Barnie Choudhury, principal lecturer at the University of Lincoln’s school of journalism with a background in investigative journalist, is taking the GCSE examinations in an attempt to “test whether or not the allegations made in recent years that exams had been ‘dumbed down’ were true”. An article in the Lincolnshire Echo says: He sat his O-level…
NASA Angry Birds partnership
You may have thought Angry Birds is a waste of time. Information Week are reporting that the new Angry Birds Space game was “developed in collaboration with NASA through a Space Act Agreement”, a kind of commercial partnership NASA has used for “more than 50 years”. The article explains: NASA seized on Angry Birds Space…
Spanish link in cracking the Enigma code
The BBC has reported that a pair of Enigma machines used in the Spanish Civil War have been given to the head of GCHQ, Britain’s communications intelligence agency. Apparently these machines are two of “around two dozen” discovered “a few years ago, in a secret room at the Spanish Ministry of Defence in Madrid.” The…
New NCETM contract awarded
You may remember that funding for the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), the mathematics school teacher professional development programme, came to an end in March 2011 and the NCETM entered a “transitional contract” while a new tender took place. Now the NCETM website has announced that a new consortium has…
Music and alcohol may improve maths and problem solving skills
The Telegraph is reporting that “Listening to music in maths lessons can dramatically improve children’s ability in the subject”, although the text of the article explains that the technique in question “uses music notation, clapping, drumming and chanting to introduce third-grade students to fractions”. A paper which the Telegraph says is “due to be published”…
Turing bank note petition
An e-petition: “Put Alan Turing on the next £10 note” has been posted on the Government e-petition website. The text of the petition reads: Alan Turing is a national hero. His contribution to computer science, and hence to the life of the nation and the world, is incalculable. The ripple-effect of his theories on modern…
Turing sunflower experiment as part of Manchester science festival
BBC News are reporting that “thousands of sunflowers are to be planted in Greater Manchester to try to prove a theory put forward by a mathematics genius”. The genius in question is Alan Turing who, in his work on mathematical biology, apparently theorised “that sunflower heads featured Fibonacci number sequences”. The BBC article explains that…