Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2017 i Ask Science and Arts Magazine for Kids and Children

Sharks Older than the U.S. The oldest person on record was a French woman who lived to 122. That’s impressive—but it’s nothing compared to Greenland sharks. Greenland sharks live in cold Arctic oceans and grow verrrry slowly. But some are enormous, which made scientists think the sharks must live for a long time. To learn more, they studied the eyeballs of dead Greenland sharks. They looked for an unusual type of carbon that was common on Earth during the 1950s and 1960s, thanks to bomb tests. Sharks born around that time absorbed some of these special carbon atoms into their developing eyes. A few of the sharks they examined had high levels of these carbon atoms, meaning they were born around 60 years ago. From their size, scientists figured out…

And I’m almost out the door when my brother calls “Hey Ada, we have to put away the Legos!” Rats! We were supposed to do it last night, but I accidentally flattened the Lego shoebox to use as a sled. Oops. Someday, I’m going to invent a computer-controlled Lego picking-up drone that will sort all the pieces by color and type. I’ll put in voice control so you can yell out and it will bring you any block you need when you’re building. It will be so cool! “OK, but let’s hurry!” I say. As I open the closet door the empty shoe holder swings back and forth. The shoes are, um, elsewhere. That gives me an idea... “Hey, we can put them in this!” There’s a pocket for each…

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”—Thomas Edison The art of inventing is mostly about ideas. But it also helps to have the right tools to turn your ideas into real, working inventions. These tools don’t need to be fancy—in fact, you can probably set up a pretty good inventor’s workshop just from stuff lying around your house. It often helps to have a special space set aside for tinkering, where you can lay out your tools and leave projects you are working on. It could be a spot in a basement or garage, or you can store your workshop in a big box and spread it out only when you’re working. Make It Yours…

That’s the vision of an Indian company called Bakeys. They want to replace plastic forks and spoons with ones made out of food. This could cut down on how much plastic people use and throw away. Someday spoons might even come in your favorite flavor. Use It and Lose It How much plastic have you thrown out or recycled today? Did you use a water bottle? A drinking straw? A grocery bag? A candy wrapper? Every year, Americans toss out around 35 million tons of plastic. Most goes into landfills, where plastic doesn’t break down for a very, very, very long time. Some finds its way into the oceans, making huge patches of floating plastic trash. Out of all the plastic waste in the world, Indian chemist Narayana Peesapaty was…

1 Find a good problem. And narrow it down. What exactly are you trying to improve or solve? If you want to build a better dust mop, how will it be better? 2 Look around at similar products, and at different ones. What features do they have? How are they like your potential idea? What could you do differently? 3 Brainstorm. Try coming up with 15 solutions in a minute, no matter how crazy. Or pick something at random and ask, “How is that like my idea?” How is gum like a duster? Let your imagination loose to spark new ideas or find a different way of looking at a problem. 4 Make a breadboard. Once you think you have a good idea, test it out with a model (which…

Dear Marvin, I have a good trap for you. Right inside the door have a plate that goes down when you step on it and pushes on a seesaw that will go down but the other end will go up and hit a piece of wood that will go forward and hit a bucket of water that will fall on SOMEONE’s head. Raccoons creep me out but if they do pranks and ride skateboards and throw water balloons they are awesome. Your friend who is hungry for cupcakes, Corinne I., Washington Dear Corinne, Ha ha! That sounds excellent! Maybe I can add a string that pulls down a shelf of metal pans to make an enormous noise, so SOMEONE will think there’s a thunderstorm.... Have fun with this month’s contest!…

Rube Goldberg was an American cartoonist popular in the 1920s who liked to draw hilariously complicated gadgets meant to do simple tasks. He was poking fun at inventors a bit, and also at Americans’ great love of new inventions, however silly. These days, many schools and museums hold Rube Goldberg machine-building contests. Usually there’s a goal, such as blowing out a candle in no less than 20 steps. Points are given for how many steps the device takes (the more the better), how complicated and goofy it is, and whether it actually works. Here’s an original Rube Goldberg plan for a “Self-operating Napkin”—would you like to install one in your lunchroom? (A) As you raise your spoon to your mouth, (B) it pulls a string, (C) which jerks on the…

In a lot of board games, you roll two dice to tell you how many spaces to move or what to do next. Each die is a cube, with six square sides. The sides are numbered from 1 to 6, shown as dots. With two dice, you can roll any total from 2 (both dice show 1) to 12 (both dice show 6). But the dice don’t have to be numbered in this way. Just cover each side with a sticker and write in your own set of numbers. You can repeat numbers if you want. And you can even leave a face blank, for zero. Both dice don’t even have to be the same. Once you have your new set, work out which totals you get when rolling the…

Rube Goldberg liked to make up complicated ways to do simple things. For this month’s contest, we invite you to invent your own Rube Goldberg way to make toast (or do some other simple task). The more steps and the sillier they are the better! Since you don’t actually have to build it, feel free to include rockets, elephants, fire engines—go wild. Send us the plan for your complicated contraption, and we’ll post the most preposterous in an upcoming issue of Ask. Contest Rules: 1. .Your contest entry must be your very own work. Ideas and words should not be copied. 2. .Be sure to include your name, age, and address on your entry. 3. .Only one entry per person, please. 4. .f you want your work returned, enclose a…