Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2016 i Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

Yes: Stay Tuned Could you do an issue on CRISPR? It’s an amazing new gene-altering technology. —KAI B. P.S. I send no threats with this letter. I probably won’t even open the cage of the editor-eating laser cats if you put it in the FMP. Weird in a Good Way Could you do an article on synesthesia? I think it is interesting how two of the five senses can be combined to make one and how it’s related to autism. By the way, to prove how awesome your magazine is, my mom (who is an English teacher) reads Muse before I do, and whenever I read Muse to my college-aged sister, she gives me an I-did-not-know-that weird look (which is a good sign). —ADELINE, THE UKULELE, PIANO, AND FLUTE MANIAC…

Time is ticking deep inside a sweltering mine in Mexico. If Dr. Juan Manuel García-Ruiz lingers longer than ten minutes, the extreme heat and humidity could kill him. Beads of sweat trickle down his face. When his steamed-up glasses clear, his eyes widen with astonishment. The light from his headlamp shines on a spectacular site—enormous crystals! Some are as tall as telephone poles. CRYSTALS GALORE García-Ruiz is a researcher and professor at Spain’s National Research Council at the University of Granada. He studies crystals. “The main challenges were to measure the temperature and rate at which these crystals grew,” says García-Ruiz. Crystals are three-dimensional solid objects constructed from repeating patterns of molecules. They come in many different shapes, colors, and sizes. For most people, the word “crystals” conjures up images…

Around the edge of the Pacific Ocean, the Earth rumbles and shakes and belches fire. More than 75 percent of the world’s volcanoes can be found here, roughly in the shape of a ring. Why does the ring of fire exist? The answer lies deep below the surface of the Earth with the plates that make up the Earth’s crust. Each plate is like a jigsaw puzzle piece that slides around, carrying the oceans and continents on its back. But these puzzle pieces don’t fit together perfectly. Their edges jam into each other. Sometimes, the edges slowly crumple to form mountains or islands. Other times, one edge sinks below the other in a process called subduction. As part of this process, the plates may slip suddenly, causing an earthquake. And…

The tiles that you see on walls and floors in many places, probably including your bathroom, are often squares arranged in neat rows and columns. But using squares is not the only way to completely cover a flat surface with identical copies of a shape. Tiles in the shape of any given rectangle—or, in fact, any four-sided figure—would do the job. So would regular hexagons, which have six sides of equal length and interior angles of 120 degrees. One option to make your bathroom décor more exciting is to use tiles in the shape of pentagons. Regular pentagons, with five sides of equal length and interior angles of 108 degrees, however, won’t work. Something challenging happens if you lay out such pentagonal tiles to cover a wall or floor. Trace…

Dr. Juan Manuel García-Ruiz is a geologist and an expert crystallographer. The main focus of his research is studying crystal formation—the orderly patterns they make in minerals and in living things. He is the founder and director of the Laboratory of Crystallographic Studies in Granada, Spain. García-Ruiz would like to see the Cave of Crystals listed as a location with outstanding value to humanity. Nations around the world agree to help protect these locations, known as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Q What fascinates you about your job? A I fell in love with geology because I was very interested in crystals and minerals. I wanted to know how they formed and how I could make them in the lab. Q What is crystallography? A Crystallographers study crystals: their growth and…

1. Lake of molten sulfur Just a quarter of a mile down into the trench, you’ll find one of the rarest sights on Earth: a bubbling lake of molten sulfur. Located on the slopes of the Daikoku underwater volcano, this pit of bubbling black goo, nicknamed The Cauldron, burns at a sweltering 369°F/187°C. If you miss this molten sulfur lake, you’ll have to travel to Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, to find another. 2. Giant amoebas No need to pack a microscope to see these bad boys. In the Mariana Trench, one-celled creatures called xenophyophores can grow up to four inches (10 centimeters) wide—about as wide as an adult human hand. Imagine seeing a swarm of those outside your window. One person’s cool adventure is another person’s nightmare. 3. See-through…

Meet Dr. Helen Scales—deep-sea diver, author, and seashell whisperer. She visits ocean animals in their native habitats and tells their stories. Here she shares secrets about the hidden lives of seashells. Q What’s the seashell’s biggest secret? A I think seashells’ biggest secret is probably the truth about how life on Earth has changed over thousands of years. Quite a big secret! Seashells might be able to tell us why the dinosaurs went extinct. The animals that make and live inside seashells are called molluscs. Molluscs include clams, mussels, and snails, as well as animals like octopuses and squid that have lost their shells. Molluscs first evolved in the oceans at least half a billion years ago—which, trust me, is a very long time ago! Molluscs with shells were some…

A hundred miles deep in the Earth’s mantle, the temperature is thousands of degrees, and there’s tremendous pressure from the rocks above. Under such high heat and pressure, carbon atoms bond together and form crystals—diamonds. The diamonds mined today formed billions of years ago in the Earth’s mantle. We can’t dig or drill that deep, but fortunately, diamonds came to us. Billions of years ago, volcanic eruptions in the Earth’s mantle forced diamond-containing rock to the surface of the planet. The rock cooled and hardened. This rock is called kimberlite, and it is where most natural diamonds are found.…

NEW CONTEST Not All Who Ponder Are Lost You’ve lost your way in unknown Muse territory! Possibly in a labyrinth of underground caves, or in a paper bag. Draw us a map and send it with your trusty carrier pigeon, Rusty, so we can pinpoint your exact coordinates. We’ll ready a rescue squad complete with hot-pink bunnies. (Points for drawing Rusty!) CONTEST RULES 1. Your contest entry must be your very own original work. Ideas and words should not be copied. 2. Be sure to include your name, age, and full address on your entry. 3. Only one entry per person, please. 4. If you want your work returned, enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. 5. All entries must be signed by a parent or legal guardian, saying that this is…

There are two ways to tell. One is the relative age based on fossils found in the area. For example, Tyrannosaurus rex lived from 66 to 68 million years ago, so any rock discovered above the fossil layer is less than 66 million years old. The second method is to use radiometric techniques such as carbon dating that measure radioactive decay. All rocks contain trace amounts of radioactive elements that are unstable. They break down over time into more stable forms. By precisely measuring the stable and unstable elements, geologists can determine the age of the rock.…

WHEN LAURA GLADSTONE WAS A young girl, she didn’t know she would grow up to study science in Antarctica. As a child, she loved exploring the natural world and participating in science fairs. She felt science was like magic, only better, since doing experiments helped her discover how things work. Now Gladstone is a scientist who has been to the South Pole to study invisible space particles called neutrinos. As a member of a large team of scientists from different countries around the world, Gladstone helped build the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a unique telescope that can detect neutrinos as they travel through a large block of ice at the South Pole. SPOTTING SUNDOGS While outside, Gladstone spotted sundogs. Sundogs are bright spots in the sky that appear when light from…