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

Heavy Metal Please note that you do not have quite enough metal trees. Metal trees are extremely hard to come by outside of Metallica, unless you create them yourselves, but they are worth the effort. I believe Muse HQ is in danger of being overrun by hot pink bunnies (HPBs), and metal trees from Metallica can help with that as they ward away bunnies of all kinds. If you would like any, I would be happy to send instructions. —HER MAJESTY THE GREAT AND REVERED MAGNIFICENT DRAGON QUEEN OF METALLICA P.S. If you do not publish this letter, I will send the whole entire army of the wondrous country of Metallica, which is made of anything and everything metallic. Also, my army will lay siege to Muse HQ, so my…

From the President’s Desk I am the president of the Monotonous Society. My name is Edgar Smith. As the president of the Monotonous Society, it is my duty to inform you that we are shutting you down. Why, you may ask? Because your readers enjoy reading your magazine. They eagerly anticipate each new edition. Not only that, but they find the articles fascinating. This cannot go on. The Monotonous Society, as I said before, will shut down and completely change Muse. We will change the name to Monotonous Magazine, and it will feature articles about the best way to clean sinks, art of the second century, and personal lives of vice presidents. Readers will be bored to death! The Monotonous Society plans to take over the world by boring everyone…

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR Elephants Use Trunks like Leaf Blowers WHEN AN elephant wants something that’s out of reach, it may use its head—and then its trunk. Two elephants in a Japanese zoo use air from their trunks to blow objects closer to themselves. The Asian elephants live in an enclosure that’s surrounded by a ditch to keep them from getting out. Researchers tested the elephants by dropping snacks into the ditch, just out of reach of the elephants. They dropped leaves, pieces of bamboo, apples, potatoes, and hay. The elephants weren’t stumped. To get a snack, an elephant went to the edge of the ditch, leaned out, and used its trunk to blast air on the far side of the object. A few huffs and puffs later, the snack had slid…

While the village sleeps, Dr. Anna Nekaris and her crew trek up a steep mountainside. All is dark except for the faint luster of moonlight and the red light from their headlamps. As they hike higher over rugged terrain, rain falls softly, making this a slick and dangerous trip. The radio receiver tock, tock, tocks. They know Azka, a slow loris, is nearby. The Venomous Primate Nekaris, a scientist and professor at Oxford Brookes University in England, studies slow lorises in South and Southeast Asia. She wants to learn more about these nocturnal animals. Her study site is on the slope of a mountain on the island of Java in Indonesia. Lorises are one of only four known groups of venomous mammals in the world. “They are primates like we…

You probably don’t consider eating hazardous. But for our ancestors, getting enough to eat occasionally meant sampling bugs and berries that could be poisonous. Staying full meant scavenging food on the edge of spoiling. Only people able to detect and reject dangerous food survived. This evolutionary history left us with hard-wired defenses. THE UPSIDE OF NAUSEA AND NASTY SMELLS Some defenses help us purge toxins. Toxin detectors line our noses, lungs, and digestive tracts. They trigger sneezing, coughing, and vomiting to expel threats. Our livers break down toxic compounds. Our kidneys flush them out. Even our immune systems help by tagging toxins in addition to targeting germs. Other defenses, like disgust, help us sidestep threats. Imagine rummaging through the fridge, searching for the leftover chili. Your mouth waters in anticipation.…

Kyle raised bunnies to show at the state fair. He named them and enjoyed playing with them. After the fair, he butchered them to make rabbit stew. Was Kyle’s behavior morally wrong? Whatever your answer, you probably think you used logic to decide. But science says you used your gut—literally. Just like spoiled food, cruelty makes people feel queasy. Around the world, in languages as different as French and Farsi, people call immoral behavior “disgusting” and “sickening.” That choice of words isn’t just coincidence. Unethical behavior and contaminated food both activate the brain region linked to disgust. That overlap produces some strange consequences. Bad behavior makes people feel unclean: many cultures link immoral behavior to contamination. Cheating, stealing, or taking bribes “gets your hands dirty.” Honest people have a “clean…