Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2016 från Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

THE DESERT MOSS SYNTRICHIA CANINERVIS lives in some of the driest places on Earth. But unlike some other desert plants, it doesn’t rely on a wide or deep root system to wring every last water drop from the soil. Instead, it snatches moisture from the air to water itself. Each of the plant’s leaves ends in tiny hairs called awns. Each awn is covered in microscopic grooves. Dew condenses in these grooves overnight and then dribbles down each hair toward the plant. The hairs catch fog droplets too. They even help to collect drops of water for the moss when—finally!—it rains.…

Moran Cerf is a professor of neuroscience and business at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois. He used to be a computer hacker. Now he hacks into people’s brains to see, and to try to understand, their dreams. CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH? There are two paths my current project follows. One is: let’s try to understand the brain better. The other is: let’s change the brain. WHAT DO DREAMS HAVE TO DO WITH EITHER OF THOSE THINGS? Basically, once you can actually see the content of people’s dreams, you can understand how it relates to what they see when they’re awake. Up until now, people didn’t know [much about] what they were dreaming, because most people forget their dreams when they…

Some people believe that dreams are like secret messages from our subconscious minds. While scientific research does not support these kinds of interpretations, it’s still fun to look for meanings in your dreams. Watch for these possible symbols in your dream journal! Baby A new idea or project Being chased Something in real life requires your attention. Being trapped You’re afraid of making the wrong choice. Climbing a mountain You’re overcoming an obstacle. Falling You’re losing control of something. Flying You have control over your life. Food Knowledge or nourishment House Each room is a different part of your mind. People Aspects of your personality that need attention Roads or vehicles Your life path or direction Taking a test A lesson you need to learn Water Emotions—calm water means peace,…

The dream machine makes me uncomfortable. Slick black cube larger than my head. Unlabeled ports. Snaky cords that attach it to my body for eight hours every night. I’ve been using it since Dad got it secondhand, over a year ago, but I still grimace as I Velcro the cord around my wrist and press its sticky white pads against my temples. After the MPLAT, the Multi-Purpose Life Aptitude Test, I can ditch it, at least until college or whatever I end up doing next. Mom stops in my doorway. “Goodnight, Heather. Sleep well. Dream about—” “Engineering equations. I know, Mom. Night” Instead, I dream of Dad. I wake up when Mom calls, as she’s leaving: “I’m in court this afternoon. And it’s your night to start dinner!” I squeeze…

TO STAY HEALTHIER, SOME office workers have switched to standing desks. These desks let people stand to work at their computers, instead of sitting down all day. Now researchers in Canada are testing a system that could make working on a computer even more active. The setup lets people control computers by kicking, tapping, and stomping their feet. A person uses the system by standing at a desk while wearing special shoes. Under the desk, a Kinect camera captures the person’s movements, while sensors inside the shoes detect how the person is stepping. Heel taps, toe taps, foot stomps, jumps, and kicks give the computer different commands, like scrolling down a page or opening a new browser tab. And to open a time-wasting page like Facebook, users might have to…

Despite a greater understanding of the physiology and neurology of the dreaming brain, scientists today do not agree on why humans (and many mammals, birds, and reptiles) dream. Plenty of theories exist, however. Here are three. 1. We dream to help us learn: dreaming consolidates memories from waking life. A 2010 study found that participants who learned to navigate a virtual maze performed better on the task after a 90-minute nap than those who didn’t nap. Those who dreamed about navigating the maze did even better—more than six times better than all other participants. 2. We dream to help us unlearn: the Reverse Learning Theory holds that REM sleep reverses potentially damaging neural patterns. Dreams may be easily forgotten in the morning because they are supposed to be forgotten, or…

Sleep paralysis happens to many people. Almost 30 percent of college students will have an episode. But don’t worry—you can ward off ghosts and sidestep alien abductions. SLEEP IS YOUR BEST DEFENSE. Exhaustion and schedule changes trigger sleep glitches. Go to bed at the same time each night, and get at least eight hours of sleep. LIE ON YOUR SIDE. Sleeping on your back makes episodes more likely. REDUCE STRESS, which triggers sleep problems of all kinds. Try deep breathing, relaxation, meditation, or exercise. IF YOU WAKE UP PARALYZED, DON’T PANIC. Tell yourself, “Sleep paralysis can’t hurt me. It will be over soon.” TAKE SLOW, FULL BREATHS to calm yourself down. If you can’t control your breathing, that’s OK. You have plenty of air. CONCENTRATE ON TRYING TO WIGGLE A…

If our computers were human, they would probably be cranky, sleep deprived, and desperately in need of coffee. Fortunately, lack of sleep isn’t a problem for computers, but it sure is for us. Want to play a video, check your messages, or Google the capital of Maine? All you have to do is push a button on your phone or flip the lid on your laptop, and instantly your device is ready to do your bidding. If you don’t touch your device for a few minutes, it cuts back its power use to the very minimum, running only those systems needed to make sure that you can start where you left off when you get back. It’s called “sleep mode,” only it’s not all that much like sleep. HOLD THAT…

NEW CONTEST Dreams by the Jarful What if dreams could be bottled and kept on a shelf so we could look at them later? Draw one of your recent dreams inside of a glass jar or stoppered bottle. Or make a collage something like the one above. CONTEST RULES 1. Your contest entry must be your very own original work. Ideas and words should not be copied. 2. Be sure to include your name, age, and full address on your entry. 3. Only one entry per person, please. 4. If you want your work returned, enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. 5. All entries must be signed by a parent or legal guardian, saying that this is your own work and no help was given and granting permission to publish. For…

ELECTRIC EELS are famous for frying prey in the Amazonian waters where they live. Recently, a scientist discovered a surprising trick that electric eels use for self-defense. If a large animal comes partway into the water, an eel can leap up and attack the animal. The eel presses its chin against the invader to deliver a shock. With the eel’s head in the air, its shock is even more powerful, because the electricity doesn’t disperse through the water. The discovery is good news for fans of Alexander von Humboldt, a German scientist who explored Central and South America at the turn of the nineteenth century. Humboldt claimed he had seen electric eels leap from the water to attack horses that waded in. But until now, that story seemed like it…

We have dreams every night. Exciting dreams. Scary dreams. Dreams about winning giant trophies and discovering we’ve got superpowers. Then we wake up. And right away, we forget the amazing moving pictures we saw behind our eyelids as we slept. But what if we could record our dreams right out of our brains, and sit down to watch them later? Teams of scientists around the world are making that possible. Pass the popcorn! What Dreams Are Made For The average 16-year-old has spent seven years sleeping and almost one full year dreaming. But opinions about what purpose this serves have been changing for thousands of years. Ancient Greeks believed that dreams were messages from the gods, whose meanings only priests could interpret. In nineteenth-century Austria, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud thought…