Innehållsförteckning för March 2023 från What on Earth! Magazine

The world’s only toilet-shaped house is in South Korea. Today it's a museum and features toilet-themed art on the grounds, including a golden pile of poo There's a museum in Texas that features more than 1,400 artworks - all created on toilet seats Some museums keep collections of flesh-eating beetles to help clean skeletons for display About 15,000 to 18,000 new animal and plant species are discovered every year. Sometimes they're found in the wild but at other times they're in stranger places. Palaeontologists identified a new type of sauropod dinosaur from fossils that had spent 113 years in the basement of a museum A 66-million-year-old fossil was nicknamed ‘crazy beast' by scientists because of its strange features: it had front teeth like a rodent, back legs that splayed out…

DO ME A FAVOUR Five examples of animal mutualism Mutualism is a term used to describe a partnership between two organisms in which both species benefit. 1 Clownfish and sea anemones Clownfish are often found swimming among the tentacles of sea anemones, which sting nearly all other fish. Thanks to a special mucus (slimy coating) on their skin, the clownfish aren’t harmed. In return for a safe place to live, the clownfish chase away the anemone’s main predator, which is the. butterflyfish. 2 Remoras and sharks Remoras are small fish that attach themselves to sharks and other large marine animals. The remoras help the sharks by keeping their skin free of parasites. They are even allowed to swim around the sharks’ teeth to remove bits of food that might otherwise become breeding…

Soap Bubble One example of a perfect sphere here on Earth is a soap bubble. When you blow soap bubbles, they often start off with an irregular shape. But once they are floating in the air, they usually pull themselves into perfect spheres. The reason for this is a force called surface tension, which is present between the water molecules in the soap. The water molecules tug on each other equally in all directions. This causes them to pull the bubble into a perfect sphere. Kepler 11145123 Rarely do planets and stars form perfect spheres, but astronomers have found one star that comes really close. It’s a star about 5,000 light-years from Earth and is called Kepler 11145123. It is the most spherical object in space that astronomers have discovered…

DON'T LOOK DOWN! Do you have a head for heights? Erika Sedlacek clearly does! This headspinning photo shows Erika walking along a 500m-long wire strung between buildings in the city of São Paulo in Brazil. She is balancing more than 100 metres up in the air! OOOH! PLAYING IT STRAIGHT This photo was taken at a dog agility competition in Italy and stars a dog named Bagheera, who has managed to leap over the showjumping fence in a single, aerodynamic bound. Bravo Bagheera! ROUND THE BEND! It looks like an optical illusion but this bizarrely bendy house, which is part of a shopping centre in the city of Sopot in Poland, is 100% real. Known as Krzywy Domek, which means ‘crooked house’ in Polish, and built in 2004, its design…

ANIMALS 1 What does the word ‘orangutan’ mean in the Malay language? a. Great ape b. Orange ape c. King of the jungle d. Person of the forest 2 Which species of fish helps sharks by removing small bits of food from their teeth? a. Goldfish b. Clownfish c. Remora fish d. Sucker fish 3 How do most species of gecko clean their eyes? a. By blinking b. By licking them c. In the rain d. By diving underwater 4 What is the name for a baby elephant? a. Calf b. Whelp c. Pup d. Cub 5 How many eyes does a box jellyfish have? a. l b. 4 c. 14 d. 24 6 Which of these prehistoric species of animal had the longest teeth? a. Megalodon b. Velociraptor c. Tyrannosaurus rex d. Brachiosaurus SPACE & NATURE 7 If it were possible to drive through space in a car travelling at 100 kilometres…

COLOURS WORD SEARCH AMBER BLUE CRIMSON DANDELION EMERALD FUCHSIA GREY HAZEL INDIGO JADE KHAKI LAVENDER MAUVE NAVY BLUE ORANGE PURPLE QUARTZ GREY RUBY SAPPHIRE TURQUOISE ULTRAMARINE VIOLET WHITE YELLOW ZINC NUMBER TRIANGLES! In the triangles below, the numbers inside the squares are the sum of the two numbers in the connected circles. For example: Can you work out which number should appear in each of the circles? All the numbers in the circles are between 1 and 9 and a number can only be used once in each triangle. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Can you spot all 21 differences between these two jungle-themed illustrations? WORD WHEEL Use the word wheel to help find the answers to the seven clues below. All the answers contain the middle letter, and each letter can…

Why dolphins are having to squeak up Dolphins use high-pitched whistles to communicate and to hunt using echolocation, like bats do. So it’s worrying news that human activity, such as shipping and drilling, is raising underwater noise levels. According to new research by the University of Bristol, dolphins are having to compensate for the rising noise pollution by making their calls longer and louder so that they can still be heard by other dolphins. This tiny robot can turn to liquid and then re-form! Scientists have invented something that looks and sounds as if it comes from a science-fiction movie: a tiny shape-shifting robot that can melt into a liquid and then reform to become solid again. The robot, which is just 1 mm tall and shaped like a LEGO…

We often like to think that humans are the dominant species here on planet Earth. But, in many ways, insects are the ultimate success stories of the animal kingdom. Did you know, for example, that around three quarters of all known animal species are insects? They include butterflies, beetles, ants, flies, bees, wasps and grasshoppers, along with many other kinds of creepy-crawly. (Animals that are not insects, though which are sometimes mistaken for them, include spiders, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions, crabs, snails, earthworms and woodlice.) Insects are able to survive in all kinds of natural habitats, both on land and in water, and have been living on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. THREE QUARTERS OF ANIMAL SPECIES ARE INSECTS Insects make up around three quarters of all known animal…

As a young man, Prince Alexander was a good student and great with horses. At least he was great with his own horse, Bucephalus. His father, Phillip II, was king of the northern Greek city-state of Macedon and was busily creating an empire by defeating other states. So of course he could afford the best education for his son. When Alexander was 13, his dad hired a great philosopher to run a small school for Alexander and his friends. That teacher was named Aristotle, and he ended up as probably the most famous Greek philosopher of all time. He thought and wrote about everything from nature to space and from city politics and public speaking to poetry, music, memory and logic. Aristotle’s thinking led him to a very important idea.…

Q Which word looks the same upside down? A SWIMS! Q How many times can you subtract 10 from 100? A Once! The next time you would be subtracting 10 from 90… Q For what reason can you only be friends with 25 letters of the alphabet? A I don’t know why! Q What do you call a three-legged donkey? A A wonkey! Q Why are tennis players unromantic? A Because ‘love’ means nothing to them! Q What did the schoolgirl do when her teacher told her to stop acting like a flamingo? A She put her foot down! Q What did the football manager do when the pitch flooded? A Sent on a sub! Q What’s black, white and blue? A A sad zebra! Q What do you make…