Innehållsförteckning för November 2022 från What on Earth! Magazine

A knight's helmet could weigh as much as 4 kilograms - as heavy as a cat During the Middle Ages, squires would often clean knights’ armour using a mixture of SAND and URINE For a school project, a group of girls from Nigeria created an electricity generator that can run on urine In ancient Rome, laundry washers would clean clothes in large vats of urine Scientists discovered that boiling human pee makes it glow in the dark According to scientists, all the fresh water on Earth has been drunk - and peed out - by dinosaurs Pee was once used to make gunpowder Different chemicals in fireworks cause different sounds: aluminium produces a hissing sound while titanium makes a loud The clicking sounds that a sperm whale makes can be…

WORKING LIKE A DOG Seven animals that do useful jobs 1 Mouse-hunting cats Employed to: Keep mice and other rodents away from 10 Downing Street, the official home of the British Prime Minister. The first Chief Mouser (their official name) was appointed to this key role in the 1500s during the reign of King Henry VIII. 2 Ferret electricians Employed to: Run long cables through tunnels that are too small for humans to fit through. Specially trained ferrets have been used to help build oil pipelines, thread wires through narrow tubes at the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, USA, and connect sound and lighting cables beneath a pop concert stage in London. 3 Medical detecting dogs Employed to: Use their extraordinary sense of smell to sniff out signs of…

GOING DEAF AS A CHILD Evelyn Glennie, who was born in 1965, grew up on a farm in Scotland. From the time she was a small child, it was clear Evelyn had musical talent. She loved Scottish traditional music. Her first instrument was the piano, and later, aged 12, she took up percussion. However, Evelyn’s hearing had started to decline from the age of eight, and it seemed as if her growing deafness might stop Evelyn from becoming a professional musician. DEFYING THE ODDS At the age of 16, Evelyn applied to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, which is one of the world’s top music schools. She passed all the tests, but the Royal Academy initially decided not to offer Evelyn a place. ‘They could not…

Send your favourite fact to: facts@britannicamagazine.com YOUR fact of the month! Your photos Where does your curiosity take you? Tell us by sending your photos and letters to: photos@britannicamagazine.com A bright spark! This is a photo of me experimenting with electronics, by connecting a battery with a fan and lightbulb. I like electronics because you can make anything out of it. Lal, age 10 Ahoy there! We went on holiday to Ghent in Belgium, and it’s a beautiful city. It’s got loads of canals, so we went kayaking round the city, even through a tunnel. But the best bit of the whole trip was the waffles with chocolate and cream we had! Amy, age 9, and Lizzie, age 9…

OOOH! BENEATH THE WAVES This fantastic underwater photo was taken by scuba-diving photographer Andy Schmid off the coast of Malé, the capital of the Maldive islands in the Indian Ocean. It stars a graceful pink whipray gliding through a school of black-and-white bannerfish. WOAH! LET IT GLOW The magical green lights at the top of this photo are called the Northern Lights. The lights are caused by the collision of tiny particles released by the Sun with tiny particles in Earth’s atmosphere. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN! This is Nilo, a puppy from Spain who was accidentally hit by a car and only just survived. Thankfully, Nilo has now fully recovered and is able to run around having fun again. As you can see, Nilo particularly loves playing games with…

1935 Monopoly, one of the most popular games in history, launched on November 5th, Since then, more than 275 million copies of the game - including 6 billion green houses and 2.25 billion red hotels - have been sold.…

WHAT IS SOUND? The simplest definition of a sound is anything that can be heard. So a beautiful piece of music, a barking dog, a wailing police siren, and a friend’s voice are all examples of sounds. For a sound to be made and then heard, three things must happen. First, an object vibrates, making very fast back-and-forth movements. The vibrating object moves the surrounding air, producing sound waves. Next, the sound waves pass through a medium, such as air, water and even solid objects. Third, a receiver, such as a person’s ear, picks up the sound waves. The ear then converts the sound waves into electrical signals, which the brain understands as sound. HOW FAST IS SOUND? The speed of sound varies depending on what type of medium the…

Imagine someone said they had invented an amazing new mind-reading technology. This person claimed that their system could transfer the thoughts from your brain into the mind of someone else. It would work from thousands of miles away. You could even use this system to find out what they thought long after they were dead. Would you believe them? Amazingly, that technology really does exist. And, believe it or not, it was invented more than 5,000 years ago. Here’s how it works. You take a thought in your brain, convert it into a code and put the code on to an object. Now you give the object to someone else who already knows the code. They read the code and, hey presto, your thoughts are now inside their brain! This…

SHOW WHAT YOU KNOW (If you read the whole magazine, these should be a breeze!) BONUS ROUND Now challenge yourself with questions NOT answered in the magazine!) l. a, 2. c, 3. d, 4. a, 5. d, 6. c, 7. b, 8. d, 9. a, 10. d, 11.b, 12. d, 13. c, 14. a, 15. d, 16.b, 17. b, 18. c, 19. d, 20. d, 21.a, 22. b, 23. c, 24. c, 25. d. Answers:…