Each issue of the Big Picture is on a different topic in biology and comes with its own sprinkling of ‘fast facts’, fascinating snippets of information on the topic. This booklet brings together the best of the fast facts from the last fourteen issues, sorted into eight themes, for use in project work, as part of...

A Catalyst article describing Lucie Green's work as an astronomer and broadcaster on the Sky at Night programme. The article looks at her education and research career together with information on her work outside of broadcasting.

This article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2008, Volume 19, Issue...

This Catalyst article is about a group of school students in South Africa that are helping to develop a spacecraft that will monitor agricultural changes in their country.

This article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4.

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It takes a lot of rare natural resources and energy to make a mobile phone, laptop or computer, the modern technology we use every day. That is why many scientists would like to take inspiration from Mother Nature to help us to make more environmentally-friendly machines in the future.

This Catalyst article...

This Catalyst article explains how to make an elastic band using Copydex, a source of rubber latex. Rubber latex is a liquid polymer. It is made of long molecules which are all separate. Elastic bands are made by cross-linking the polymers in rubber latex. This changes the properties of the polymer and forms a...

This Catalyst article describes how an indicator changes colour when in solutions of different pH. Most indicators simply turn one colour in acid and another in alkali, although they are often an in-between colour when neutral. A universal indicator only turns as many colours as it does because it is a mixture of...

This Catalyst article describes how to make a lava lamp by using three simple ingredients: vegetable oil, food colouring and fizzing tablets. The article also explains the processes taking place inside a real lava lamp and why they happen.

This article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2011, Volume...

This Catalyst article includes a recipe on how to make a non-Newtonian fluid which flows in strange and unexpected ways.

This article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2016, Volume 26, Issue 4.

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This Catalyst article describes how to make ice cream using a mixture of ice and salt, without the need of a freezer. Detailed instructions and an explanation of how it works is included, as well as a link to a video showing how the process can be sped up using liquid nitrogen.

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This Catalyst article investigates mercury which is a poison and how it can be removed from natural gas using ionic liquids.

The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2014, Volume 25, Issue 3.

Catalyst is a science magazine...

This Catalyst article looks at Marie Curie, who discovered two radioactive elements and showed that radioactivity was a property of atoms, not compounds. Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes, the only woman to have done so. She is still the only person to have won awards in both Physics and Chemistry. The article...