It’s day 5 and the end of our first week of chats – that means we’re half way through I’m a Scientist March 2013 and the evictions start next Tuesday at 3pm sharp. Make sure you’ve voted for your favourite or they might end up out of the competition!

Did you know…

• No-one really knows how our brains remember and forget information:


charmedvirgo : How does our brain contain all the seemingly infinite information in a finite space?
michaelcraig : good question. It’s an amazing piece of equipment. The brain is amazingly efficient at remembering relevant information and forgetting useless information. Truth is though, we dont know how it does it! A huge multi million pound study has just been set up that involves my work to find out how the brain remembers and forgets information so that we can build computers to learn and remember and store information in the same way that humans do.

• Creating human hulks would be pretty unethical:

Hulk Hogan, a human hulk, by Flickrbot for Wikimedia

 ibrahim93 : okay heres a question. is it possible to create a stronger more powerful and faster human and that they can sustain it without any drugs or chemical intake, like a sort of mini hulk without the anger issues 
benbrilot :  in theory you could selectively breed humans, just like you can selectively breed greyhounds or racehorses. But it’d be very unethical: imagine someone telling you who you had to be married to and have children with.

• You definitely don’t want to find this worm’s egg in your dinner:

malaj015 : What was the best disease nicola
nicolawardrop : well, the best disease…tricky question, but my favourite is a little worm. You swallow the egg in food, then it hatches in your stomach and burrows out through your stomach lining into your blood. Then it travels around your blood until it reaches your lungs, and it burrows out into your lung in the night. Then when you are sleeping, you cough up the worm and swallow it again…nasty!

Over 2500 questions asked

Here are today’s highlights:

• Does air have a weight? If so, why doesn’t gravity pull it down?
• If you zap deadly cancer cells with radiation, isn’t the radiation affecting other cells in our body which are healthy?
• Is it possible to make a real working light saber? You know, like in Star Wars?
• Can you cry underwater?

Do check out all of the other questions asked in each zone – there are lots of fascinating science facts to be discovered.

And remember, evictions next week so there isn’t long to save your favourite scientist!

Happy Red Nose Day!

As it’s a Friday, and Comic Relief, here are a few jokes we’ve heard over the week…
09lchapman : Two atoms are walking down the street. Says one atom to the other, “Hey! I think I lost an electron!” The other says, “Are you sure??” “Yes, I’m positive!” A neutron walks into a restaurant and orders a couple of cokes. As she is about to leave, she asks the waiter how much she owes. The waiter replies, “For you, No Charge!!!”

an anonymous student : Which Egyptian leader invented crisps? Sultan Vinegar!

indianbraniac : What do we do to a dead scientist? We barium!