Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i Ask Science and Arts Magazine for Kids and Children

A Fishy Spy To learn about ocean animals, scientists need to get a close look. But noisy submarines sometimes scare the animals away. So scientists have invented a robot fish spy. The robot is called SoFi, short for Soft Robotic Fish. It has a rubber body and a camera in the middle of its face. It waves its tail to swim, just like a real fish. A diver nearby steers the robot with a waterproofed video game controller. As it swims around, the robot snaps photos and video of the sea life around it. In tests, SoFi swam up to 60 feet (18 m) deep. Best of all, it’s so quiet that it doesn’t scare the real fish away. Cracking the Case of Knuckle Cracks Some people think it’s satisfying…

Winter’s life started out unlucky. When she was just two months old, she got tangled in the ropes of a crab trap in Florida. A fisherman heard her cries. Rescuers cut her free. They took her to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. But the little dolphin was badly injured. The ropes had cut off blood flow to her tail. It got infected, and doctors could not save it. But Winter is strong. She recovered. And she taught herself a new way to swim! Normally, dolphins move their tails up and down. Winter learned to swim more like a fish. She waggled her body from side to side. Newspapers and TV stations ran stories about the plucky tailless dolphin. Winter became famous. Winter could get around by sideways swimming. But it was…

When someone is missing an arm, they can get a replacement arm, called a prosthesis. Prosthetic arms can look like natural arms, or they can look more like robots. Prosthetic arms can do many of the things that a real arm can do. They can have wrists that turn, hands that hold things, and fingers that bend. But there’s one thing that living arms are still better at— you can move them just by thinking. Many prosthetic hands can move a bit. The fingers might open or close when the wearer flexes a wrist or shoulder. This lets them grab objects or open doors. Other hands are remote-controlled. To move the fingers, the wearer might push buttons inside a shoe. If you think these seem like difficult ways to move…

In ancient Egypt, a woman missing her big toe replaced it with a wooden one, held on with leather. In long-ago Rome, a man walked on a leg made of bronze. For thousands of years, people who have lost a toe or arm or leg have worn replacements called prosthetics. The earliest prosthetics were often crafted from wood and leather. Wood could be carved to look like an arm or a leg, but it wasn’t always comfortable to wear. And solid wooden hands couldn’t do much. The next step was to add joints that could move a little. Fancy hands could be bent to hold a fork or pen. Legs got moving knees and ankles and curved feet. That made walking easier. Today’s prosthetics are mostly lightweight metal and plastic.…

Rearranging Stores by Ela V.O. Cairn’s Toy Store and Sweets by Kristy are moving to Tennessee. They are both leaving at the beginning of April. Kristy is moving to help her husband with his business. Melissa, the owner of Cairn’s, is leaving because Melissa is Kristy’s mother. A new bakery will open in April. People want to keep the store a toy store, but we will miss Cairn’s and Sweets. New Baby Girl in the Neighborhood! by Reese M. Annie was born on March 2. And though very small, she is very cute! Snow Instead of Spring!? by Reagan H. Over spring break we had a big surprise. We got a snow shower! Many citizens around town were very upset with this bad weather just days before the spring equinox.…

What could make prosthetic hands even better? How about skin that feels? You may think of skin as a big wrapper for your body. But skin does a lot more. Skin senses what you’re touching and how tightly you’re holding it. And skin protects you by telling you when you’re hurt. If you get too close to a flame, heat sensors in your skin warn you to jump back. If you step on a tack, skin pain tells you to stop walking and fix the wound. Modern prosthetic limbs can lift, grab, and move. Now, engineers and scientists are trying to build artificial skin that will give prosthetics a true sense of touch. Sensing skin would also be useful for robots. It could help them grab objects without crushing or…

Coloring Maps A map of the United States often shows the states in different colors. But how many colors do you need to make sure that no two states next to each other are the same color? Let’s start with a simpler map. On a sheet of paper, draw lots of long, straight lines. They can go any direction, but must go all the way across. How many colors do you need so that no neighboring spaces are the same? Just two! Now suppose your simple map has three areas surrounding a fourth. How many colors do you need now? This map needs four colors. You would also need four if the central region were surrounded by five, seven, or any odd number of areas. It turns out you need…