Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2025 i Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

LETTER of the MONTH Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Hi, I’m Zeke, an ordinary kid living an ordinary life with a brother and sister, who is WAY too cute! This is my second time writing and even though the first time I wrote on endangered species (and there is probably a magazine on it and global warming), I am writing about those. Most people don’t care. So, I just want to say some stuff on this topic, because if it doesn’t stop soon, the Earth will eventually become a big rock floating in space! If you want to help, here’s what to do. First of all, try to recycle as much as you can because it prevents pollution and habitat destruction. Secondly, if you have a piece of trash or…

You may have sipped from a drinking fountain. But have you ever taken a close look at the beautiful shape of the stream of water that emerges from the nozzle? This geometric shape is known as a parabola. It results from the force of gravity acting on the water stream. Without gravity, the water would shoot out in a straight line. Even when you increase the water pressure or change the angle at which the nozzle points, you get a curving arc. Public outdoor fountains can be quite spectacular, spraying water along parabolic paths, sometimes to great heights. The effect you get depends in part on the angle of the jets that send the water shooting into the air. At low angles, the water stream arcs over a broad and…

A few miles under the Earth’s surface lies a harsh world. Temperatures remain above 152 degrees Fahrenheit (67 degrees Celsius); little pools of water within crevices are unpleasantly hot. No light and little air penetrate such depths. Surely nothing could live here. But look closely. Those pools and rocks teem with tiny critters. And not just any critters. Some scientists now think these itty-bitty creatures have played an outsized role in creating the Earth itself. Champs of the Extreme Thousands of natural features freckle our planet, from deep valleys to majestic caves. You probably think physical forces such as howling winds and roaring rivers or events such as volcanoes and earthquakes carved them out. Maybe you believe potent chemicals, like rock-dissolving acids, were responsible, too. For centuries, most scientists shared…

A burglar sneaks into a house on a quiet street in New York City. He walks through the house, touching countertops and door handles. Finally, he steals a single card from a full deck. Then he leaves. Nearby, Jarrad Hampton-Marcell is waiting. But he’s not a police officer—he’s a researcher, an assistant professor studying microbial ecology at the University of Illinois Chicago. He set up this robbery, and many others like it, as a science experiment. He’s part of an effort to develop a brand new way to catch criminals—by collecting and analyzing their microbes. Microbes include bacteria, fungi, and other microscopic critters. They cover your body, inside and out. But these miniscule hitchhikers don’t always stay put. You breathe them in and out. Clouds of microbes waft off your…

Q: If everything the human brain does is basically sets of electrical impulses, how exactly does that translate into a state of mind? —Alejandro M., age 15, Washington A: You’re not the only one asking this question. Every neuroscientist in the world is wondering the exact same thing, says Zach Mainen. He studies the brain and mind at—get this—the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal. In fact, it’s one of the biggest mysteries in science. Here’s what neuroscientists do know: Certain parts of the brain are responsible for—or at least involved in creating—certain experiences, feelings, and abilities. For example, your ability to speak seems to depend in part on a particular piece of your left frontal lobe called Broca’s area, named after the doctor who discovered it in…

When you think you’re alone, you’re actually not. In the ground, the air, your room, and even your body are trillions and trillions of creatures so tiny you can’t see them. They’re microbes, and they’re everywhere. You’ve probably heard people call them germs—microscopic critters that you have to wash away with soap and water, so they won’t make you sick. Yes, some microbes can cause deadly diseases and infections. But, in general, they have gotten a bad reputation. Most aren’t harmful, and some are even good for you. Microbes in the soil can help plants grow. Those on your skin and in your body can help you stay healthy. Scientists have found that if people don’t have the right kinds of microbes in their guts—the stomach and digestive systems—there’s a…

Julia Oh investigates the human microbiome to help deliver treatments for infections and other diseases. As an assistant professor of genetics, she runs the Oh Lab at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine at UConn Health in Connecticut. Using cutting-edge technology and high-resolution reconstructions, she studies your hands’ tiny inhabitants and their habits. Living on your palms and fingers are microbes called florA. Her research reveals how they eat, grow, reproduce, and interact with their surroundings—your skin! Here she shares details about the hands’ microbiome, the community of microbes that make their home on the skin of your mitts. WHAT DO SKIN MICROBES DO? Our microbes use different components of the sweat and oil in our skin as fuel. Compounds the microbes create can maintain moisture and the skin’s usual…

You’ll need » 3 paper plates» Pencil» Nickel» Dime» Some cold oat cereal» Ruler with metric markings» Imagination (every scientist’s best tool) THOUSANDS OF E. coli bacteria can fit inside the period that ends this sentence. Microbes are so tiny that scientists use advanced technologies to see inside their diminutive worlds. Special units of length measure them. And it turns out that microbes vary significantly in size. But, for this activity, you won’t need expensive lab equipment to picture these incredibly small life forms. A scientific idea called relative scale and a few ordinary materials will do the trick. PLATE 1: 150x Start by thinking of something very small. Like the head of pin, which measures about 1.5 millimeters (mm) across. Now imagine that your first paper plate represents the size…