Innholdsfortegnelse for August/September 2025 i Brainspace

October 5, 1984 marked an historic occasion in Marc Garneau’s life: it was the day he became the first Canadian to travel to space. That mission was just the beginning for this highly accomplished man from Quebec City. Over the next 16 years, he would visit space 2 more times. After hanging up his spacesuit, he assumed leadership roles at the Canadian Space Agency before embarking on a career in politics. Mr. Garneau died on June 4, 2025, leaving behind an inspirational legacy that extends far beyond space exploration and government. What insights can we learn from his incredible life? USE ZAPPAR TO VIEW THIS MOVIE NO CHALLENGE IS TOO BIG When the National Research Council posted an astronaut recruitment ad in 1983, the response was overwhelming. Over 4,000 Canadians,…

Peculiar Pet Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer who lived at the end of the 16th century. His research on the positions of stars laid the groundwork for a lot of what we know about astronomy today. However, Brahe was known to be rather eccentric in his personal life. Among other crazy antics, he was reported to have owned a pet elk that lived with him in his house. This pet elk enjoyed drinking beer, so much so that it actually died from drunkenly falling down the stairs! Freaky Physics Wolfgang Pauli was a brilliant physicist with many notable accomplishments, including the discovery of the neutrino particle and the foundation of quantum physics. His work even earned him a Nobel Prize in 1945. But things were not always easy for Pauli.…

USE ZAPPAR TO VIEW THIS MOVIE Dinosaurs lived during the Mesozoic Era (about 252 to 66 million years ago) and they were part of a specific group of reptiles called Archosaurs. But over recent decades, media and pop culture have associated prehistoric animals and dinosaurs as the same thing. However, not all prehistoric animals were true dinosaurs. It can be confusing when names like ichthyosaur rhyme with dinosaur. Logically, you would think that they're in the same family. Think again! Here are the physiological features that distinguish a dinosaur from the rest of the prehistoric animals. TRUE DINOSAURS WERE OVIPAROUS True dinosaurs laid eggs and hatched from eggs. GROUNDED They stayed on land. Real dinosaurs could not fly or swim. HIPPY A dinosaur’s legs were positioned underneath its body, which…

Archaeologists use scientific inquiry to study how ancient people lived, learning from bones, tools and sometimes even long-lost buried cities. Physicists are scientists who specialize in – you guessed it – physics, studying the interaction of matter and energy. These sound like two very different jobs, right? They are, but you might be surprised by how often archaeologists and physicists are interested in the same things. One place you might find them both exploring is at an ancient shipwreck. You’ve probably heard of famous shipwrecks such as the RMS Titanic and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, but there are millions of other shipwrecks you might not know about. In fact, an estimated three million shipwrecks rest on ocean floors around the world. Less than one percent of Earth’s shipwrecks have been…

Nature’s most incredible disguise artists don’t need costumes - they are the costume! From spiders that look like bird poop to octopuses that impersonate venomous sea creatures, these masters of deception use camouflage to hunt, hide and survive. Meet caterpillars that wear flower outfits, mantises disguised as dead leaves, and other sneaky species that show just how creative nature can be. Get ready to discover how these animals fool both predators and prey with their jaw-dropping transformations! The Cosplaying Camouflaged Looper Most caterpillars rely on camouflage, but this fashionable inchworm (Synchlora aerata) crafts its own costume to hide from predators! Using its special sticky saliva, the Camouflaged Looper carefully attaches bits of flowers to its spiny back, creating a perfect disguise that matches the type of plant it is hiding…

There’s nothing better than playing outside with friends on a beautiful summer day, but you have to be careful not to overheat. Sweating is one of many ways humans control their body temperature – in a process called thermoregulation. Thermoregulation helps maintain a healthy core temperature. For humans, an ideal internal temperature is 37°C (98.6°F). Have you ever wondered how animals beat the heat? VASODILATION occurs when blood vessels near the skin widen (or dilate). As blood flows close to the surface, any excess heat is able to escape into the environment. One of the best, and most colourful, examples of vasodilation can be found in toucans. These birds are primarily found in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. Their large beaks often display vivid colours like yellow,…

1 This device keeps the heart beating steadily when the heart’s own electrical system doesn’t work properly, causing the heart to beat too weakly, too slowly, or out of rhythm. This symbol alerts people with pacemakers that they are in a magnetic zone, which is dangerous for them 2 When you need to find something on the internet, what do you use to search for it? The very first one was named Archie. 3 The idea that the Earth’s crust is made of “floating” masses that may shift or grind together, creating earthquakes, was first explained in a theory by a Canadian. What is this theory called? 4 The discovery of this hormone by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, of the University of Toronto, has saved the lives of millions of people…

THE STINKY DISCOVERY OF GOLDEN DREAMS In 1669, German scientist Hennig Brand was busy in his Hamburg laboratory. He had a get-rich-quick plan: to find a way to turn ordinary metal into gold! Like many scientists in the 17th century, he conducted some very strange experiments. But his most famous experiment was truly gross: it involved human urine – and lots of it! Brand collected about 4,500 litres (around 1,200 gallons) of urine -enough to fill a small swimming pool! - from local taverns and let it sit until it became super smelly. Then he boiled it down to a thick, tar-like paste, mixed it with sand, and heated it intensely in his furnace. After hours of work, something interesting happened. Instead of the gold he had hoped for, Brand…

USE ZAPPAR TO VIEW THIS MOVIE Deep under the Pacific Ocean, about 483 kilometres (300 miles) off the Oregon coast of the United States, sits one of the most active volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest. And it’s getting ready to erupt! Called Axial Seamount, the volcano lies nearly 1.6 km (1 mile) below the surface of the ocean and has erupted three times in the past 30 years. The last time was in 2015. Scientists expect another eruption will happen very soon. Axial Seamount isn’t just any volcano. It sits on a hotspot - a place where molten rock rises from deep inside the Earth - and it’s located on a ridge where two tectonic plates are pulling apart. That combination makes it a rare and valuable place to study.…

Taking risks is part of life even at a very young age. A toddler that teeters on the tips of tiny toes to reach for a toy risks falling down. But is the risk worth it? The ideal risk to take is one you can calculate – especially when dealing with numbers and money. Understanding mathematical probability is key to helping you make better decisions throughout your life. Marilyn Burns, a highly respected math educator from California, developed a fun dice game that uses simple operations to flex your prefrontal cortex – the area that manages risk and calculations. The game helps you assess when to use caution and when to take a risk for the win. USE ZAPPAR TO VIEW THIS DEMO 100 or less AND CLOSEST IS THE…

Living organisms can be invisible to the human eye – or bigger than a house. From microscopic bacteria to a 3.8 km (2.4 miles) wide mushroom in Oregon, our planet is teeming with an abundance of living things. Life isn’t always obvious. Look at slime on a rock, a sponge in saltwater or dusty diatoms, and you might find it hard to decide if they are living or non-living. For that reason, biologists created “Mrs Gren.” This acronym helps scientists conclude that an organism is alive by asking: Can it move (M) itself? Does it respire (R)? Is it sensitive (S) to its environment? Does it grow (G), reproduce (R), create waste/excrete (E) and absorb nutrients (N)? A living thing does all of these things and so do you. Let’s…

How Does It Work? When you combine vinegar and baking soda, they form a chemical compound called sodium acetate. When you put sodium acetate in the freezer, it becomes a supercooled liquid that is not at its freezing point (0°C or 32°F). When you add crystals to the solution, the sodium acetate crystallizes quickly. This releases a lot of heat, which can help keep you warm! You'll Need: 3 cups white vinegar 3 tbsp baking soda 2 small sealable sandwich bags canning jar measuring cups a large saucepan Directions: 1. Pour 3 cups of vinegar into the saucepan. Next, slowly add 3 tablespoons of baking soda to the vinegar and stir the solution to prevent it from overflowing. 2. Place the pot on the stove and turn the burner to medium heat. Keep…

Astronomers trace most meteorites to just a few ancient space collisions. Every day about 44,000 kg (97,003 lbs) of space rock rains down on Earth’s atmosphere. Most of this meteoritic material burns up as it falls, but there are pieces that make it all the way down to the ground. These meteorites can be as old as the solar system and may provide astronomers with clues about how our sun and its planets came to be. About 17 meteorites make it through the atmosphere and hit Earth every day – more than 70,000 known meteorites have been found so far. Advanced computer models are able to take information gathered by space telescopes and compare it to data gathered about the chemical composition of the meteorites. Because these space rocks have…

Dung Detectives The first step to studying coprolites is figuring out which dinosaur produced the fossilized poo. Sometimes, paleontologists strike gold! In 2015, a team of scientists at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta found a coprolite still inside the digestive tract of a fossilized Rhamphorhynchus. In this case, there was no doubt which dinosaur produced the turd. Unfortunately, scientists are rarely this lucky. When they find a mystery coprolite, paleontologists look at the animal fossils found nearby to figure out what dinosaurs were living in the area when the poop was produced. Like detectives, they look for clues to figure out what dino most likely dropped the dung. For example, big turds most likely belong to big dinosaurs, and the opposite is true as well. Tell-tale Turds Inside every…

ALL LIVING THINGS get the nutrients and energy they need to survive from a food chain. A food chain is a sequence of transfers in which organisms are interrelated in their feeding habits. This means the smallest organisms are eaten by larger organisms, which are then eaten by even larger organisms. You probably know about the food chain on land. But what goes on in the mysterious world beneath the waves? Covering more than 71 percent of Earth, our ocean is home to millions of plants and animals, from the scrawniest shrimps to the scariest sharks -and food chains keep everything running smoothly. Here’s how! 1 Marine Producers Producers are at the bottom of a food chain. Producers are living organisms that can make their own food. Plants are producers. They…

From a very early age, we use patterns to help make sense of the world around us. When we recognize things that repeat in a logical way, we can organize information and make thoughtful predictions based on the patterns we observe. Plants and animals offer countless examples of patterns that give us visual clues about the order found in the natural world. Patterns can be found wherever a set of numbers, colours, shapes or sounds are repeated over and over. Usually, we think of a pattern as something identical that repeats, but patterns we see in nature don’t always look exactly the same. A zebra’s stripes are a pattern we easily recognize, even though every zebra has a unique arrangement of stripes. Nature’s patterns create many advantages for survival. For…

Plants are living organisms, which means they need to breathe just like you and me. Plants breathe in carbon dioxide through microscopic pores in the epidermis of their leaves and stems. One of these pores is called a stomate, and many of them together are called stomata. Stomata facilitate gas exchange in plants. As part of the photosynthesis process, plants expel oxygen into the atmosphere. Humans and other animals need to breathe in this oxygen to survive. Stomata also have another function. They allow water to evaporate from a plant in a process called transpiration. Transpiration helps to cool a plant and the area around it. Under a microscope, stomata look like tiny mouths that open and close. That shouldn’t come as a surprise because the word stomate actually comes…

Let’s say you’d like to quickly chill a glass of lemonade on a hot summer day. You can do it by creating a salt and ice mixture. This is an easy way to keep drinks cool, because the materials to do it are likely in your house. Ice, salt and water are all you need. The process is simple: In a medium-sized metal bowl, add 2 cups of ice, cover the ice with cold water and add lots of salt. You really can’t overdo it on the salt. Sit your glass in the bowl, submerging it as much as possible. Add water if needed to surround the sides of the glass. Wait. This should only take about five minutes. Enjoy your chilled lemonade. WHY SALT WATER WORKS SO WELL Plain…