ASK!

ASK! about Science & Technology 

A person will not necessarily die because he is burnt. In a burning room rather, the combustion depletes the oxygen supply and creates gases harmful to the lungs. The temperature, which can reach as high as 316 degree celsius at eye level, can melt your clothes and burn your lungs. One is likely to pass out due to suffocation and lung damage. People have died in their beds even before the fire had reached their door due to the posionous fumes.

Generally, it takes just thirty seconds for a small flame to raze out of control. In minutes, a house will be filled with smoke. After another few more minutes, the fire would have engulfed most of the house. In just five minutes, a burning room can reach the flashover point, the temperature at which anything flammable will combust on their own.

Information Sources:
1. Willett, Edward, Fires and wildfires: a practical survival guide, New York, N.Y. : Rosen Pub. Group, 2006. (Call No.: Y 363.37 WIL)
2. Thompson, Lisa, Battling blazes : have you got what it takes to be a firefighter?, Minneapolis, Minn. : Compass Point Books, 2008. (Call No.: Y 363.37023 THO)

Posted by Ang Mei Jun,

Associate Librarian, Adult & Young People’s Services

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If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

Kids ASK! about Science & Technology

Or “Why are carrots orange, broccoli green and eggplant purple? “

Light is a form of energy that behaves in some ways like waves. Light waves have a range of wavelengths. Different wavelengths of light appear to us as different colours. For example orange objects reflect ‘orange’ light, which is light with a long wavelength.

Vegetables appear coloured because they contain special chemical compounds named carotenoids. These compounds have an area called choromophore, which absorbs and gives off particular wavelengths of light, generating the colour that we see.

Carrots are orange because of the natural pigment called betacarotene, while brocolli is green because they contain chlorophyll.

Sources:
1. (2001). The World Book encyclopedia. Chicago : World Book.
2. (2005, Oct 16). Silviamar: Vegetables, chemistry and colour. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from New Civilization Network Web site: http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/
_v434/__show_article/_a000434-000021.htm

For more information on light and colour, here are some recommended library books:

What colour is an orange? by Tristan Boyer Binns
Publisher: Oxford : Raintree, 2007
Series Title: Fusion
Call No.: J 535.6 BIN

Light and dark by Angela Royston
Publisher: Oxford : Heinemann Library, c2008
Series Title: My world of science / Young explorer
Call No.: J P 535 ROY

Experiments with light : light energy by Rachel Lynette
Publisher: Oxford : Heinemann Library, 2008
Series Title: Do it yourself
Call No.: J 535 LYN

Light & sight by Jon Richards
Publisher: New York : PowerKids Press, 2008
Series Title: Science factory
Call No.: J 535.078 RIC

All websites were last accessed on 3 March 2009. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. All book summaries were taken from the book descriptions. All images were extracted from www.amazon.com.

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Originally answered by Ms Noriahni Binte Ismail
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Posted by Ms Elizabeth Lee
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

Kids ASK! about Anything & Everything

[Editor: With the megapixel race and competition to produce the best camera with the best megapixel, is it not comforting to know, as of now, that nothing can capture a picture the way our human eyes can? That said, our eye is not so much a camera taking one-time shots, as much as it is like a video camera, continuously processing information. Any kind of answer can only be arbitrary and this is the general answer that has been circulating around the Internet, quoted and re-quoted.]

Our eye processes images at about around 576 megapixels of image data.

The average human retina has five million cone receptors and also a hundred million rods that detect monochrome contrast, which plays an important role in the sharpness of the image you see. However, this is an underestimate because the eye is not a still camera.

Your two eyes are continually flicking around to cover a much larger area than your field of view and the image is assembled in the brain. Imagine taking multiple shots and then putting them together to compose a panoramic photo. In good light, you might actually see two fine lines if they are separated by at least 0.6 arc-minutes (0.01 degrees).

This gives an equivalent pixel size of 0.3 arc-minutes. Lets say you give your eyes a vision field of a conservative 120 degrees horizontal and 60 degrees vertical, this translates to 576MP of available image data. In other words, it we were not conservative in our estimate, the megapixel count will be even higher.

Reference:
MoPo, Your Eye’s “Megapixel” resolution. Retrieved February 27, 2009, from MoPo.ca Web site: http://www.mopo.ca/2007/03/your-eyes-megapixel-resolution.html

If you want to read more about cameras and photography, here are books that you can check out at our library.

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Digital photography by Alan Buckingham
Publisher: London : Dorling Kindersley, 2005
Call No.: J English 778 BUC

Image retrieved from www.allbookstores.com

Cameras by Kristin Petrie
Publisher: Edina, Minn. : ABDO Pub., c2009
Call No.: J English 771.3 PET

How to take digital photographs by Jenny Bidner
Publisher: London : Franklin Watts, 2007
Call No.: J English 775 BID

All websites are last accessed on 27 February 2009. Please refer to the terms and conditions on the homepages for use.
For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Originally Answered by Mr Koh Chee Boon
Librarian, Children’s Services

Posted by Ms Felicia Chan
Librarian, Children’s Services

Kids ASK! about Anything & Everything

The term “shooting star” was used by people in the past to describe a bright streak of light that suddenly appears across the sky at night, and then disappears. At very rare times, the streak of light will land somewhere on Earth, causing a loud boom.

Now, scientists call them meteors, meteoroids and meteorites. They are meteoroids when they are small chunks of matter moving in outer space. Some of these chunks will enter the Earth’s atmosphere – at this point, they are called meteors. As they enter, lower and lower into the atmosphere, they “burn” and this is what you can see. When they disappear, these meteors have vaporized into thin air. In 1 year, only about 500 meteoroids, out of many thousands, actually make it to the ground before they disappear. These are then called meteorites.

Source:
meteor and meteorite. (2008). In Britannica Student Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 13, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition: library.ebonline.com/kids/comptons/article-9275807

If you want to read more about the stars, here are books that you can check out at our library.

For Children:

Image retrieved from www.overstock.com

Learning about the movement of the sun and other stars with graphic organizers by
Isaac Nadeau
Publisher: New York : Rosen Pub. Group’s PowerKids Press, 2005
Call Number: J English 523.8 NAD

Image retrieved from www.infibeam.com

Exploring meteors by Rebecca Olien
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : PowerKids Press, 2007
Call Number: J English 523.5 OLI

Image retrieved from www.amazon.ca

JLA Superman’s guide to the universe by Jackie Gaff
Publisher: London : Dorling Kindersley, 2003
Call Number: J English 523.1 GAF

All websites are last accessed on 24 January 2009. Please refer to the terms and conditions on the homepages for use.
For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Originally Answered by Verena Lee,
Librarian, Children’s Services

Posted by Felicia Chan,
Librarian, Children’s Services

Kids ASK! about Science & Technology

Only an asteroid with a diameter of at least 100 metres (about the size of a soccer field) can cause serious damage if it collides with the Earth.

An asteroid with a diameter of 100 feet, weighing 63,000 tons and with a speed of five miles per second can cause an impact which is several times more than the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima, Japan during World War II. It is said that this could have been the cause of the extinction of dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.

References:
- Graham, Ian. (2007). Comets and asteroids. London : Franklin Watts.
- Prinja, Raman. (2007. Comets, asteroids and meteors. Oxford : Heinemann Library.

Want to learn more about asteroids? Here are some recommended resources:

Asteroids, comets and meteorites by Steve Kortenkamp
Publisher: Mankato, Minn. : Capstone Press, c2008.
Call No.: J 523.2 KOR

Could an asteroid hit Earth? : asteroids, comets, meteors and more by Rosalind Mist
Publisher: Oxford : Heinemann Library, 2006.
Call No.: J 523.5 MIS

Asteroids by Don Nardo
Publisher: San Diego, Calif. : KidHaven Press, c2002.
Call No.: J 523.44 NAR

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

All images were extracted from www.amazon.com.

Answered by Rosjihanah Mon
Librarian
Children’s Services

Posted by Galvin Soh
Librarian
Children’s Services

Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.
If you have a different question, please email it to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

Kids ASK! about Science & Technology

Since water is a good conductor of electricity, wouldn’t the entire ocean gets electrically charged?

According to Don MacGorman, a physicist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, lightning that hits the sea stays more on the surface of the water rather than penetrating it. As water is a good conductor, it keeps most of the current on the surface. Therefore, if the fish is underwater, it is generally safe. If it is close to the surface, it can also be killed.

Also, according to NASA, lightning avoids oceans.

Sources:
Zapping Fish
Where Lightning Strikes

Want to know more about lightning? Here are some recommended resources:

Books:

Thunder and lightning by Elizabeth Miles
Publisher : Oxford : Heinemann Library, 2005.
Call No. : J 551.5 MIL

Lightning : it’s electrifying by Jennifer Dussling
Publisher : New York : Grosset & Dunlap, c2002.
Call No. : J 551.56 DUS

Thunder and lightning by Casey Mayer
Publisher : Oxford : Heinemann Library, 2007
Call No. : JP 551.5 MAY

Thunderstorms and lightning by Dean Galiano
Publisher : New York : Rosen Pub. Group’s Rosen Central, 2003
Call No. : J 551.55 GAL

Thunderstorms by Patricia D. Netzley
Publisher : San Diego, Calif. : KidHaven Press, c2003
Call No. : J 551.55 NET

Website:
National Electrical Code Internet Connection

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

All websites were last accessed on 9 September 2008. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. All images were extracted from www.amazon.com and www.bn.com.

Answered by Lian Mei Wan
Librarian
Children’s Services

Posted by Galvin Soh
Librarian
Children’s Services

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If you have a different question, please email it to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

Kids ASK! about Science & Technology

There are billions of galaxies in the universe! Each galaxy consists of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity. The galaxy that we are living in is called the Milky Way and it is just one of the billions of galaxies in the universe.

Scientists have predicted that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 400 billion stars. Therefore, our solar system is only a tiny part of the Milky Way.

Just imagine – if you are given a chance to travel beyond the Milky Way, how does our Milky Way look like? It will probably look like a gigantic pinwheel with a bright center and a thin disk of stars spiraling outward. Our solar system will only look like a tiny, almost invisible speck.

Source: Berry, R. (2008). Milky Way. The New Book of Knowledge®. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from Grolier Online http://nbk.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=a2019280-h

Read more about galaxies and the Milky Way:

The Milky Way and other galaxies by Dana Meachen Rau
Call Number: J 523.1 RAU

Earth’s journey through space by Trudy E. Bell
Call Number: Y 525 BEL

Space by Alan Dyer
Call Number: J 520 DYE

Astronomy: every galaxy has a black hole by Bryson Gore
Call Number: J 520 GOR

Galaxies by Dan Elish
Call Number: J 523.1 ELI

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue. 

All websites were last accessed on 26 August 2008. All images were extracted from www.bn.com.

Originally answered by Azizah Osman, Librarian, Children’s Services.

Posted by Adeline Tan, Librarian, Children’s Services.

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Kids ASK! about Science and Technology

The Internet has changed the way we do things—it has become so much a part of our lives that it is nearly impossible to imagine living without it. But tell me, have you ever wondered how the Internet came about? Sure, you have read about the invention of computers but how about the Internet specifically, what inspired it and when did it become reality?

I picked up this question from a fellow librarian (Chee Boon – you can read about him here) and remembered a dusty article I had from a long time ago (ok not that long – 4 years) about the history of the Internet. After some sneezes and digging through piles of information, I found what I was looking for… Here is the story of what we call the Internet.

The Internet is a product of war technology, more specifically, nuclear war. In the early 1960s, the U.S. authorities were worried that in the event of a nuclear war, the various command posts in the various cities will lose their ability to communicate as switches and wiring can and will likely be damaged by atomic bombs. They would need a command-and-control center that can withstand the atomic bomb and had no specific location so that it cannot be targeted. It was a strategic problem.

That was when RAND Corporation (America’s Cold War think-tank) came up with a proposal, the brainchild of one of its staff, Paul Baran. The year is 1964. The proposal is to have a network that is inherently unreliable. The network will have multiple nodes that have the exact same ability to be a beginning or an end point for the transmitting and receiving of messages. The messages themselves are made up of many packets and each packet will find its way through the network to the end point it is addressed to. The route taken by the packet is inconsequential. What matters is the final destination. Having such a system means that even if pieces of the network is destroyed by a bomb, the message packets in the air will still find its way to its destination with whatever nodes that are left.

In 1969, the first node was installed in UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and by the end of the year there were 4 nodes in total. The first version of the Internet was formed and it was called ARPANET.

It was good. Scientists could share one another’s notes and soon enough, it became an electronic post office. So much for military technology… ARPANET was used for exchanging research, for chatting and even gossiping. The first mailing list had nothing to do with the military, it was, “SF-LOVERS”.

Through the 70s, the network grew and grew. The message packets switching system also became streamlined and more sophisticated. Eventually, for reasons of control and security, the military segment broke off and became MILNET. The technology was replicated and ARPANET became one network of many though they were all linked. As the 80s came, computers became more common and there was nothing to stop people from linking up to one another as the very nature of such a network system is anarchic and decentralised.

ARPANET died officially in 1989, consumed by its own success, taken over by what we now know as the Internet. The rest, they say, is history.

Reference:
Sterling, B. (Feb 1993). Short History of the Internet. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

If you want to read more about the Internet, here are books you can check out at our libraries.

For Children:

Image retrieved from www.amazon.ca

Computers then and now by Rebecca Weber
Publisher: Minneapolis, Minn. : Compass Point Books, c2005
Call Number: J English 004 WEB

The incredible story of computers and the Internet by Greg Roza
Publisher: New York : Rosen Pub. Group’s PowerKids Press, 2004
Call Number: J English 004.67 ROZ

The computer : passport to the digital age by Joanne Mattern
Publisher: New York : PowerKids Press, c2003
Call Number: J English 004 MAT

All websites are last accessed on 22 August 2008. Please refer to the terms and conditions on the homepages for use.
For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered by Felicia Chan,

Librarian, Children’s Services

Kids ASK! about Anything & Everything

Besides New Year’s Eve, August is the eagerly anticipated month when we get the opportunity to crane our necks, looking up in the night sky as a myriad of patterns and colours explode before our eyes. With the National Day Parade and the Singapore Fireworks Celebration, we have more than enough opportunity to feast our senses on this age-old practise that still gives people goose bumps.

Before they go up in smoke, pyrotechnicians prepare the fireworks which consist of different parts. Simply put, one of the parts is a tube containing gunpowder, a fuse and the firework. The other part is the firework which consists of chemicals, more gunpowder and another fuse. When the first fuse is lit, it ignites the gunpowder, which blasts the firework up into the sky. This explosion lights the second fuse which burns slowly as the firework flies up, which then sets off the gunpowder, causing the firework to explode. When this happens, it mixes the chemicals and depending on which chemicals are used, different colours and effects are produced. If the fireworks display is complicated, the firework might contain different elements like star pellets or smaller shells which make smaller bursts, to add more variety (such as spark or light patterns) to the display.

References:
- Thomas, Isabel. (2007). Fireworks!. Oxford : Raintree.
- Brain, Marshall. How Fireworks Work. Retrieved August 13, 2008, from HowStuffWorks Web site: http://people.howstuffworks.com/fireworks2.htm

Want to read more about fireworks? Here are some recommended books:

Fireworks! by Isabel Thomas
Publisher : Oxford : Raintree, 2007.
Call No. : J 662 THO

Pyrotechnician, by Mary Firestone
Publisher : Philadelphia, Pa. : Chelsea House Publishers, c2006.
Call No. : J 662 FIR

Gunpowder, by Trudi Strain Trueit
Publisher : New York, N.Y. : Franklin Watts, c2005.
Call No. : J 662 TRU

Fireworks, by Vicki Cobb
Publisher : Minneapolis, Minn. : Millbrook Press, c2006.
Call No. : J 662 COB

From rock to fireworks : a photo essay, by Gary W. Davis
Publisher : New York : Children’s Press, c1997.
Call No. : JP 662 DAV

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

All websites were last accessed on 12 August 2008. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. Book covers were extracted from www.amazon.com and www.bn.com.

Posted by Galvin Soh
Librarian
Children’s Services

Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.
If you have a different question, please email it to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.

Kids ASK! about Science & Technology

[Editor speaks: I'm sure most of you have heard the phrase "once in a blue moon", which is used to describe an usual occurrence. But has this "blue moon" ever been seen or witnessed by anyone? Does it even exist? Read on to find out...]

“The time was 1883, the year an Indonesian volcano named Krakatoa exploded. Scientists liken the blast to a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. Fully 600 km away, people heard the noise as loud as a cannon shot. Plumes of ash rose to the very top of Earth’s atmosphere. And the moon turned blue.

Krakatoa’s ash is the reason. Some of the ash-clouds were filled with particles about 1 micron (one millionth of a meter) wide–the right size to strongly scatter red light, while allowing other colors to pass. White moonbeams shining through the clouds emerged blue, and sometimes green.

Blue moons persisted for years after the eruption. People also saw lavender suns and, for the first time, noctilucent clouds. The ash caused “such vivid red sunsets that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven to quench the apparent conflagration,” according to volcanologist Scott Rowland at the University of Hawaii.

Other less potent volcanos have turned the moon blue, too. People saw blue moons in 1983, for instance, after the eruption of the El Chichon volcano in Mexico. And there are reports of blue moons caused by Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.

The key to a blue moon is having in the air lots of particles slightly wider than the wavelength of red light (0.7 micron)–and no other sizes present. This is rare, but volcanoes sometimes spit out such clouds, as do forest fires.”

Source: Phillips, M. (2004, July 7). Blue moon. Retrieved July 29, 2008, from NASA – Science@NASA Web site: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/
07jul_bluemoon.htm

So, blue moons really do exist occasionally and the reason why blue moons can be seen is because the air has lots of particles that can scatter light into different colours. And when the white moonbeams shine through this air, the moon may appear blue or green.

You can also read the article, “Once in a blue moon” by Science@NASA here, http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/
headlines/ast26feb99_1.htm, for more interesting information about blue moons.

For more information, here are some recommended library books on the moon:

The moon by Elaine Landau
Publisher: New York: Children’s Press, 2008
Call No.: J 523.3 LAN

Exploring the moon by Peter Grego
Publisher: London : QED, 2007
Call No.: J 523.3 GRE

The moon exposed by Allison Lassieur
Publisher: Oxford : Raintree, 2007
Call No.: J 523.3 LAS

The Earth and its moon by Chris Oxlade
Publisher: London : Wayland, 2007
Call No.: J 523.3 OXL

If you would like to visit more websites on solar systems, here are some good sites to check out as well:

1) Solar System Exploration: Kids – http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm
2) StarChild: A Learning Centre for Young Astronomers – http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/
StarChild/StarChild.html
3) Astronomy For Kids – http://www.kidsastronomy.com/index.htm

All websites were last accessed on 3 August 2008. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. All book summaries were taken from the book descriptions. All images were extracted from www.amazon.com.

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered and posted by Ms Elizabeth Lee
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Found this post interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment.