Notes
On the eighth day of Christmas (1st January), New Horizons (the space probe that took photos of dwarf planet Pluto back in July 2015) will be 6.6 billion kilometres from Earth, travelling at 14 kilometres per second, flying past a rock about 37 kilometres wide called 2014 MU69 (nick-named Ultima Thule) in the solar system’s Kuiper Belt. If it doesn’t bump into anything on the way, we will receive images from its cameras just over six hours after they are taken. This is an incredible technological adventure with cosmologically amazing consequences. What an exciting way to start the New Year!
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2018/nh-ut-100days.html
Let the show go on
For you and me
it’s free to see.
The greatest show around.
The cast’s
eleven million of
the life forms that abound.
From big-screen species
super-stars
like humans; dolphins; whales.
To tiniest of
microbes making
sure our show won’t fail.
The plants provide
the perfect props
and stunning back-drop scenes.
All intertwined
with DNA
and fascinating genes.
The show is so
tremendous.
Full of life’s variety.
Our planet Earth’s
X-factor is …
BIO-DIVERSITY!
First published in CSIRO’s Scientrifficmagazine, No 65 January 2010
Flying Gallop
Before Eadweard Muybridge
came along
most painters painted
their horses wrong.
When galloping, galloping
at great speed,
legs of their steed?
We can hear when they gallop
and gallop at pace
there’s a break in the sound,
like their feet are in space.
So we know from this galloping
galloping sound,
there’s a time when all hooves
are NOT on the ground.
Like a carousel horse
with its legs all-stretched-out,
most artists made horse-legs
the wrong way about.
Then Muybridge’s movie
closed the affair.
Horse-legs are TUCKED
when all in the air.
Perched high on a horse,
we can’t really tell
as it’s hard to see where
a horse’s legs dwell.
And a galloping gallop’s like
flying as well.
So let’s soar on a horse
on a carousel!
Inspired by The Horse in Motion movie by EadweardMuybridge 1878
http://100photos.time.com/photos/eadweard-muybridge-horse-in-motion
Growing Teeth
That wily smiley crocodile
when basking in the tropic sun
won’t care two hoots about his teeth.
One breaks – he’ll grow another one.
The scary shark has teeth galore.
Three thousand stored inside his face.
He won’t get sore if one falls out.
A spare tooth simply takes its place.
The terrapins and turtles each
have zero teeth within their head.
They crop and bite the sea-grass with
a sharp and horny beak instead.
A human has two sets of teeth.
The first grow while we’re still quite young
yet start to fall out one by one
as adult teeth push through the gums.
But that’s the lot. We grow no more,
no matter how antique we get.
So better keep them clean and bright
unless you want a plastic set!
A bit of a plug for Celia and best wishes from all of us for her event this coming weekend.
The Octopus Riddle
Will I find an octopus
if in a tree I start to seek?
It has no wings, but I’ve been told
it’s got a parrot’s horny beak.
Will I find an octopus
if I should dig within the soil?
It has no legs, but I’ve been told
it’s got eight arms that stretch and coil.
if I look in a flower-bed?
It doesn’t have a skeleton
and has a very squishy head.
Might I find an octopus
if I could swim a lake so still?
It lays its eggs in water but
it has no lungs and breathes with gills.
It’s not a bird, worm, slug or frog.
These animals it never meets.
To find out where it likes to live
it helps to know just what it eats.
An octopus can squeeze in cracks
and use its arms most cleverly
to open salty shellfish … so
its habitat is in the sea
A dribble-free fruit
without stones, pips or seeds
whose skin will peel off
with the greatest of ease
revealing a pillar
of creamy-white pulp
which squashes to slime
that’s rewarding to gulp.
Potassium, Calcium
Vitamin C,
no trace of cholesterol,
it’s mostly fat-free.
You have to admit
that it’s simply no drama
to scoff your way through
any Queensland Banana!
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Bash and Flash
I’ve got a see-through bouncy ball
with little lights inside its core.
So when I bounce it on the ground
those lights all flash and spin around.
I think it’s got a battery
to give those lights some energy.
Then when it’s hit, it’s like a switch
that turns those lights on in a twitch.
They don’t stay on for very long
but every bounce will switch them on.
Unless the battery goes flat …
but my ball hasn’t got to that.
I want to see my ball in flight
and watch those pretty flashing lights
so bounce it hard, with all my might
upon the concrete drive at night.
My energy from that strong throw
means, at the point I let it go,
it’s got kinetic energy
that’s greater than just gravity.
And when my ball has hit the ground
some energy converts to sound.
Like rapping once upon a drum
it makes a bang and short soft hum.
I watched those lights flash as it zoomed
towards the starry sky and moon.
So do you think I set it free
to fly off for eternity?
Or will it soon return to me
attracted by Earth’s gravity?
The lights stopped flashing. All was black.
I didn’t see it coming back …
Until it hit me on the chin
then all those lights went flash and spin.
But while I held my jaw in pain
those pesky lights went out again!
I couldn’t find my flash new ball.
It must have travelled on a roll.
I’ll have to wait until it’s day
to find it so that we can play.
Spring in the Arctic
came two weeks early
and Barnacle geese
No more stopping
for rests on their journey.
Three thousand k’s
is a humungous hop.
They cruise at the speed
we’d drive through town
with short bursts of
ninety-five k’s or so.
Marathon flyers
in feathers and down,
with climate changed seasons
just watch them go!
Coco Cough-not
A wintery cough
can feel rather tough.
Persistent and hacking
it sends our smiles packing
then steals counted sheep
so we can’t get to sleep.
Now would you cheer up
to know help’s in a cup?
It turns out that coco
all jolly and ho-ho
can soothe our cough ills
even better than pills.
This chocolate goldmine
contains theobromine
and as we’d expect,
has no ill-effects.
With this coco-cough link
have a hot chocolate drink!
https://www.newscientist.com/article/1919209-persistent-coughs-melt-away-with-chocolate/
An ingredient in chocolate may actually be a more effective cough medicine than traditional remedies, a new study suggests.
Australian Children’s Poetry 