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You are surrounded by science. It’s literally everywhere! If you look carefully you will find plenty of scientific questions just looking around!

How do cats land on their feet? Why don’t the waves from microwave escape through the front glass? How were post-it notes invented?

We will give you some easy answers to all these difficult questions on Fridays at 10:30 on ‘The Show With no name’, with Alberto Alonso at Vaughan Radio.

While waiting until Friday you can check out some podcasts and scripts from last shows.

Shedka on the radio

The aerodynamics of reindeer

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I’ve been asked many times what do I speak about when I hang around with my scientist friends… well here is an example of what we talk about during Christmas: How fast does Santa travel? There are 2 (american) billion kids under 18 years old in the world but since Santa doesn’t appear to visit the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children he must visit only 15% of the total. That’s around 400 million children, considering an average rate of 3.5 children per house that’s over 100 million places on one night. Santa has 32 hours of Christmas night to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth. This means Santa has a thousandth of a second per home. In that thousandth of a second Santa parks, hops our of the sleigh, jumps down...

More stuff you shouldn’t try at home

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Light up bulbs by microwaving them. Grab a glass and fill it half full with water. Place the light bulb, socket-end first, into the glass of water and set the glass in the centre of the microwave. Close the door of the microwave and set the time to no more than 45 seconds. The bulb will light up!!!! Before removing both the glass and the light bulb from the microwave, allow them to cool and use a heavy glove to protect your hand. The light bulb doesn’t explode because the water acts as a shield against the metal of the bulb from the effect of the microwaves. The microwaves do, however, pass through the glass of the light bulb to excite the tungsten filament inside of it. The tungsten is thin enough that it glows when excited by the...

Using scotch tape to park a car with Willem Dafoe

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The forces that hold tape in place involve much weaker bonds than those in glue. On one side of the tape are pressure-sensitive adhesives. “Squeezing them against a surface doesn’t create very strong bonds, but rather a large number of weak bonds that cumulatively result in a good adhesion. Tape also stays stuck because of viscoelasticity. When we press tape against a wall, we force the sticky substance to flow and adapt to the microscopic corrugation of the wall surface. After you stop pressing, the tape resists flow and stays in place....