Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Ask Science and Arts Magazine for Kids and Children

AN EEL-ECTRIFYING SURPRISE Electric eels are long, snake-shaped fish that live in South America. They use electrical shocks to kill their prey. Scientists thought there was only one species of electric eel. But then the eels gave them a shock. Researchers studied 107 electric eels from around South America. On the outside, the fish all looked the same. But inside, they had differences in their DNA. The eels were really three separate species, living in different parts of South America. One of the eel species can deliver a shock of 860 volts. That’s much higher than the previous record for electric eels. Please, no hugs! CHILL OUT, NEIGHBOR Squirrels are famous for chattering, but sometimes they also listen. In fact, scientists have discovered that they often eavesdrop on their animal…

Around 600 CE, a volcano completely buried a Maya village in ash. Earthquakes leading up to the explosion warned the villagers, and they all escaped safely. But nearly everything they owned was left behind, lost in layers of ash. Centuries later, archaeologists uncovered Cerén. What they found lets us imagine life in an ancient Maya farming village… At Cerén, your day starts with the sunrise. There’s always so much to do! You roll up your sleeping mat and store it under the grass roof. The adobe floor is cool under your feet. Time for breakfast! You go down the front step. The ground between the buildings of your home is bare dirt, packed hard and smooth by many feet. You pass the storehouse. That’s where your family keeps jars of…

How many jars of corn do you have? How many did you sell? Did they all arrive at the city market? To answer these important questions, you’re going to need some numbers. The Maya were good at math. They counted in groups of 20, not 10. They wrote numbers in columns going up. The bottom row was the “1s” column, the next row up was 20s, then 400s, and so on. For digits, they used a dot for 1, a line for 5, and a shell shape to show zero. Numbers 1 to 19 were written with a combination of lines and dots. The number 1209 (three 400s + no 20s + nine 1s) would look like this: The Maya also kept three different calendars. The first divided the year…

Meet the Maya The year is 700 CE. In what is now Guatemala, a tall city rises out of the jungle. This is Tikal, one of the great cities of the ancient Maya. In its market square, traders sell obsidian knives and jade from the mountains, shells from the sea, and colorful feathers. Potters offer fancy painted mugs and bowls. Weavers show off striped cotton robes. Up at the palace, scribes record the deeds of the king in picture writing that the Maya invented. In another room, astronomers and mathematicians are hard at work figuring out the date of the next eclipse. Tikal is one of many Maya cities in the Yucatán. Each has its own king who rules the lands around it. Cities trade with each other and sometimes…

When European travelers first crossed the Yucatán, they were surprised to find ruins of huge carved pyramids and vast stone cities, abandoned in the jungle. Who built these magnificent structures? And where had they gone? It’s a mystery that puzzled archaeologists for many years. As they study the ruins and the forests around them, archaeologists have found some clues to their fate. The pyramids and cities were built by the Maya between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago. Maya people still live and farm in this part of the world. But they don’t live in their stone cities anymore. And around the time the cities were abandoned, the land around them was changing. Not Enough Rain? The first clues are written in caves and lake beds. Scientists can cut slices of…

Where Are the Tortillas? Modern Maya certainly eat tortillas. But did the ancient Maya? There’s some debate. On the one hand, there’s no proof they did. No remains of tortillas, pictures of tortillas, or recipes for them have been found in Maya ruins. On the other hand, many other cultures in the region ate tortillas—were the Maya really the only ones who didn’t? They had corn dough and hot stones…so it’s possible that they did eat tortillas, but left no record of them.…

In our September issue we asked you to imagine what new clothes kids of the future might be wearing. Thanks to all you fashionable futurists for sharing your creations! Send your letters to Ask Mail, 70 East Lake St., Suite 800, Chicago, IL 60601, or have your parent/guardian email us at ask@cricketmedia.com. Dear Ask, How can I keep my siblings out of my room? Thanks, Lucy Dear Lucy, Keep a bucket of ice water balanced above the door! Works for me. —Marvin If you just ask them nicely, I’m sure they will respect your space. —Plush Move your room underground. —Whatson Fill it with trash! —Rats Tell them there’s treasure buried in the yard. —Avery Dear Zia, I’ve started horseback-riding lessons, and I can trot around the arena on a…

Lady of Palenque by Anna Kirwan The Lady of Palenque was a Maya queen who ruled about 750 CE. We don’t know much about her, apart from some pictures carved in stone on palace walls. This book is told in the form of her imagined diary. It tells about all the adventures she had while traveling to her new city and her worries about being a queen. I’m not sure I would like such a dangerous life, but I love to read about it! Amazing Maya Inventions by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt Want to write your name in Mayan, make a musical gourd, weave a striped serape, or learn to play pok-a-tok, the ancient Maya ball game? For kids who like to make and do things, this is the book for you.…