History of Halloween Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31st. The word is a shortening of All Hallows’ Eve, the Catholic holiday, but it also has its origins in the Celtic festival Samhain that celebrates the end of the harvest season. Samhain was used by the ancient pagans to stock supplies and prepare for winter. The ancient Gaels believed that on this day the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life, causing sickness or damaged crops. This is why Halloween is full of orange and black. Orange symbolizes harvest and black symbolizes death! The festival frequently involved bonfires. It is believed that the fires attracted insects to the area, which in turn drew bats. In addition, masks and costumes were worn in an...
From a Roomba vacuum cleaner at home, to the robotic rovers on Mars, robots surround us. What does the word ‘robot’ mean? The word robotics was derived from the word robot, which was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play Rossum’s Universal Robots, which was published in 1920.The word robot comes from the Slavic word robota, which means labour. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots, creatures who can be mistaken for humans, similar to the modern idea of androids. Some history of robots. 320 BC Aristotle saw that the human condition depends on what machines can and cannot do. If machines did more of our work, everyone, even slaves, would be freer. 1495 Around 1495 Leonardo da Vinci sketched plans for a humanoid robot but it is not...
There are some experiments you shouldn’t do at home, but definitely should try at a friend’s place instead!!! A quick visit to the supermarket will get you started. Vinegar and baking soda soap rockets. Use a funnel to fill a plastic bottle half-full with white vinegar. Add 3 to 5 spoons of dish soap. Wrap one tablespoon of baking soda in a piece of paper towel. Put the paper towel-wrapped baking soda inside the bottle and immediately put a rubber stopper into the opening of the bottle. Place it on the floor and run!!!! The bottle will inflate and the pressure will eventually send the rubber stopper far away. You can send it even 5 meters high! If you place the bottle upside down the bottle itself will be launched! When you mix baking soda with vinegar you see it...
Hands-on science for all: Bayer is sending its interactive exhibition “Science For A Better Life” on a world tour. Bayer’s mission is the theme of the exhibition, which gives visitors a chance to see and experience for themselves how Bayer improves the quality of life for people worldwide. The exhibition focuses on the topics of health care, agriculture and high-tech polymer materials. I had the opportunity of being the guide for groups during the days the exhibition was in Madrid. The letters on the exhibit boxes combine to spell out Bayer’s mission, “Science For a Better Life” The exhibits comprise 21 approximately two-meter high boxes with capital letters, each of which refers to a Bayer topic, from A for Aspirin via E for Energy-efficient Mobility through to R for Rice. Each box contains images and informational text on...
