A Catalyst article about designing, building and testing a spacecraft. There are thousands of man-made satellites orbiting the Earth. Some are only a few hundred kilometres above the Earth and complete one orbit roughly every 90 minutes. Geostationary satellites are located around 40 000 kilometres from the surface...

In September 2002, eight new General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) courses in vocational subjects were introduced: applied art and design; applied business; engineering; health and social care; ICT; leisure and tourism; manufacturing; and applied science. This report covers the introduction of these...

A Catalyst article about juvenile diabetes, a genetic disease also known as Type 1 diabetes, which affects over 200,000 people in the UK. Scientists are still trying to unravel its causes in order to develop improved treatments. This article describes what is being done to improve people’s understanding of the...

A Catalyst article about a brilliant new light source under construction in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside - the Diamond Light Source. Diamond will be a source of synchrotron light. Many of the everyday commodities people take for granted, from chocolate to cosmetics, from revolutionary drugs to surgical...

A Catalyst article about diamonds. The element carbon exists in a number of allotropic forms, but diamonds have always held a special allure, whether it be for their hardness or for their transparency. The article examines how they can be made artificially and looks at some of their uses.

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This Catalyst article explains the code structure of DNA and looks into how it is copied across generations.

This article is from Catalyst: GCSE Science Review 2003, Volume 14, Issue 1.

Catalyst is a science magazine for students...

A Catalyst article about people who believe that their health is affected by mobile phone radiation. The World Health Organisation has labelled this condition Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance with attribution to Electromagnetic Fields (IEI-EMF). Idiopathic describes a disease with no known cause. The article...

A Catalyst article about mobile phones. This article looks at the science behind this popular piece of technology, such as the use of radio waves, aerials and cells. The article also explains how mobile phones are able to use short aerials.

This article is from Catalyst: GCSE Science Review 2005, Volume 16,...

A PISA in Focus study published in 2012 from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), looks at whether students perform better in science if they are encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities, such as field trips and science projects. Most countries (22 of 31 OECD countries)...

A Catalyst article about Dorothy Hodgkin who was a pioneering scientist, a peace activist, a mother of three and a Nobel Prize winner. The article looks at her life and work in science. She did valuable work as an X-ray crystallographer and in finding the structure of biologically important molecules such as...

This Catalyst article looks at how people lived in the past, archaeologists look at the items (artefacts) these cultures left behind. Using chemical analysis of residues in the artefacts an enormous amount of additional information can be gleaned. This article investigates early dairy farming. Analysis of tiny...

A Catalyst article about the working life of Dr Gillian Lockwood, a reproductive biologist who specialises in IVF. The article looks at the ethical issues surrounding fertility treatments for problems such as polycystic ovary syndrome.

This article is from Catalyst: GCSE Science Review 2007, Volume 17, Issue...

This Pedagogics resource displays a quote from Dr Haim Ginott entitled "I have come to a frightening conclusion".

A Catalyst article about Chikyu, a Japanese drilling ship capable of boring through the Earth's crust. It will investigate regions where the crust is thinnest. Core samples are examined using a number of scientific techniques and they have produced useful information about areas where there is seismic activity...

A Catalyst article about preventing drink driving. Since 1980, the UK's government estimates it has saved over 20,000 lives by its campaign to reduce drink driving. The article looks at how this result is achieved and how the body copes with alcohol and how it breaks alcohol down.

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