The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

August is a busy month for curious creatures. It is the time of year when the universities are out spruiking for new customers. Most of them put on open days for prospective students with lots of freebies, leaflets, lectures and an assortment of interesting displays to tempt the visitors. Some of them have gotten all sneaky and moved their main events to July in order to get one up on the competition.

But even so there is still the other big event of the month - National Science Week.
On the weekend just gone the city was filed with an assortment of stalls from the usual suspects such as the universities, Scitech, some hobby shops selling geek toys such as drones, wildlife rescue groups and CSIRO which is the largest scientific organization in the country in spite of being slashed to the bone by successive penny pinching governments that like to talk about jobs, growth and innovation but view geeks with deepest suspicion. They think that funding football and chasing Olympic gold is a far worthier object of taxpayer funding.



The stupid was on display for the whole world to see with the monumental stuff up that was the national census. By making online completion the default option this year (probably with the intention of saving on printing and postage costs as well as hordes of door knockers) and rabbiting on about 9th August being the day to stop a while and do your patriotic duty they pretty much guaranteed a complete stuff up. Having 18 million folks all filling in paper forms on the same day has never been the cause of too much drama but this year we had the online equivalent of 18 million people turning on their kettles during the ad breaks for a much anticipated football final.

What could possibly go wrong?

Of course the site crashed. As usual they blamed Chinese hackers and most folks seemed to swallow this sad and pathetic batch of excuses. The bright sparks from marketing at the Bureau of Statistics didn't bother to tell folks they could fill in the forms online for about four weeks from receiving their log in codes in the snail mail. Well they did say that after the torrents of #census fail rants on Twitter and Facebook but if they had made the extra effort to explain this in the first place then they could have saved themselves a whole pile of embarrassment.

Then there was the dodgy business of the ABS wanting to keep the names and addresses for 4 years instead of the 18 months that worked perfectly fine since such records began. The more cynical sorts assumed that these buggers were planning on a bit of selling oodles of this juicy data no doubt to make up for the massive slashes in their budget over the last decade or so.

Now the data will be pretty much as good as useless. Not just incomplete but a whole bunch of people will be giving false names to get around the spooking and surveillance especially in the light of the present data retention laws that came into effect a few years ago.

Next Saturday is going to be a public Open Day at the Pawsey centre which is a giant super computer forming part of the Square Kilometre Array radio astronomy project. It turns out that the guided tours got booked out weeks ago but I'll still turn up for a snoop. Been drooling over that place ever since it was built and wanted a sticky beak.

It's been such a feast of geekery. Between spinning metal eggs, magic tricks with magnets and cauldrons of liquid nitrogen, telescopes, robots and Star Wars toys operated by brain waves with no wires needed and even the occasional Gummi bear massacre to demonstrate the dark art of digestion, there has been just so many fascinating things to see and do and so many wonderful opportunities to be reminded of the wonders of the world.

There were cackling black cockatoos, cute and curly egg laying mammals such as real echidnas, blue tongued skinks, carpet pythons and an assortment of skulls and shells at the various stalls in the city and at the universities.

So many things to learn and so little time.

August is always a fun month in this bit of Oz. It’s the time of year when the universities are out spruiking for new customers. They do this using open days where the best toys are on show to the general public. These event are held on several Sundays over August.
And then there’s National Science Week which is a festival of geekish delights most of which are free.

It started with a big bang last Saturday at the city’s cultural centre. One of the guests was a Dr Chris Smith and his Naked Scientist travelling magical show. Would have gone to see this guy anyway because he has a way of explaining the most obscure and esoteric research into terms that normal folks can understand. So just assumed it would be a bunch of talking heads talking about the uses of science
Was it ever a surprise to see tables decked with bunsen burners, test tubes, large vats of liquid nitrogen and an assortment of intriguing ingredients

There were so many bright and shiny glow in the dark liquids and big fat very noisy bangs that it was pretty much a one hour lesson on do it yourself bomb making.

Particularly impressive was the little plastic coke bottle less than quarter filled with liquid nitrogen. Chris Smith put the little red lid on the top of the bottle and put it in a big wheelie bin, closed the lid and put a blanket on top. And then just sat back and waited. Within a minute there was a big bang and the lid of the wheelie bin flew up.
Then there was the ‘nuclear’ bazooka made of pipes and powered by a vacuum cleaner that fired six rounds in quick succession, the light bulb in the microwave and the very nasty ‘electric chair’ for gherkins made with two forks.

Liquid nitrogen is such cool stuff that it is the main stay of just about every science display at the university open days. Particularly gross were the eggs poached in liquid nitrogen. The idea that an egg could cook at room temperature or lower was quite amazing. But they did look rather rubbery and inedible. The students even let volunteers stick their fingers in a big plastic container of this bubbling liquid as long as they did it quickly. Rings on fingers were a no no.

In spite of seeing bouncy rubber balls go all brittle after a nitrogen bath or how frosted flowers would just crumble into flakes, could not resist the temptation. Especially as the students doing the demonstrations would stick their own fingers in to prove they would not fall off. Mind you they were using big black padded gloves when pouring the stuff or submerging assorted objects in the liquid.
It did not feel like liquid at all. That’s apparently because the heat from a hand is sufficient to form a protective layer of gas around it literally like a glove. But the magic protective effect does not last very long.
The other favourite use for this steamy stuff is for making icecream. Some one has even started a business doing this very thing. They were offering demonstrations and teeny weeny samples of their wares on Saturday at the opening day event

Then it was time to peek at the assortment of magnets, spinning eggs and the bouncing aluminium rings before slowly slinking off to see the chemistry magic show at 3pm at the other end of the campus
In two weeks time the State Chemistry Centre will put on its own show with the usual stuff like demonstrations of clandestine meth lab busting and tours of the forensic science departments. All under strict supervision with the public kept on the other side of the glass.
At least this year there’s no need to go rushing off around 1pm in order to get to work on time for 3pm on weekends.

Next Sunday there’ll be another chance to catch those anarchic naked scientists at yet another one of those university open days

It’s guaranteed to be a lot more interesting than the pathetic pair touring the country begging for votes.

One of the joys of having a sort of serpent sabbatical was the opportunity to visit the university open days. While still in zombie mode was simply too exhausted to attend the local one. For the very first time in about seven years had not indulged in this annual ritual. Had gotten our serpent snout in the Chemical Centre not once but on two separate occasions last year. This had been the major incentive last time. Had been eying up the place for years and years and waiting for the one annual chance to sneak a peek

But having ditched the toad only in the last week or so, the old serpent spark had returned. The zombie form became reanimated. So instead of the usual staying at Petunia’s place on Saturday night and staying curled up in the serpent sack until at least 11am, remained at the Lair that night instead and was out and about by 7am in the morning. Most unusual indeed and a very good sign. Such an early start would be necessary due to last year’s experience of missing not one but three buses going to the university as they were all packed like sardines from the very first stop.
It was so good to feel awake and alive again. Even the miserable drizzling rain was insufficient to put a dampener on the big day of adventure

It turned out that there was no need after all to go to the first stop at this early bird hour as no more than a dozen prospective students boarded at that stage but it was best not to take chances. So no regrets. It also meant having more time to plot and plan the grand adventures before the official opening at 10am

Last year turned up around midday and picked up a program only to discover that I had just missed the intriguingly titled talk in the arts faculty “Expelliarmus - active Latin from medieval to modern times and beyond”

So that was most definitely not going to happen this time. The there was the obligatory ‘Magic of Chemistry’ show which is so good that it is worth seeing twice in the one day. Decided that once a year would be sufficient since there are so many temptations and so little time to indulge in them all

So found the arts building and watched two peacocks strutting about in a small sort of quadrangle. There were a few geeks showing off their collection of medieval replica swords and some strange sword like objects that did not look particularly lethal at all. Asked what they were for since they would not be much use for lopping off heads or hands. It turned out that they were training swords and were modeled from illustrations in medieval manuscripts.
By then it was time to look for those wand waving Latin mavens. Was so looking forward to this lecture in spite of holding a deep detestation and loathing of Latin. It is clunky and ugly and is best left for Gregorian chant where at least it does sound beautiful and you don’t have to see the ugliness on the page.

( Accio, Lumos and other useful magical charms )