Every time you eat cheese, stay healthy because of a vaccine or fight a disease with antibiotics, you owe it to biosciences. What do you know of biosciences?

Maybe you already know about bacteria but could you differentiate a spirochete from a coccus? Did you know that not all viruses prey on complex organisms? Some viruses prey on bacteria!

GAME FOR SCIENCE is a great place to hang out in if you want to learn more about biosciences. Starting this week, we’ll be adding 1 new game every week through collaboration with the Musée Armand-Frappier.

This week, we invite you to try out a memory game called Bacterium, virus and company. You will learn how different microorganisms look like. Once you get the hang of it, try it on intermediate level, where you will discover what those microorganisms do. What’s more, you’ll improve your short-term memory doing so. Have fun!

Science-fiction has always existed in the light of advances in science. In Grand Star’s post-apocalyptical epic story, after events that we won’t spoil for you, the Earth lies under a crust of the Moon’s dust. The dusty atmosphere blocks sunlight from reaching down where humans live. A new ice age forces the survivors to live in globe-covered cities linked together by all-powerful train companies.

Try to imagine a world where winter never stops.

There are two ways you can visit this universe impossible to imagine without science and based on Georges-Jean Arnaud’s books. First, you can catch the TV series Sunday at noon and Saturday at noon on Télé-Québec. You can also play the strategy game we showcase here on gameforscience. The game is a lot of fun whether you’re a fan of the series or not.

It is a strategy game, available both in single and multiplayer modes. You want to try it? Step into the arcade. It is loaded in a machine on the first floor.

A couple weeks ago, we invited you to try out to see if you’d make the cut as one of the first astronauts to set foot on Mars.

Did you? It might have sounded silly at the time : how can playing a game bring you closer to your dreams?

However, when astronaut Julie Payette told us that the dream of a career in science is often sparked by something grounded in our daily lives, and limited only by our ambition, we figured we’d extend a much larger invitation to M.A.R.S.

We dusted off the corners in our training facilities, saw that there are still a couple CD-ROMs that haven’t been found yet and fun things to undertake.

Our partners, Telefilm Canada, the Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM), École des métiers de l’aérospatiale de Montréal (EMAM) and la station de vulgarisation et de loisirs scientifiques du Bas-Saint-Laurent (ASTER), extend the challenge. You never know what you might find out about your future on Mars.

Get ready to blast off to M.A.R.S.! The official launch of the experience is this Thursday, April 9th. Visit http://www.gameforscience.com/mars to embark!

It seems the best ideas come to us when we least expect them to.

What were you doing last time you were hit by a stroke of genius?

According to legend, Archimedes had his most famous idea when he was soaking in a public bath. He was so giddy he allegedly ran out immediately, without getting dressed first, screaming “Eureka!”.

Eureka means I found it. The legend does not tell us whether anyone asked him if he should focus on finding his pants instead.

What we do know he found is how fluids behave when an object is immersed in them. Next time you step foot in the bath, know that the water exerts a force on your feet equal to their volume multiplied by their density multiplied by gravity.

Why is that any useful? It was useful to Archimedes because it enabled him to devise a way to evaluate if a piece of jewelry was made of solid gold or not without destroying the shiny object. In modern times, from hot air balloons to astronaut training facilities, Archimedes’ principle is used extensively.

You want to try it? Log on to gameforscience and try it out at the Lab! A new interactive animation by eduMedia allows you to experiment with it. No public bath needed.

Sometimes a fresh start brings welcome change. This is one of those times, as we’ve added avatar customization to gameforscience.com.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of different possible combinations so head in there and try it out!

Quiz time :
What are the odds of you and I making exactly the same avatar if we both pick our character’s sex randomly?

Female avatars may choose from the following:

Male avatars may choose from the following:

Answer : (16 x 3 x 2 x 3 x 2 x 2) + (16 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 2 x 2) = 2880 different combinations, for odds of 1 :2880

Have you ever dreamed of walking on Mars’ soil? Mars has captured the imaginations of both scientists and non-scientists alike for thousands of years. It is the second most monitored planet in our solar system, with 3 unmanned spacecraft orbiting it.

There are several key challenges we need to overcome before we can achieve the dream of having a human walk on its surface.

According to Wikipedia, these include :

• physical effects of exposure to high-energy cosmic rays and other ionizing radiation
• physical effects of a prolonged low-gravity environment
• physical effects of a prolonged low-light environment
• psychological effects of isolation from Earth
• psychological effects of lack of community due to lack of real-time connections with Earth
• social effects of several humans living under crowded conditions for over one earth year
• inaccessibility of terrestrial medical facilities

Want to know if you’re up to some of those challenges? We built a game just for that purpose. What’s more, you’ll get to know more about different career paths related to those challenges.

It’s called M.A.R.S. and it’s available both on the games page and at the arcade in the game for science virtual world.

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Search for INFO-SCIENCE terminal to discover and watch scientific news capsules on careers in science.