Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från What on Earth! Magazine

START HERE The world's longest-living land animal is Jonathan a tortoise that was born before the first petrol car was even invented! Desert tortoises dig grooves in the ground to collect rainwater The Namib Desert beetle survives in the extremely hot and dry desert by collecting water droplets from the air on its bumpy shell. Scientists are studying the beetle to develop a water bottle that could capture moisture from the air and refill itself. Dozens of goats, sheep and donkeys are used to keep the grass trimmed at an airport in Chicago, Illinois, USA An ironclad beetle's exoskeleton is so strong it can survive being run over by a car The titan beetle can bite a pencil in half with its jaws Cows spend about eight hours a day chewing…

SPOOKY STUFF Humans love to tell spooky stories, especially in the autumn around Halloween. Ghosts, vampires and werewolves are all ideas that date back thousands of years. But why do we love to scare ourselves, and each other? Scary stories can help people to teach each other lessons, especially parents to children. Fear helps us know to stay away from creatures that might bite or poison us, or those dark woods that are full of wolves and bears! Scientifically, feeling afraid can actually make you feel good. When we get scared, our bodies produce a chemical called adrenaline, that makes us feel a rush of excitement. Our breath gets quicker, our hearts beat faster and our senses grow sharper. So when you're ready, turn the page to get a little…

X-ray (1895) Passes energy beams through your body, which are blocked by bones or other parts. Ultrasound (1956) Passes sound waves into your body, which are reflected back and turned into a picture. CT Scan (1971) Passes X-ray beams in rotation around your entire body to make a 3D picture. PET scan (1974) Uses radioactive material that collects in organs and tissues and makes a picture. MRI (1977) Uses strong magnets and radio waves to make the body's tissues release energy that is detected and turned into a picture.…

There are a few different ways that evolution can happen, but one of the main drivers is natural selection. Natural selection has three parts: variation, inheritance and the struggle for existence. The combination of these three things allows groups of individuals from the same species (known as populations) to become adapted to their environments. Eventually, populations can become so different from each other that they form separate species. Darwin and Wallace thought that natural selection worked slowly over millions of years, and mostly it does. However, recent research has shown that sometimes evolution can happen in only a few generations. Variation Individuals belonging to the same species often have small differences between them, called variations. All living things show variations. For example, the shells of grove snails show variation in…

WHAT LIES BENEATH Imagine what it feels like to be one of the four boys in this small wooden boat sailing on the Bohol Sea near the Philippines in Southeast Asia. Swimming just beneath them is a magnificent whale shark, the largest living species of fish. VIEW FROM ABOVE This spectacular photo of a herd of crabeater seals was taken by a drone hovering in the skies above. The seals are floating on an iceberg in Antarctica, where they're resting after a feed. BOSS CAT This funny photo of a fat cat was taken in a small harbour in Japan in Asia. The photographer who took it, Kenichi Morinaga, has given his photo the title ‘The Big Boss’ – and you can understand why! To see more hilarious photos of…

Banff Springs Hotel, Canada Home to: Sam the bellman, who still comes to work even after his death! The White House, USA Home to: Various presidents, including Abraham Lincoln. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill claimed to have seen Lincoln's ghost after he stepped out of a bath. Xunantunich, Belize Home to: The ‘Stone Lady’, a woman with black hair and glowing red eyes. La Recoleta Cemetery, Argentina Home to: David Alleno, a gravedigger who worked at the cemetery. People say they can still hear his keys jangling… Gunnuhver, Iceland Home to: Gunna, who came back as a spirit to take revenge. People claim they still see her in the mist of the geothermal mud pool here. Edinburgh Castle, Scotland Home to: A ghost dog that roams the castle's dog cemetery.…

ANIMALS 1 Hummingbirds are the only birds that can do what? a. Blink b. Fly backwards c. Lay eggs d. Quack 2 Beetles make up what percentage of all living animal species? a. 3 per cent b. 5 per cent c. 15 per cent d. 25 per cent 3 What is the largest species of fish that is still living? a. Manta ray b. Sunfish c. Whale shark d. Great white shark 4 What was the first animal to be cloned? a. Fruit fly b. Rat c. Sheep d. Dog 5 How long can a cockroach live without its head? a. 3 minutes b. 3 hours c. 3 days d. 3 months SCIENCE & NATURE 6 Approximately how many kettles would the energy from a single bolt of lightning boil? a. 15 kettles b. 150 kettles c. 1,500 kettles d. 15,000 kettles 7 What is the nickname that…

HAIIIIIISSSSHHH (Get away from me!) IRRUP-IRRUP (Come on!) KA. AH. ARRA. KAH… (I want to eat that…) KRRRKRRRKRRRKRRRKRRRKRRR (This is comfy.) MEIOOW (Hey! I'm right here.) Send It In! We want to hear your best cat impressions! Record yourself making the cat noises listed here and email the file to editor@whatonearth.co.uk The Champion Cat will win a co py of the new book How to Chat Chicken!…

1 It's springtime – the Sun is shining, leaves are green and flowers are blooming. One day, some rabbits find the meadow and start eating the delicious plants there. 2 The rabbits munch on the luscious green leaves of the plants. Most of them have smooth leaves but there is variation – a few have sharp spines on their leaves, caused by a random mutation in the plant's DNA. The rabbits avoid the spiny-leaved plants because they are painful to eat. 3 The smooth-leaved plants are eaten by the rabbits, who now have lots of young. They all eat so many of the smoothleaved plants that, after a while, there are hardly any left in the meadow. 4 Each time the smooth-leaved plants grow fresh green shoots, the rabbits eat…

Indus Valley children played with toys made of clay and wood. This bird with the head of a ram (left) and its wheels were found separately, and museum curators added the wooden axle to make the toy look the way it probably did when it was first made. The ox cart (right) shows how the children of the Indus Valley enjoyed pretending to drive, just the way children do today. ‘To judge from the number of pottery models that have been found in the drains, it would seem that the childish habit of taking play-things into the bath has persisted for thousands of years.’ Ernest Mackay archaeologist of Mohenjo-Daro EARLY FARMING IN MEXICO Maize was probably domesticated in southern Mexico, starting with a grass called teosinte, which produced just five…

New dinosaur sheds light on the evolution of birds Palaeontologists in China have discovered a new dinosaur, Fujianvenator prodigiosus, that is thought to be a missing link between dinosaurs and birds. Scientists already have proof that birds evolved from dinosaurs, but there are many large gaps in the fossil record – which is the fossil proof that scientists have found so far. It takes very specific conditions for an animal to become a fossil. Scientists estimate that less than one tenth of 1 per cent of all species that have ever lived became fossils! The exciting new fossil find of Fujianvenator prodigiosus is making scientists rethink how the evolution from dinosaurs to birds happened. The fossils of Fujianvenator show that dinosaurs were starting to become birdlike in shape and had…

SPOOKY STUFF For hundreds of years people who lived by the sea have told tales of ‘ghost ships’ crewed by ghastly sailors. Some of these stories may have been inspired by an optical illusion called a Fata Morgana, which can make ships look ghostly, or even like they are floating above the horizon! This mirage is caused by the way light bends towards colder air. Fata Morgana are more common in cold regions, or in places where the weather is warm and the ground is cold. They can even be seen in the desert! WHAT ON EARTH! The Flying Dutchman is a popular ghost ship tale. It can probably be explained by the Fata Morgana mirage. BEHIND THE ‘FLOATING SHIP’ MIRAGE A Fata Morgana is a type of mirage that…

GEOGRAPHY WORD SEARCH Can you spot the 26 cities and countries hidden in our jumbo word search puzzle? Good luck! AZERBAIJAN BERLIN COSTA RICA DUBLIN ETHIOPIA FIJI GREECE HONG KONG ISTANBUL JAMAICA KYOTO LONDON MADAGASCAR NEW ORLEANS ODESSA PORTUGAL QUITO ROME SAN MARINO TONGA URUGUAY VANCOUVER WARSAW XIAN YORK ZIMBABWE CUBE IT! The six-sided shape on the left can be folded up to form a cube. Only two of the cubes below can be made by it. Which are they? SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Can you spot all 2O differences between these two spooky illustrations? WORD WHEEL Use the word wheel to help find the answers to the six clues below. All the answers contain the middle letter, and each letter can only be used once. Clue: a female ballet dancer (9 letters). Answer: Clue: a form of written language for blind people (7 letters). Answer: Clue: Germany's capital city (6 letters). Answer: Clue: a being…

DO IT YOURSELF Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a holiday celebrated by many people in Mexico and other countries around the world. It has been an important holiday for thousands of years, dating back to the time of the Aztecs! During this holiday, which is celebrated on 1st and 2nd November every year, people perform many rituals to help remember loved ones who have passed away and to honour their memory. Although Día de los Muertos is a holiday that centres around death, it is far from sad or scary! Tradition says that the spirits of those who have died are allowed to return to Earth and visit their families during this time. Their families welcome them by preparing offerings of food and drink and…

FREE TO ENTER! Do you love quizzes and amazing facts? Then this is the chance for YOU or YOUR SCHOOL to enter… CATEGORIES Open to all 8 to 14 year-olds. Choose your age category: Junior 8-to-11 or Senior 11-to-14. There are separate Quiz Challenges for teams from Schools and for Individuals. HEATS The first online heats for individuals will take place at the end of October. You can choose a time to do the quiz online that suits you. LIVE SEMI-FINALS Live online heats for both school teams and individuals will be held between the 1st and 5th November. THE GRAND FINAL! The top 24 individuals and top 8 schools from the Semi-Finals will be invited to the Live London Final on 27th and 28th November in the historic Stationers’ Hall.…