Science News for Kids articles from December 2006

Science News for Kids archives from December 2006

Lives of a mole rat.(naked mole rats)
December 6, 2006... Some animals are easy to love. Mole rats don't fit into this category. With their huge teeth, squinty eyes, piglike noses, and, in some cases, wrinkled, nearly hairless bodies, mole rats aren't exactly cute and cuddly. The pesky rodents...

Red dwarfs in the neighborhood.
December 6, 2006... It can be hard to get to know all the people that live in your neighborhood. Keeping track of the stars in our part of the galaxy is getting harder, too. Astronomers recently found an additional 20 star systems that lie within just 33...

Secrets of an ancient computer.(antikythera ancient mechanism)
December 6, 2006... Computers go back farther in history than you might imagine. A mysterious mechanism found in a 2,000-year-old Greek shipwreck may have been used to calculate the positions of planets, predict when eclipses were to occur, and do other...

A tongue and a half.(University of Miami's Nathan Muchhala on bats)
December 13, 2006... If there were a prize for animal rudeness, a small South American bat would surely be in the running. The creature doesn't just stick out its tongue. It shoots it way, way out. In fact, its tongue is longer than its body. At 1.5 times the...

Back to the moon.(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
December 13, 2006... Someday, you might be able to live on the moon. In 2020, NASA plans to begin building a base on the moon, the space agency announced last week. The project should be finished by 2024. If you're 10 years old today, you'll be 28 then. So, if...

To catch a dragonfly.
December 13, 2006... Try to catch a dragonfly. I dare you. "They're so quick and so smart, it sometimes takes us hours with five people to catch one," says Martin Wikelski. He's an ecologist at Princeton University in New Jersey. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Earth-friendly fabrics.(envirionmental clothing)
December 20, 2006... Shopping for clothes involves tricky decisions about fit, color, style, and price. And if a growing number of companies have their way, you'll soon start checking labels for another key detail: environmental impact. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

How to slice a cake fairly.
December 20, 2006... Sharing can be hard. Every kid knows that, and mathematicians do, too. So mathematicians have spent a lot of time thinking about how to make sharing easier. Mathematicians are particularly fond of sharing birthday cake. Not just any...

Smiles turn away colds.
December 20, 2006... Want to stay away from colds? Put on a happy face. Compared to people with bad attitudes, people who are cheerful and relaxed are less likely to suffer from colds, according to a new study. It's possible that being upbeat helps the body...