Innehållsförteckning för Dec/Jan 2023 från What on Earth! Magazine

One of the inventors of the candy floss machine was a dentist. The water in Australia’s Lake Hillier is candy floss pink There’s a park in Austria that each year floods and turns into a lake, submerging trails, benches and even bridges Canada’s Kliluk, nicknamed Spotted Lake, partially dries in the summer and reveals hundreds of colourful mineral pools that, from above, look like spots. On the world’s fastest rollercoaster, at an amusement park in Abu Dhabi, passengers wear goggles to withstand zooming along at nearly 240 kilometres an hour Diggerland is a theme park where visitors can drive trucks and backhoes, and go on other constructionthemed rides At Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, USA, you can keep any rocks or gemstones you find - visitors have discovered more…

THE BIG READ Focus the camera of a smartphone or tablet on this QR code to listen to an audio recording of the author reading this book extract. Today, Buddhism is one of the world’s most popular religions, with an estimated 550 million followers. You have probably heard of it - and of the great religious teacher and thinker who founded it, who is often called the Buddha. But do you know how Buddhism began? Its story starts in India, in the 6th Century CE, with the birth of the man who would later become known as the Buddha. His name was Siddhartha Gautama. As a boy, Siddhartha was a Hindu. The Hindu religion is the oldest of the five major religions practised in the world today (that’s Hinduism, Buddhism,…

Q If I have six pineapples in one hand, and seven pineapples in the other hand, what do I have? A Big hands! Q What does a thesaurus eat for breakfast? A Synonym buns! Q How can you recognise a maths teacher’s garden? A The flowers all have square roots! Q Why is it so easy to fall asleep? A You can do it with your eyes shut! Q What do you call a girl with a frog sitting on her head? A Lily! Q What is a ghost’s favourite position at football? A Ghoul-keeper! CHRISTMAS JOKES Q Which is the naughtiest of Santa Claus’s reindeer? A Rude-olph! Q What falls but never gets hurt? A Snow! Q Which animal is always getting wet? A A rain-deer! Q Who delivers…

EYE SPY This awesome photo of an American crocodile was taken by Tanya Houppermans at Gardens of the Queen, a group of small islands off the coast of Cuba in the Caribbean. The crocodile lives in a mangrove swamp, one of the world’s most precious marine environments. WOAH! THE ONLY WAY IS UP! In Morocco in North Africa goats can often be seen climbing up into the branches of argan trees. The goats do this because they can – goats are naturally good climbers – and to eat the fruit of the argan tree, which has a thick yellow peel and sweet-smelling flesh inside. POWER PLAY Sumo is a form of wrestling that is popular in Japan. To win, a sumo wrestler must push his opponent to the floor or…

Salt water and fresh water Most of the water on the surface of the Earth is found in the oceans and is called salt water. This is because it contains dissolved minerals which make it taste salty. Most lakes, streams, ponds and rivers contain fresh water, which is the type of water most plants and animals (including humans) that live on land need to survive. Altogether, the total amount of fresh water is about 2.5% of the total water on Earth. Measuring volume and capacity The amount of liquid a container can hold is called its capacity. Liquids are measured using units of volume. For example, to find the volume of a container that is 10 cm wide, 10 cm deep and 10 cm high, you need to multiply the…

YOUR fact of the month! Send your favourite fact to: facts@britannicamagazine.com Your photos Where does your curiosity take you? Tell us by sending your photos and letters to: photos@britannicamagazine.com Space food! This is a photo of my healthy solar system. The clementine-banana Sun is on the left, followed by all the carrot planets in different sizes. Look at the yellow banana shaped like the letter E. It’s supposed to be the Earth! The parsley stars are shining brightly all over the galaxy. Hannah, age 8 On the lookout! I went to Newhaven Fort in Sussex for my 11th birthday party. The sea fort was built in Napoleonic times. In this photo, my friends and I are playing on a cannon that was used to defend against foreign invaders. Lars, age…

Can turtles 'talk' to each other underwater? New research suggests that a number of sea creatures that scientists had previously thought to be silent could, in fact, be able to communicate underwater. Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, who led the research at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, used sound and video equipment to record 53 marine species in zoos and aquariums. Animals recorded in the study included the South American lungfish, the Cayenne caecilian, an amphibian, and several species of turtle. Lots of vertebrates (animals with spines) create sounds in their throats as they push air up through their lungs. These sounds range from chirps and clicks to more complex sounds with different tones. By filming marine animals underwater at the same time as recording any sounds they made, Jorgewich-Cohen tried to…

1 What caused the Big Bang? According to the theory, everything that exists, including space, time and all the matter in the universe, expanded from a tiny single point in a mind-boggling moment we call the Big Bang. But as for what, if anything, caused the Big Bang - we have absolutely no idea! 2 Do aliens exist? our galaxy, the Milky Way, is very big and has existed for more than 13 billion years. It contains hundreds of billions of stars and planets, and mathematical probability suggests that at least one of those planets should contain intelligent alien life. However, so far, we have yet to meet any aliens or detected any signs that they exist. One reason for this could be that space is just too big (the Milky Way…

Water is one of the things that makes life on Earth possible. Here we investigate the important role it plays inside the human body and in plants. Plus, we search the solar system for water, and find out why the largest desert on Earth is, in fact, Antarctica! Desert planet Deserts are areas that receive less than 250 mm of precipitation, such as rain or snow, in a year. They make up about a third of the land surface of Earth. Why is water so special? Water is a simple chemical compound that forms when one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms bond together. Because of the way the atoms join, a water molecule looks a little like a mouse’s head, with the oxygen atom making the face and the…