Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 246 i National Geographic Kids (UK)

Hi Kids! Hope you've been having a fantastic summer break! Prepare to get your mind boggled this issue – because it's our Weird But True special! We take a look at six seriously strange sea creatures, check out some multi-coloured trees, discover the mysterious animals of Madagascar, and meet people who risk their lives to get honey. Bzzz-arre! Plus, join our panda cover star on a giant journey across the world! Also this issue, we bust a load of Viking myths and cool down with some yummy, frozen summer treats! Hope you enjoy all the puzzles, posters and prizes! See you next month, Editor Tim and the Nat Geo Kids team…

Ireland’s Big Beach Clean is on 20–22 September. Check out the Clean Coasts website for more! Can’t get to a beach? No problem! Head to a local park, street or river and record rubbish there to support the Marine Conservation Society’s Source to Sea Litter Quest. Want to help look after our ocean? Then join the Great British Beach Clean this 19–28 September! Head to a beach clean-up event organised by the Marine Conservation Society to pick up litter and record rubbish you find. The benefits? Cleaner beaches, safer wildlife and lots of important data about the amount and type of waste found on our shores. This info will help the Marine Conservation Society’s campaign to cut down on ocean pollution. Yay! Last year, over 5,800 people took part, picking…

Ocean Film Festival Explore the depths of the planet by watching a sensational selection of movies about life under, above and around the world’s oceans! In this year’s films, you’ll meet brave bodyboarders, orca-loving scientists, soldiers-turned-surfers, adventurous cave divers and many more. Plus, prepare to be mesmerised by Aquaballet (right) – in which freediver Marianne Aventurier ‘dances’ with marine life in a celebration of their beauty and grace. Wowee! Learn about three more of the seven films below… ● The Ocean Film Festival tours the UK from 6 September. Find screenings near you and book tickets at the Ocean Film Festival website. Previous programmes can be watched online, too. Check out some of the docs! We the Surfers This joyful documentary follows the small surfing community in Liberia, West Africa,…

The Himalayan mountains of central Nepal are home to Apis laboriosa, the largest honeybees in the world! The insects’ prized honey is said to have mind-altering properties and can be sold for up to £130 per kilogram in Japan, China and Korea. But collecting the sweet stuff is a dangerous business. To reach it, local people scale the sheer cliffs where the bees make their nests, climbing up to 90m – as high as a 30-storey building – with only homemade rope ladders to hold them! While scaling their shaky ladders and waving away angry bees, the honey hunters carry two 7m-long bamboo poles. They use one to pry nests offthe rocks, and the other to hold a basket against the cliff face to catch the falling honeycombs. When they’ve finished…

1 In a room of 23 people, there’s a 50% chance that two people will have the same birthday. 2 The Ancient Egyptian heiroglyph for ’100,000’ was a frog. 3 An icosahedron has 20 sides. It’s been used for dice since Ancient Egyptian times. 4 In Qatar, the mobile number 666-6666 sold for £2 million in 2006. 5 Multiply 1,089 by 9 and you get the exact reverse: 9,801. 6 Zero is the only number that cannot be represented in Roman numerals. 7 The numbers we write with today were invented in India over 1,500 years ago. 8 Crows can be trained to count aloud. 9 In Japan, they have contests to see how fast kids can add using an abacus.…

1 Rivers are found on every continent on Earth. The two biggest are Africa’s Nile River and the Amazon River in South America. Both flow for over 6,400km, but experts aren’t sure which is longer! The UK’s longest, the River Severn, is a lot shorter – about 350km. 2 As well as giving people water and food, rivers create fertile land that’s good for farming, provide trade routes for ships, and supply power to operate machinery or generate electricity. That’s why many big cities are built on their banks. 3 Lots of rivers flow underground in caves, below thick layers of ice, or in tunnels and pipes beneath modern cities. It’s thought that at least 12 ‘lost’ rivers run under London, including the River Tyburn, which flows in a sewer…

SEP 6 International Vulture Awareness Day Three cheers for these scavengers! SEP 19 Talk like a Pirate Day Ahoy there me hearties! SEP 20 International Red Panda Day Celebrate these cheeky treetop animals today! SEP 22 - SEP 28 Recycle Week Think about your waste this week! SEP 23 International Day of Sign Languages Learn some signs on the British Sign Language website.…

Aye-aye TROPICAL FORESTS Meet the aye-aye – possibly the only animal on Earth that’s famous for its fingers! This scruffy-looking, nocturnal lemur creeps around the tree branches of Madagascar’s eastern forests, tap-tap-tapping on the bark with its super-skinny middle finger. Using batlike ears, it listens out for a hollow sound – indicating a spot where tasty grubs are hiding. When it strikes lucky, it gnaws a hole, then uses the hooked claw on the tip of its 8cm-long finger to pull out the prey. Darwin's bark spider RAINFOREST RIVERS Imagine this – you’re canoeing happily along a river in Madagascar, when suddenly your face gets caught in the world’s biggest spiderweb! That would be the work of Darwin’s bark spider, which spins webs across rivers by letting a long thread…

Wielding swords and axes, dozens of burly long-haired men leap off their longship and rampage towards a coastal village – they’re here to take it over as their own. It’s just another regular day for a Viking. But is this really how it was? It’s true that for about 250 years – from around AD 800 to AD 1050, during the so-called Viking age – skilled sailors from Norse territory (modern-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden) looted, conquered or traded with parts of Europe, the Middle East and North America. But what you’ve seen on TV and in the movies might not be the full story. Check out the map of where Vikings explored below. Then keep reading for five Viking myths that have been tossed overboard! MYTH 1: Vikings used catapults…

FROZEN BANANA SMOOTHIE BOWL What you'll need ● 1 banana ● 2 tbsp plain or Greek yoghurt ● Splash of milk or plant milk (approx 35ml) ● 1 heaped tsp honey or maple syrup (optional) ● 1 heaped tsp nut butter (optional) ● Blender ● Toppings, such as mixed nuts & seeds, coconut flakes, sliced fruit or granola Start here! 1 Slice up the banana and put the slices on a baking tray in the freezer overnight. Once frozen, you can store them in a freezer bag. TOP TIP Freezing overripe fruit is a great way of rescuing it from the bin! TOP TIP You could add some frozen berries to make the mixture pink! 2 Blend the frozen banana slices with the yoghurt, milk, honey and nut butter (if…

Vote for the Tree of the Year! Ten tree-mendous FIlists have been selected for the Woodland Trust’s annual Tree of the Year contest – and now it’s time for YOU to vote for a winner! The top trees include the massive Argyle Street ash, which grows on one of the busiest streets in Glasgow, Scotland; three 2,000-year-old yews in the Lake District, England, which inspired poet William Wordsworth; and the Lonely Tree, a beautiful young birch growing alone on the shores of Llyn Padarn in Llanberis, Wales. But there are lots of others to choose from, too – some of the finalists have starred in films, formed symbols of peace, and even been admired by Queen Victoria! ● Vote for your fave on the Woodland Trust website. Ancient voyage recreated!…

Also known as a bear ca Also known as a honey bear Answers: True bears – giant panda, sloth bear, sun bear, polar bear. Not bears – koala, kinkajou, binturong, red panda.…

This landscape looks a bit like a patchwork quilt, but it’s actually a canyon filled with pools of salt! Found in the Sacred Valley region of Peru, South America, the ancient site was once the heart of the Inca Empire – and its salt pools are still in use today. People have harvested the famous, flavourful Peruvian pink salt here for over 1,000 years. The mineral comes from water that streams from a warm spring above the canyon and trickles through a network of channels into the pools below. Over time, the water evaporates, leaving behind a layer of salt crystals that’s scraped out and sold. There are about 4,500 pools in the area, each belonging to a local family. One pool can produce up to 200kg of salt per month.…

It might look like someone has been busy with a paintbrush, but these multi-coloured trees are all natural. The rainbow eucalyptus’ orange-tinted bark sheds in strips, revealing a bright green layer below. Over time, the bark matures, and the green changes to blue, then purple, red, orange, yellow and, finally, brown. As bark sheds at different times, one tree can display all these colours at once! Botanists have tried to grow rainbow eucalyptus trees in gardens, but the colours are never as vibrant as they appear in their natural habitat – the wet, tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines. There, the vibrant trees can grow to heights of 75m – that’s as tall as 13 giraffes stacked on top of each other!…

QUIZ TIME! (page 17) 1-B; 2-B; 3-C; 4-B; 5-A; 6-A. CROSSWORD (page 42) WHICH WHALE? (page 43) Flame-Fluke B; Oscar-Fluke C; Kelp-Fluke A; Aria-Fluke D. BOOST YOUR BRAIN (page 44–45) SPLASH ZONE 7 and 11 are only shown once. TASTY TEST 1-BANANA; 2-WATERMELON; 3-CHERRY; 4-STRAWBERRY; 5-GRAPE. COLOUR CHALLENGE GREEN. WORD MATCH 1-D; 2-E; 3-F; 4-A; 5-B; 6-C. DEEP SEA SEARCH 1-F; 2-B. WHAT'S NEXT? A-75; B-96; C-17; D-8; E-37; F-45. SPELLING SPOT 2 and 3 have the correct letters. INTO THE RAINFOREST LINK IT WOMBAT SPOT THE DIFFERENCE? (page 46) WHAT IN THE WORLD? (page 47) Top row: LOG FLUME, PIRATE SHIP, MERRYGO-ROUND. Middle row: ROLLERCOASTER, DOUGHNUTS, PRIZES. Bottom row: BUMPER CARS, CANDY FLOSS, FERRIS WHEEL. Bonus: THE ROLLERGHOSTER! THE LAST LAUGH Q. Where do Vikings go when they get…