Australia's Science Forum

Hi Rosalie, Our incubator is pretty old and not very accurate, so it does not keep temperature very well, but the general rule is NOT to let the temp get to close to blood temperature. Mine is generally somewhere between 25deg and 32deg. Any warmer, ands I start to get nervous about growing human sp...

Thank goodness we are all back on line. I was beginning to have an anxiety attack just trying to figure out how to contact Chemtalk to tell them that Chemtalk was not contactable! I wonder if that is how a "Bell Diver" feels if his line is cut? Sort if "I'm drowning, but I don't know ...

If the plates are taped around the edges after exposure and never untaped and then autoclaved, is the dreadful stuff grown from door handles etc ok? Will be trying peppercorns for biol but Yr8 microbes will probably still be looking at what grows from what and where!!!! I think that it is not so mu...

Sorry, you posted this thread yesterday (Tuesday) which is my day off, and I have only just found it now. We are a Mac school. We have found the Vernier/Lab Quest/Go-Link Data Loggers to be excellent. We have the Lab Quest unit which will take four probes at once (but not the newer WiFi one - :-( ) ...

I'm not sure that I could cope with going back to 5 day's per week! My social life would suffer too much!
Ian

Merilyn,
Does the position include responsibility for setting up all the local Labbie Network meetings?
Ian

That is a good list Wendy. It is obviously just a minor "Typo", but you have Calcium as Orange 7-12 instead of Orange 11-12, or more probably Green 7-12.

Cheers
Ian

Both Bromine and Lithium are "Teacher Use Only" and quite dangerous. I have never known Lithium to be used in school, and as Lis says, Bromine is only used in one Year 12 prac. (We use "Bromine Water", already made up!) Sulfur is a 7-12 chemical. We use it for testing properties ...

I get mine from Coles in 2L bottles. Well, it is "De-ionised", actually, but it seems to work as well as Distilled! (zero conductivity, no chlorides, pH about the same as distilled, etc) and about $1.30 per 2 litres. (which is less per year than I was paying for cartridges for my Vertex fi...

Just "Masterfoods" or whatever you can get in the Spice section of Woolies or Coles works fine. They last a while, so just keep a jar in "Stock", or, alternatively keep them in a Grinder in the Lunch area (for the tomato sandwiches) and just take out what you want when you need t...

Merilyn, Have a quick "whiz around" and check a good sample of them yourself, just to be certain that there is NOT a problem. If you can get a good blue flame on each of them, or preferably a light blue cone in the middle of the blue flame, then ask him to show you which were the sooty bun...

We have used the one in "Science Focus 4", (Unit 6.4, Prac 1, on page 210, called "Modelling the Transmission of Disease" Apparently it works very well. The teachers and kids love it.

Ian

Hi all, I know that this is not a Lab Tech position, but someone might know someone who might be interested. We have a Maternity Leave vacancy for an "Earth and Environmental Science" teaching position, starting beginning of next term. We are situated at Camden, (near Campbelltown) in Sydn...

Hello Labbies, Does anybody have any experience or knowledge about whether it is possible to rehabilitate plasticine? We have a stack of plasticine that is about 100 years old and as hard as rock. The teachers occasionally microwave it to soften it, but that seems to make it even harder for the next...

Rosalie,
Try Googling "Shipping Containers for sale" I came up with "Port Shipping Containers" who will deliver Australia wide and give a free on line quote.

cheers
Ian

Sorry Merilyn, I was not able to work out the details for making my own iPhone. My "Reverse Engineering" skills are deteriorating with old age. I seem to remember that one of our teachers would suspend a large mass (200 - 500g) from a retort stand with a spring. She would tape a texta to t...

There is a nifty little iPhone/iTouch app called "iSiesmometer" that gets a lot of use around here.

Ian

Your labels look good, Jazz. I will check out Acrobat Pro.
Ian

Thanks Sunray. I have the pictograms, but how do I get the mini labels into MS Word so that I can edit them? Can you print straight from ChemFFX or did you make the new labels up from scratch, just using the ChemFFX ones as a visual guide? I am using a Mac, if that makes a difference. My "Print...

Hi All, It is now past 1st January 2012, and so GHS is officially here! My problem is that Chemffx mini labels still do not have the proper GHS pictograms printed on them. Has anybody out there found a supplier of small GHS pictogram stickers, (maybe 20mm x 20mm square or thereabouts) Thanks Ian :-)