Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2016 i Ask Science and Arts Magazine for Kids and Children

Seafaring Spiders Many spiders like to travel by balloon. They stand on tiptoe, send out some silk, and wait for the wind to catch them. This seems risky—if the wind blew a spider out to sea, would it drown? No! Ballooning spiders are safe, because they also know how to sail. Scientists gathered hundreds of spiders from the United Kingdom. They tested the spiders by dropping them onto dry land or trays of water. All the spiders could walk on water. And some held their legs up like sails, or did handstands and lifted their bellies high. This let them glide around like sailboats. Spiders could also use their silk as an anchor. These tricks might help ballooning spiders travel long distances and reach new homes, even across oceans. Pluto…

Many water birds learn their migration routes from their parents. Young Canada geese follow their families south to warmer climates in the fall. They learn landmarks along the way. But if their parents do not migrate, they never learn the route. They will stay in the north all year and may struggle to find enough food. There are now many flocks of geese that do not migrate. But there is hope! Studies show that young geese can learn to follow an ultralight aircraft to their winter homes. Once someone has shown them the way, they can return again on their own.…

It’s in the Stars Probably for as long as people have been traveling, they have used the sun and stars to find their way. East is where the sun rises. West is where it sets. And at night, they learned to track the positions of the stars instead of the sun. People still do today. If you live north of the equator, the most useful star to know is Polaris. It is also called the North Star because it sits directly above the North Pole. While all the other stars appear to circle around Polaris as the Earth rotates, Polaris doesn’t move. By locating Polaris, the nighttime hiker or sailor always knows which direction is north. If you stand facing Polaris and extend your arms out to the sides, they…

Clouds on a horizon might mean they are caught in the mountains of an island. A green glow under a cloud could be light reflected from a shallow lagoon. Plants in the water might mean land is nearby. A bird with a fish in its beak might be headed for land. The air smells different the closer you get to land, and the sea tastes different also. Watch the waves at sea. They will tell you about faraway storms and about the direction of the current. They will even tell you whether they are bouncing off an island up ahead.…

In the wild, animals can find their way around pretty well. But what about animals that live in a city or a house? Could they use a little help navigating people space? For this month’s contest, make a helpful map for your pet or other local animal to help them find their way around to their favorite places. What spots would a dog put on its map? A cat? A raccoon? A newt? Send us your paths for prowling, and we’ll print up an atlas of them 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…

How does it work inside? A self-driving car uses GPS to tell where it is and computer maps to plan where to go. Human drivers also use GPS and computer maps to find their way around. LIDAR bounces tiny laser pulses from a spinning dome to map all the objects around the car every second. It can even see through bushes. A video camera in front helps the computer read street signs and see objects in its path. Sensors on the car’s sides detect curbs and lane markings. Radar bounces radio waves off objects to tell the computer how far away they are and how fast they’re going. The car’s brain is a computer. It uses data from the sensors to track the car’s position and route. Small computer-controlled motors…

When European explorers first ventured into the Pacific in the early 1500s, they found people on all the major islands. How had the people gotten there? It was a mystery to the Europeans. They had no idea that they had happened upon a people who were the greatest explorers and navigators in the world—a people so skilled that they needed no maps or instruments to find their way across the vast ocean. Mau Piailug [pea-eye-luke] was born in 1932 on Satawal, a tiny Pacific island no wider than a mile. When Mau was still a little baby, his grandfather put him in a tide pool as though he were putting him in a cradle. There the sea gently rocked him back and forth to the rhythm of the tides. This…

Satawal is part of the Caroline Islands of the Federated States of Micronesia. Micronesia is one of three main regions of the Pacific. The other two are Melanesia and Polynesia. The people of these three regions originally came from Southeast Asia. Over thousands of years they slowly spread across the Pacific in their voyaging canoes. Some scientists used to think the Pacific peoples discovered islands by accident when their canoes were blown off course or were carried away by the current. Others disagreed and said that the Pacific Islanders knew how to find their way on the ocean. To find out who was right, the crew of the Hõkule‘a set sail in 1976. By successfully sailing from Hawai‘i to Tahiti without using modern instruments, they proved once and for all…

The Global Positioning System, or GPS for short, is a network of about 30 satellites sitting above the Earth. Anywhere you go on Earth, there are three or four of these satellites somewhere above you. The satellites constantly send out signals that just tell the time (“it is 3:00”). To find out where you are, a GPS unit or cellphone reads the signals from three or four satellites and compares how long it took for each signal to arrive. The delay tells how far away you are from each satellite. Your phone compares the three distances and uses that to tell where you are. This way of finding your position is called trilateration. If you know you’re, say, 20,000 kilometers from satellite A, you must be somewhere on the red…

A-Mazing Can you find your way out of any maze, even blindfolded? You can, if you know this one simple secret. What you’ll need: A maze, any maze What to do: It’s simple—to find your way out of any maze, simply put your hand (or your pencil) out as soon as you enter, and find the right-most edge. Then just keep touching that wall as you walk. This won’t be the fastest way through the maze, but it WILL get you out. It’s called the right-hand rule, but it also works left-handed: start with the left-most edge and always choose left. But beware! This rule only works for sure if you follow it from the entrance of the maze—if you start in the middle, it’s possible you might just go…

Dear Marvin, Hey! How’s it going? I live in a huge house with a big yard. We have five families of deer in our yard. My favorite song is “Silent Night.” Do you know anyone else who has that song as a favorite song? Your friend, Sylvie M., Minnesota Dear Sylvie, Why do the deer all like your yard so much? Maybe “Silent Night” is their favorite song too. I myself prefer VERY LOUD nights. I’m working on a drum, trumpet, and accordion version to surprise Plush. Rock on! Marvin Dear Ask, I was wondering if you could make a magazine about robots, because I really like robots. Robots are cool. I even have an idea of what the contest could be: Draw a robot that could help Earth be…