Watch a Christmas chain fountain video!

🎄 Watch a chain of beads flow upwards and out of a glass – this is surely the most fun you can have with your Christmas decorations! Every year, our children look forward to this moment almost as much as the big day itself!

🎄 You’ll notice that the chain arcs over the rim of the glass, going upwards, before being pulled downwards. So how does it work? This is a cool physics problem to ponder! It happens because the chain acts like lots of connected little rods. When you pick up one end of a rod, that end of the rod goes up, and the other end tries to go down. However, if the downward force is stopped by the pile of beads below it, there is a small kickback, and the rod is pushed upwards. That upwards thrust at each link in the chain is what makes the chain rise. This is an easy activity to try for yourself at home! Just make sure that you feed the chain gradually into the glass from one end so that it doesn’t get into a tangle when it’s flowing out. You could experiment with letting the chain fall from different heights (for example by standing on a step compared to sitting down) to see if that makes a difference to the height that the chain reaches.

🎄 Have you ever seen a chain fountain in action before? Watch a Mould effect video, otherwise known as a chain fountain phenomenon video here! It’s the perfect simple science experiment to try at home!

Special Christmas Offer

Use coupon code: XMAS23

For a limited timewhilst stocks last, we’ll send you a FREE copy of the 100th edition of Whizz Pop Bang when you purchase a new subscription using the coupon code XMAS23.

Free science magazine and gift card

Imagine how excited your child will be to receive all of this on Christmas Day…

• Our movie edition ‘LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!‘ as your first magazine

• FREE copy of the ‘SCIENCE PARTY‘ magazine!

• FREE gift card printed with your message to the child

• FREE festive packaging

Plus, your child will receive a magazine addressed to them through the letterbox every month!

Each month will bring a whole new world of excitement, with topics like Ancient Greeks, Outer Space, Bees, Aliens, Rainforests and Medicines.

HURRY! Order by midnight on 17th December for your items to be dispatched by Royal Mail’s last posting date for Christmas. This offer ends on 20th December or until stocks last. Place your order today to make sure your child doesn’t miss out.

Use coupon code: XMAS23

At the checkout, when asked ‘When would you like your subscription to start?’ select ‘Delivery as soon as possible‘.

* Christmas offer only valid on new 6 and 12-monthly subscriptions using the code XMAS23. At the checkout, when asked ‘When would you like your subscription to start?’ select ‘Delivery as soon as possible.’ Order by midnight on 17.12.23 for your items to be dispatched by Royal Mail’s last posting date for Christmas. Offer valid while stocks last or until midnight on 20.12.2023. Don’t forget to use the code XMAS23 at the checkout. Not valid in conjunction with any other offers.


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Answer their questions this Christmas!

Why do carrots grow underground? Why aren’t rivers salty? Why do bouncy balls bounce? What’s the Moon for? Why don’t human eyes glow like cats’ eyes? Why does ice stick to your skin? Why do we shiver? How is fire made? Why do people have different accents?

If there’s a curious child in your family who never stops asking ‘why?’, Whizz Pop Bang could be just the answer you’re looking for! Give a gift subscription this Christmas and help your scientist-in-training to understand the world around them. Get a free Science Magazine worth £5.99 with every subscription!

Keep reading to find the answers to these questions written by Whizz Pop Bang’s expert team of scientists, and discover why endless questioning is a really important part of your child’s development (even when finding the answers can be challenging!)

Why do children ask so many questions?

Questioning trusted adults is a crucial way for children to understand, and form their own ideas, about the world around them. But it can be exhausting at times – Paul L. Harris, Professor of Education at Harvard, estimates that a child asks 40,000 questions between the ages of two and five.

Every issue of Whizz Pop Bang is packed with fascinating facts, simple scientific explanations, and experiments designed to demonstrate the answers to some of your child’s burning questions. Our team of expert scientists (including our all-knowing robot, Y) are on hand to answer our readers’ questions every issue, too – so if you can’t find the answer to your child’s latest conundrum here, why not email us at y@whizzpopbang.com and see if we can help?

Meanwhile, here are the scientific explanations of a few wonderful questions we’ve been asked recently…

Whizz Pop Bang’s resident robot, Y.

Why do carrots and other vegetables grow underground and not above ground?

We eat at least six different parts of plants. Sometimes we eat the leaves (e.g. lettuce and kale and cabbage). Sometimes we eat the stems (e.g. celery, asparagus, and rhubarb). We eat seeds, such as sunflower seeds and sweetcorn. We eat flowers (such as broccoli) and fruit. And we also eat roots and tubers. A carrot is the main root (or tap root) of a carrot plant. As well as soaking up water and minerals from the soil, it acts as an underground food store for the plant. That makes it a great food for us, too!

Why aren’t rivers salty, like the sea? 

Rain isn’t salty because when water evaporates, anything dissolved in it is left behind. Rivers are topped up by this rainwater, so they aren’t very salty either. But rivers do pick up some salt as they rush over rocks. Eventually, this salt ends up in the sea. Rivers around the world carry 3.6 billion tonnes of salt to the oceans every year! But the oceans don’t just get saltier and saltier, because about the same amount of salt sinks to the seabed each year, becoming part of new rocks.  

Why do bouncy balls bounce and don’t just stick on the ground like a rock?  

Unlike rocks, bouncy balls are made of elastic materials, such as rubber. Elastic materials are flexible – it’s easy to change their shape. But they return to their original shape after being squashed or stretched. When the ball hits the ground, it is squashed out of shape. Some of its movement energy is changed into elastic energy, stored very briefly inside the ball. Once the ball has come to a stop, this elastic energy is released as the ball returns to its original shape. The ball pushes against the ground and the ground pushes back, sending the ball back up into the air.  

Why do we need the moon?

About 4.5 billion years ago, a giant space rock the size of Mars crashed into Earth and knocked off a chunk of our planet. This chunk of rock became the Moon, and it still orbits Earth, roughly once every 27 days. The Moon is big enough and close enough that its gravity causes bulges in Earth’s water that sweep across the planet’s oceans and seas, causing the tides. Many living things have adapted to depend on the tides for shelter and food. Humans who live near coasts also depend on the tides for catching certain fish and sea creatures, and for sports like surfing. But if the Moon suddenly disappeared it wouldn’t just be coastal life that was disrupted. All life depends on the Moon, because it helps to keep Earth’s climate stable.  

Develop your child’s problem solving skills with the Whizz Pop Bang Science Riddle book!

Why don’t human eyes glow like cats’ eyes do in the dark?

Want to know why cats’ eyes glow? They shine in the dark because each eye has a thin layer of crystals at the back. This layer is called the tapetum lucidum. Its job is to bounce light back into the cat’s eye. This extra light helps cats to see better in the dark. Lots of other crepuscular and nocturnal animals have this light-reflecting layer too. Most animals that are awake in the daytime don’t, including humans. However, you’ll sometimes see human eyes glow red in a photograph, when the bright light of a camera flash bounces off the back of our eyes. 

Why do ice cubes stick to your fingers and ice lollies stick to your tongue?

Heat always moves from a warmer place to a colder place. When you lick a lolly, heat flows from your toasty tongue to the, erm, icy ice. If the lolly is very cold, the saliva coating your tongue drops below 0°C before your body can warm it back up. The saliva freezes and becomes part of the chunk of ice along with the lolly! The same can happen with wet fingers and a very cold ice cube. Never pull your skin away – use room temperature water to melt the ice and set yourself free! 

Why do your teeth chatter when you’re cold?

Want to know why do we shiver? Deep inside your brain, your hypothalamus (say hi-po-thal-a-mus) is busy monitoring your core body temperature. It’s your inbuilt thermostat! But instead of turning on the central heating when you drop below 37°C, the hypothalamus triggers reactions that help keep your organs warm while you find shelter! One of these is shivering. Muscles produce heat as they contract – think how warm you get when you exercise. Shivering is your body’s way of making your muscles contract and relax as you stand still. As your jaw muscles shiver, your lower jaw moves up and down quickly, bumping your teeth together. 

How does fire form?

Heat is one part of the ‘fire triangle’ – the three things needed for a fire to start. The other two are fuel (something to burn) and oxygen (from the air). The heat – from a burning match, lightning or even the Sun’s rays – starts a reaction between the fuel and the oxygen. This produces gases, including water vapour and carbon dioxide. It also releases energy as heat and light. This heat keeps the reaction going until the fuel or oxygen runs out, or the fire is cooled.  

Why do people have different accents?

People can speak the same language with very different accents. This is because we aren’t born speaking a particular language, but with a brain that is brilliant at absorbing and imitating any sounds it hears. This amazing ability to learn is why people tend to speak with the accent they heard most often when they were very young. By the time we are a year old, we are less able to hear different sounds and it becomes harder to pick up a new accent. The ability to imitate stays with us though, so accents can change as people move around, or even during a conversation. In fact, scientists have found that mimicking each other’s speech patterns can help two people to understand each other better, and make friends more quickly.  


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COMPETITION CLOSED: WIN an ultimate science bundle!

😭 It’s the final day of WHIZZ POP BANG’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS PRIZES and today’s prize is a big one!

A subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine is the perfect gift for curious kids!

One very lucky winner will pick up an ULTIMATE SCIENCE BUNDLE – what an amazing Christmas present that would be! This bumper collection of science goodies is worth £64.95 (but you can pick one up for £49.99 in our shop!)

It contains…

🎄 Whizz Pop Bang Binder – ideal for storing a whole year’s worth of magazines
🎄 Whizz Pop Bang Puzzle book – stuffed with over 150 brain-bending puzzles
🎄 Whizz Pop Bang Lab coat – keep your clothes in tip-top condition when you’re experimenting! Available to fit age 5 – 13
🎄 Whizz Pop Bang Scrapbook with stickers – ideal for recording hopeful hypotheses, future inventions and experiment results
🎄 Y’s Wonder Club enamel pin badge – The club that encourages readers to get stuck into experimenting and to share their adventures in science!
🎄 Y’s Wonder Club Certificate – A5 certificate to show you’re part of the club
🎄 Edible experiment booklet – 12 edible experiments to try out over the festive season!

Find science gifts for kids in our shop!

To be in with a chance of winning this perfect prize, just answer this question in the comments:

What is the reaction between vinegar and bicarbonate of soda called?

A An alkali-base reaction
B An acid-base reaction
C Combustion

Good luck to everyone and THANK YOU for playing along for the past 12 days!

This competition closes at 7am on Sunday 13th December 2020. Whizz Pop Bang competition terms and conditions are here.


Whizz Pop Bang is a top-quality, gender-neutral, advert-free science magazine for families everywhere. Each issue is packed with experiments, activities, amazing facts, puzzles, jokes, riddles and more. Find out more here!


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COMPETITION CLOSED: WIN a Whizz Pop Bang lab coat!

It’s DAY TWO of WHIZZ POP BANG’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS PRIZES! Today, we’re giving an away an essential bit of kit for all scientist-in-training: a Whizz Pop Bang lab coat! 

A subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine is the perfect gift for curious kids!

Every day until 12th Dec, we’ll launch a competition to give you and your budding scientists a chance to win awesome prizes. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for another chance to win! 

Today’s awesome prize will keep clothes in tip-top condition when your small scientist is experimenting! Each lab coat comes complete with three deep pockets, perfect for storing endless bits and bobs. Available in sizes to fit ages 5 to 13 years.

Find science gifts for kids in our shop!

To be in with a chance of winning this perfect prize, just answer this question in the comments:

What is the largest organ in the human body? 

A Liver
B Skin 
C Iris

This competition closes at 7am on Thursday 3rd December 2020. Whizz Pop Bang competition terms and conditions are here.

Good luck!


Whizz Pop Bang is a top-quality, gender-neutral, advert-free science magazine for families everywhere. Each issue is packed with experiments, activities, amazing facts, puzzles, jokes, riddles and more. Find out more here!


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COMPETITION CLOSED: WIN A Y’s Wonder Club pack!

Whizz Pop Bang’s seven days of prizes: day one!

See Y’s Wonder Club pack in our shop!

We’ve got an awesome Y’s Wonder Club pack to give away to one lucky Whizz Pop Bang fan – but you need to be quick because this competition is only open for 24 hours!

Y’s Wonder Club is our brand new club that encourages Whizz Pop Bang readers to get stuck into experimenting and to share their adventures in science. This bumper scrapbook club pack is the perfect gift for any scientist-in-training and includes:

• Large science scrapbook (315 x 240mm, 48 pages), ideal for recording hopeful hypotheses, nature notes, future inventions, experiment results and more – it’s bound to spark curiosity and creativity!

• Enamel Y’s Wonder Club pin badge – wear this quality badge and glow with pride

• A4 Sheet of fun science stickers – perfect for adorning the scrapbook

• Club membership certificate – A5 certificate to show you’re part of the club

Want to win one? Just answer the question in the comments to be in with a chance!

What are the moons of Mars called?

  1. Jupiter and Saturn
  2. Phobos and Deimos
  3. Oberon and Puck

This competition closes at 7am on 8th December 2019. For full terms and conditions visit whizzpopbang.com/terms


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Looking for science Christmas present ideas for kids?

Are you looking for Christmas presents for your grandchildren? Or perhaps your children’s grandparents are asking for Christmas present ideas? Maybe you need science present ideas for your nieces and nephews, or for any other small science fans in your life?

If you’re looking for science kits for kids, we’ve got the perfect solution: Whizz Pop Bang science magazine for children is the gift that delivers science wonder through the letterbox every month! Packed with exciting activities, eye-opening facts, puzzles, jokes and more with features written by science experts, it’s the present that keeps on giving all year round!

But that’s not all… We’ve also launched a lab-load of extra goodies this year, perfect for popping under the tree to inspire scientists-in-training to start experimenting! Science presents for kids are right here…

Grandchildren, godchildren, nieces and nephews can be tricky to buy for. Read our handy science gift guide and give the gift of curiosity this year!


Under £10: Science stocking fillers

Choose from dozens of back issues in our shop, £4.75 each

An issue of Whizz Pop Bang: £4.75


The Whizz Pop Bang Science Joke Book: £6.99


Whizz Pop Bang bundle (three issues): £9.99


Under £15: A pipette of treats

Y’s Wonder Club Pack (a large science scrapbook, 70 stickers and an enamel pin badge): £11.99


Whizz Pop Bang binder: £14.99


Around £20: A beaker of curiosity

Whizz Pop Bang lab coat: £19.99


6 monthly subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine: £20.99


Whizz Pop Bang bundle (three issues)
PLUS Y’s Wonder Club Pack (a large science scrapbook, 70 stickers and an enamel pin badge)
TOTAL: £21.98


Around £30: A flask of facts and fun

6 monthly subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine
PLUS The Whizz Pop Bang Science Joke Book
TOTAL: £27.98


Around £50: An explosion of inspiration!

6 monthly subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine
PLUS Whizz Pop Bang lab coat
PLUS The Whizz Pop Bang Science Joke Book
TOTAL: £47.97



12 monthly subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine
PLUS Y’s Wonder Club Pack (a large science scrapbook, 70 stickers and an enamel pin badge)
TOTAL: £51.98


Around £75: A lab-load of science!

12 monthly subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine
PLUS Whizz Pop Bang binder
PLUS Whizz Pop Bang lab coat
TOTAL: £74.97


The works!

12 monthly subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine
PLUS Y’s Wonder Club Pack (a large science scrapbook, 70 stickers and an enamel pin badge)
PLUS Whizz Pop Bang binder
PLUS Whizz Pop Bang lab coat
PLUS The Whizz Pop Bang Science Joke Book
TOTAL: £93.95


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