Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2023 från Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

LETTER of the MONTH An Art Animal My name is Colette. I am 11 years old and I LOVE art! I have gone through four sketchbooks. I even have a small sketchbook that I can fit in my bag, so that I always have something I can draw in. At first, no offense, I wasn’t very interested in your mags. I mean, I would read a little bit, but not much. I started reading Muse when we moved from Washington to Arizona, about two years ago. My favorite thing to read is “Muse Mail.” That is why I am writing this letter. Cate and O are my favorite. Aren’t you two best friends? Ms. Acorn, were you born with pink hair, or did you dye it?…

Biographic David Zingg (1958–) Professor of Computational Aerodynamics and Sustainable Aviation, University of Toronto, Canada Imagine stepping onto an airplane. Its shape, sleek and unusual, is unlike any other aircraft you’ve seen. The engines purr rather than roar, the takeoff feels smoother, and best of all—it’s mostly powered by biofuel. This is the future of air travel as seen by Professor David Zingg, a leading voice in the field of sustainable aviation. Sustainable Air Travel Zingg teaches at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. From 2006 to 2016, he guided the Institute as its director. Today, he leads the Institute’s Centre for Research in Sustainable Aviation. Zingg is known for his innovative aircraft designs that push boundaries and promote sustainability. Like a sculptor shaping clay, Zingg works with…

They ruled the skies for 150 million years, until about 65 million year ago. We five only seen them fly in movies like Jurassic World, but extinct flying reptiles called pterosaurs (Greek for “wing lizard”) stand out for their evolutionary success. Today, paleontologists like Kevin Padian at the University of California, Berkeley, gush about these flying animals. He says, “Pterosaurs were just the coolest things that were ever in the air.” Now, pterosaurs may help us humans soar to new heights. They’re inspiring the design of remarkable new aircraft like none seen before. Don’t Call Them ‘Dinosaurs’ “Technically, pterosaurs are not members of the dinosaur family,” explains Liz Martin-Silverstone. She’s a paleobiologist at England’s University of Bristol. “They are a related kind of reptile.” Pterosaurs went extinct at the same…

BA-BAM! Whoa. The deep, loud sounds startle you. You feel a sudden jolt, and the whole house seems to rattle. Whatever it was seemed to come from above, but what was it? Thunder? Not a chance—the sky couldn’t be more cornflower-blue. Then you notice a jet, flying so high it’s a mere white speck. You might not believe it, but that tiny blip caused the rattling booms. Soon, however, these shocking airplane noises may become sound relics, thanks to cutting-edge research. Creating Thunder in the Sky When an object moves through air, it pushes against the molecules in front of it. This compressed zone of air ripples out in all directions at the speed of sound. The zone is called a pressure wave. While the object travels slower than sound,…

MARINE BIOLOGY How Dolphin Moms Talk to Their Kids We don’t always know what dolphins are saying. But we know these marine mammals like to communicate a lot. Squeaks, whistles, clicks: They’re total chatterboxes. Now scientists have discovered that mom dolphins change their voices when they’re talking to their babies. In this way, they’re like human moms. Scientists studied wild dolphins around Florida over many years. Their research included recording the whistles of mother dolphins and their calves. They also recorded some of the same mothers when their calves weren’t nearby. When the researchers compared the whistles of moms with and without their kids, they found that dolphin moms near their babies made higher-pitched calls. The researchers don’t know why this is. But human parents also talk to their babies…

Photo Op Airplane wings that flap. Or have saw-toothed edges. Or have surfaces that ripple. These features might seem out of reach for aircraft. Yet, many animals, like owls and dolphins, use such traits to move. (No, dolphins don’t fly. But both air and water are fluids, or substances that flow. So, physics-wise, sharks and swifts are similar.) From the beginning of aviation, animals influenced aircraft design. Even today, critters’ amazing traits help them outperform most planes. Check out some animal-inspired innovations you may see on airplanes one day. Flapping Forward Most airplane wings are stiff, with hinged flaps that move. These flaps change the amount of upward force, or lift, that the wings experience. Unfortunately, they also increase drag—a backwards-acting force—and make movement clunky. Bird wings, in contrast, are…

Photo Op NASA researchers use balloon flights to do scientific experiments or test out equipment for future space missions. At 21 to 25 miles (34 to 40 kilometers) in the air, where these balloons fly, Earth’s atmosphere is extremely thin. This means equipment on board the balloon can get a clear view of outer space. “The super-pressure balloon technology is a real game-changer for conducting cutting-edge science at the end of space,” says Debbie Fairbrother. She heads NASA’s Balloon Program Office in Virginia. These scientific balloons are made of a thin plastic film that’s just 0.0008 inches (0.02 millimeters) thick. Called polyethylene, it’s similar to sandwich wrap. But that flimsy-looking skin stretches around an enormous volume of air. The most common balloons flown by NASA are 40 million cubic feet…

If you know about warp drive, it’s probably from Star Trek. Warp is the technology that’s supposed to make the USS Enterprise move really fast. But did you know that some physicists at NASA and major universities are trying to turn this imaginary technology into reality? Spacecraft propelled by rockets move too slowly to reach distant planets in a reasonable amount of time. If we want to make our civilization’s storyline more exciting, we’ll need to speed things up. HELLO FROM THE CHILDREN OF PLANET EARTH Light travels at 299,792 kilometers per second, or about 671 million miles per hour. No physical object with mass can reach that speed, according to one of Albert Einstein’s theories, called special relativity. But obeying this cosmic speed limit would have caused headaches for…

Flying may be the quickest way to travel long distances, but it also releases a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other harmful emissions into the air. This worsens global warming and the problems wrought by climate change. Concern about air travel’s carbon footprint has led some environmental advocates to ditch flying altogether. But is this the only solution? Researchers are exploring ways to create a greener future for aviation. First Steps On January 19, 2023, a small, 19-seat twin-engine aircraft took to the skies. It completed a 10-mile (16-km) loop before returning to Cotswold Airport in the United Kingdom. This aircraft is the world’s largest to complete a flight powered by hydrogen fuel—a clean energy source with zero carbon emissions. Under its left wing, two fuel cells work in…

Do the Math A 787 jumbo jet has a wingspan of 197 feet (60 meters), weighs about 502,000 pounds (227,700 kg), and flies at around 650 mph (1,050 km/h). A butterfly measures just inches across and weighs under an ounce (no more than a few grams). But to fly, they both must balance the same four basic forces. Here’s how this important flying formula works. 1. Weight Weight is the downward force from gravity that holds you down—whether you’re flying or not. For an airplane, its “all-up” weight includes its own weight, the weight of fuel and supplies, and the weight of passengers and cargo, called the payload. Balloons are “lighter than air.” They float when the air or gas inside of them weighs less than the air outside. So,…

Your Tech CLOSE YOUR EYES AND IMAGINE THE FUTURE. ARE FLYING CARS WHIZZING THROUGH THE AIR? That future is almost here. “I think it’s going to happen. Definitely this decade…and hopefully much, much faster,” said Sebastian Thrun in 2021. At that time, his young company Kitty Hawk Corporation was working on developing a flying car. Only the company didn’t call it that. The technical name is eVTOL, or Electronic Vertical Take-Off and Landing vehicle. Unfortunately, Kitty Hawk closed operations in 2022. But several other companies are still working on eVTOLs. Most of the vehicles look like a helicopter or large drone. The company Aska has built a prototype called A5 that drives and flies. The size of an SUV, it can zip down a road, then unfold its wings and…