• Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.

There is a couple of ways to kill a vampire:

• Look for a hole above a grave. Sometimes vampires have to dig their way out.
• Scatter salt on the floor in the vampire’s latest victim’s room. Help the vampire lead you right to his or her tomb.
• Use garlic, hawthorn branches, or a cross to trap your vampire in a corner. Protect yourself from revenge by making a cross of tar on your front door.
• Dig the vampire up on a Friday. According to the early Greeks, that’s when a vampire is weakest.
• Pound iron stakes through his coffin and straight into the ground if you catch him at rest.
• Bury his body under running water.
• Fire a silver bullet blessed by a priest into his heart.
• Drive an aspen ash or white thorn stake through his heart with a single blow.
• Pour boiling water, boiling oil or holy water into his grave.

Click on the link below to hear Caleb chill us to the bone with his facts about vampires!

Caleb’s second Goss!

Click on the link below to hear what the ‘real’ Dracula thought of Caleb’s goss!

Dracula

Wax can plug up the ear, if so you may lose hearing in your ear. Wax is sticky so bacteria may get stuck in your ear then that may lead to an infection. Lots of species of whale have an annual buildup of earwax, adding one, two, or four layers (depending on the species) each year. The number of layers can be counted to determine the age of the whale. Some people say not to use Cotton Buds because if you go too far in you may break the ear drum.Earwax plays important role in the human ear canal, helping in cleaning, and also provides some protection from bacteria and insects.

The thought of eating ear wax might sound disgusting, but Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is famous for his eating of earwax on TV.

   By sirwiseowl

Click on the link below to hear Amy tell us some fun facts about ear wax!  Listen carefully at the end for Mr K-T’s reaction to the story about our new prime minister and his ear wax!

Amy’s Goss!

In 1885 Karl Friedrich Benz invented the world first practical automobile. His first car looked like a three wheeled bicycle.

Powered by gasoline, Benz built his first four wheeler in 1891.  Karl Friedrich was born in 1844 and died in 1939.

 Click on the link below and listen to Sean tell us about the first car invented.  Well done Sean!

Sean’s Goss!

  By freeparking

  by Xosé Castro

Why does your skin wrinkle after you’ve been soaking in the bath for a while? Because water has soaked into the CALLUS on your skin, and made it swell up and wrinkle up. The CALLUS is usually thickest on your hands and feet.

    There are a few layers in your skin. The DERMIS underneath, and the EPIDERMIS on the outside. The epidermis of your skin is quite thin, from a 10th of a millimetre over the eyelids to more than l mm thick on the soles of your feet. The epidermis is full of skin cells, and it’s supported and nourished by the DERMIS underneath.
 There’s a non-waterproof layer of your skin - the thick layer of CALLUS that you generate on your feet (if you walk a lot), and use your hands alot When you’re in a bath for half an hour or so, water can soak into the CALLUS.
Unless you’re one of those religious people who crawls on your belly for hundreds of kilometres, you don’t have much CALLUS on your belly, which is why you don’t get a wrinkled belly when you soak in a bath.

So the reason that you wrinkle when you sit in water for a long time, is because the water soaks into any skin on your body that has lots of CALLUS on it.

Click on the link below to hear Emily tell us about those funny wrinkles we get on our fingers.  Don’t stay in the bath too long!

emilyg_wrinklefingers.mp3

   by Micah A. Ponce

The first rubber balloons were made by Professor Michael Faraday in 1824 for use in his experiments with hydrogen at the Royal Institution in London. The caoutchouc is exceedingly elastic’, he wrote in the Quarterly Journal of Science the same year. `Bags made of it…have been expanded by having air forced into them, until the caoutchouc was quite transparent, and when expanded by hydrogen they were so light as to form balloons with considerable ascending power. Some balloons are even made out animal bladders before rubber ones were invented. Another interesting kind of balloon is the hot air balloon. The Montgolfier brothers, born in Annonay, France, were the inventors of the first practical balloon. The first demonstrated flight of a hot air balloon took place on June 4, 1783, in Annonay, France. Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, paper mill owners, were trying to float bags made of paper and fabric. When the brothers held a flame near the opening at the bottom, the bag (called a balon) expanded with hot air and floated upward. The Montgolfier brothers built a larger paper-lined silk balloon and demonstrated it on June 4, 1783, in the marketplace at Annonay. Their balloon (called a Montgolfiere) lifted 6,562 feet into the air.

Click on the link below to hear Fraser tell us about balloons live and inflated!

Fraser’s Goss

The computer is an electronic device that can do calculations faster than the human brain can. First, the computer receives data, or information, put in by the user, and then it processes the data as simple electronical signals according to its program, and produces a result. In 1975, American Bill Gates founded Microsoft, now the largest software company in the world.

Microsoft makes software for computers like windows, Word, PowerPoint, excel, outlook and access. Everyone uses Microsoft everyday on their computer(s) because it is all there basically is on every computer.

When Microsoft was founded, not everyone knew about it so Bill Gates sent a message all over the world in all the languages he was told to write. Sooner on, when everybody got the message, they put Microsoft softwares on every computer made to make them better and easier to use.

     by aranarth

Click on the link below to hear Paige’s goss’ live in the classroom this week!

Paige’s goss’

Mr K-T made a mistake! He forgot to give the microphone to Paige. Click on the link below to hear his big mistake and you may have a chuckle!

Mr K-T’s mistake!

Hi my goss is on the octopus. The name octopus comes from the Greek word eight, which is octo because they have eight arms and they thought it looked like a cat so they called it an Octopus (Pats theory)! There are actually 3 plurals to octopus, octopuses, octopi and octopodes and over 300 known species.

Their life span is about 6 months to 5 years depending on the species. The male dies after mating and the female dies after laying eggs, huh who would want kids! The octopus has no internal skeleton so that’s why they are so flexible and can squeeze through small gaps. They also have 3 hearts, one to pump blood around their body and 2 to pump blood over each of the 2 big gills at the side of their head. Most octopuses can change colour, either yellow, orange, red, brown or black depending on the species. This enables them to camouflage themselves to get away from predators. They can also detach their arms to confuse the enemy, this is also used in mating (who cares you are going to die soon anyway!) The Mimic octopus combines all these characteristics to look similar to a more venomous creature, they have even been known to change their texture. And one last fact, the cartoons don’t lie, the octopus can squirt thick blackish ink to escape from their preditors. Yer go me!!!

Click on the link below and have a listen to Pat’s goss’ live in the classroom!

Listen to Pat’s goss!

A tie or necktie is a piece of cloth worn around a man’s neck. They are worn for many different reasons: Working in a office, formal stuff i.e. Funerals, Graduation, just any sort of formal things. The history of Ties goes way back to 1618! In Croatia, their kings used to wear a fabric sort of almost napkin sort of thing, and it was all the craze! In Europe Men & Women both wore them, wearing them for most of the day. But those “napkin looking things” took ages to get on. In roughly about late 1890’s the British sort of got the tie we see today except it was a bit smaller and wider. Then in 1913 the tie that we see today had arrived. It was made because it would last an entire working day, and not get that dirty. I don’t know why they say that, maybe because some people thought the fabric one was A napkin and dribbled, I don’t know, just speculating. On the ties before this, the knots were complicated. But with the new one it wasn’t, it was called the “Four in hand” because it resembled the reins of the four horse carriage which was used by the rich English. Over the years, there have been minor changes but the one in 1913 is still being based on today. Ties also have meanings, like for clubs or memberships. Like, the CEO’s of Footy club’s wear their clubs colours to a press conference. There are also the famous bow-tie’s. Also there have been 4 different types of ties over the years.Info from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NecktieNapkin Looking TieUser:Louis le Grand

 By Ginger Me

Why do people laugh when being tickled - Some evidence suggests that laughing associated with tickling is a nervous reaction that can be triggered. Indeed, very ticklish people often start laughing before actually bein g tickled. Men and women are just as “ticklish”. But a few studies suggest that, if either, men may be slightly more ticklish than women.  85 per cent of adults in some way or another enjoy being tickled, tickling others, or watching others being tickled. An odd tickle!! One of the oldest and strangest ways of fishing (called trickling) is still used today by an old New Zealand Tribe.  The fishermen wade out into the waters of streams or lakes, making sure that they move quietly so the water doesn’t ripple. The fish in these waters dart in and out of rocks or clumps of coral, and sometimes hide there for quick naps.  The fishermen sneak up behind the fish, reach down, and tickle the fish’s sides. As the fish tries to wriggle away, the fisherman grabs it with his bare hands and holds tightly to his slippery supper. You can also tickle people by using a feather. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickling

emilymc_tickling.mp3

Jellyfish are found in every ocean in the world. Jellyfish lack basic organs like a brain,  but their nervous system allows them to react to light and odor, and respond quickly .The body of an adult is made up of 96%  water, 3% protein, and 1% minerals. There are hundreds of species of jellyfish some live in saltwater lakes, but most live in the ocean.   The lifespan of a jellyfish is three to six months.

By Leonski                                                

Listen to Sarah’s goss’!