Britannica Magazine February 2023

FACTOPIA! Follow the trail of hilarious illustrations and crazily connected facts. All the way from remembering your dreams to… the real shape of a rainbow!

SNAP IT! Eye-popping photos to amuse and amaze. Including a stunning underwater cave, a spectacular New Year’s Eve fireworks display and a heron that could be in for a nasty surprise.

Albert Einstein and the Chinese philosopher Laozi.

FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT FEBRUARY

Celebrate 1O historic anniversaries and events, including a cloned sheep, the first Playmobil figures and some honeybees that can do maths!

Word Search, Spot the Difference, Number Triangles, Space-Doku and Connect the Planets. Plus, all-new games Tracing Lines, the Bridge Puzzle and Changing Rooms!

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!

From Maui to Medusa, meet 1O extraordinary mythical creatures

and characters, drawn from ancient stories and legends told by different cultures from around the world.

AMAZING FACTS

ABOUT JELLYFISH Dive into the strange and beautiful underwater world of the jellyfish.

THE BIG BRITANNICA FAMILY QUIZ

Stretch your brain power with a special bumper edition of our brilliantly tricky quiz.

PUZZLES & GAMES

A four-page special featuring a Geography

Our epic serialisation of the true history of the universe continues as we investigate the mysterious disappearance of some giant prehistoric animals… 36

INFOGRAPHIC:

FROM BIG TO SMALL! Take a fascinating trip as we zoom in from gigantic galaxies down to the tiniest atoms and molecules. 38

SEND IT IN!

Meet the brilliant young brainboxes who went buzzer to buzzer at the grand final of the very first Britannica Magazine Schools Quiz Challenge. Plus, an illustrated fact featuring an extremely sneaky cat!

DO IT YOURSELF Dress to impress at Carnival by learning how to make your very own beautiful Venetian mask!

JOKES & RIDDLES Hand-picked by our jokes editor May!

Email us your letters, photos and favourite facts to: editor@britannicamagazine. com

Or write to us at: Britannica Magazine The Black Barn Wickhurst Farm Leigh Tonbridge Kent TN11 8PS

By Kate Hale Illustrations by Andy Smith

GOING UNDERGROUND

This eerie photograph of a flooded cave was taken by Martin Broen on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Without the scuba divers’ torches, the cave would be completely black… WWW.INTERNATIONALLANDSCAPEPHOTOGRAPHER.COM

OOOH!

Astonishing photos from around the world

MUDDY WATERS

Each year, thousands of people gather at the Boryeong Mud Festival in South Korea to cover themselves in – you guessed it – mud! We hope they’ve brought a clean change of clothes…

! WOW!

OPEN WIDE!

At first glance, it looks as if this hippo in Kruger National Park, South Africa, is about to swallow the unsuspecting heron in a single gulp. But look closely, and you’ll see that the hippo is actually yawning, and the heron is standing on the back of another hippo slightly further away. Phew!

COMEDY WILDLIFE AWARDS 2O22 / JEAN-JACQUES ALCALAY

CELEBRATE IN STYLE!

How did you mark the end of 2O22 and the start of 2O23? This photograph shows a New Year’s Eve fireworks display lighting up the night sky above Manila, the capital of the Philippines in Southeast Asia. As you can see, the city’s skyscrapers have been illuminated in neon colours to match the fireworks. EZRA

ACAYAN / GETTY

WOAH!

OVER THE RAINBOW

These spectacular, colourful rock formations are found in Zhangye National Park in Gansu, China. The unusual spectrum of colours is created by different deposits of sandstone and other rocks and minerals that have been laid down on top of one another over the past 2O million years.

Eureka!

The latest astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.

Revealed: the science of see-through frogs

How to choose the perfect stones for skimming

Do you enjoy skimming stones across the surface of water?

If you do, you’ll want to know the results of a new study conducted by the University of Bristol and University College London. The researchers used mathematical models to investigate how solid objects skim across liquid. They found that although smoother, flatter stones generally achieve the largest number of skips, heavier, curvier stones can also be effective because they can jump higher in the air and at greater speeds. They do this

The glass frog got its name thanks to its extraordinary ability to become up to 61 per cent translucent, or seethrough. The frog does this to allow light to pass through its body, which helps to conceal it from potential predators. Although scientists understand why becoming see-through helps the frog, they’ve only just worked out how it does it: by pooling 89 per cent of its blood inside its liver. Once the danger has passed, the glass frog’s liver releases the extra blood back into its bloodstream. because heavier stones plunge deeper into the water and stay there for longer, creating a larger wave which then throws the stones up into the air.

The world record for stone skimming is 88 individual skips!

The study’s models were

originally designed to show how ice bounces off surface water on aeroplane wings, but its findings are equally relevant to the popular art of stone skimming.

World’s first flying hoverbike takes to the skies!

A flying bike has been publicly demonstrated for the first time at the Detroit Motor Show, USA. The futuristic XTURISMO hoverbike, which is being described as the world’s first flying bike, can travel at speeds of up to 62 miles per hour and remain up in the air for 40 minutes at a time.

Designed and built by the Japanese company AERWINS Technologies, a limited

edition version of the XTURISMO is already on sale for around £650,000.

However, AERWINS is also planning to build a smaller, cheaper version that will be available to buy in 2025.

The XTURISMO is able to fly – or rather, hover – thanks to its two large central rotors powered by conventional

motorcycle engines, while four smaller electric support rotors at each corner provide added stability.

Thad Szott, who tested the hoverbike during the motor show, said: ‘I felt like I’d just got out of [the movie] Star Wars and jumped on one of their bikes. It’s awesome! Of course, you have a little apprehension [before flying on the bike], but I was just so excited. I literally had goosebumps!’

The new James Webb Space Telescope is not only being used to study distant galaxies and stars. It’s also taking awesome new photographs of objects in our own solar system. In the image above you can clearly see the rings of Neptune, the eighth and most distant planet from the Sun.

Cold, dark and whipped by supersonic winds, Neptune is the only planet in the solar system that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers can now give us a clearer picture of Neptune and its icy rings than ever before!

Kaboom! World’s largest active volcano erupts

Mauna Loa in Hawaii – the world’s largest active volcano – has recently erupted for the first time in 40 years.

Fountains of magma, or molten rock, were thrown 40 metres into the air, and lava flowed down the volcano’s

sides at temperatures of up to 1,ooo°C. Thankfully, scientists do not think the eruption poses a major threat to the people who live nearby.

Mauna Loa, which means ‘long mountain’ in Hawaiian, covers 2,035 sq miles and is

one of a chain of five volcanoes that form Hawaii’s Big Island. The volcano’s summit is 4,170 metres above sea level but because its base is on the sea bed, its total height is 9,170 metres, making Mauna Loa taller than Mount Everest!

Mauna Loa in Hawaii has erupted 33 times since the date of its first recorded eruption in 1843.

The hoverbike’s body is made from carbon fibre, which is light and strong.

Spotted: frozen Neptune

and its spectacular rings

LISTIFIED!

WISE WORDS

Fourteen pieces of advice from Albert Einstein

The German-born physicist Albert Einstein was one of history’s greatest thinkers. His ideas led to new ways of understanding the universe. Here are some of the things Einstein said when he wasn’t working on mind-boggling new theories about the speed of light.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will get you everywhere.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Prepare to be inspired and enlightened by the clever quotations crammed into these thoughtprovoking lists.

The most valuable thing a teacher can impart to children is not knowledge and understanding per se but a longing for knowledge and understanding.

People are like bicycles. They can keep their balance only as long as they keep moving.

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to think too much about the future.

Politics is more difficult than physics.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

We have to do the best we are capable of. That is our sacred human responsibility.

The value of achievement lies in the achieving.

One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.

If A is success in life then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y, and z is keeping your mouth shut.

Try not to become a person of success. Rather become a person of value. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Albert Einstein

DEEP THOUGHTS

Fourteen wise sayings of Laozi

Little is known today about the life of Laozi,* a Chinese writer and philosopher who is thought to have flourished in the 6th century BCE. However, he is traditionally regarded as the founder of Taoism, a Chinese system of thought based on living humbly, in harmony with the universe.

A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.

He who boasts has no merit.

Leave all things to take their natural course.

Failure is the foundation of success and the means by which it is achieved.

Extreme straightness is as bad as crookedness.

He who overcomes others is strong but he who overcomes himself is mightier still.

The softest things in the world override the hardest.

He who is content always has enough.

Avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.

Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you

realise there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

To the good, I would be good. To the bad, I would also be good, in order to make them good.

Return injury with kindness.

*Laozi means ‘Old Master’ in Chinese.

Listified! by Andrew Pettie and illustrated by Andrés Lozano is out now.

Laozi

1997

On February 22nd, scientists announced the birth of the world’s first successfully cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep. Dolly was an exact genetic copy, or clone, of the sheep whose single cell was used to grow Dolly in another sheep’s womb.

1O fascinating facts

1977

On February 18th, the Space Shuttle Enterprise made its first flight. The shuttle was carried on top of a Boeing 747 to demonstrate how it could fly in Earth’s atmosphere and land like an aeroplane.

1998

The

1974

Playmobil characters first appeared at the Nuremberg Toy Fair on February 2nd.

The first three plastic figures were a knight, a builder and a Native American.

1948

Sri Lanka, the island nation off the south-east coast of India, celebrates its National Day on February 4th to remember the moment it became independent from British rule in 1948.

Celebrations take place throughout the country and include a flag-waving ceremony and colourful parades and dances.

Angel of the North was officially unveiled in Gateshead, England, on February 15th. This giant steel sculpture has a longer wingspan than a Boeing 757 aeroplane.

On February 1Oth, Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a reigning chess world champion, Gary Kasparov (pictured far left), in a game held under tournament conditions. Kasparov won the series 4-2 but Deep Blue had its revenge the following year, defeating him in a rematch. Deep Blue is pictured below.

After

199O

18O4

The first ever steampowered railway journey took place in south Wales on February 21st, thanks to Robert Trevithick’s experimental steam engine. A modern replica of Trevithick’s ‘Puffing Devil’ is pictured above.

about February…

2O19

A study published on February 7th suggested that honeybees can do maths. The bees used addition and subtraction to navigate a maze made by scientists.

2OO4

On February 4th, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook to help fellow university students connect with each other. It’s now the world’s No.1 social network.

almost 3O years in prison for opposing racist policies in South Africa, Nelson Mandela was finally released on February 11th. He went on to become the country’s first black president.

THUNDERBIRD

A legendary Native American bird that can make thunder and lightning

FAMOUS FOR: With the ability to create thunder with a beat of its wings and to flash lightning from its beak, a Thunderbird is an awesome sight. Sometimes it fights with the spirits of water or the earth to keep people safe.

A Thunderbird can also appear to punish wrongdoers. It is so strong that it once plucked a whale right out of the sea with its talons.

GOLEM

A clay figure from Jewish folklore who comes to life

FAMOUS FOR: Golems start out as small statues made from mud or clay but they can be magically brought to life. Living Golems are supernaturally strong and will always obey the commands of the person who created them, doing good or evil deeds depending on their wishes.

ANUBIS

An ancient One of the most powerful gods of ancient Egypt, Anubis either takes the form of a jackal or of a man with a jackal’s head. He is the Egyptian god of burial and, according to legend, the inventor of embalming, the process by which mummies are made. Anubis also guides souls of the dead to Duat, the ancient Egyptian underworld.

SIZE: 5/10SPEED: 6/10STRENGTH: 7/10 MAGICAL POWERS:10/10

SIZE: 7/10SPEED: 4/10STRENGTH: 10/10 MAGICAL POWERS:6/10

YMIR

A Norse giant created from fire and ice

FAMOUS FOR: In Norse mythology, Ymir was the first frost giant from whom all the other giants and gods were descended. He was created from the drops of water that were made when the first ice met the first fire. He was eventually killed by his grandsons, including the god Odin, who made the earth, trees, sea and sky from Ymir’s body.

SIZE: 10/10SPEED: 4/10STRENGTH: 9/10 MAGICAL POWERS:7/10

MEDUSA

Mythical Greek monster with hair made of snakes

FAMOUS FOR: As well as having writhing snakes for hair, Medusa’s gaze would make anyone who looked at her turn to stone. She was killed by the Greek hero Perseus, who avoided Medusa’s gaze by only looking at her reflection in his bronze shield.

SIZE: 5/10SPEED: 6/10STRENGTH: 8/10 MAGICAL POWERS:10/10

YAMATA-NO-OROCHI

A fearsome Japanese dragon with eight heads and eight tails

MAUI

Polynesian trickster god who carries a giant fishhook

FAMOUS FOR: A cunning demi-god, Maui can change his shape and turn himself into any type of bird. His heroic feats include slowing down the Sun so that the days could last longer and creating the North Island of New Zealand (which is known as ‘The Fish of Maui’) by hauling it up from the bottom of the sea with his giant fishhook.

FAMOUS FOR: According to legend, the evil Orochi demanded the sacrifice of a young woman once a year. However, Orochi was defeated by Susanoo, god of the sea and storms, who cut off all eight of its heads while the dragon was asleep. SIZE: 5/10SPEED: 6/10STRENGTH: 10/10 MAGICAL POWERS:8/10

SIZE: 10/10SPEED: 6/10STRENGTH: 9/10 MAGICAL POWERS:7/10

ITZPAPALOTL

A magnificent Aztec warrior goddess

FAMOUS FOR: A powerful goddess from ancient Aztec mythology, Itzpapalotl guards over women who are about to give birth. She can appear in many forms, including as a beautiful woman and as a skeleton with giant butterfly’s wings.

SIZE: 5/10SPEED: 6/10STRENGTH: 7/10 MAGICAL POWERS:10/10

CYCLOPS

A one-eyed giant from Greek mythology

FAMOUS FOR: The ancient Greeks believed in monstrous giants called Cyclopes who each had a single eye in the middle of their head. According to one legend, there were three Cyclopes who made the thunderbolts thrown by Zeus, the king of the gods.

SIZE: 10/10SPEED: 3/10STRENGTH: 9/10 MAGICAL POWERS:4/10

1O amazing facts about...

Strange and beautiful, jellyfish are among the most unusual animals on Earth. Read on to discover why they are such extraordinary marine creatures…

1

Jellyfish are the oldest multicellular animals on Earth

Scientists have found jellyfish fossils that are thought to be more than 500 million years old. This means that there were jellyfish swimming in the world’s oceans hundreds of millions of years before the first dinosaurs emerged!

2 One species of jellyfish can live forever!

A species of jellyfish called Turritopsis dohrnii is a rare example of an animal that can develop from its young stage (as a polyp) to its mature stage (as a grown-up jellyfish) before returning again to its young stage. It repeats the process in an apparently endless cycle. In reality, many immortal jellyfish will be eaten by predators or die from disease. But, in terms of its own biology, there is nothing to stop one from living forever.

3

Jellyfish don’t have lungs, a heart or a brain

So how do jellyfish survive and thrive without organs that are vital for humans?

First, a jellyfish’s skin is so thin it can absorb oxygen directly, so it doesn’t need lungs to do the same job.

Jellyfish also don’t have blood, so they don’t need a heart to pump it around their bodies.

And instead of a brain, jellyfish react to changes

in their environment using signals from a basic set of nerves just below their epidermis, or outer skin. These nerve cells serve as the jellyfish’s sensory organs by responding to touch, light, gravity, temperature and other external stimuli. The jellyfish reacts to these stimuli with an automatic reflex, without the need for a brain to collate and process the sensory information centrally.

4 They are mostly made of water

Only about 5 per cent of the body of a jellyfish is solid matter. The rest is water. So when a jellyfish washes up on a beach, it will mostly disappear as all the water inside its body evaporates.

5

A scuba diver approaches a lion’s mane jellyfish.

Jellyfish can have very long tentacles

The lion’s mane jellyfish is the world’s largest species

of jellyfish. Its tentacles can be more than 30 metres long – which is longer than a blue whale!

pieces can regenerate to create separate living organisms.

9 A group of jellyfish is known as a bloom

6

Despite their length, a jellyfish’s tentacles don’t ever get tangled and never sting their owners

To stop them getting tangled together, a jellyfish’s tentacles are naturally very slippery. They also contain special sensory cells that recognise chemicals given off by members of the same jellyfish species (including the jellyfish itself). When they recognise these chemicals, the jellyfish’s tentacles don’t release their sting.

There are several collective nouns for jellyfish, including a swarm, a smack and – our favourite – a bloom.

A group of jellyfish is sometimes known as a bloom. TheDIDYOUKNOW?

1O Jellyfish have been to outer space!

7

The scientific name for a mature jellyfish’s type of body is a medusa

The shape of a grown-up jellyfish’s body – with its curved bell at the top and tentacles flowing beneath – is named after Medusa, a female

figure from Greek mythology who had a mass of snakes instead of hair. (To find out more about Medusa, turn to page 19.) Medusa is also the word for jellyfish in several languages, including Italian and Spanish.

8Jellyfish can clone themselves Amazingly, if you cut a jellyfish in half, the two

jellyfishAustralianboxisthoughttobe animal.themostvenomousmarine Eachofitstentacles hasaround5,OOOstinging cells–anditssting cankillahuman injustafew minutes.

In 1991, some moon jellyfish travelled into space on board the Space Shuttle Columbia, so that scientists could study how they were affected by living in microgravity. When the shuttle returned to Earth, the scientists found that young jellyfish born in space didn’t know how to swim normally in Earth’s gravity.

ANIMALS

The BIG Britannica

Test your family’s brainpower by playing this special four-page edition of the Big Britannica Quiz! Regular readers of Britannica Magazine may have an advantage because some of the facts appeared in previous issues of the magazine. Don’t worry if you don’t know them all, though – the answers are at the end of the quiz. Good luck!

SPACE & NATURE

This is the only national flag that isn’t a rectangular or square shape. Which country is it the flag of?

Answers:

1. b, because polar bears live in the Arctic north and penguins live in the Antarctic south, 2. d, 3. c, 4. c, 5. b, 6. a, 7. d, 8. c, 9. d, 10. b, 11. a, 12. d, made by an eruption on the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883, 13. b, 14. d, 15. d, 16. c, 17. d, 18. b, 19. c, 20. a, 21. b, 22. c, 23. d, 24. c, 25. d, 26. b, 27. a, 28. c, 29. b, 30. aFrance, bSri Lanka, cJapan, dChile,

Greece, gRussia, hIceland, iUnited States (including Alaska), jGermany.

Ireland,

3O Can you recognise these 10 countries by their silhouettes?

Ask the experts

Readers

DR

Question: Did the dinosaurs really become extinct because of a single asteroid colliding with Earth?

Answer

We know that 66 million years ago, a big asteroid collided with Earth. It landed near what is now the coast of Mexico – the crater it made (marked on the map) is still visible in the rocks. The asteroid would have created a huge explosion, killing animals and plants within hundreds of miles of the impact.

Dinosaurs living far away, however, wouldn’t have been killed immediately. But that’s not all that happened. When the asteroid

An illustration of the crater created by the asteroid strike.

hit, it also threw up dust and debris into the atmosphere, blocking out the Sun. This would have killed lots of plants, which need sunlight to live. So dinosaurs and

other creatures that ate plants would have struggled to survive, too. And as the plant-eating animals died, so the meat-eating dinosaurs that ate them would have

starved as well.

The blocked-out Sun also meant that the Earth became much colder, which would have killed off many other dinosaurs. So although the

asteroid impact did cause this chain of events, the complete extinction of the dinosaurs took hundreds or even thousands of years.

PETER FALKINGHAM Palaeontologist

From Saskia, age 13

Mexico Belize

Honduras

Chicxulub crater Guatemala El Salvador

DID YOU KNOW?

29

In the triangles below, the numbers inside the squares are the sum of the two numbers in the connected circles. For example:

Can you work out which number should appear in each of the circles?

All the numbers in the circles are between 1 and 9 and a number can only be used once in each triangle.

S C W H L Q D N I Q N X L

H F M G T S W I T Z E R L A N D I Y N

X V F Y I O G T Z D S Y E J A P A N F

R U T A N E P V I T U O B I J D I W C

A R O F A L I U N Y U L J S G Z L F L

E K J Q T E Q Z I C E I B H P B I D O N E U I Y T N N N H S F C T Z A L I Q W

I W V N U T S I T A B G E N N I U E E

O N A M O Q N L L U A U Z E P Y T T S

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

WORD WHEEL

Use the word wheel to help find the answers to the seven clues below. All the answers contain the middle letter, and each letter can only be used once.

Clue: a sunken or broken ship (9 nine letters).

Answer:

Clue: speak softly and quietly (7 letters).

Answer:

Clue: a high-pitched cry or sound (6 letters).

Answer:

H I W S E

Clue: a secret way of writing or code (6 letters).

Answer:

Clue: a small, mouse-like mammal (5 letters).

Answer:

Clue: having knowledge and good judgement (4 letters).

Answer:

Clue: frozen water (3 letters).

Answer:

Can you spot all 2O differences between these two sweet-filled illustrations?

Picture Quiz Picture Quiz

Draw bridges between the red islands so that the number of bridges connected to each island equals the number written inside the circle.

Rules:

1. The bridges must be straight lines and cannot bend. 2. The bridges cannot intersect with each other. 3. The bridges can be horizontal or vertical but not diagonal. 4. The maximum number of bridges connecting two islands is two.

Fill all the empty squares so that every row, column and 3x2 box contains a picture of a rocket, an asteroid, a space station, a crescent moon, a satellite and a space shuttle.

Draw a line to connect each pair of planets. You can’t use diagonal lines and the lines can’t cross or touch each other. You must fill the whole grid with lines but only one line is allowed in each square.

Can you find your way through our maze of square rooms? Enter through the door marked with the red arrow, then try to find your way to the exit by going through the correct sequence of open doors. Good luck!

One of the shapes below is impossible to trace with a pen without drawing over a line twice or taking your pen off the page. Which shape is it?

Absolutely Everything!

Each month we feature an amazing story from world history taken from the bestselling book by Christopher Lloyd, with illustrations by Andy Forshaw. This month: a mysterious disappearance of giant animals

Over the last 2.6 million years of Earth’s history, glaciers have come and gone, sometimes covering the northern parts of the world with ice for thousands of years at a time. Each time the climate has changed, individual species, including humans, adapted to different climates, hot or cold. And when one species died out, others evolved to take its place.

When the Earth was warming up from a frozen time called the last glacial maximum, the story should have been just the same. But it wasn’t. Dozens of large mammals were alive and well all over the world when the warming started. Some of them had existed for tens of millions of years. Yet, between about 13,000 years ago and about 8,000 years ago, most of the biggest of them died out. This disaster is known as the Pleistocene Extinction after the era when it happened.

In North and South America, horses, big cats, elephants, mammoths and mastodons,

camels, great bears, giant beavers, peccaries (pig-like mammals), giant ground sloths and the glyptodont –an armadillo the size of a pick-up truck which is shown on the opposite page – all mysteriously disappeared. In all, about three-quarters of the large mammals became extinct. When the Pleistocene Extinction was over, very few animals in the Americas were bigger than a turkey. Even the beavers and bears that made it through the crisis were smaller cousins of those giants that once existed.

An illustration of animals alive on Earth before the Pleistocene Extinction.

Pretty much the same thing happened in Australia, although the extinctions there started earlier. Victims included the giant kangaroo, a rhino-sized wombat and its relatives, and a fierce marsupial lion. Huge reptiles died off, too, including the giant horned tortoise and some gigantic crocodiles.

Large animals went extinct in other parts of the world as well. The southern half of Africa lost fewer than the rest. But even there about one in every six big mammal species went extinct. Experts find this whole worldwide extinction event puzzling because no new large animals arose to take the places of those that had disappeared.

What on Earth was going on? Some experts point to global warming, which changed environments worldwide, even where it had never been cold. As a result, large animals lost their habitats. But climate alone doesn’t explain the timing of some of the extinctions.

In many places, the extinctions followed the arrival of humans in the area. Maybe they were to blame. Could humans have hunted all these giants to extinction?

DID YOU KNOW?

You can tell the age of a woolly mammoth from the rings of its tusks, like the rings of a tree!

Or did fire-lighting humans burn so many animal habitats so quickly that the animals couldn’t survive?

This hypothesis might explain why elephants, rhinos and big cats survived in Africa when animals like them went extinct elsewhere. African animals and humans had evolved together over millions of years. Could they have found a balance that let both survive?

The point of having a hypothesis or theory is to test it against other evidence, to ask questions that might prove or disprove it. For example, if

Imagine bumping into a 3-metre-wide glyptodont! It had the heaviest armour plate protection of any Ice Age creature. By 1O,OOO years ago these giants had gone extinct like many other large animals around the world.

humans caused the extinction, why did Africa lose any animals at all? As often happens in science, we don’t know all the answers. We just have to keep making hypotheses and questioning them. There could be more than one cause. Perhaps humans and climate change are both to blame for the Pleistocene Extinction.

The part we humans played may have been our first big impact on the Earth’s environment. It was certainly not the last. :

Focus the camera of a smartphone or tablet on this QR code to listen to an audio recording of the author reading this book extract.

SMALL!

FROM BIG TO

Take a journey from giant galaxies to microscopic molecules…

Astronomers estimate that there may be more than 30 individual galaxies in the Local Group. The Local Group is part of an even bigger group called the Virgo Supercluster. This enormous structure contains over 1 million galaxies!

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is just one of the millions of millions of galaxies that astronomers have identified in space. There are literally billions of them! The clump of galaxies that the Milky Way belongs to is called the Local Group.

Catherine wheel. Astronomers still aren’t sure how many stars there are in the Milky Way, but current estimates are somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. The closest galaxy to the Milky Way is the Andromeda galaxy. It is ‘only’ around 2.5 million light years from Earth.

Our Sun and solar system do not travel through space alone. The Sun is just one of a huge number of stars in the Milky Way, which is held together as a galaxy by the force of gravity. If you could get way out into deep space and look back at the Milky Way, you would see that it looks like a giant, slowly turning

Every star that you can see with your naked eye at night is much bigger than the Earth. The reason they all look so small is because they are very far away from us. And even though it looks much larger than the stars that we see at night, the Sun is, in fact, only a medium-sized star. Some other stars are thousands of times bigger.

Although Earth is relatively tiny when compared to the Sun and other objects in space, it can still feel like a pretty enormous place to us. Distances on Earth are often measured in kilometres (km), with one kilometre equalling 1,000 metres. Just think how long it would take you to walk the length of the Amazon or the Great Wall of China!

Samoan

Coronavirus O.12 microns Even smaller than bacteria, many viruses attack cells and take them over, causing you to become sick. In 2O2O, one type of coronavirus caused a global pandemic.

Hydrogen atom O.O5 nanometres Smallest atom.

Lactobacillus acidophilus 2–9 microns

Helpful bacteria found in the gut. Bacteria are microscopic, single-celled organisms. They live in every type of environment, including our bodies. Some cause diseases, while others can be helpful.

Nucleus Electron

Water molecule O.27 nanometres

Molecules are made up of two or more atoms. Water molecules are made from one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms.

Red blood cell 6–8 microns

Most common cell in the human body. All living things, from giant redwood trees to tiny bacteria swimming in pond water, are made from different types of cells. Scientists estimate that you have more than 3O trillion cells in your body.

Caesium atom O.26 nanometres

The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth –including the dinosaurs! The blue whale is so big, in fact, that a human being could swim through its blood vessels.

The giraffe is the tallest land animal on Earth today –and is almost twice the height of the tallest recorded human being, an American man named Robert Ludlow.

…and small

Animals on Earth come in all shapes and sizes, and the very smallest of them are easy to miss with the naked eye. Smaller things are usually measured in centimetres (cm) or millimetres (mm). There are 100 centimetres in a metre and 10 millimetres in a centimetre, which means that 1 millimetre is very small –about the width of a pinhead.

Through a microscope

Thanks to the invention of the microscope, humans can study objects that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Microscopic objects, such as cells, bacteria and viruses, are usually measured in microns. There are 1 million microns in a metre and 1,000 microns in a millimetre.

Atoms and molecules

Largest naturally occurring atom. At the heart of every atom is the nucleus. This is made up of smaller particles called protons and, usually, neutrons. Whizzing around the nucleus are even smaller particles called electrons. Different atoms contain different numbers of these particles.

Atoms, which are the basic building blocks of matter, are too small to be seen through a conventional microscope. Instead, scientists use an electron microscope which can magnify things more than 500,000 times. Atoms are usually measured in nanometres. There are 1 billion nanometres in a metre!

EXCERPTED FROM EARTH IS BIG , WRITTEN BY STEVE TOMECEK AND ILLUSTRATED BY MARCOS FARINA

MY BRITANN

We celebrate the fantastic finalists who went head to head in our first national Schools Quiz Challenge.

A team of brilliant young brainboxes from Cramlington Village Primary School have triumphed in the very first Britannica Magazine Schools Quiz Challenge! They pipped secondary school rivals Soham Village College by just two points in the fastest-finger buzzer finale, winning 12 points to 1O in an electrifying climax to the competition.

SEND IT IN! Meet our School Quiz Champions!

After more than 8O schools competed in the online heats, the eight qualifying schools travelled to St. Bride’s in London for the thrilling and inspiring live finals in November. Huge congratulations to everyone involved! To find out about this year’s Britannica Magazine Schools Quiz Challenge – and how your school can enter – email editor@ britannicamagazine.com

The eight finalists were drawn from all parts of the UK. But the team with the furthest to travel was Stenness Community School on the island of Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. The team were helped on their way by a crowd-funding campaign which saw several thousand pounds raised so that the pupils

could make the 1,OOO-mile round trip to London. They were cheered on by their local MP, Alistair Carmichael (pictured left with quizmaster Chris and the Stenness team), who even tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons to congratulate Stenness and all the other schools on their fantastic achievement!

The Orkney school that went the extra mile to be there!

Champions Cramlington Village Primary School celebrate in style!

Quizmaster Chris puts the school teams to the test

Make your own Venetian mask!

In February, a giant fancy-dress party is held in Venice where the guests all wear beautiful masks. Now you can join the fun by making your own...

There is a tradition of mask-wearing in the city of Venice in Italy that goes back hundreds of years. It started in the 13th century, when Venetians would hold masked parties and celebrations from St Stephen’s Day on December 26th until the start of Lent, which is seven weeks before Easter. Early Venetian masks were relatively simple and plain. But they served an important purpose by concealing the identity of the person wearing one. This meant that people from very different social backgrounds – such as rich aristocrats and poor peasants – could mix together in a way that wouldn’t normally happen. Not knowing who was behind the mask was all part

of the mystery – and the fun!

Over the years, Venetian masks became elaborate and beautiful. Traditional ones are made from papier mâché and then decorated with fabric, feathers and even valuable gems. Would you like to dress to impress at Venice’s famous Carnival? Then follow these simple instructions to make a Venetian mask of your own!

Everyone wears masks at the Venice Carnival.

1 2 7

1 Fold a sheet of tracing paper in half. Line up the fold of the tracing paper with the dotted black line on the template at the top right hand of this page. Trace the outline and eyehole of your mask, choosing either template A or template B to create the shape.

2 Turn your sheet of tracing paper over and trace the second eyehole and mask outline by copying the eyehole and mask outline you traced in step 1.

3 Transfer the mask outline and eyeholes onto a piece of card (with about the stiffness of a paper plate), by placing the side with the pencil lines face down onto the

INSTRUCTIONS

card and tracing over the lines again.

4 Carefully cut around the transfer using scissors. You now have the base for your Venetian mask.

5 If you have chosen the harlequin mask (template A), use the blue dotted lines of the template to guide where to place the diamond shapes. If you have chosen template B, draw your own patterns and swirls onto the mask.

6 Colour in the diamonds or patterns using bright colours. If you are using template B, you might also want to stick beads or coloured paper to the mask and attach some feathers using glue or a stapler. (You can

make some feathers out of paper if you don’t have any real ones to hand.) Then skip to step 1O. For the harlequin mask, continue to step 7.

7 Cut 5 strips of card using the template marked C. These will form the triangular shapes that hold the harlequin’s bells.

8 Add edging to the sides of the strips

A A&B

TOP TIP Match the colours of your mask to your party outfit to create a complete costume! 1 cm 16 cm C

or paint a contrasting colour along the edges. Fold each strip into a point and glue a bell to the end. Instead of a bell, you could also use colourful pom-poms.

9 Apply glue to the bottom 1 cm of a strip and stick it to the mask, attaching the first strip to the centre of the mask. Then add the next strips on either side, so they overlap and fan out.

1 B

1O Staple or glue about 25 cm of string or ribbon on each side of the mask to be the ties. Once all the parts have dried, you are ready to model your very own Venetian mask!

3 4 5 6 8 9 41

34, 35. AERWINS: 11. 9th International

Landscape Photographer of the Year / Martin Broen: 6, 7. Comedy Wildlife Awards 2O22 / Jean-Jacques Alcalay: 8, 9. For further information about the competition and details of the accompanying photography book, visit: www.internationallandscapephotographer.com

Copyright 2O23 What on Earth Magazines Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publishers.

& riddles Jokes

Tickle your ribs and tease your brain with our favourite gags and riddles, hand-picked by our jokes editor May.

Q What question can you never answer ‘yes’ to?

A ‘Are you asleep yet?’

Q What should you do if a dog eats your dictionary?

A Take the words right out of its mouth!

What do you call a bear with no teeth?

A gummy bear!

Q Why did the rubber chicken cross the road?

A To stretch its legs!

Q Which word is always spelt wrongly?

A Wrongly!

Q What do you call a boy with a seagull on his head?

A Cliff!

Q The more of me you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?

A Footsteps!

Q What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A A fsh!

Q How do vegetables drive to work?

A They take the dual cabbage-way!

Which knight shall we ask to make King Arthur’s round table?

Sir Cumference!

What do you call a dinosaur that’s very worried?

Q What should you do if you forget how to use a boomerang?

A Don’t worry – it’ll come back to you!

Q Why should you always keep a crayon in your bedroom?

A To draw the curtains!

A nervous rex!

Q What is the next letter in this sequence: JFMAMJJ?

A A – for August!

Q What should you do if a crocodile eats your pen?

A Use a pencil!

Q What has a head and tail but no body?

A A coin!

Q How do you catch a school of fish?

A With a bookworm!

Q Why did the thief steal the soap?

A To make a clean getaway!

Q What’s green and square?

A A banana in disguise!

BY ANDY FORSHAW