Can you imagine building a motor from latex gloves? Physics teachers Ludwig Eidenberger and Harald Gollner, and their students Florian Altendorfer and Christoph Eidenberger, show how, exploiting the reversible thermodynamic processes of thin layers of latex.

Sabine Hentze and Martina Muckenthaler tell Lucy Patterson about their work – detecting genetic diseases and counselling potentially affected patients.

Have you ever wondered what it is that scientists get so excited about? Ana de Barros from the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal, shares with us the excitement of researching the immune system.

Eleanor Hayes, Holger Maul and Nele Freerksen investigate why folic acid is an essential component of your students’ diet – now and for a future healthy family.

On 11-16 September 2009, the annual European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) took place in Paris, France. Marlene Rau, a member of this year’s jury, reports.

Health and disease are themes that run through this issue of Science in School. In our feature article, Alan Leshner describes his varied career, including his involvement in a major campaign to show that schizophrenia is a brain disease and not a result of environment. In contrast to this concern with the public awareness of mental illness, Sabine Hentze deals with illness on a personal scale – counselling patients and families affected by genetic diseases.

Malcolm Fridlund from the European Space Agency (ESA) describes the search for extra-solar planets and explains how they can help us to understand the origin of life on Earth.

Every year, CERN invites a group of high-school teachers to Geneva, Switzerland, to learn about particle physics – and how to teach it at school.