I learned this interesting factoid last week in a seminar by Les Kirkup on student-led learning. Sticky tape emits x-rays. Honest, it does. It’s in Nature. You can watch the movie here. It’s all to do with triboluminesence.
This week I’m at the Transit of Venus forum in Gisborne, along with about 900 other delegates from a broad cross section of New Zealand society. Tomorrow we get bused out to Tolaga Bay to watch the transit (yeah, right – I’ve seen the weather forecast) and plant trees and undertake other generally cultural and symbolic things; then on Thursday we have a full day of trying to solve all the country’s economic problems. It will surely be interesting.