Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children September 2016

Direct Dragon Messaging I am a black dragon with orange stripes (don’t laugh! I was born like that!) writing from somewhere in North Carolina. I wish I could have sent this sooner, but it took a while for me to find an envelope, stamps, and one of those stickers that shows the address of the sender. So I’m just writing to inform the grey dragon with blue swirls [Nov/ Dec 2015] that there are more of us out here. I enjoy reading (however, since I’m a dragon, I can’t use the library), drawing (mostly dragons, of course), and occasionally messing around with machine parts. (It’s SO hard to strip wires with your teeth!) Unfortunately, there is no dragon school in my general area, but I have taught myself English by…

SOME CHIMPANZEES have a surprising habit. They like to pick up rocks and throw them at trees, or bang on trees with them. But the apes don’t abuse all trees equally. They hit certain trees over and over with rocks, as if it’s a kind of ritual. These trees end up with piles of rocks collected around them. Researchers found at least four separate groups of chimpanzees in West Africa that hit trees with rocks. No one knows why the chimps do it. Males may use the display to show off and attract females. Or maybe the piles of rocks have some sort of meaning for chimpanzees. Sure, it’s weird. But chimps are our closest animal relatives. Is tossing stones at trees any weirder than certain human traditions—say, hurling balls…

TALK ABOUT strict parenting. Scientists have discovered a 430-million-year-old fossil creature that kept its little ones attached to its body with threads. The ancient animal was tiny, about 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) long. It probably lived on the ocean floor. It was an arthropod, a member of the animal group that today includes insects, spiders, and crustaceans such as lobsters. The critter had 15 pairs of limbs. But the most interesting thing about its fossil is the 10 miniature creatures attached to the larger animal by threads. Scientists believe these are its babies. Each miniature animal is inside a capsule. This makes the parent look like it’s flying 10 kites at once. By dragging along its young, the animal may have kept them from being eaten by predators—or getting into…

THE ENGLISH CHEMIST SIR HUMPHRY DAVY made many important findings during the late 1700s and early 1800s. He discovered the elements sodium, potassium, and calcium, for example. But a present-day biographer of Davy has learned that at least one part of Davy’s legacy isn’t quite right. When Davy discovered element 18, he planned to call it ptoassium. (The name comes from Greek. The “p” is silent, as in “pterodactyl.”) Yet when Davy published his findings, someone at the printing press reversed the first two letters. The new element was officially described as “potassium.” By the time Davy noticed the error, it was too late. Today potassium—not ptoassium—is the mineral we value in bananas and other healthy foods.…

THINK YOU’RE a world traveler? This insect probably has you beat. Pantala flavescens is a dragonfly with a body a little shorter than a baby carrot. It’s also called the “wandering glider” or “globe skimmer” and with good reason. The dragonflies live all around the world. And they migrate long distances each year. Some even cross the Indian Ocean, flying from India all the way to eastern Africa. Scientists gathered globe skimmers from three different continents and studied their DNA. They found that even dragonflies from distant parts of the world were related to each other. That means dragonflies from all over the world must be meeting up to breed. It makes this species the farthest-flying insect on the planet. Some groups of P. flavescens make round trips of more…

WAY BACK in 1996, a computer first beat a human world champion at a game of chess. Another classic board game, called Go, has been a much greater challenge for computers. Go is an ancient Chinese game played with black and white stones on a grid. Players try to surround territory on the board using their stones. Although the rules are relatively simple, the possible configurations of pieces on the board are nearly endless. After each player has made just one move, there are 129,960 different next moves, compared to 400 in chess. In addition, it’s difficult for a computer to tell which of these configurations are likely to lead to a win. This has made the game tough for computers to crack. But earlier this year, scientists announced that…