Zone News

View older news items and announcements

Students, you can ASK, CHAT & VOTE

ASK CHAT VOTEASK the scientists any questions you have about science.

CHAT with the scientists in a 30 minute long text chat booked by your teacher.

VOTE for your favourite scientist to win a £500 prize to spend on communicating more science.

About the Francium Zone

Marguerite Perey, discoverer of Francium [Image source: Wikipedia].

Francium takes its name from France, the country where Marguerite Perey discovered it in 1939. Francium is highly radioactive, which makes it toxic to living things. It has no particular uses because it is so unstable, which is why scientists have struggled to use it to, for example, diagnose some types of cancers.

This is a general science zone with five scientists working in different areas. One studies how to turn light into electricity easily and cheaply, one works out how to help patients who have problems with their bums and tums, and one makes sound recordings of vibrations and turns them into 3D images in order to see what’s in the  different layers in the Earth. Another scientist studies the inside of cells and viruses, and another looks at how men from different ethnic backgrounds age differently.