Whizz Pop Bang Magazine for Kids – Issue 103: Time Quest! Journey Through the Science of Time by Whizz Pop Bang

ISSN 2399 -2840

e m i T t s e u Q

THE AWESOME SCIENCE MAGAZINE FOR KIDS!

How cuckoo clocks work

MAKE A SAND TIMER

h g u o r h t y e n r e m Jo u i t f o e c n e i the sc It’s a leap year!

Craft your o calendwn ar

SILLY D N O C E S 60 G A M E S!

WHIZZPOPBANG.COM ISSUE 103

EXPERIMENTS PUZZLES AMAZING FACTS SCIENCE NEWS

WELCOME!

Tick tock... we’re taking a look at time!

What do you think time is? Ho w does it fe el to you as th se conds tick by? Time is a ke y part of our life expe rie nc e e, bu scientists can’t re ally agre e on what it is! You can’t go ba t time to before you star ted re ck ading this se nt ence, but migh in t you be able to travel forwards in time? In this maga zine, you can explore some time conundrums , make a shadow clock, craf ta pe rpetual calendar and try out fun 60-sec ond challenge s. Time to turn the page and st ar t this timele ss adve nture…

Who wants to play a leap frog game?

Gakk

WHIZZ POP BANG is made by: Editor-in-Chief: Jenny Inglis Editor: Tammy Osborne Assistant Editor: Tara Pardo Designers: Rachael Fisher and Simon Oliver Illustrator: Clive Goodyer Staff writer: Joanna Tubbs Contributors: Sarah Bearchell, Anna Claybourne, Joe Inglis and Owen Inglis

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Emmi

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Welcome to WHIZZ POP BANG – the magazine bursting with enticing articles, mind-boggling facts and hands-on experiments to get your child hooked on science! Whizz Pop Bang is a gender-neutral magazine with plenty of inspirational male and female scientists and content that appeals to all children.

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CONTENTS

AWESOME NEWS AND AMAZING FACTS

Colliding black holes, upside-down fish and how science can help you make fluffy pancakes!

IT’S ABOUT TIME!

Make a sand timer, timer fill in a time capsule notebook and make a sundial as you investigate time!

Discover the intriguing insects that spend around 99.5% of their lives underground…

SILLY SCIENCE

Prepare to test how well you can judge time with some seriously silly 60-second games! st oc k.c om

ANIMAL ANTICS

EMMI’S ECO CLUB

Turn loo roll tubes into cute jumping frogs and find out why it’s a leap year.

PULLOUT

Cut out and craft your own calendar.

Atom

INTERVIEW WITH A SCIENCE HERO

Astrophysicist Emma Osborne explains how she uses physics and maths to investigate spacetime.

Find out how cuckoo clocks work – the beautiful timepieces with carved birds hidden inside!

TEN AWESOMELY AMAZING…

Oldest living things! From an elderly tortoise to ancient trees and the creature that could live forever!

SENSATIONAL SCIENTISTS

Christiaan Huygens was a multi-talented scientist who invented the pendulum clock. ©

i ki W

on s

I’d love to see pictures of your experiments! Send them to Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag

Ask our robot, Y, your burning science questions and share all of your adventures in science with the club.

32 34

Y’S WONDER CLUB

i ed m

HOW STUFF WORKS

t ut Sh

QUIZ POP BANG AND COMPETITION

Test your knowledge with our super-duper science quiz and win a potato clock kit!

JOKES AND ANSWERS

Laugh out loud at some awesome jokes and find the answers to all of our quizzes, puzzles and riddles.

SPECTACULAR SCIENCE

Take a look at an area of space as it was 6,500 years ago!

FIND THE SCIENCE EQUIPMENT Hidden on each double page is a piece of science equipment. Tick each one to find the complete kit!

and Amazing Fa ‘MICROSLEEPS’

Maybe not, according to AI (artificial intelligence). Fingerprints are formed before birth and are determined partly by your genes, like a zebra’s stripes or a leopard’s spots. They have long been used to identify criminals from prints left at crime scenes. But new research has shown that AI commonly used for facial recognition is able to identify fingerprints from different fingers that belong to the same person. The AI tool was able to identify whether fingerprints came from the same person with 75-90% accuracy, suggesting strong similarities between the fingerprints. The scientists aren’t sure exactly how the AI tool is doing this, but they hope that it might be able to help solve crimes and free innocent people.

PENGUIN

ARE FINGERPRINTS REALLY UNIQUE?

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We all know about the importance of a good night’s sleep – broken nights can make you feel tired and grouchy the next day. But some animals prefer to take naps. Lots of naps. Chinstrap penguins take THOUSANDS of very short naps every day! Birds often have regular short snoozes, rather than sleeping for a long stretch of time like we do, but chinstrap penguins take more than 10,000 four-second naps a day! The scientists studying this phenomenon think this might be because the penguins need to stay alert for predators. They’re not missing out on sleep though, because these microsleeps add up to around 11 hours of sleep over 24 hours. © Thap ana_ Studio / Shuttersto

s Awesome New cts

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No, this isn’t a giant pig’s snout in space! This computer simulation shows two black holes spiralling around each other until they merge together. A black hole is an area of such immense gravity that nothing – not even light – can escape from it. Black holes form at the end of some stars’ lives. When they merge, they produce ‘ringing’ vibrations that can be detected on Earth.

UPSIDE-DOWN ANGLERFISH © Emőke Dénes

Just when you thought anglerfish couldn’t get any weirder, scientists have discovered that one species lives its whole life upside down! These scary-looking fish have luminous ‘lures’ to attract prey towards them in the pitch dark of the deep ocean. Most anglerfish dangle their lures like a fishing rod in front of their faces. But new underwater video footage shows that the whipnose anglerfish swims upside down with their long lures dangling below them. The researchers think this behaviour could allow the fish to attack larger and faster prey without accidentally biting themselves in the process.

FLIPPIN’ AMAZING! Pancake Da y this year fa

lls on the 13 – do you cele th of Februa brate by flip ry ping thin Fre crêpes or m nch-style aking thicke r American-s If you prefer tyle pancake a stack of fl s? uffy America then you’ll n n p a n ca kes eed to use so me clever kit chemistry to chen create the b ubbles that rise. This is d make them one by mixin g an acid a together. Ba n d an alkali king powder contains aci bitartrate (a dic potassiu lso called cr m eam of tarta sodium bica r) and alkaline rbonate (als o called bica soda) – whe rbonate of n they get w et, a chemic al reaction takes place, producing b ubbles of carbon diox ide gas, whic h helps your pancakes be come thick a nd fluffy!

COLLIDING BLACK HOLES ‘RING’ LIKE BELLS

whizzpopbang.com 5

t u o b A s ’ It

time! By Anna Cla

ybourne

We all know what ‘time’ means, and how we use it in everyday life. Knowing what time it is means you know when to go to school, a club or a friend’s party… …how long you have to wait…

WHAT IS TIME?

Time is a sequence of events from past to future. It’s the way things happen one after another – instead of all at once! (Imagine how weird THAT would be!)

Time only goes in one direction. You move forward in time, but not back. You can remember what happened yesterday, but not tomorrow!

But why is that? After all, we can move around in space. You can go to the shop, then come back. Why doesn’t time work like that?

We only know time is passing because things happen and change. Imagine nothing happened at all and everything stayed still forever. Would time still exist… or not? My brain hurts!

Time is a sequence of things happening one after another – and it can only go forwards!

…and, of course, how old you are!

e, re!

The truth is, even scientists aren’t really sure how time works! There are lots of different ideas about what it is.

I think that time is a real thing that exists in the universe.

No, I’m sure it’s just an illusion, made by our brains!

TIME CAPSULE NOTEBOOK

Send a message to the future by describing your life right now, then storing it away. You could look at it again in a few years, or when you’re a grown-up, to see what’s changed.

Or maybe someone in the future will find it, hundreds of years from now!

Yo u will need

A small notebook (or make one from sheets of folded paper sewn or stapled along the fold) A pen or pencil Sticky tape or glue

What you do 1. Write in your notebook about your life and what it’s like being the age you are now. You could include: Your name and age, where you live, your family, pets and friends. Your favourite subjects, hobbies, likes and dislikes. What you plan to do when you grow up. 2. Stick in small, flat everyday items, like sweet wrappers, bus tickets and photos. 3. You can add drawings too, like a map of your street, a plan of your bedroom or a self-portrait. 4. You could even write a message to your grown-up self!

The Earth is 10 billion years old. Answer on page 34

What’s the to go to th best time e dentist? Two-thir (say it out ty loud!) whizzpopbang.com 7

time trackinG

Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds – they’re all used to measure time. But where did they come from?

Time measurements are based on two natural cycles of planet Earth:

The Earth spinning around...

...and the Earth orbiting around the Sun.

One full turn = One day

Then we divide these units into smaller parts:

One full orbit = One year

Unfortunately, a year doesn’t divide exactly into 365 days, which is why we need leap years. Find out more about these on page 19!

ths 2 mon 1 = s r week 1 yea or 52 s 5 day or 36 ours = 24 h y a d 1 tes minu 0 6 = r 1 hou s econd = 60 s e t u 1 min

TIME LONG AGO

A day is one rotation of the Earth, and a year is one orbit of the Earth around the Sun. 8 whizzpopbang.com

Today, people all over the world use the same time system. But long ago, people in different parts of the world weren’t in contact with each other, so they used their own local methods. Usually, they were based on the Sun’s changing position in the sky (caused by the Earth turning).

Sun’s rising – time to start work!

Sun’s setting – bedtime! Sun overhead – must be lunchtime!

All photographs © Shutterstock.com

s What goe of ”? k wo “tick toc dog! A watch

Shadow clocks and sundials used the

changing position of the Sun in the sky to cast a moving shadow.

The most accurate clocks of all are modern atomic clocks. They use the vibrations of tiny atoms to keep time.

Water clocks worked

CLEVER CLOCKS

using a flow of water, which dripped slowly out of the bottom.

Eventually, people invented simple clocks to tell the time more accurately. Over time, clocks got better and better…

Mechanical clocks

The computer age brought electronic digital clocks and watches.

In the 1600s, Christiaan Huygens invented the

pendulum clock

(turn to page 28 for more on this!).

MAKE A SHADOW CLOCK

This shadow clock works just like an ancient one.

Yo u will need –

A sunny day A flat outdoor space, such as a patio A pencil or chopstick A large piece of card A few pebbles Sticky tack or Plasticine A marker pen A clock or watch

What you do 1. Put your card on the ground and hold the corners down with pebbles. 2. Use Plasticine or sticky tack to stand the pencil or chopstick up in the middle. 3. Once an hour, draw a line on the card where the shadow is, and mark it with the time.

If it’s still sunny the next day, see if you can use your clock to tell the time!

time and Us

When you’re bored, or waiting for something to happen, time seems to tick by super-slowly…

A weird thing about time is how it can seem to stre-e-etch out or shrink in different situations!

Urgh, WHEN is the bus going to get here?!

But when you’re very busy or having a great time it seems to whizz by!

What?!! It can’t be that time already!

WHAT ’S HAPPENING?

Time isn’t really going faster or slower in these situations. Your perception of time (how it seems to you) can be different from what’s really happening. When your brain is busy doing something interesting, it has more signals zooming around inside it. That makes it think time is going faster. When nothing much is happening, there are fewer signals, and that makes your brain think time is passing more slowly.

Your brain experiences time as going faster when you’re busy, and slower when you’ve got less to think about.

BODY CLOCKS

Your body has an internal ‘clock’ that makes it go through a pattern of changes roughly every 24 hours. This is called a circadian rhythm. At different times of day, hormones (body chemicals) make your body do different things. Sleep hormones make you sleepy in the evening

Midnight

6 pm

6 am

Daisies close their petals at night and open them up in the daytime. Circadian rhythms make nocturnal animals like bats sleep in the day, then wake up at night to go hunting.

Energy increases as you wake up

Energy dips in the afternoon

Midday 10 whizzpopbang.com

Bones grow and injuries heal while you sleep

Other living things have circadian rhythms too.

Late morning is when you are most alert

Wakey-wakey! Breakfast time!

Why did the clock change its mind? It had second thoughts!

The world’s biggest clock faces are taller than a 10-storey tower block! Answer on page 34

Draw lines from these clocks to the digital ones below that show the same times. Check your answers on page 34.

MAKE A SAND TIMER A sand timer, or hourglass, is a device that has been used to measure the passing of time for thousands of years!

Yo u will need

wo small plastic bottles T Dry sand A screw Electrical tape A digital timer or smartphone

What you do

1. Ask an adult to help you poke a hole through the centre of one of the bottle lids, using the screw. 2. Screw the lid with the hole back onto the bottle. 3. Pour sand into the other bottle then tape it to the lid with the hole in to join the two bottles together, as shown. 4. Use a timer to measure how long it takes for the sand to fall into the other bottle. Adjust the amount of sand until it takes exactly two minutes.

Time goes more slowly when you travel on a fast jet plane. Answer on page 34

Around the world, the Sun rises at different times – so we have different time zones. For example, when it’s 11 pm in the UK, it’s 7 am in Japan, and people are just waking up. If you travel to a different time zone, you can get jetlag – your body clock is stuck in your old time zone, so you might feel like sleeping in the day and being awake at night until your body gets used to the change.

Use your timer to test your perception of time! See how long two minutes feels like while you’re watching TV, then try it again while running on the spot! For more Vancouver is in a different time challenges, turn time zone to the UK so the time there is always eight to page 14.

hours behind the time in the UK. If you were on a flight from London leaving at 9.30 am and the journey to Vancouver took nine and a half hours, what time would you arrive in Vancouver? Check your answer on page 34.

AL ANIM

ANTI

Periodical Cicadas

This month, our vet Joe Inglis has put down his stethoscope and picked up his calendar as he tracks down some very strange insects that keep perfect time...

Periodical cicadas are insects that look like locusts and grasshoppers. There are around 3,000 species of cicadas found in the world, but just seven species are periodical cicadas, and they all live in the eastern parts of North America.

Time machines These cicadas are called ‘periodical’ because of their very strange ‘time-travelling’ life cycle. For most of their lives – around 99.5% – they live as larval nymphs in the soil. But one day, after an exact period of time (either 13 or 17 years), millions of them emerge together from the ground as adults.

Larval lifestyle © Tony Quinn / Shutterstock.com

During their long years underground feeding on plant roots, the nymphs go through five different stages of development. When they reach the final stage, they start to tunnel up towards the surface where they wait, ready to emerge at exactly the right time.

Marvellous May metamorphosis When the soil temperature reaches exactly 17.9 °C, usually in April or May, the nymphs crawl out from their tunnels and undergo a final transformation into adult cicadas. They are about 2-3 cm long with wings and a long mouthpart called a proboscis.

12 whizzpopbang.com

Brood bonanza Not all periodical cicadas emerge in the same year. There are 15 known groups, called broods, which start and finish their lives in different years. In 2024, two broods will emerge – brood XIII is on a 17-year cycle, and brood XIX is on a 13-year cycle.

Worth the wait?

1.5 million

After waiting for 13 or 17 years to finally emerge from the soil and fly up into the sky, adult cicadas will only live for another few weeks. Their only goal is to mate with a partner to create the next generation of nymphs. Once this is done, their long lives are over and their offspring start their own wait underground.

The number of cicadas that emerge from each acre of land. In total, a brood of cicadas can include more than a trillion individual insects.

Yawn!

Prime time

Is it that time already?!

Why do periodical cicadas emerge every 13 or 17 years and not every five or ten? One answer is that 13 and 17 are prime numbers , which means that they can only be divided by themselves and one. This means it is hard for animals that eat cicadas but have shorter life cycles to evolve so that they are always ready for the next brood to emerge.

Find these prime numbers in the grid. They might be written from left to right or downwards (not diagonally, backwards or upwards). Circle your answers and check them on page 34. 13

1 19 3 9

0 0

3 3 19 9 9

0 0 0

69 72 59 3

10 619 8 6 3

4 3 3 494 4 3 7

0 4

4 4

10 0 0 0 0 0 0 07

17 101 5 69 3

Cicadas can sting like bees and destroy fields of crops. Answer on page 34

whizzpopbang.com 13

Test your time perception with these 60-second challenges!

Use a timer, stopwatch or one-minute sand timer for all of these games.

Slow race Choose a route to walk around your house or garden that takes about 15-30 seconds. Decide on your start and finish lines, and start the timer as you set off from the start. The aim of the game is to arrive at the finish line in exactly 60 seconds. On the way, meow like a cat, bark like a dog or make other animal noises (so you can't cheat by counting!).

Depending on what you’re doing, time can feel like it’s passing quicker or slower. When something scary happens, the nerve cells in your brain (called neurons) have to process lots of information very quickly and it feels like time slows down. Scientists tested people who were bungee jumping and found that although they were falling for only two and a half seconds, they thought they were falling for four seconds! This feeling that things are happening in slow motion might help us to react more quickly if we find ourselves in danger. 14 whizzpopbang.com

E T U N I M ! M E H Y A M

Have you ever tried to catch a fly? They react so quickly that it seems almost impossible! Thatʼs because to them, time appears to pass more slowly so it looks like weʼre moving in slow motion.

Researchers tested more than 130 species of animals and found fast-moving ones – especially small animals, flying animals and top ocean predators – can process more frames per second than slowmoving animals. Out of the animals tested, dragonflies see the fastest, detecting 300 flashes per second, while the crown-ofthorns starfish was the slowest, noticing only three flashes every four seconds!

Scientists worked this out using flickering lights. Humans can detect light flickers at up to 65 flashes per second. If the light flashes any faster than that, we don’t notice the flicker and just see a continuous glow.

Barmy balloons

Drum fun Hit a drum exactly 100 times in a minute! If you don’t have a drum, use a wooden spoon and a cardboard box. Count to 100 out loud as you hit the drum and stop the timer when you reach 100. How close did you get to 60 seconds?

Blow up three balloons. When the timer starts, throw them up and then see if you can keep all three balloons in the air for one minute. Shout ‘stop’ when you think 60 seconds have passed!

Beat it! Listen to some music with a fast beat and shout ‘stop’ when you think one minute has passed. Now listen to a slow piece of music and do the same. Was there any difference in how long it took before you thought a minute had passed?

Chatty challenge Talk about what you did yesterday for exactly one minute without stopping. Shout ‘stop’ when you think a minute has passed. You could play again while making up a story or singing a song!

If it takes 20 minutes for the sand to run from one chamber of this sand timer to the other, how many times will you have to turn it over to time two hours? Write your answer here and check it on page 34.

whizzpopbang.com 15

b... clu O C E

Emmi’s

LEAP FROG GAME

Use loo roll tubes and cardboard packaging to make a fun froggy game!

Yo u will need

oo roll tubes (at least two) L White paint A pencil A ruler Scissors Green paint

crap paper S Glue Yellow and brown paint or marker pens Scrap cardboard

Use a ruler to draw two parallel lines along the length of the loo roll about 1 cm apart. Mark 3.5 cm from each end with a pencil. Repeat on the opposite side.

Paint the loo roll tubes white and leave them to dry.

16 whizzpopbang.com

Carefully cut along each set of lines until you reach the 3.5 cm marks. Bend the narrow strips of cardboard as shown to make the frog’s legs.

Draw a straight line between the frog’s back legs and a curved one between its front legs. Repeat on the other side, then cut along the lines.

Continued on page 21 ➜

PULL OUT pages 17-20 and get making! PERPETUAL CALENDAR

Make a moveable calendar that will keep track of the days for a wheel-y long time!

Yo u will need

The templates over the page Scissors A paper fastener (split pin) A sharp pencil A craft knife

January 31 days February 28 days, 29 in a leap year March 31 days April 30 days May 31 days June 30 days July 31 days August 31 days September 30 days October 31 days November 30 days December 31 days whizzpopbang.com 17

What yo u do

Yo u should find

1. Cut out the templates and ask an adult to cut out the grey shaded sections of template 4 using a craft knife.

You can move the number wheel and weekday wheels along one place every day to always show the correct day and date. Don’t forget to check how many days there are in each month!

2. Make a hole through each of the black dots using a sharp pencil. 3. Stack up the circles with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on top with the holes lined up. 4. Fold template 4 along the dotted line and place the circles inside the fold, so that the side with windows is on the front and the side without windows is on the back. 5. Push the paper fastener through all of the holes and open it to secure everything in place. Make sure the circles can turn easily. 6. Now line up the circles so you can see today’s date through the windows of the pointer.

Check your answers on page 34.

1. I am right in the middle of February this year, but last year I was closer to the end. What am I? 2. What is always to come, yet never arrives? 3. I have two bodies that are joined into one. If you flip me over, I’ll run and run. What am I?

JANUARY

FEB RU AR Y H RC MA

NO VE MB ER

TEMPLATE 1

BER M CE E D

Riddles

BER M TE

OCTOBER

APRIL

P SE

MA Y

NE JU

JULY

AU G US T 18 whizzpopbang.com

TEMPLATE 4

Y SDA E TU

WEDN ESD AY

FRI DA

AY ND

MONDA Y

RSDAY THU Y

TEMPLATE 3

They’re finally making a movie about calendars. It’s about time!

SU SATURDAY

TEMPLATE 2

Leap years A year is how long it takes for the Earth to complete one full orbit around the Sun. We think of a year as being 365 days but in fact, one full orbit is 365 days and six hours (almost!). The extra hours don’t fit neatly into our calendar so we ignore them for three years. Every fourth year, the extra hours have added up into a full day which we put into the calendar in February, making the year 366 days long. Every year that is divisible by four has the extra leap day, including this year! 2024 ÷ 4 = 506

But remember we said that extra bit of day was only ‘almost’ six hours? By adding an extra day every four years we’re actually over-correcting and adding slightly too much. So we wait until those tiny bits of over-correction add up to a whole day too much and then we skip putting in a leap day – this happens once every 100 years and it’s always in a century year – 1700, 1800, 1900… But wait, why was there still a leap day in the year 2000?! It’s because losing that leap day every 100 years is also a very tiny over-correction, so once every 400 years you don’t take it out after all! This happens every time the year is divisible by 400, so the next time it happens will be the year 2400.

We’d love to see your calendar! Send a photo to Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag

Which clock doesn’t have a matching pair? Circle your answer and check it on page 34.

Find a printable version of the pullout here: bit.ly/3TVFe7e

Paint the frogs green, then glue on two eyes cut out from paper with slit-shaped pupils drawn on. Use green, yellow and brown paint or pens to add details like speckles and stripes.

I’d love to see your leaping frogs! Take a photo and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com

Draw some circles onto e drew pieces of cardboard (w t them around a small plate). Cu so out, then cut out a notch int Pa . ds they look like lily pa en th y them green, leave to dr e. on add a number to each

Leap years It takes Earth 365 ¼ days to travel around the Sun, but there are only 365 days in most calendar years. Every four years, we add in an extra day at the end of February to account for the extra ¼ days. If we didn’t do this, the start date of seasons would gradually shift. After hundreds of years, summer could start in November!

Continued from page 16

How to play

Place the lily pads on a large table or on the floor. Take it in turns to make your frog leap onto the lily pads in the correct order. Place your finger on the frog’s body between its back legs, then press down quickly towards the floor to make it jump. Each player gets three tries to make their frog jump onto the lily pad, then it’s the next player’s turn. The first person to complete the course is the winner!

whizzpopbang.com 21

➜

Interview with a SCIENCE HERO

In my job I get to... investigate spacetime!

Emma Osborne researches theoretical astrophysics at the University of York. If you have any questions of your own for Emma, you can contact her on emma.osborne@york.ac.uk

“

Science wasn’t my favourite subject at primary school.

Dr Emma Osbor ne, Astrophysicist

“

Astrophysics is about looking at the universe to understand how it works.

”

However, I remember looking up at the night sky and being fascinated by the stars as a child. I was very curious and asked lots of questions. Things changed when I went to secondary school and I started learning about the sciences as separate subjects. I found I really loved physics and chemistry.

Scientists think of things in space like stars, planets and comets as laboratories for testing our understanding of how the universe works.

“

Spacetime seems like a strange idea...

”

together We all think of space and time lise. For more often than you might rea hday party, example, if you are having a birt what time the you will need to tell your friends taking place. be party starts and where it will rmation of your Thatʼs the space and time info ntists have to party. In maths and physics, scie e information in include both the space and tim ents. their calculations and experim

22 whizzpopbang.com

out astrophysics Emma also teaches people ab at festivals!

Interview with a SCIENCE HERO The International Space Station (ISS)

”

Gravity slows down time, which means that the clocks on the ISS run faster than the clocks on Earth (because Earth’s gravity up in space is a lot weaker). This also means that your head is ageing a tiny bit quicker than your feet (because Earth’s gravity is strongest at your feet)! Astronauts on the ISS are ageing quicker up there than when they are on Earth. These are real examples of time travel! So, you might be able to travel to the future, but travelling back in time looks a lot more complicated. Be warned: before you embark on any time travel adventures, it might be a one-way trip!

Time passes slightly faster on the International Space Station than it does on Earth!

“

Time travel is scientifically possible!

Sometimes, I’m one of the first in the world to know something new about the universe.

”

own research At work, I do a mixture of my their work. ut abo and talking to scientists tely love) olu abs I also teach students (which I ns (some of which and do complicated calculatio have never been done before).

sed on incredibly Some of Emma’s work is ba complex calculations

“

If you’d like to become a scientist one day, here’s my advice... Emma presenting some research at the Houses of Parliament

”

Keep asking questions and seeking answers. Follow your passion and feed it as much as you can. The world needs more scientists and Find out more proble m solver s likeabout you! xxxxxx

whizzpopbang.com 23

Cuckoo clocks

HOW STUFF

WORKS

For nearly 300 years, skilled craftspeople in Germany’s Black Forest have been making these very special clocks. They come in many shapes and sizes, but they all feature a carved cuckoo bird that pops out of the clock face every hour. Here’s how these bird-brained clocks work…

Cuckoo clocks are usually handmade from wood in the shape of an old-fashioned German house with a sloping roof and a little door near the top.

2 3

On the front is the clock face, which shows the time with an hour and a minute hand.

Behind the clock face is the clock mechanism which has lots of tiny gears that drive the hour and minute hands on the front.

The mechanism is driven by a pendulum, which is a rod hanging below the clock that swings from side to side. The pendulum is carefully designed so that each swing takes exactly one second.

5 24 whizzpopbang.com

Near the bottom of the pendulum rod is a weight called the pendulum bob (traditionally shaped like a maple leaf). This helps to keep the pendulum swinging for a long time.

Some clocks also have a third chain and weight which powers a little music mechanism that plays a tune as the cuckoo emerges, just like a tiny music box.

Another weighted chain provides the energy for a little wooden cuckoo to pop out of the door above the clock face every hour. As well as powering the movement of the door and the cuckoo, it also operates a pair of tiny bellows that make the distinctive ‘cu-ckoo’ sound as the doors open.

To keep a cuckoo clock running, the weights need to be pulled back up (by winding the clock) either every day or every eight days, depending on the clock.

One of the chains drives the pendulum via a special gear that allows the chain to move a tiny amount every time the pendulum swings past, transferring energy from the weighted chain to the swinging pendulum and keeping it running.

Also hanging below the clock are several chains with weights shaped like pinecones at the ends. These weights power the clock as gravity slowly pulls them down towards the ground.

A pendulum is constantly switching between two types of energy – potential (stored) energy, when the bob is at its highest point, and kinetic (movement) energy, as it swings down. If there was no friction, the pendulum would keep on swinging forever, but because friction gradually slows it down, it needs to use the potential energy stored in the weights.

A playground swing works like a pendulum too! The time it takes a pendulum to swing back to its original position is called the period. Use a timer to measure how long it takes to do 10 swings (starting and finishing at the same point), then divide the number by 10 to get the average period of this pendulum. Do you think someone heavier than you would get the same results? Why not test your hypothesis by doing the experiment again with an adult on the swing. If you’re able to adjust the length of the swing’s ropes or chains, you could investigate whether that changes the pendulum’s period.

g.. in z a m A ly e m o s e w A 0 1

T G N I V I L ANCIENT fore Isaac New ton to From a shark born be e t tube worm, here ar an gi ld r-o ea -y 00 10 a ing things on Earth! a few of the oldest liv

The Pando aspen grove is a massive clone – a group of genetically identical trees that started from one seed. Each tree lives around 130 years, but the clone could be 14,000 years old.

A trapdoor spider called ‘Number 16’ lived in the same burrow in Western Australia for her whole life, before being killed by a parasitic wasp at the ripe old age of 43.

The humongous fungus is a huge underground network of mycelium (fungal fillaments) found in Oregon, USA. Scientists guess it’s between 2,000 and 8,000 years old!

26 whizzpopbang.com

Greenland sharks probably have the longest lifespan of any living vertebrate species. One studied in 2016 is thought to be around 400 years old!

Many deep-sea sponges live for a long time. The giant barrel sponge is thought to live for more than 2,300 years, and one specimen of Monorhaphis chuni was estimated to have been growing for around 11,000 years!

A giant barrel sponge

! 6 S G N I H GT Jonathan (left) s in Victorian time

Giant tube worms

live deep in the ocean, often for hundreds of years. Some species, like Escarpia laminata, could live for 1,000 years or more!

The oldest known living land animal is Jonathan the

Seychelles giant tortoise. Scientists think that he had hatched by 1832, making him at least 192 years old. The oldest recorded tortoise lived to be 225!

dead It might look thin but it has a t can ha living strip t les! grow need Jonathan in 2021

Bristlecone pine trees can live for around 5,000 years. Methuselah the bristlecone pine is thought to have germinated in 2833 BC, before the 365-day calendar was invented in ancient Egypt!

Jeanne Calment

lived for 122 years, making her the oldest human whose age has been validated. She rode her bike until she was 100!

9 Immortal jellyfish

begin as larvae, then become polyps and finally mature into adult jellyfish. When stressed, injured, old or sick, they can change their cells and turn back into polyps. This cycle can repeat again and again, so they could theoretically live forever!

© 1. Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0 Intl / Hemming1952, 2. U.S Federal Govt / Public Domain / J Zapell, 3. Wikimedia / Twilight Zone Expedition Team 2007, NOAA-OE, 4. CC BY-SA 3.0 au / Toby Hudson, 5. Gherzak / Shutterstock.com, 6. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED / Escarpia laminata Jones, 1985 / Alanna Durkin et al, 7. Wikimedia Commons, 8. Boliux / Shutterstock.com, 9. Wikimedia Commons, 10. Karajohn / Shutterstock.com.

Sensational Scientists

By Joanna Tubbs

C h r i s t i a an Huygen s n s, th e M ee t C hri st ia an H uyge z wh o sc ie n ce an d m ath s whiz cl ock . invented th e pe n dulum

The world is my country, science is my religion.

Christiaan grew up t surrounded by brillian minds, including the famous scientists Galileo Galilei and René Descartes. From a young age, he loved designing and making n’t things. Christiaan did go to school, but he cts learned lots of subje d at home then studie law and maths at s university when he wa just 16 years old. s. As a young adult, Christiaan loved math l existing mathematica he began to question lating th new ways of calcu ideas. He came up wi ate tig He went on to inves the areas of shapes. vered s in science. He disco lots of different area a e d came up with th ide new laws of motion an ves. that light travels in wa Space was another of Christiaan’s passions. He was the first to identify Titan as one of Saturn’s moons and to describe the shape of the rings of Saturn. He watched Mercury travel in front of the Sun with some of his astronomer friends.

with Christiaan came up a smart way of using

pendulums to create a new kind of clock.

t A pendulum is a weigh d that hangs down an e sid to e swings from sid at a constant pace. m Christiaan’s pendulu t clocks only lost abou 15 seconds each day ds which made them loa more accurate than t older clocks (which los about 15 minutes a ost day!). It would be alm e 300 years until a mor g accurate timekeepin device was invented.

CHRI STIA AN HUYGENS WAS BORN IN 1629 IN THE HAGU E, NETH ERLA NDS.

The words described below can all be spelled using only the letters in the wor d

Pendulum

1. Something you can write with: 2. Water mixed with soil: 3. A fox lives in a –

– – –

– –

4. Fix something that’s broken: 5. Another word for rubbish tip:

investigations Christiaan kept up his behave for into how pendulums ring that two decades, later discove ing from pendulum clocks hang ucture would the same wooden str ing in eventually start swing perfect harmony.

– – – –

– – – – Check your answers on page 34. other Christiaan and his br new way developed a brilliant s. Later, of making glass lense antic tubeless Christiaan built a gig s was telescope, where a len the user ile mounted high up wh looking stood on the ground through a at objects in the sky handheld eyepiece. 95, but his Christiaan died in 16 scientists ideas are still used by m clocks today, and his pendulu cking all are still ticking and to over the world.

whizzpopbang.com 29

Email me at Y@whizzpopbang.com

der Club!

Welcome to Y’s Won to share your This page is for you with our robot, adventures in science p Bang readers! Y, and other Whizz Po ce question Everyone whose scien is page gets answered on th ng wins a Whizz Pop Ba Science Joke Book, ome available in our awes at online science shop

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F oR

Dear Y, Why do creatures have scientific names?

Lexi, aged 9

CURIoUS K I DS

Have you heard of a slater, Lexi? What about a cheese-log, chucky pig, granny grey or billy baker? These are just some of over 300 British names for a woodlouse! We have 35 different species (types) of woodlouse in the UK, and there are about 4,000 worldwide – just imagine how many local names that makes! Having one worldwide scientific name for a woodlouse species saves a lot of confusion. The UK’s most common species is Oniscus asellus. (say on-iz-cuss ay-sell-us). The genus Oniscus is a group of woodlice which do not roll into a ball, and the species name asellus means small donkey!

We loved seeing all your amazing mushroom models from the Fantastic Fungi (Issue 99) pullout! Ben, aged 8

Elijah, Kit an d India with th eir toadstools.

o t

Reuben, aged 9

Imogen, aged 6, added phy chromatogra h flowers to er mushroom display.

Keanan, aged 9

Charlotte, aged 5, made awesome spo this re from the Fan print tastic Fungi edition .

enamel badges Y’s Wonder Club Badges Collectable for you to earn! Help local wildlife to earn your Wildlife Watcher badge.

Investigate scientific questions to earn your Super Scientist badge.

Help save the planet to earn your Eco Hero badge.

Dear Y, Why are some metals magnetic but some aren’t? Thank you!!

It looks like you’ve had great fun going out looking for mushrooms, inspired by our Fantastic Fungi edition!

From Harry, aged 8

Look what Alastair found! It looks like a stinkh or fungus. They smell n like rotting flesh and at tract insects – you can se e some flies on it in Alastair’s brillian t photo.

Metals are made from tiny particles called atoms. Each atom has a nucleus surrounded by spinning electrons. These orbit around the outside – a bit like planets around the Sun. As an electron moves, it makes a weak magnetic field. In some metal atoms, like iron, nickel and cobalt, you can make the spins of the electrons line up. That makes the weak magnetic fields join together to make a stronger one. Add lots together and you have a magnet! In non-magnetic metals, the spins don’t line up, so the weak magnetic fields cancel each other out.

Dominic, aged 7, on a mushroom hunt.

You can make a metal magnetic yourself! Take an iron nail and stroke a bar magnet along its length, in one direction only, 20-30 times. This forces the magnetic fields to line up. Now see if you can use your magnetic nail to pick up some paper clips!

9, Ptolemy, aged f o te made a pla room yummy mush s. k ac sn ll sku

ese Check out th l al b GIANT puff at th s m mushroo 6, ed ag , Max found!

Remember, you should never eat wild mushrooms unless you’re with an expert!

Hi Y, Can you tell me why yawns are contagious?

From Violet, aged 12

Luke, aged 9, made the orange peel toadstools.

Jess, aged 7, lts of with the resu on lo al b t her yeas t, en im er exp e th in d re u at fe i g n Fu Fantastic . n io it ed

Get problem solving to earn your Epic Engineer badge.

Write a report or a review to earn your Science Reporter badge.

Many animals yawn, but only highly social animals, like chimps and lions, can also ‘catch’ yawns. You might even start yawning as you read this, Violet! We used to think yawning increased blood oxygenation, but this is not true. Now, many scientists think it helps to wake you up when you’re sleepy. Contagious yawning may have evolved to coordinate group behaviour. A yawning, sleepy person is not properly on the lookout for danger, but as their yawn spreads through the group, someone less sleepy will notice they are yawning and become more alert – maybe saving the group. Some people are more susceptible to contagious yawning – try it on your friends! Send your experiments, ideas, photos, reviews and questions to Y@whizzpopbang.com or Y, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Don’t forget to include your name, age and address. We can’t return any post, sorry.

To find out how to earn your badges, go to whizzpopbang.com/wonder-club. Schools can get involved too! Find out how here: bit.ly/39xNQ Q qV

whizzpopbang.com 31

um/ Test your m dad/cousin

How much can you remember from this issue?

at they know! to see wh

Test your knowledge with our super-duper quiz. Just tick the answers you think are correct, mark them using the answers on page 34 and then add up your score. If you need some help, check out the hints at the bottom of the page.

How long does it take for the Earth to orbit the Sun?

How often do chinstrap penguins sleep? a) Once every 24 hours, like humans

a) 1 day

b) 4-6 times over 24 hours

b) 12 weeks c) 1 year

Periodical cicadas live in the soil for either… a) 3 or 7 months

b) Jonathan, the Seychelles giant tortoise

Cheese-log, chucky pig and granny grey are other names for a…

c) The humongous fungus

a) woodlouse

b) small donkey

Every hour, what pops out of traditional Black Forest clocks? a) A laser beam

c) t raditional British pudding

Which of these lived to be the oldest? trapdoor spider

1 or 71 days c) 3

Where would you find the Eagle Nebula?

c) About 10,000 times over 24 hours

a) Number 16, the

3 or 17 years b) 1

I used to be a watch-maker. It was a great job, but I had too much time on my hands!

b) A carved cuckoo c) A coprolite

a) In the Scottish Highland ear the James Webb b) N Space Telescope

,500 light years from Ear c) 6

Answers on page 34.

I scored: .......... Atomic clocks are powered by… a) the vibration of atoms b) d ripping water c) wound-up springs

Need a hint? Find the answers by reading these pages… 1) Page 8 2) Page 4 3) Page 12 4) Page 26 5) Page 30 6) Page 24 7) Page 35 8) Page 9

1-3: Cog-ratulations! 4-6: Fantas-tick tock! 7-8: Watch out, there’s a quiz master about!

W ! IN

Time test! It’s time… to win a fantastic potato clock kit! Draw a line to pair up the two halves of each clock and then write down the times in the boxes. We’ve done one for you! Send in your answer to be in with a chance of winning.

Answers 1 2 3 4

8.20

Potato clock With this smashing kit you can generate an electric current to power a digital clock using only potatoes! You could also experiment with other foods, like apples and lemons.

WINNERS Issue 101 competition winners Thank you to all of you who sent in your entries to our Movies competition. These were the six differences. These three lucky winners will each receive a Wallace & Gromit Techno Trousers kit from Build Your Own Catherine Warner, 14 Peter Craig-Polet, 8 Frances Gooda, 10

Send your entry to win@whizzpopbang.com with ‘Time competition’ as the subject of your email. Alternatively, post it to Time competition, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Please don’t forget to include your name, age and address. Deadline: March 8th 2024. UK residents only. Full terms and conditions available at whizzpopbang.com.

whizzpopbang.com 33

JOKES

I love my job at the watch factory. I just stand around all day making faces!

Why don’t people eat clocks? It’s very timeconsuming! Why did the clock’s mummy hand get annoyed with the baby hand? time! It was past its bed

Did you hear a bou the hungry cloc t k? It went back four seconds!

I was going to pick some herbs, but I couldn’t find the thyme!

Page 7 – True/Untrue UNTRUE: It’s a bit younger than that – just 4.5 billion years! Page 11 – True/Untrue TRUE: They’re on the Makkah Clock Royal Tower in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Each of the four round clock faces is 43 m wide and tall – as high as a 14-storey building! Page 11 – Matching times puzzle

frogs What do er time? inn say at d n when u f ’s e m Ti g flies! n i v a h e you’r

Page 13 – Number search puzzle

0 0

0 0 0

0 4

4 4

Page 13 – True/Untrue UNTRUE: Cicadas are totally harmless to people and crops. Page 11 – True/Untrue

Page 15 – Sand timer puzzle

TRUE: Using very accurate atomic clocks, scientists have proved Einstein’s prediction that clocks run more slowly when they’re travelling faster. This happens because of the way that space and time are connected.

There are 60 minutes in an hour and 120 minutes in two hours, so you would have to turn it over five times. The top chamber is already full of sand so you would turn it after 20 mins, then after 40 mins, 60 mins, 80 mins and 100 mins. When all the sand has run into the bottom chamber for the last time, you have reached 120 minutes.

Page 11 – Time zone puzzle You would arrive in Vancouver at 11am.

Answers Page 18 – Riddles 1) The 15th of February. Last year, February was only 28 days long, but this year is a leap year, so it has 29 days. 2) The future. 3) A sand timer. Page 20 – Clock pairs puzzle This is the clock without a matching pair

Page 29 – Pendulum puzzle Pen Mud Den Mend Dump Page 32 – Quiz 1) c 2) c 3) b 4) c 5) a 6) b 7) c 8) a

View through time This colourful image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope shows an area of the Eagle Nebula known as The Pillars of Creation. This region of gas and dust is constantly changing. Dense clumps form within the pillars and start to collapse under their own gravity, then they heat up and begin shining brightly as brand new stars. The Pillars of Creation are 6,500 light-years away from Earth, which means it takes 6,500 years for the light to reach us. So when we look at this beautiful image, we are looking thousands of years back in time!

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