Science News for Kids articles from January 2009

Science News for Kids archives from January 2009

Body clocks.(circadian rhythm)(Report)
January 7, 2009... Try this: For an entire day, forget about the clock. Eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired. What do you think will happen? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You may be surprised to find that your day is much like most other days....

Longer lives for wild elephants.
January 7, 2009... Most people think of zoos as safe havens for animals, where struggles such as difficulty finding food and avoiding predators don't exist. Without such problems, animals in zoos should live to a ripe old age. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] But...

Mood-boosting drugs make unhappy fish.
January 7, 2009... When you're sick, you might take medications to help you fight off infection, lower a fever or clear a stuffy nose. But once those drugs leave your body, chances are they will find their way into nearby lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. ...

Between a rock and a wet place.(Gobies)
January 14, 2009... Life is anything but a vacation for a climbing goby, a small fish that lives in Hawaii. Usually shorter than your thumb, this fish hatches in freshwater high in the hills and mountains. But soon afterward it's swept out to the salty sea by...

Hold on to your stars, ladies and gentlemen.
January 14, 2009... We live on Earth, which orbits the sun. Our sun is really a star, one of the hundreds of billions in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Our galaxy has a few galactic neighbors, and together we're called the Local Group. Until recently, scientists...

Face values.
January 21, 2009... You know which faces you find attractive, but why? A delicate look, a bright smile, pretty skin, big eyes--it's hard to resist such features. It's also hard to define them. Psychologists have been working for years to close in on the age-old...

Hubble lives on.(Hubble Space Telescope)
January 21, 2009... It's been a rocky past year for the Hubble Space Telescope. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The 24,500-pound spacecraft has been racing around Earth for 18 years. Over that time, it has collected a wealth of groundbreaking data. And it has...

Mosquito duets.
January 21, 2009... A mosquito's whining buzz can be as irritating as its bite. But to a mosquito of the opposite sex, the high-pitched hum is the sound of romance. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Skeeters create their distinctive sound by beating their wings at a...

Calculating crime.(Mike O'Leary)
January 28, 2009... When you think about math, you probably don't think about breaking the law, solving mysteries or finding criminals. But a mathematician in Maryland does, and he has come up with mathematical tools to help police find crooks. [ILLUSTRATION...

Earth from the inside out.
January 28, 2009... Scientists have long known this strange fact: It's easier to look deep into space than into the center of Earth. Light can pass through most of space, so the light from distant stars can easily be seen with the naked eye. But Earth is opaque,...