if a french ailurophile fancies a chat, what does a polish cynophile fancy? we won t give away the answer, but it will be on the gchq website, along with the other brain teasers for you to try. you might want to pause for a moment if you are eating because we re going to talk about bovine burping. cows belch huge amounts of methane which causes global warming but the problem can be massively reduced with just a pinch of dried seaweed in their feed, as paul murphy reports. as they munch through their winter feed, these lincoln reds are blissfully unaware of the consequences. it is mainly when they burp that the planet gets more unwanted methane. a lot of people don t realise that methane is 85 times more harmful than c02, and a cow burps enough methane each year equivalent to a car. methane levels in our atmosphere, seen here in red, are increasing by 1% every year.
try and solve the gchq christmas card puzzle. it s different to what we normally have to do in school. yeah, but that s how you get the three words. we don t do much, like, code breaking, so it s. something different. gchq is the uk s intelligence security and cyber agency. traditionally, each year it includes a brainteaser on the christmas cards it sends out. but this christmas, for the second year running, it s also set a festive, mind bending challenge for school pupils. if two equals growth and six equals exist, then nine is what seven letter word which describes what you ll be doing with your presents on christmas day? information allows you to break the code. they re challenging, they re very challenging questions. but what i think they re doing is they re helping promote resilience and perseverance. if the students are going down a particular route and making a mistake, they re not giving up.
how are you finding it? we re finding it quite exciting, actually. yeah, it s really fun, thinking outside the box and actually making your brain think a different way. i thought it would be quite maths orientated, but it s actually like quite a lot of codebreaking and puzzling and stuff like that. so this question here, what is this actually encouraging students to do, do you think? it s more about being spatially aware. and the twist of that is that whenever you touch the key, the direction changes. so they need to actually do some reverse operation. how can i get from point a to point b? so, these puzzles have been set by an actual intelligence officer who works for gchq. we can hearfrom him, but for obvious reasons we can t show his face. so he s going to appear in the form of a cartoon character called colin. hi, tim. it s colin here. so, colin, what impact do you think these puzzles will have? so this year, the christmas card
has puzzles covering different skill sets, including languages, engineering, analysis and codebreaking. what qualities are you looking out for? the qualities needed are ingenuity, analytical skills, perseverance and an inquiring mind. in a sense, solving the challenge replicates what we need to be able to do in gchq, but in a fun way. along with m15 and m16, gchq says it wants to widen its recruitment net. whilstjob candidates still need to be british citizens, as of last month, they no longer need to have british parents. the agency also wants more neurodiverse candidates to apply. people with conditions such as autism, adhd and dyslexia. gchq says different ways of thinking are key to keeping the uk safe. what do you make of these puzzles? i think they re really good. many of our students wouldn t have heard of gchq prior to this challenge,
to test and develop the same skills that real life agents use and to encourage children from all backgrounds to consider a career in the intelligence services. intelligence being the key word here, i think! tim muffett went to a school in london to see if the pupils there could crack the code. we re going to see who actually makes it through. elm green school in south london. the students mission, should they choose to accept it, try and solve the ghq christmas card puzzle. it s different to what we normally have to do in school. yeah, but that s how you get the three words. we don t do much, like, code breaking, so it s. something different. gchq is the uk s intelligence security and cyber agency. traditionally, each year it includes a brainteaser on the christmas cards it sends out. but this christmas, for the second year running, it s also set a festive, mind bending challenge