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

How to Make Martian Bricks If humans want to live on Mars someday, they’ll need houses. But lugging building materials all that way will be a pain. So engineers have been testing ways to make bricks on Mars, out of dusty, red Mars dirt. For their experiments, they used artificial Mars dirt that was just like the real thing. They first thought they’d need to add something to stick the dirt together. Or maybe they would need to add water and bake the bricks to make them strong. But it turned out all they needed was to hit the dirt really hard. When they put some Mars dirt into a tube and smashed it with a weight, one good thump squashed the dirt into a flat, super-strong disc. Instant brick!…

During the Cretaceous period, 140 million to 65 million years ago, a shallow sea covered the middle of the United States. Much of the Dakotas, Texas, and Kansas were underwater. Imagine you are on the ancient Kansas seashore. It’s a peaceful scene. An armor-plated ankylosaur lumbers along in the distance. A sea turtle digs its nest on the beach nearby. Toothed birds wheel in the sky overhead, while a flock of flightless birds floats on the waves. Suddenly the sea’s surface ripples. The birds squawk in alarm as a monstrous head rises above the water. Sharp teeth clamp on one unlucky member of the flock, which struggles in the creature’s strong jaws before disappearing helplessly down the great gullet. What was this terrible monster? A giant mosasaur. What Big Jaws…

The moon’s a WHOPPING LOLLIPOP that’s caught in Midnight’s hair. Some rotten little mischief-maker, maybe, tossed it there. But if we tug it nice and hard, we might just get it out. Be ready, though, to plug your ears, cuz Midnight’s gonna SHOUT! Spider® THE MAGAZINE FOR CHILDREN  Dreaming of Stories, Poems, Jokes, and Activities for 6-9 year olds? Check out Spider Magazine. Subscribe at Shop.CricketMedia.com/Try-Spider…

Earth is a big and surprising place. Scientists discover new plants and animals every year. On the other hand, people have spent years looking for some creatures with no luck. So how do scientists decide if they’ve got a new discovery, or just another campfire story? The Mountain Ape: A Real Find Germany, 1902 Trembling with excitement, Paul Matschie opened the package from Africa. Inside the box were the bones of a strange ape that Captain Robert von Beringe had shot in the mountains of Rwanda. “I cannot identify it,” von Beringe’s letter said. “It is too large to be a chimpanzee.” It was the largest primate skeleton Matschie had ever seen. It had huge feet and hands…hand. One hand was missing. “Sorry about the hand,” von Beringe wrote, “hyenas…

Long ago, people who made maps drew the oceans alive with bizarre animals like bearded whales, sea serpents, and devil fish. Many of these “sea monsters” resembled actual creatures that we now know live in the watery deep. The sea scene below is based on a drawing made in 1048. Look closely at the fantastic creatures. Do any look familiar? We’ve made some guesses about what some monsters from other maps might really be. What do you think they look like?…

Dear Avery, I love squirrels. They are so cute! Don’t come to my yard or my mom will take away the sunflower seeds hanging. Come to my back slope—it has tons of acorns. From Ravenna T., age 7, Oregon Dear Ravenna, Thanks for the tip! I’ll spread the word on the squirrel nutwork. It’s true, I am rather partial to sunflowers, but don’t worry—if Oregon birds are as messy as ours, the squirrels will have a feast. Nuttily, Avery Dear Whatson, I know you like to read. I do too! What is your birthday? Mine is in July. I have a lot of Ask magazines. What is your favorite book? Where do you live? Are you on Plush’s side or Marvin’s side? Happy Reading, Katie F., age 8 Dear Katie,…

If you drive along Interstate 10 near Tucson, Arizona, a series of bright yellow billboards might catch your eye: “The THING? Mystery of the Desert!” “The THING? What Is It?” “The THING? Don’t Miss It! Exit 322” You can’t help but wonder—what could it possibly be? The truth is, it’s not a mysterious creature captured in the desert. It isn’t an alien from outer space. The Thing is the work of Homer Tate, an artist who made monsters for a living. Roadside Attractions As a boy, Homer liked to make art and sculpt figures out of wax and clay. When he grew up, he found work as a miner, a farmer, and even a sheriff—but he still loved to create with his hands. Then he saw something that sparked an…

If you pour out a bag of M&Ms, fruit chews, or other colored candies, you might find more of some colors than others. There might be, say, 17 orange M&Ms, 8 blue, 13 green, 6 yellow, 6 brown, and 6 red. Is every bag the same? You open another. This one has 6 orange, 16 blue, 6 green, 10 yellow, 9 brown, and 7 red. If you count the colors in more bags, you’ll find that each bag is a little different. But if you count enough bags, you’ll begin to see a pattern: orange and blue turn up about twice as often as the other colors. Candy factories make the different colors separately, then mix them together before they go into bags. The M&M factory in New Jersey mixes…

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