UK Britannica What on Earth Magazine February 2023

FAC T h e U K ’ s f a s t e s t - g r o w i n g c h i l d r e n ’ s m a g a z i n e PUZZ TS! L JOKESES! !

MAGAZINE

Fe b r u a r y 2 O 23

YMIR

ITZPAPALOTL

ANUBIS

CYCLOPS MEDUSA

MAUI

& S H T Y M S R E T S N O M GOLEM

ISSN 2755-1318

02> £5.99 02>

9 772755 131001 britannicamagazine.co.uk 9 772755 131001

CONTENTS

Page 1O 29

Page 4O

Page 38

A wild and wonderful world awaits you inside!

4 Page 4

6

2

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.

1O

12

EUREKA! Fascinating inventions and discoveries. Find out the science behind see-through frogs and the best way to skim stones. Plus, see a brand new flying hoverbike in action!

LISTIFIED! Enjoy the wise words and sound advice of two of history’s greatest thinkers: the German physicist

Page 16

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!

Page 22

34

36

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

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!

Page 12

Page 8

4O

Albert Einstein and the Chinese philosopher Laozi.

14

16

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!

COVER FEATURE: MYTHS & MONSTERS 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.

22 24

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.

28 29

3O

NOBODY KNOWS One of the universe’s great unsolved mysteries.

ASK THE EXPERTS Your chance to test Britannica’s brilliant experts. This month: what happened to the dinosaurs after a giant asteroid collided with Earth 66 million years ago.

JUMBO PUZZLES & GAMES A four-page special featuring a Geography

43

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!

SEND IT IN! 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

ZANY FACTS

Follow the trail of crazily connected facts all the way from remembering your dreams to… the real shape of a rainbow!

About 12 per cent of people dream in black and white.

By Kate Hale Illustrations by Andy Smith

cues

Some change colour while they sleep

Rainbow Mountain, or the ‘Mountain of Seven Colours’ in Peru has stripes of gold, turquoise, red and purple

If you use an

alarm clock to wake up, you are likely to have a harder time remembering your dream

4

There’s a species of lizard in Papua New Guinea that has

u lo

r

Sp las hs

om ec

o

green blood

Flamingos get their pink colouring from the shrimp, crabs and algae they eat

Heterochromia iridis is when a person or animal has two differentcoloured eyes

R

!

THAT OCCURS FROM THE LIGHT REFL ECTED AINBOW R A S

BY T OW I HE M B N OON OO VED THAT A GIANT RAIN E I L E B S E R AM U B T L O U W C S N E A I R L PENT STRA SHA T AU PED U N O R L E O D C R Y A L E T I N N I B I O A F W T HE , C D V N I N S O I C B A E L S E L AN E ON T M AS A H O D P SO W O O F B THE TS RAINBOWS, WHICH FORM I RAIN R O F F I Y S RST U FROM R FAMO THE M E VE AII IS I W S A T H OF T T, CONNECTS THE S IN HE W ALLED BIFROS HUMAN ALL DGE, C I F R W ATE B O W W R O L O D WI RFA INB A INB T R LL H W A S A W VISIBLE FO THE R G RAINBO Y, A N I R T A G S L L A M O L A O L T S N T9H ES DO THO OUR ONG FT MY S SOMETIMES YOU CAN HE L .

HE S E T L E C R I S C S GO E E R E R T H E EN O EY A DS N H T T E I IN R S E U C A I RCL BEC EF RO END R MA E V E NA N S IRC W RA BO N FT AI

5

PHOTOS

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

!

H O O O 6

Astonishing photos from around the world

!

7

!

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

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…

CELEBRATE IN STYLE!

OW!

W 8

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

WO AH!

PHOTOS

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.

9

Eureka!

The latest astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.

Revealed: the science of see-through frogs 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.

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 10

HOW THE SHAPE OF A STONE AFFECTS THE WAY IT SKIMS Smooth and flat

5+ skims

Curved and potato-shaped Knobbly and irregular

The world record for stone skimming is 88 individual skips!

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 study’s models were

2-3 skims 1 skim

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.

NEWS

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

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

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!’

AERWINS TECHNOLOGIES

Spotted: frozen Neptune and its spectacular rings 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!

LOOK HOW SMALL THIS HELICOPTER IS COMPARED TO THE VOLCANO!

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

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!

11

LISTS

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

12

Albert Einstein

WISE WORDS

Fourteen pieces of advice from Albert Einstein

T

he 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.

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.

DEEP THOUGHTS Fourteen wise sayings of Laozi

L

ittle 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.

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.

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.

Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished.

He who boasts has no merit.

Leave all things to take their natural course.

Laozi

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

When you

*Laozi means ‘Old Master’ in Chinese.

Listified!

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

13

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

1948

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.

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.

1998

The 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.

14

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.

1996

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.

18O4

199O

After 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.

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.

15

S H T Y M

Fro m M a u i t o M e d u s a , m e e t 1 0 l e g e n d a r y c h a ra c t e r s a n d c re a t u re s

ANANSI A shape-shifting West African trickster and storyteller FAMOUS FOR: Anansi is wise, clever

and a master of spinning stories.

Sometimes he uses these skills to trick others into doing what he wants, but he also helps people by showing them how to use wisdom and cunning for their own benefit.

Anansi can change his shape and appear in many different forms, including as aries SIZE: V a man with eight 0 : 6/1 SPEED 0 spider’s legs.

1 / 7 H:

D N D AAN

GT STREN RS: L POWE A IC G A M 0

10/1

Illustrations by Brian Williamson 16

MO

d ra w n f ro m st o r i e s t o l d b y d i f f e re n t c u l t u re s a ro u n d t h e w o r l d .

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 SIZE: wrongdoers. It is so 7/10 SPEED strong that it once : 8/10 STREN GTH: 1 plucked a whale 0/10 MAGIC AL POW right out of the ERS: 8/10 sea with its talons.

S R E T S N O

17

ANUBIS An ancient Egyptian god of the dead FAMOUS FOR: One of

SIZE: 5/10 SPEED : 6/10 STREN GTH: 7 /10 MAGIC AL POW ERS: 10

/10

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.

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 SIZE: 7/10 created them, SPEED : 4/10 doing good or evil STREN GTH: 1 deeds depending 0/10 MAGIC AL POW on their wishes.

ERS: 6/10

18

YMIR A Norse giant created from fire and ice FAMOUS FOR: In Norse mythology, Ymir

SIZE: 10/10 SPEED : 4/10 STREN GTH: 9 /10 MAGIC AL POW ERS: 7

was the first frost giant from whom all the /10 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.

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: 5/10 SPEED : 6/10 STREN GTH: 8 /10 MAGIC AL POW ERS: 10

/10

19

YAMATA-NO-OROCHI A fearsome Japanese dragon with eight heads and eight tails 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.

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 SIZE: 5/10 Maui’) by hauling it up SPEED : 6/10 STREN from the bottom of GTH: 1 0/10 M AGICA the sea with L POWE RS: his giant fishhook.

8/10

20

SIZE: 10/10 SPEED : 6/10 STREN GTH: 9 /10 MAGIC AL POW ERS: 7

/10

ITZPAPALOTL A magnificent Aztec warrior goddess FAMOUS FOR: A powerful

SIZE: 5/10 SPEED : 6/10 STREN GTH: 7 /10 MAGIC AL POW ERS: 10

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.

/10

CYCLOPS A one-eyed giant from Greek mythology FAMOUS FOR: The ancient Greeks believed in

SIZE: 10/10 SPEED : 3/10 STREN GTH: 9 /10 MAGIC AL POW ERS: 4

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.

/10

21

ANIMALS

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…

22

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.

A scuba diver approaches a lion’s mane jellyfish.

5

Jellyfish can have very long tentacles The lion’s mane jellyfish is the world’s largest species

pieces can regenerate to create separate living organisms.

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

9

A group of jellyfish is known as a bloom There are several collective nouns for jellyfish, including a swarm, a smack and – our favourite – 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.

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

A group of jellyfish is sometimes known as a bloom.

1O

Jellyfish have been to outer space!

In 1991, some moon jellyfish figure from Greek mythology travelled into space on board who had a mass of snakes the Space Shuttle Columbia, instead of hair. (To find out so that scientists could study more about Medusa, turn how they were affected to page 19.) Medusa by living in DID YOU is also the word for microgravity.

The KNO Aus jell jellyfish in several W t ? When the the yfish is ralian languages, shuttle mos b t hou ox anim t including Italian returned to al. E venom ght to has b a aro ch of ous ma e and Spanish.

Earth, the it u r cell nd 5,O s tent ine scientists acl s– OO can and it stingi es found that Jellyfish s st ng kill young jellyfish can clone in ju a hum ing an st born in space themselves min a few ute didn’t know how Amazingly, if you s. to swim normally cut a jellyfish in Earth’s gravity. in half, the two

8

23

QUIZ

2

ANIMALS

1

The

Which of these animals could never meet a polar bear? a. A walrus b. A penguin c. A reindeer d. A snowy owl

BIG

2

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!

4

Approximately how many times per second can a hummingbird beat its wings? a. About 3 times a second b. About 10 times a second c. About 25 times a second d. About 80 times a second

3

Dogs can only sweat through which part of their bodies? a. Their noses b. Their tongues c. Their paws d. Dogs can’t sweat

Britannica 6

How many hearts does an octopus have? a. One b. Two c. Three d. Eight

5

What is the world’s fastest-flying bird? a. Golden eagle b. Peregrine falcon c. Eurasian swift d. Pigeon

6

What type of animal is a Komodo dragon? a. A lizard b. A reptile c. An amphibian d. A dragon

7

What is the collective name for a group of giraffes? a. A troop b. A gang c. A neck d. A tower

24

9

8

Which of the following animals does cube-shaped poos? a. Camel b. Platypus c. Wombat d. Capybara

SPACE & NATURE

9

The flower with the largest bloom is called Rafflesia arnoldii. What does this giant flower smell of?

a. Chocolate b. Candyfloss c. Rotten eggs d. Rotting flesh

1O

What is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature? a. Silver b. Mercury c. Zinc d. Plutonium

11

What is the scientific name for the smallest category of iceberg (which is under 6 metres tall)? a. Growler b. Floater c. Miniberg d. Ice cube

12

What caused the largest sound in recorded history? a. A lightning strike

13

b. An avalanche c. An atomic bomb d. A volcanic eruption

13

What is the most powerful space rocket ever launched? a. Saturn V b. Space Launch System (SLS) c. Falcon Heavy, pictured d. Space Shuttle

HUMAN BODY

14

Approximately how many human cells can fit on the head of a pin? a. 10 b. 100 c. 1,000 d. 10,000

15

What is arachibutyrophobia a fear of?

Family Quiz 7

a. Spiders b. Sandwiches c. Scissors d. Peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth

16

Approximately how many times do you blink each minute (when you’re awake)? a. Around 1 to 5 times b. Around 6 to 10 times c. Around 11 to 15 times d. Around 16 to 20 times

Continued on next page  16

25

QUIZ

21

 Continued from previous page

17

What is the heaviest organ in the human body? a. The brain b. The heart c. The stomach d. The skin

18

Which is the only part of the body that cannot heal itself? a. Heart b. Teeth c. Liver d. Eyeball

19

Approximately how long does the hair on your head grow across the whole of an average human lifespan? a. 3 metres b. 7 metres c. 11 metres d. 17 metres

HUMAN WORLD

2O

Which country has the world’s largest population? a. China b. Russia c. United States d. India

21

What is the most visited monument in the world (for which you have to buy a ticket)? a. Taj Mahal, pictured b. Eiffel Tower c. Statue of Liberty d. Great Pyramid of Giza

22

In which year did the first website go live on the internet? a. 1971 b. 1981 c. 1991 d. 2001

26

Which one of these four actions are people allowed to do in the UK’s Houses of Parliament?

(The other three are officially banned.) a. Applaud b. Call someone a liar c. Fall asleep d. Wear a suit of armour

GEOGRAPHY

25

Which country contains the most lakes? a. Russia b. China c. United States d. Canada

23

Who was the last pharaoh or ruler of ancient Egypt? a. Tutankhamun b. Ramses II c. Khufu d. Cleopatra

24

19

26

What is the world’s largest

island? (Clue: it’s not Australia, which is generally considered to be a continent.) a. Borneo b. Greenland c. Madagascar d. Great Britain

27

The Pacific is the world’s largest ocean.

What is the second largest? a. Atlantic Ocean b. Indian Ocean c. Arctic Ocean d. Antarctic Ocean

28

The world’s four deepest known caves are all found in which country? a. Iceland b. Mexico c. Georgia d. China

24

3O

29

This is the only national flag that isn’t a rectangular or square shape. Which country is it the flag of? a. Malaysia b. Nepal c. Thailand d. Japan Can you recognise these 10 countries by their silhouettes?

C

A B

E F

29 D

G

I

H

J

I

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. a - France, b - Sri Lanka, c - Japan, d - Chile, e - Ireland, f - Greece, g - Russia, h - Iceland, i - United States (including Alaska), j - Germany.

24

27

MYSTERIES

w, g lo e at av th s h g. ht tist nin h t ar… e

en

lig

28

tte d s tra n g e spo b a ve l ls ha g thunde r n o s i t r f o r du l m ig s ir . ous sph e r S e s eri c – st an ba i ere d why t he l l wh y a

of years, s d n pe sa u o op h v t e o r h i n th le nd r a o e l F ea ck h t e r a s fo em e cr m y na w h r e o n, a sf a t u B

pp

Ask the experts

Readers ask. Experts answer. Send your questions to: experts@britannicamagazine.com Answer

DR PETER FALKINGHAM

Palaeontologist

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

From Saskia, age 13

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

asteroid impact did cause this chain of events, Mexico Belize the complete Honduras extinction of Guatemala the dinosaurs El Salvador took hundreds or even thousands of years.

What’s more, not all dinosaurs died out. Modern birds are a type of dinosaur, in much the same way that dogs and cats are types of mammal.

So if you look out starved as well. other creatures of your window The blocked-out that ate plants and see a pigeon Sun also meant would have or a seagull, that the Earth struggled to remember – that’s became much survive, too. And a dinosaur, and as the plant-eating colder, which the descendent of would have killed animals died, so a survivor of the off many other the meat-eating big extinction 66 dinosaurs. So dinosaurs that ate million years ago. although the them would have

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

Chicxulub crater

?

U KNOW f t n r ce o

DID YO

75 pe Around nimal t and a all plan became species g followin extinct roid’s e the ast . impact

29

Stumped? Don’t worry, you can find the answers to all the puzzles on page 42.

GEOGRAPHY WORD SEARCH Can you spot the names of 25 countries hidden in our jumbo word search puzzle? Good luck!

V

A

P

G

Y

K

O

H

F

O

V

E

B

N

A

T

U

H

B

P

ARGENTINA

O

M

N

S

F

J

A

R

L

O

H

T

O

S

E

L

J

E

D

Y

BHUTAN

O

C

C

O

R

O

M

Z

S

E

P

X

G

D

N

M

S

S

A

J

H

Q

C

K

Z

I

M

B

A

B

W

E

J

J

W

T

X

U

E

P

ESTONIA

I

Y

R

R

F

J

S

J

M

K

C

S

J

E

O

P

G

U

C

Z

FIJI

N

E

W

Z

E

A

L

A

N

D

H

W

M

N

Q

U

R

R

U

Y

A

M

M

Q

E

R

V

S

Z

V

A

S

I

N

R

A

E

O

S

Q

I

E

T

O

N

G

A

R

Q

L

F

A

T

U

T

Z

R

M

S

C

JAPAN

S

N

O

N

O

E

Z

M

E

C

O

Z

Q

A

V

E

I

A

G

O

KAZAKHSTAN

E

F

S

J

O

N

E

S

C

W

H

L

Q

D

N

I

Q

N

X

L

N

H

F

M

G

T

S

W

I

T

Z

E

R

L

A

N

D

I

Y

N

NEW ZEALAND

O

X

V

F

Y

I

O

G

T

Z

D

S

Y

E

J

A

P

A

N

F

OMAN

D

R

U

T

A

N

E

P

V

I

T

U

O

B

I

J

D

I

W

C

PORTUGAL

N

A

R

O

F

A

L

I

U

N

Y

U

L

J

S

G

Z

L

F

L

I

E

K

J

Q

T

E

Q

Z

I

C

E

I

B

H

P

B

I

D

O

SWITZERLAND

N

E

U

I

Y

T

N

N

N

H

S

F

C

T

Z

A

L

I

Q

W

TONGA

Y

I

W

V

N

U

T

S

I

T

A

B

G

E

N

N

I

U

E

E

URUGUAY

V

O

N

A

M

O

Q

N

L

L

U

A

U

Z

E

P

Y

T

T

S

D

L

M

I

X

Q

A

N

U

M

L

A

G

U

T

R

O

P

I

G

L

Z

A

V

H

L

W

I

Y

C

O

E

L

F

X

I

G

W

G

G

CHINA DJIBOUTI

GREECE HAITI INDONESIA

LESOTHO MOROCCO

QATAR ROMANIA

VIETNAM WALES YEMEN ZIMBABWE

NUMBER TRIANGLES! In the triangles below, the numbers inside the squares are the sum of the two numbers in the connected circles.

For example:

1 30

3

2

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.

B

A

8

11 5

15

C

7 1O

11

17 12

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

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:

P C

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

H I E W S R K

(4 letters).

Answer: Clue: frozen water (3 letters).

Answer: 31

Picture Quiz

BRIDGE PUZZLE 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.

3

1

2

4

3

2 2

1

3

3

1

5

6

2

2

1

4

2

3 2

2

3

3

SPACE-DOKU! 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.

32

CONNECT THE PLANETS 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.

4

Can you work out what you are looking at in each of these seven photos?

5

6

TRACING LINES 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?

A

B

7

C

D

CHANGING ROOMS 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!

33

WORLD HISTORY

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

O

ver 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.

PERCENTAGE OF LARGE MAMMALS THAT WENT EXTINCT AFTER THE PLEISTOCENE EXTINCTION 1OO

Extinct O/O

8O 6O 4O 2O O 34

Africa

Asia

N. America S. America Australia

Europe

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.

35

36

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!

Planet Earth

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.

The Sun (and other stars)

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

The Milky Way

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.

Our galactic neighbourhood

21,196 km

Great Wall of China

142,984 km

Jupiter

12,756 km

Earth

15,349 km

6,437 km

Amazon River

Longest non-stop commercial flight

2.4 million km 188 times wider than Earth.

1.39 million km

light years across

1O million

2OO,OOO

1.4 billion km

Betelgeuse

Our closest neighbour.

light years across

Andromeda galaxy

light years across

11O million

Virgo Supercluster

Betelgeuse is one of the biggest stars that astronomers know of.

It can be seen shining brightly on the shoulder of the constellation Orion.

1O9,752 times wider than Earth.

Local Group of galaxies

1O9 times wider than Earth.

Sirius B

Location of our solar system in the Milky Way

Our galaxy.

light years across

Milky Way

light years across

About 1OO,OOO

Milky Way galaxy

About 1OO,OOO

The Sun

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.

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!

Take a journey from giant galaxies to microscopic molecules…

FROM BIG TO SMALL!

INFOGRAPHIC

37

1 mm

Pinhead

5 mm

Ladybird

3O mm

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.

Largest naturally occurring atom.

O.26 nanometres

Water molecule

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

O.27 nanometres

Nucleus Electron

Bacteria are microscopic, single-celled organisms.

They live in every type of environment, including our bodies. Some cause diseases, while others can be helpful.

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

2–9 microns

Helpful bacteria found in the gut.

6–8 microns

Lactobacillus acidophilus

Smallest mammal.

Bumblebee bat

3O m

Largest animal.

Blue whale

Most common cell in the human body.

Red blood cell

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

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!

Atoms and molecules

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.

Through a microscope

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.

…and small

1.3 m

Largest rodent.

2.72 m

Capybara

Tallest person ever.

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 Human the height of the tallest recorded human being, an American man named Robert Ludlow.

All creatures great...

5.5 m

O.12 microns

Smallest atom.

O.O5 nanometres

Hydrogen atom

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.

Coronavirus

One of the smallest spiders.

O.4 mm

Samoan moss spider

Tallest land animal.

Giraffe

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

1

1

INNER e

lleng

Cha

OUP

W 8-

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.

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

Champions Cramlington Village Primary School celebrate in style!

AGE G

R

NICA

AN

SEND IT IN!

M Y B RI T

Meet our

ris puts the Quizmaster Ch to the test school teams

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

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 38

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!

YOUR fact of the month

mpions!

Send your favourite fact to: facts@britannicamagazine.com

Challenge

AG

O

1 1 - 14

The winning team from Soham Village College

Submitted by Anand, age 8.

Illustrated by Mark Long

UP

R

WINNE

The US secret service once trained a cat to be a spy. It was equipped with a tiny microphone and transmitter and trained to listen in on secret conversations.

E GR

Schools Quiz Challenge: the Results 8 TO 11 YRS AGE GROUP

11 TO 14 YRS AGE GROUP

Winner Cramlington Village Primary School Cramlington, Northumberland Silver Alleyn’s Junior School Dulwich, London Bronze Goodwyn School Mill Hill, London Runners-up Stenness Community School Orkney

Winner Soham Village College Ely, Cambridgeshire Silver The Hayesbrook Academy Tonbridge, Kent Bronze Killicomaine JHS Portadown, County Armagh Runners-up Chipping Campden School Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN! If your letter, photo or favourite fact is featured in a future issue of Britannica Magazine, you will win a copy of the brilliantly disgusting Gross Factopia!

So don’t delay and…

Will your scho ol make it to th e finals of this year’s Schools Quiz Ch allenge?

SEND IT IN! 39

DO IT YOURSELF

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...

T

here 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

WHAT YOU NEED stapler GLUE

craft glue

pencil

tracing paper

card

scissors

bells

felt-tip pens

40

feathers

beads

ribbon

edging

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

A

3

B

4

A&B

5

7

6

8

9

1 cm E

GLU

INSTRUCTIONS

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

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.

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.

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

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 TOP TIP mask. Then Match the colours add the of your mask to next strips your party outfit to on either create a complete side, so costume! they overlap and fan out.

1O

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!

16 cm

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.

C

1 cm for gluing 3.5 cm 41

Give a FREE COPY of Britannica Magazine to your best friend!

BRITANNICA MAGAZINE

Published by What on Earth Magazines Ltd, The Black Barn, Wickhurst Farm, Leigh, Tonbridge, Kent, TN11 8PS Editor Andrew Pettie Art & Design Director Mark Hickling Designer Susanna Hickling Production Sarah Epton Contributors Brian Williamson (including cover), Kate Hale, Andy Smith, Andy Forshaw, Christopher Lloyd, Andrés Lozano, Steve Tomecek, Marcos Farina, Mark Hickling, Susanna Hickling, May, Mark Long, Lisa Thomas, Chris Harrison With thanks to Andy Forshaw, Natalie Bellos, Casey Neumann, Katy Lennon, Daisy Symes, Helen Thewlis, Olivia Galyer, Nell Wood, Helen Jones and the whole team at What on Earth Publishing Editorial Consultant Nancy Feresten Business Development David Falzani CEO, What on Earth Magazines Christopher Lloyd For Encyclopaedia Britannica Alison Eldridge, Managing Editor Printing and distribution Warners Midlands PLC, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE1O 9PH Digital Marketing Jamie French Editorial enquiries editor@britannicamagazine.com

We hope you are enjoying our February Issue!

If you are, here is the perfect way to share your love of Britannica Magazine, the UK’s fastest-growing kids’ magazine, with your best friends or other members of your family.

Subscriptions O1778 392479 britannicamagazine.co.uk Picture credits Alamy: 8, 1O, 13, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33.

Getty Images: 8, 11, 12, 22, 23. Shutterstock: 9, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33. NASA: 11. Science Photo Library: 29, 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

Here’s all your friends have to do…

Ask their grown-ups to visit britannicamagazine.co.uk/free-copy and enter their details. We will then send them a printed copy of a recent issue of Britannica Magazine absolutely FREE!

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.

Conditions apply. For more information, visit: britannicamagazine.co.uk/free-copy

PUZZLE ANSWERS Geography Word Search V O O H I N A I S E N O D N I N Y V D L

A M C Q Y E M E N F H X R A E E I O L Z

P N C C R W M T O S F V U R K U W N M A

G S O K R Z Q O N J M F T O J I V A I V

Y F R Z F E E N O O G Y A F Q Y N M X H

K J O I J A R G E N T I N A T T U O Q L

O A M M S L V A Z E S O E L E N T Q A W

H R Z B J A S R M S W G P I Q N S N N I

F L S A M N Z Q E C I T V U Z N I L U Y

O O E B K D V L C W T Z I N I H T L M C

V H P W C H A F O H Z D T Y C S A U L O

E T X E S W S A Z L E S U U E F B A A E

B O G J J M I T Q Q R Y O L I C G U G L

N S D J E N N U A D L E B J B T E Z U F

A E N W O Q R T V N A J I S H Z N E T X

T L M T P U A Z E I N A J G P A N P R I

U J S X G R E R I Q D P D Z B L I Y O G

H E S U U R O M A N I A I L I I U T P W

B D A E C U S S G X Y N W F D Q E T I G

P Y J P Z Y Q C O L N F C L O W E S G G

Number Triangles!

Tracing Lines C is the impossible puzzle

42

Football

Fern

3

7 8

1

11

1

5

B

6 15

4

5

Space-Doku!

6

2

1

4

2

3

Connect the Planets

2

2 2

7

9

1O

C

8 11

3

1

Spot the Difference 17

12

9

Picture Quiz

Tortoise

Bridge Puzzle 3

A

3

Changing Rooms

Statue of Liberty

Bananas

Candy Floss

Cheetah

3

Word Wheel 1. SHIPWRECK 2. WHISPER 3. SHRIEK 4. CIPHER 5. SHREW 6. WISE 7. ICE

k es J&oriddles

A gummy bear!

What do you call a bear with no teeth?

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!

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

A Cliff!

Q What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A A fsh!

Q The more of me you take, the more you leave behind.

What am I? A Footsteps!

Q How do vegetables drive to work?

A They take the dual cabbage-way!

Q Why did the rubber chicken cross the road?

A To stretch its legs!

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

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

Q Which word is always spelt wrongly?

A Wrongly!

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

A To draw the curtains!

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

A nervous rex!

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

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 Why did the thief steal the soap?

A To make a clean getaway!

Q How do you catch a school of fish?

A With a bookworm!

Q What’s green and square?

A A banana in disguise!

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDY FORSHAW

Sir Cumference!

43

Three amazing special offers!

OFFER 1 12-MONTH MAGAZINE PLAN Sign up now for £59.99 to receive: ✓ A year’s worth of printed magazines delivered through your door ✓ FREE access to our digital editions

INCLU FREE B DES O WORTHOK £25!

✓ FREE Introductory Issue ✓ FREE sign-up gift of Britannica’s All New Children’s Encyclopedia WORTH £25!

OFFER 2 3 FREE ISSUES Sign up now for £44.99 to receive: ✓ A year’s worth of printed magazines delivered through your door ✓ FREE first three issues FIRST ES 3 ISSU !

FREE

✓ FREE access to our digital editions

OFFER 3 6-MONTH MAGAZINE PLAN Sign up now for £29.99 to receive: ✓ 6 months’ worth of printed magazines delivered through your door ✓ FREE access to our digital editions

INCLU FREE B DES O WORTHOK £1O!

✓ FREE Introductory Issue ✓ FREE sign-up gift of Britannica’s FACTopia!

Follow the Trail of 4OO Facts WORTH £1O!

Visit www.britannicamagazine.co.uk, scan the QR code or call O1778 392 479