Science For The Young And Young-At-Heart

Science Centre Singapore 

Jurong East, Singapore

June 2013

Merlion Wayfarer was recently visited the Singapore Science Centre for Megabugs Returns! ("Facing The Super-Sized" and "Marvel At The Small Things In Life"). What thrilled her was that, to this day, as an adult, the Science Centre still enthralls. Here's why...

• InsectMania!, one of the side events from Megabugs Returns! is a talk with hands-on experience about exciting and fascinating bugs like stick insects and the giant hissing cockroaches...

Life stages of the silk worm...

These are not hissing because they are well-fed and relaxed...

  

Fragile stick insects where their perfect twig-like camouflage...

Bigger than a palm!

Creepy crawlies that are edible or useful...

• The aquarium with its fascinating displays of saltwater fishes...

Watch out for the moray eel!

Oh hello, Dory!

• Geological exhibits showing meteorites from space, rocks from different parts of Singapore, even benches made from stone...

   

Try lifting them!

A recipe for a typhoon...

Rocks from all over Singapore...

• Merlion Wayfarer's favourite - The Tesla Coil demonstration, a highly dramatic and electrifying live demonstration of high voltage electricity with a 3.5 million volt coil in action, and generating electrical arcs of up to three metres!

Cover your ears!

• iZ Hero is a digital exhibition with both panels and games to inform and entertain the young on good cyber habits...

  

• Perennial favourites like the electric chair, the T-Rex skeleton at the entrance, and the Muppet Show's Statler and Waldorf lookalikes...

• Candy Unwrapped uncovers the surprising biology, chemistry, physiology and psychology behind the world of candy...

In this display of scores of different types of candies, see how candy companies continue out-gross, out- gore, out-shock and out-sour each other to find the ultimate extreme candy...

A simple jelly bean question to illustrate the power of compounding...

Damaging facts about sweet food...

Dough-making for kids...

• End the visit with Panda-monium at the Omni-Theatre with The Panda Adventure...

  

Science Centre is truly a place for the young and the young-at-heart!

Highlights from Megabugs Returns!

 |   "Facing The Super-Sized"    |   "Marvel At The Small Things In Life"   |

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More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Places - Science Centre

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June 2013's Super Moon

Singapore

24-25 June 2013

The night of 24 June 2013 saw the rise of the super moon. This full moon was not only the closest and largest full moon of the year. It was also the moon’s closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013. The moon will not be so close again until August 2014. In other words, it was not just a supermoon. It was the closest supermoon of 2013.

Cheezels super moon in haze, 24 June 2013, 1953h...

Super moon, 24 June 2013, 2205h...

Salted egg yolk super moon, PSI 60+, 25 June 2013, 0643h...

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More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - The Moon

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Sources

• "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Supermoon! Amazing pictures of the solar system's best lunar show this weekend" by Daily Mail Reporter (23 June 2013). Daily Mail, UK. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346857/Supermoon-June-2013-Amazing-pictures-solar-systems-best-lunar-weekend.html (19 July 2013).
    
• "July 2013 Full Moon is a Super Moon" (17 July 2013). Brevard Times. Retrieved from http://space.brevardtimes.com/2013/07/july-2013-full-moon-is-super-moon.html (19 July 2013).
    
• "Most 'super' supermoon of 2013 on June 22-23" by Bruce McCLURE and Deborah BYRD. EarthSky. Retrieved from http://earthsky.org/tonight/is-biggest-and-closest-full-moon-on-june-23-2013-a-supermoon (19 July 2013, Expired as of 2014).
    

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A Red Billowing Thunderhead

Singapore

17 July 2013

In a clear sky with some stars and a smattering of alto (mid-level) clouds, the half-moon tonight shone bright and whitish-clear.  

In the distant western sky, there was a huge billowing cloud of at least 6-storeys high. At first glance, it appeared as if a house was on fire. But the ominous red billow stood unchanged for more than half an hour with no visible  flickering light in the horizon.

This is a thunderhead - a towering cumulus cloud.

Rather than spreading out in bands at a fairly narrow range of elevations, like other clouds, cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds rise to dramatic heights, sometimes well above the level of transcontinental jetliner flights.

Cumulus clouds are fair-weather clouds. When they get big enough to produce thunderstorms, they are called cumulonimbus, or thunderheads. These clouds are formed by upwelling plumes of hot air, which produce visible turbulence on their upper surfaces, making them look as though they are boiling. 

The convective airmass is  highly unstable. Just as it takes heat to evaporate water from the surface of the Earth, heat is released when water condenses to form clouds. In thunderheads, this energy can produce short-lived hail, damaging winds, lightning, torrential rain, and sometimes tornadoes. The top of the cloud points in the direction the weather is moving towards.

True enough, this is NEA's weather prediction for the next 12 hours:

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More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - Clouds and Natural Phenomena - The Moon

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Sources

• "Clouds, Atmospheric Decoration". National Geographic. Retrieved from http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/earths-atmosphere/clouds-article/ (17 July 2013). 
• "How to Distinguish the Different Types of Clouds". WikiHow. Retrieved from http://www.wikihow.com/Distinguish-the-Different-Types-of-Clouds (17 July 2013). 
• "List of cloud types". Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cloud_types (17 July 2013).
• "Types of Clouds" by Joe RAO (08 May 2013). Live Science. Retrieved from http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/earths-atmosphere/clouds-article/ (17 July 2013). 

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