Ask Science and Arts Magazine for Kids and Children September 2015

UNCOVERING PRINCE CHARMING Archaeologists in France have discovered the tomb of an Iron Age prince who ruled nearly 2,500 years ago. The prince lies with his chariot, surrounded by a showy collection of grave goods—items for him to use in the afterlife. These include a bronze cauldron measuring over 3 feet (1 m) across, decorated with lion heads and Greek gods. Indeed, the tomb is filled with valuable objects from far-away Greece and Italy, brought by merchants who wanted to trade with the Celtic people living in France. Though they don’t yet know this Celtic prince’s name, archaeologists believe he must have been wealthy and powerful to have such a magnificent tomb. This Croc Rocked Scientists have discovered a new fossil crocodile, and it’s a doozy. Nine feet (three meters)…

DONG! DONG! DONG! The bells pealed early one summer morning in 1856. In the city of Brno, a dark-robed friar hurried to the garden of the Abbey of St. Thomas. Had his peas bloomed? He leaned down to check. Yes! A white flower! If not for his long robes, Brother Gregor Mendel might have danced a jig. These pea plants came from the seeds of purple-flowered plants. But as he’d predicted, some of the new plants bloomed white. How could seeds from purple-flowered plants grow white flowers? With the help of his peas, Gregor Mendel was about to crack the secret of heredity, how traits are passed from parents to children to grandchildren. Brother Gregor’s Garden It was an exciting time for science. In England, the naturalist Charles Darwin was…

Mendel, originally named Johann, was a poor farmer’s son who loved science and math. He liked plants, but he didn’t want to farm. When he couldn’t afford to pay for college, a teacher suggested that he become an Augustinian friar—a member of a religious community, sworn to poverty, prayer, and service. The church took care of friars’ needs and paid for their education. Mendel took the name “Gregor” and joined the Abbey of St. Thomas, in what is now the city of Brno, in the Czech Republic. The friars of St. Thomas lived and studied together. Mendel grew peas and taught school. In his later years, Mendel led the abbey as its abbot.…

If you look closely at a flower, you will see dusty yellow pollen and also a sticky stalk called a stigma. When a pollen grain lands on the stigma, it sends a long tube down to a pocket containing egg cells. When pollen joins with an egg cell, a seed forms. Plants, like most living things, have two copies of every plant-making instruction. Each pollen grain and each egg cell carry only one set of instructions. When egg and pollen combine, they make a seed with double instructions again—one set from each parent.…

The double instructions that Mendel discovered don’t just happen in peas. All animals and plants pass along traits in the same way—children inherit one set of instructions from each parent. Humans have about 20,000 of these little instructions, or genes. These determine everything from hair color to the shape of your toes. Some traits, such as skin color, are controlled by several instructions acting together. Since no one color instruction dominates, the skin tone of a child is often somewhere between the two parents—but the genes themselves don’t actually blend. In later experiments, Mendel also proved that sets of traits don’t “travel” together—the collection we get from each parent is pretty much random. And that’s a good thing. Variety keeps a species healthy.…

Raising a nest of young birds is a lot of work. Parent birds have to keep their eggs safe from predators, shelter the chicks from weather, and find enough food for all those hungry mouths. Different kinds of birds do these things in different ways. But they all face the same challenge: making sure that there’s a next generation of birds. The More, the Merrier The Gambel’s quail lives in the deserts of the American Southwest. These ground-dwelling birds usually lay 10 to 12 eggs at a time in a shallow nest. That’s a lot of tiny mouths to feed. Gambel’s quail chicks don’t need much attention. Just hours after hatching, they’re up and running. And they’d better be quick! These birds are a favorite prey of desert hunters like…