Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2020 i Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

You (Classic) Rock! Iggy the Power Metal Gweerk from California, I’m so glad to know that someone else my age likes the Beatles!!! My favourite album is either Rubber Soul or Revolver. My name is Aggy with a Y please (no joke Iggy), and I hate it when people put ie at the end. Everyone thinks Aggy stands for Agatha, which would be cool because of Agatha Christie (best writer ever), but no, my real name is Agnes. I just want to say that Muse is, like, the best magazine ever, and could you please please PLEASE PLEASE do an article on any of the following topics: the Beatles, Queen, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, or Carole King. If not, could you do one on the science of sound waves or…

IT’S HARD FOR SCIENTISTS TO STUDY KIDS’ BRAINS. One reason is that brain scanners are built for adult-sized heads. Another problem is that little kids tend to wiggle around. A new tool might help: Researchers built a brain scanner into a modified bike helmet. The scanner uses magnetoencephalography, a technology that measures small magnetic fields the brain produces. In tests, the helmet worked for kids as young as two years old. That could help researchers learn more about the brains of the littlest humans.…

WHAT’S COOLER THAN A MOON ROCK? How about a Mars rock? NASA is working together with the European Space Agency on an ambitious plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth. First, a rover launching in 2020 will land on Mars. As it drives around, the rover will collect rocks and dirt in small tubes. Later, a lander will arrive on the red planet and send a second rover to collect the sample tubes. A container carrying the samples will blast back into space—the first ever rocket launch from another planet. Finally, an orbiter will catch the sample container in space and carry it back to Earth. Easy, right? That’s the news! Go to page 46 to see if you spotted the false story.…

FOR MANY TEENS, driver’s education class is a rite of passage. It’s the first step toward passing a test, scoring a license, and feeling truly independent behind the wheel. If driverless vehicles catch on, will cars have to take driver’s ed too? That’s a joke with some truth to it. Because to succeed, a driverless vehicle (or more precisely, that vehicle’s onboard computer) will need to learn all skills that, until now, only human drivers have known. Engineer Nick D’Alto wonders if driverless cars will get their own gas and oil at the drive-thru. (“Two gallons, please.”) A Lot to Cover Onboard computers have to learn the rules of the road, plus all the skill and judgement human motorists use when driving. That includes everything from accelerating and changing lanes…

High-speed railroad cars, rockets, and now drones—what will mechanical engineer Sanjeev Sharma do next? Sharma is currently head of vehicle engineering at Matternet, a drone company in Mountain View, California. Whatever lies ahead, he’ll probably be at the forefront of new technologies that serve others. “The common thread through all my career has been focused on technologies that help improve lives for a wide swath of people. I believe that is ultimately the wider purpose of engineering,” says Sharma. So it’s not surprising that Sharma is involved in the emerging technology of a new transportation mode: autonomous flying robots or drones. He also likes being a technology pioneer. “I like to work on things that haven’t existed before. Full autonomous drones in our urban airspaces are just the kind of…

It is time to go to school. You go to the bus stop and at exactly the correct time, the bus arrives. There is no driver. The bus can drive itself. You get on, sit down, and the bus continues its journey. In the lane next to you, you see several cars, but no one is driving them either. Instead, people are chatting or even reading a book. The bus stops at an intersection because it has communicated with the traffic lights and knows that pedestrians are crossing the road. It is just pulling away when it stops again. It has detected a child running into the street. A few minutes later, you arrive at school, safe and ready to start your day. Thinking about a possible future with self-driving…

IT’S THE YEAR 2020. So where are all the flying cars? The vast majority of people still get to work and school in boring, ground-bound cars. Not to mention buses, trains, and bikes. Yet some still dream of a day when we can soar above the traffic on the ground. In Singapore in 2019, the company Volocopter demonstrated a flying taxi, also known as an eVTOL. That’s short for electric vertical take-off and landing, because an electric engine powers the craft, and it doesn’t need a runway. A pilot flew the test model. But in the near future, these helicopter-like vehicles will be able to fly themselves while carrying two or more passengers and their things. Other companies, including Uber and Airbus, are working on their own self-flying taxis. If…

IN NOVEMBER 2019, THE CAR COMPANY TESLA REVEALED ITS NEXT BIG PRODUCT: an electric truck. It’s called the Cybertruck. It looks like . . . a UFO? Something your little brother built out of Lego bricks? One of these stories is FALSE. Can you spot which one? The answer is on page 46. The truck’s appearance isn’t its only unusual feature. It’s also bulletproof, the company claims. And its windows are shatterproof—or, they’re supposed to be, anyway. In a live demonstration, a Tesla designer threw a metal ball at one of the truck’s windows. The window shattered. The man tried again with a second window, which also smashed. Standing onstage, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pointed out that at least the ball didn’t go all the way through the windows. People…

IN RECENT YEARS, SOME COMPANIES HAVE BEEN TESTING OUT DRONES FOR DELIVERING PACKAGES. Drones are small flying robots. In the near future, drones could carry packages to people’s doorsteps without having to deal with pesky traffic. Now one of those companies, Amazon, is trying to improve its drones with the help of birds. Pigeons are natural experts at finding their way around. And homing pigeons are pigeons specially trained to fly home after being released somewhere else. In tests, researchers found that homing pigeons were slightly more efficient than delivery drones at returning to their home base. So Amazon is experimenting with delivery drones that have a little cage attached. A homing pigeon waits inside the cage. After the drone delivers its package, it releases the pigeon, then follows the…

It was Memorial Day 2019, just days before the big AutoDrive Challenge. Kettering University’s team was testing its car before shipping it to the competition. Suddenly the smell of smoke filled the air. The tester slammed the emergency stop button. That button shut everything off, ensuring everyone’s safety. But their computer, the heart and soul of their project car, was done for. The team didn’t panic. More teammates came in on the holiday. They stayed till 4:00 a.m. to fix what they could. They left for the competition with their Chevy Bolt, a compact electric car, and a fried computer. A sponsor sent a computer to them, but the team would have to put it together when they got there. What the Challenge Is All About In the AutoDrive Challenge,…

Have you ever heard someone comparing MPGs or wishing for better “mileage?” Miles per gallon (MPG) is the distance a vehicle can travel on one gallon of gasoline. Gas gets many of us where we need to go, but fumes from this fossil fuel pollute the air. Humans have burned an unprecedented amount of gas since the car was mass-marketed in the early 1900s. Fossil fuel air pollution is one major reason for climate change. How do we use less gas—while still getting to school, work, and everywhere else? Well, some say electric vehicles (EVs) are the future. Others believe hybrids are the way forward. EVs v. Hybrids EVs are cars or trucks that run only on electricity. They’re also known as plug-ins, as they plug into charging stations to…

WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU’LL GET AROUND IN THE FUTURE? We do too. So let’s play a game. Before you read the story below, ask a friend for words to fill in the blanks. (Tell them there’s no peeking!) Maybe you’ll come up with some clever new tech. Or maybe you’ll just laugh until you snort. Along the way, find out what real technologies inspired the silly story. In Kathryn Hulick’s future, she’ll ride in a purple penguin-powered personal scooter. Until then, she keeps busy writing books for kids about science and technology. Strange But True: The Future comes out in Fall 2020. City dwellers already call for rides from their phones all the time. In the future, it’s likely that few people will own cars. They will use ride…

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THAT TO ESTIMATE YOUR DOG’S “REAL” AGE, YOU CAN MULTIPLY BY SEVEN. So, a 1-year-old pup is like a 7-year-old kid, but a creaky 14-year-old dog is like a human who’s almost 100. Scientists say this isn’t really accurate, though. And now they have a better way to count dog years. Researchers compared human DNA to DNA from Labrador retrievers. They looked at how certain chemical changes build up in our DNA as we age. Dogs and humans followed a similar pattern, the researchers saw. This let them come up with a new equation for dog years. Ready? a dog’s human age = 16 ln(dog age) + 31 The “ln” is short for natural logarithm, a tool you’ll learn about in high-school math. If your calculator…

Olivia Wanless is a senior at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. She studies electrical engineering with a business minor. Kettering University is a co-op-based school. That means every three months, Olivia alternates between working at a company and going to classes. She works at an automotive supply company called Nexteer. There she fixes and maintains machinery on the factory floor. Wanless also mentors young people interested in engineering, especially girls. She’s a team captain for the AutoDrive Challenge, a tutor, and a former president of the Society of Women Engineers. WHAT EXPERIENCE INSPIRED YOU TO GO INTO ENGINEERING? When I started high school, I figured out that I really liked math, which I had hated in elementary and middle school. My teacher suggested that I try engineering. It hadn’t even…

It’s official! There’s a new kind of airline. It has no pilots on board, and the passengers won’t be people. The aircraft of this airline are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones. They will carry small packages, such as medicine or boxes of candy. What Exactly Is a Drone? A drone is a robotic aircraft controlled by sensors, computers, and cameras. A pilot on the ground monitors the craft. Drones run on rechargeable batteries. Most small drones can’t fly very far, but specialized long-range models can travel several miles in a flight and can zoom up to 80 miles (128 km) per hour. Wing, a drone maker based in Palo Alto, California, is one of many companies driving this transportation revolution. As of publication, Wing’s drones are delivering packages in…

Q: What is at the end of a black hole? —Ashley S. A: When you hear the words “black hole,” you probably imagine a deep well that traps everything that falls into it. But that’s not really what black holes are, says Laura Blecha, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland who studies them. In fact, a black hole isn’t a hole at all. It’s really a point with a whole lot of mass squished into it. That point is called a singularity, and it is both the beginning and the end of a black hole. A black hole’s power extends beyond that single point, however. The singularity’s enormous mass means that it generates really, really strong gravity. That gravity creates a boundary around the black hole, called an event…

Have you ever heard of the trolley problem? It is a set of imaginary scenarios used by ethicists—people who ask questions about right and wrong. Here’s one scenario. Say you are driving a car down a curvy mountain road when you suddenly meet a flock of sheep. You don’t have time to stop. You could swerve into the mountain (and probably die). You could swerve in the other direction, off the side of the mountain (and definitely die). Or you could plow into the sheep (which will probably kill some sheep and damage your car, but you will likely be OK). Yikes. What do you do? What if it is not a flock of sheep but a pair of bicyclists? Would your answer be different now? Now imagine you are…