheese making and maturation process. As the culture grows in the milk, it converts lactose to lactic acid. This ensures the correct pH for coagulation in both the press and final cheese curd. It also secures the final moisture level and yield in the cheese. During ripening, the culture enzymes have to give a balanced aroma, taste, texture, surface appearance and if required, eye formation.

Rennet contains many enzymes, including protease that coagulates the milk, causing it to separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey).  The active enzyme in rennet is called chymosin or rennin but there are also other important enzymes in it, e.g., pepsin and lipase.

Whey is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It is a by-product of the manufacture of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses. Sweet whey is manufactured during the making of rennet types of hard cheese like cheddar or Swiss cheese. Acid whey (also known as “sour whey”) is obtained during the making of acid types of cheese such as cottage cheese.

Continue reading »]]> Well I hate to admit that I was right but….

Suggestions from some of my Physics students reached fever pitch that the world they were in would fall apart it seems that the boffins got it wrong and Einstein’s relativity theory was wrong after all this time.

In fact the team doing the research got it wrong twice and my students and half the world was sucked it. I firmly stuck to my idea that they must have a systematic error in their equipment. Such theories are not lightly changed and what concerned me mostly is that even if the particles did travel faster than light this was presented as a fact but where was the theory for why they would travel faster than light! This seemed to be a more important question as for everything else we know things that have mass can never travel that fast. Hence, cannot be true!

Usually in Physics there is an obvious reason for everything.

So it also appears that they two problems which would have had opposing effects on the apparent speed.

Problem 1

On the one hand, the team said there is a problem in the “oscillator” that provides a ticking clock to the experiment in the intervals between the synchronisations of GPS equipment.

This is used to provide start and stop times for the measurement as well as precise distance information.

That problem would increase the measured time of the neutrinos’ flight, in turn reducing the surprising faster-than-light effect.

Problem 2

The team also said they found a problem in the optical fibre connection between the GPS signal and the experiment’s main clock – quite simply, a cable not quite fully plugged in.

In contrast, the team said that effect would increase the neutrinos’ apparent speed.

How Science Works

The team had carried out their measurements for more than three years, exhaustively scrutinising their methods and analysis before announcing the results last year – so why had they not found these issues before?

“It’s sometimes very difficult to tell whether this thing could have been done before – because in a sense the answer is always yes,” said Sergio Bertolucci, director of research at Cern.

Prof Bertolucci outlined the complexity both of the experiment and the analysis of the results, stressing that the hunt for just these kinds of problems had been relentless.

“Their constant search for systematic (errors) has never stopped, for more than a year.”

Continue reading »]]> Q1. In which battle did Napoleon die?
* his last battle

Q2. Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?
* at the bottom of the page

Q3. River Ravi flows in which state?
* liquid

Q4. What is the main reason for divorce?
* marriage

Q5. What is the main reason for failure?
* exams

Q6. What can you never eat for breakfast?
* Lunch & dinner

Q7. What looks like half an apple?
* The other half

Q8. If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become?
* It will simply become wet

Q9. How can a man go eight days without sleeping ?
* No problem, he sleeps at night.

Q10. How can you lift an elephant with one hand?
* You will never find an elephant that has only one hand..

Q11. If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in other hand, what would you have ?
* Very large hands

Q12. If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
* No time at all, the wall is already built.

Q13. How can u drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?
*Any way you want, concrete floors are very hard to crack .

Continue reading »]]> If you are going through the stresses of exams or are doing GCSEs, A levels or a degree, you will want to do all you can to boost your chances. What and when you eat and drink can be important in helping to keep you alert, focused and able to deal with the day-to-day pressure of exams.

It is an old rule but a golden one: during periods of intensive study, breakfast really is vital. Numerous studies have indicated that skipping it affects the ability to concentrate later: those who eat breakfast have better recall, better problem-solving skills and improved scores in maths tests.

The explanation for this is probably that your brain has high glucose requirements yet can store only small amounts of this crucial source of energy. It was always assumed that the body kept the brain optimally supplied with glucose (sugar) at the expense of almost every other organ. But this idea is challenged by the finding that boosting blood sugar after a nights fast aids mental performance.

The precise mechanisms by which blood sugar affects memory are not fully understood, but glucose is certainly needed to raise production of a nerve transmitter called acetylcholine. When drugs block production of acetylcholine, memory is disrupted, with the ability to remember new information being particularly affected.

While a sugary breakfast cereal and white toast, or a pain au chocolat or muffin will certainly give you a sugar rush, it is less likely to keep your blood sugar stable for the morning ahead than the slowly digested carbohydrates that are found in, for example, wholegrain cereals such as porridge and sugar-free muesli, granary toast or some fruit with a yoghurt or fromage frais.

Wholegrain cereals also give you a dose of B vitamins, including the B1 that is needed, along with blood sugar, to make acetylcholine. Meanwhile, the milk that you add to your muesli provides protein, which helps to keep you full and aids concentration.

For mid-morning snacks try to avoid quickly digested refined carbohydrates such as biscuits, cereal bars, fizzy drinks and squash or sweets. A sugar burst followed by a debilitating, energy-draining low can result, which is enough to throw your concentration off kilter in exams or make revision more difficult.

It is also vital to keep well hydrated. Even a small dip in fluid levels can affect our ability to focus and may impair mental agility. During revision, it is better to make frequent trips to the loo than to sit and stare blankly because, deprived of fluids, you can’t absorb information properly. During the exam it is a good idea to keep taking small sips of liquid, provided you have been to the loo before you begin.

While coffee, tea and energy drinks such as Red Bull might seem to help in staving off sleepiness during late-night revision sessions, overdoing these beverages can overstimulate the nervous system, elevating blood pressure and heart rate and putting you more on edge. Stick to no more than five or six caffeine-containing drinks each day. To get the most out of caffine’s short-term ability to improve concentration, it is worth cutting down your daily intake and saving such a drink until just before you really need the boost.

Lunch is as important as breakfast. The last thing you want, however, is the feeling that a rich meal is sitting uncomfortably in your stomach all afternoon. Avoiding fat-laden, mayonnaise-based sandwiches, pizzas and chips is therefore wise.

So, too, is steering clear of meals that are too rich in carbohydrate. Large pasta-based dishes and oversized baguettes will deliver a big dollop of carbohydrate, which can make you sleepy in the hours ahead so that you feel more like a siesta than hard mental work.

Protein, on the other hand, seems to help us to concentrate. Tuna, chicken, turkey, lean beef or ham and eggs make ideal bases for lunch and can be accompanied by slowly digested carbohydrates such as a small pitta bread, tortilla wrap or a slice of rye, sourdough or granary bread.

Surveys of British teenagers show that girls, particularly, are lacking in iron, consuming only about half the recommended daily intake between the ages of 11 and 18. A general lack of B vitamins can strain the nervous system, while too little folic acid (a specific type of vitamin B) can, like insufficient iron, trigger low moods.

Quick tips for smart candidates

• Boost your omega3s. Omega3 essential fats are vital for optimum brain functioning, helping messages to reach nerve endings effectively. Two servings a week of oily fish such as salmon, mackerel or anchovies, plus regular intakes of flax seeds and omega-3-enriched eggs, orange juice and milk are worth eating.
• Avoid junk food, cakes, biscuits, pies and ready meals that contain trans fats (labelled as partially hydrogenated oils/ vegetable fats) in the ingredients list. It is believed that these can block the passage of messages between nerve endings in our brains.
• Have plenty of citrus fruits, berries and vegetables, which are great for vitamin C. Our adrenal glands, which pump out adrenalin when we are stressed, need good supplies to keep our bodies in balance. As vitamin C is needed for a robust immune system as well, these fruits and vegetables may also help to reduce the risk of being laid low with a summer cold that could upset your revision and exam performance.
• Replace some of your caffeine-rich, sugary drinks with camomile tea: the active plant constituents can help to reduce stress.

(Source: Times Online)

Continue reading »]]> Hi,

It has been a fantastic year for Animated Science with lots of new content being added for KS5 Physics and also some older items repurposed in our new blog. We have certainly gone worldwide with the appeal of the site with users across the globe accessing all the resources. The Charcuterie Section is also shaping up nicely with our top worldwide google ranking for “Pork and Sage Sausage”. I will be adding more as I have a new android phone so I will be adding some cool videos as well as images to this section.

Looking through the statistics it has been amazing; we have served pages to over 60,000 unique visitors, who have viewed 401,896 pages. In total we have had over 2 million hits and users have downloaded over 192GB of data through the site.

It seems that mobile use is now building and the site is now fully optimised for Android/iPhone or the newer smart phones. We have a full menu system with icons and able to rotate and scale for every modern phone or tablet on the market.

The most exciting launch is our Kindle venture with notes of nearly 10,000 words for Unit 1 AQA Revision in the Amazon store. We will see how this goes but more will follow when time allows and the price has fallen due to dollar / pound exchange rates so good news there!

Thanks for all the support and please come back!

Daniel Powell

(Animated Science Admin)

Continue reading »]]> The slideshow below is a fraction of the amazing ceramics created by a Gloucestershire Potter Stephen Powell.

The colour of the glazes are a vivid eclectic mix. The collection here inspired in part by functional items but also includes others of a purely artistic merit.

Stephen is an accomplished artist in his own right and has certainly moved the production of pottery to a new level.

Continue reading »]]> Understanding Engineers – Take One
 
 Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, Where did you
 
 get such a great bike?”
 
 The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own
 
 business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike.
 
 She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what
 you want.”
 
 ”The second engineer nodded approvingly, “Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit.”
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Two
 
 To the optimist, the glass is half full.To the pessimist, the glass is half
 empty.To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Three
 
 A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularlyslow group of golfers.
 
 The engineer fumed, “What’s with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!”
 
 The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such ineptitude!”

 The pastor said, “Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let’s have a word with him.”
 
 ”Hi George! Say, what’s with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t
 
 they?”The greens keeper replied, “Oh, yes, that’s a group of blindfirefighters.
 
 They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.”The group was silent for a moment.
 
 
 The pastor said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.

“The doctor said, “Good idea. And I’m going to contact my
 ophthalmologist buddy and see if there’s anything he can do for them.”
 
 The engineer said,”Why can’t these guys play at night?”
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Four
 
 What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil
 Engineers?Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Five
 
 The graduate with a Science degree asks, “Why does it work?” The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, “How does it work?”
 
 The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, “How much will it cost?”

The  graduate with an Arts degree asks, “Do you want fries with that?”
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Six
 
 Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
 
 One said, “It was a mechanical engineer.”Just look at all the joints.”
 
 Another said, “No, it was an electrical engineer.The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections. ”
 
 The last one said, “Actually it must have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?”
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Seven
 
 Normal people believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
 
 Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.
 
 
 
 Understanding Engineers – Take Eight
 
 An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to
 
 spend time with the wife or a mistress.
 
 
 The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation
 for an enduring relationship.
 
 
 The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because the passion and
 mystery he found there.
 
 
 The engineer said, “I like both.”
 
 ”Both? ” enquired the others. The engineer replied; “Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done.
 
 
 
 
 ”Understanding Engineers” – Take Nine
 
 
 
 An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and said,
 
 
 
 ”If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.”
 
 
 
 He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
 
 
 The frog spoke up again andsaid,
 
 
 ”If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.”
 
 
 The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
 
 The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want.”
 
  
 Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at itand put it back into his pocket.
  
 
 Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, and that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want.
 
 
 Why won’t you kiss me? The engineer said,
 
 
 ”Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that’s cool.”