Caught...

..with his pants down.

Had a wonderful day today, beginning with a trip to the Bioscience Fair in Bethnal Green. We only meant to pop in but we spent an amazing few hours there among biology exhibits run by scientists from up and down the country.

Did you know... that bees create static electricity when their wings rub together which means they collect more pollen from the plants they visit - it just sticks to their legs like iron filings to a magnet. And each species of plant also has its own 'pattern' of electrical charge to attract the bees. The bees can identify the different species and like Coke v Pepsi the plants are encouraging them to identify and visit more than one plant of the same kind, so ensuring pollination.

The girls were suitably revolted at the stand from Manchester University where they learned all about worms including toxiplasma which affects 4 billion people worldwide. Here it can affect pregnant women but most victims are in developing countries, where people are frequently infected with 3 or 4 different types of parasite that together make them too ill to function. So the children miss school and their education and they stay in the same hopeless situation, not learning how to prevent infection from the worms. Really grim.

All strains of toxiplasma have to pass through a cat at some point to complete their life cycle and the variety that infect mice cunningly (and revoltingly) achieves this by burrowing into mice's brains and rendering them fearless. A brave mouse will then go straight up to a cat. Of course it then gets eaten and so the toxiplasma life cycle is completed. Terrifyingly clever don't you think? Tom and Jerry will never seem the same again.

We could've stayed all day, but onwards and westwards to South Ken at lunchtime to meet old friends at the V&A. Tea and chatter and culture for the afternoon including a peep at David in one of the plaster halls who has evidently been up to no good...