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

I totally fell for the lima beans false story [April 2016]! I didn’t think it was a false story until I found the hidden answer. I love art, meteorology, running, and reading Muse. I also love color, and it’s really cool how colors can provoke psychological effects in people ( for example, red often makes people feel alarm or danger, blue may be soothing, yellow is cheery, etc.). My favorite colors are aqua and turquoise, but my favorite color changes a lot. (Hot pink is a GREAT color for the rabbits in the fan mail pit.) My favorite animal is not a rabbit, but a panda. My favorite article is the one on DHMO (the prank). Thank you very much for making Muse. My day is always highlighted whenever I…

AT CERTAIN times while you’re sleeping, your brain goes into a state called rapid eye movement, or REM. Your muscles are paralyzed, but your eyes move, and your eyelids may flicker. This is also when dreaming happens. A recording of your brain’s electrical activity would show quick, busy brain waves during REM. In between these periods, you’d see less active periods called slow-wave sleep. Scientists used to think mammals and birds were the only animals that experience REM. But some Australian dragons may have proven them wrong. Australian dragons are a type of lizard. When scientists in Germany monitored these animals in their sleep, they saw the dragons’ brains alternating between two states. One state looked a lot like REM, and the other looked like slow-wave sleep. During the REM-like…

DO YOU HAVE A HANKERING to discover new things? Maybe you should become a botanist. A report from the United Kingdom’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, says that over the past decade, scientists have discovered about 2,000 new plant species every year. In 2015, botanists identified 2,034 new species. The greatest numbers of new species come from Australia, China, and Brazil. One of the most interesting plants discovered last year was Gilbertiodendron maximum. This rainforest tree, which grows in the African nation of Gabon, can reach 150 feet (45 m) tall and weigh a whopping 116 tons (105,000 kg). (That’s more than the combined weight of 50 hippos!) Another new species, Drosera magnifica, is a type of bug-eating plant called a sundew. It grows on a mountaintop in Brazil. A scientist…

FIFA, the international organization in charge of soccer, is making some changes. The group wants to make the sport more environmentally friendly. Since so many people play soccer around the world, a greener game could have major impacts. The first step is a biodegradable ball. Usually, soccer balls are made with polyester. A rubbery sac inside the ball holds the air. When a beat-up old soccer ball is thrown away, it might sit in a landfill for ages without decomposing. But FIFA is testing new balls made of a cotton-and-paper blend. The air sacs are a patented material based on corn. FIFA hopes the new balls will break down in compost heaps instead of clogging up landfills. The design still needs tweaking, though—in very rainy games, the new balls tend…

MANY NOCTURNAL INSECTS— those that fly at night—are drawn to artificial lights. In woods and fields, they’re safe. But around cities, they can’t stop themselves from flying toward lights. They may end up fried on people’s porch lights or other bulbs. To find out how this affects moth populations, researchers in Europe gathered more than a thousand wild caterpillars. Some of the caterpillars came from way out in the country. Others were living around cities. The researchers raised all the caterpillars back in the lab. Once the caterpillars grew into adult moths, the researchers tested them with artificial lights. They found that moths from the city were much less attracted to the lights. It makes sense that moths in cities could evolve to stay safer. In each generation, the moths…

ROCK CLIMBING on an indoor wall is fun—but so is staying home and playing video games. Soon, you may not have to choose. Computer scientists in Finland have built an “augmented climbing wall” that gives rock climbing the excitement of a video game. The wall uses a Kinect sensor to track where a climber’s body is. A projector displays dots, lines, buttons, and animations on the wall. The system can help climbers follow a route by highlighting a path along the wall or record climbers’ movements as they create all-new routes. It can also project moving obstacles for climbers to avoid and buttons for them to hit, making the wall into a life-sized game.…