This Catalyst article looks at the Rosetta mission: to rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko where it will study the nucleus of the comet and its environment for nearly two years, and land a probe on its surface. The article also describes how gravity assists, also known as slingshot manoeuvres, are used...

• Describe the effects of an electric shock on a person.

• Explain why there are no standard mains sockets in a bathroom....

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Willow, palm, miscanthus and other energy crops are being touted as a possible solution to Britain's growing energy security problems. There are suggestions that they could help replace fossil fuels, plugging...

In this podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection, Sue Nelson visits an indoor coral reef at the brand new Coral Reef Research Unit at the University of Essex.

Researchers are using the reef to look at the effects of ocean acidification on coral in a...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Richard Hollingham looks at where and how to find gold while Sue Nelson finds out why weather forecasters still struggle to predict sudden, violent summer storms. Other reports discover why scientists may be...

In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), reporters find out what sexual conflict means for female guppies, how female promiscuity may be a good thing and why female mongooses all give birth at the same time.

In an extreme example of sexual...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) was recorded at the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, England and discusses how two researchers are using hi-tech physics to study different aspects of the environment.

The Diamond synchrotron is like...

This activity is designed to enable students to be able to gain an understanding of how a human arm bends due to muscular contraction, to understand that a robot arm can use contraction or rotation to achieve movement and to understand that shape memory alloys can revert back to a previous shape when heated. Robot...

This learning pack provides many activities from across the curriculum, which are all linked to the topic of light. They all sit within the context of London, but may also be used by schools teaching outside the capital. The pack is designed so that you can pick and choose between the topics, which are:...

Jo Shien Ng works to develop more and more sensitive electrical components called 'avalanche photodiodes' used in everything from satellites that look at the Earth from space, to body scanners in hospitals and airports. She does this by applying an understanding of the behaviour of materials developed through...