Britannica Magazine November 2023

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TH F CHILASTESTE UK’S DRE -GRO N’S M WI AGA NG ZINE

BRITANNICA’S

What on Earth!

MAGAZINE

Novem ber 2O23

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N I A BR E TH

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A USER’S GUIDE

7 HOW TO SPEAK DOLPHIN LOTS TO READ : LOADS TO LOOK AT : ASK THE EXPERTS : QUIZ : JOKES : AND MORE!

ISSN 2976-7601

£5.99 11> 11>

9 9 772976 772976 760004 760004 whatonearth.co.uk

EUREKA!

CONTENTS

Discover how goalkeepers preceive the world differently on page 10.

A wild and wonderful world awaits you inside!

HOW TO CHAT...

DOLPHIN! Swim over to page 26 to find out what these playful sea creatures are saying.

NAME THE ARTIST!

Can you match the famous artists to their creations?

Find out on page 48.

REGULARS FACTOPIA!

Follow the trail of crazily connected facts on page 4 all the way from soldiers disguised as trees to... a mouthful of maggots!

2

ASK THE EXPERTS PICTURE THIS! How many planets are there in the universe?

And how can we figure out how many might hold life?

All is revealed on page 23.

Page 32

PUZZLES & GAMES Page 38

NOBODY KNOWS Page 37

THE WHAT ON EARTH! QUIZ Page 28

WORD UP!

Learn about phonetics and the ingenious code linguists use to write down sounds on page 24.

COMPETITION!

SEND IT IN Discover when the Ancient Egyptians used to sing to lions on page 46.

To win ALL the brilliant books featured in our November Issue, just answer this question: How many neurons are there in the human brain?

Send your answer to editor@whatonearth.co.uk and a winner will be chosen at random. Good luck!

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

Find out about early humans and how we got our big brains on page 42.

WHAT ON EARTH!

Marvel at the Northern Lights and meet a glum-looking owl in our collection of awesome photos on page 6.

LISTIFIED!

Take off on page 12 to discover nine of the largest planes ever built.

JOKES & RIDDLES

Look out for this month’s selection, hand-picked by our jokes editor May, on page 50.

SEND IT IN! Email us your letters, photos and favourite facts to: editor@whatonearth.co.uk

You can also find all these books (and more!) at whatonearthbooks.com/ shop

ZANY FACTS

Tarsiers, a type of primate, can see in full colour even in near darkness.

The animal has excellent night vision because each eye is enormous – even bigger than its brain

Follow the trail of crazily connected facts all the way from the soldiers disguised as trees… to a mouthful of maggots!

By Kate Hale, Paige Towler and Julie Beer Illustrations by Andy Smith Red-eyed tree frogs sleep camouflaged on green leaves, but if disturbed they flash their bulging red eyes, startling predators

A foam that sometimes forms on large amounts of pig poo can spontaneously explode.

START HERE

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During World War I, French, British and German soldiers sometimes disguised themselves as trees to spy on their enemies

When whales die, their bodies usually sink. But if the body of a dead whale washes up on shore, gases build up inside and can make it explode.

Engineers modelled bullet trains off a kingfisher’s beak to make them quieter and more efficient.

Kingfishers dive into the water to catch their prey almost silently and without splashing If y ou sh

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Scientists studied fireflies to design a new, brighter LED light bulb

In 1899, a group of Wild West outlaws known as the Wild Bunch blew up a bridge and stole nearly $1 million in today’s money from the train that was forced to stop

Scorpions glow blue-green under ultraviolet light

A man from the UK once set a world record by using his toes to crush 60 eggs in one minute

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erican man set a world record An Am nching a marshmal low by lau ril and into the mou t s o n s i th of fh out o an more than 5 metres a way m o w a

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A man from Turkey holds a record for squirting milk from his eye

One man from London set a world record for moving more than 17 kilograms of maggots using only his mouth!

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PHOTOS

6

Astonishin g photos f rom around th e world

CIRCLE OF LIGHT

This spectacular photo shows the Northern Lights, which are also known as aurora borealis, above the Lofoten Islands in Norway. Auroras are displays of shimmering, coloured light that happen when electrically charged particles from the Sun collide with gases in the thermosphere, one of the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere.

CREDIT: ASTRONOMY PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR / ANDREAS ETTL

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PHOTOS

!

H A E Y DIVING IN

This young swimmer is enjoying diving in the waters off Alor, an island in Malaysia in Southeast Asia. Look closely and you will see that his ingenious homemade swimming goggles are made of wood and held together by a length of fishing line.

CREDIT: OCEAN PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR / PETER MARSHALL

WOOLLY GIANT

The town of Tirau in New Zealand has an unlikely claim to fame: it’s home to several buildings shaped liked giant animals! The Big Sheep, left, has a wool and craft shop inside its stomach.

Tourists can also explore the Big Dog visitor centre and the Big Ram building, plus see models of a cow with a shopping trolley and a praying mantis!

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THAT SINKING FEELING

The photographer John Blumenkamp entered this hilarious portrait of a glum-looking great grey owl for the Comedy Wildlife Awards, which celebrate photographs of animals unintentionally doing funny things. It certainly doesn’t look as if the owl enjoyed having its photo taken!

WO W!

ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Rising above the clouds in this beautiful photo is the Tsing Ma Bridge, which connects two islands in Hong Kong just off the coast of China. The 1,377-metre long suspension bridge carries six lanes of car traffic, three travelling in each direction, and two railway tracks.

CREDIT: 14TH EPSON INTERNATIONAL PANO AWARDS / ANDY WONG

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Eureka!

The latest astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.

More than 100 million fragments

The first fines for littering… in space!

of space junk are smaller than 1 centimetre across. They include pieces that fall off of satellites due to wear.

The United States has given its first fine ever to a company for leaving litter in space.

The fine, about £125,000, was given to a satellite television company for not moving one of its old satellites.

There are millions of pieces of ‘space junk’ in orbit around Earth. They range from small pieces of metal to entire failed satellites.

Space junk can cause huge problems if it collides with operating satellites.

Scientists are working on ways to clean it up – and fines could help prevent companies from leaving more.

Around 1,000,000 pieces are between 1 and 10 centimetres across.

They include dropped tools, screws, cables and space cameras.

More than 30,000 pieces

of space junk are larger than 10 centimetres across. They include dead satellites that have failed or been left in orbit at the end of their mission.

How tiny ‘water fleas’ could be used to filter water Scientists have found a way to use microorganisms called water fleas to help filter harmful chemicals and pollutants out of water.

Water fleas are not actually fleas like the ones that bite poor Fido. They are actually teeny tiny crustaceans (the group of animals that includes shrimp, lobsters and crabs) from a genus called Daphnia.

Daphnia are filter feeders, which means they take in everything around them in the water and strain it out to get 10

Although often called ‘water fleas’, Daphnia are tiny crustaceans.

their food. Scientists realised they could harness this power to get Daphnia to clean water for humans. Daphnia are very good at sucking up chemicals that would be harmful for us to drink, and they themselves remain unharmed.

So far, experiments with Daphnia have shown very good results. Scientists are hopeful that Daphnia might be used in the future as a cheap and eco-friendly way to clean water in large cities or in developing countries.

NEWS

Sniffing out how dogs ‘see’ with their noses Humans have known for a long time that dogs are very good at smelling. Dogs have more smell receptors than humans do, and their sense of smell is thousands of times more acute than ours. Dogs have been used to sniff out drugs, bombs and even cancer.

But now scientists are exploring dogs’ unique senses more closely. They have found that the senses of vision and smell are somehow closely connected in the brains of dogs. This is unlike any other species studied so far, including humans.

Scientists aren’t quite sure yet how this ‘smell-o-vision’ works, but they think dogs somehow use their sense of smell to know where they are in space and how they are positioned. In fact, sometimes the owners of blind dogs don’t know their dogs are blind, as the dogs have become so good at getting by without seeing!

100-year-old design gives new robot a hand Inspired by a 110-year-old patent, engineers in California in the United States have designed a robot that can grip any shape.

Using rotating joints, the robot is able to arrange its ‘fingers’ around an object. The joints are made of both rigid and flexible plastic and topped with soft ‘fingertips’ so that

delicate items are not crushed by its grip.

It uses a single motor to bring its two ‘hands’ together.

Joel Burdick, who helped come up with

The robotic hand was printed in one go using a 3D printer.

10 cm

the design, says that when the mechanism was first designed in 1913 it was limited in what it could be used for. Since we have so many different types of robotic technology available today, it’s much more useful to us now!

Goalkeepers see the world differently!

Scientists have discovered that professional goalkeepers perceive the world differently from non-footballers, and even from outfield players.

Using psychological tests, scientists found that goalkeepers took much less time than other people to process information coming to their different senses, such as flashing lights and beeps.

Scientists think that being able to process information from different senses at the same time might be the key to being a great goalkeeper.

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LISTS

LISTIFIED! Prepare to be amazed (and amused!) by the unusual facts crammed into these irresistible lists.

Listified!

by Andrew Pettie and illustrated

by Andrés Lozano is out now.

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BIG BIRDS

Nine of the largest planes ever built 2. Hughes H-4 Hercules

1. Stratolaunch* This unique aeroplane has two bodies, called fuselages, and holds the record for the longest ever wingspan. If you parked it sideways on Wembley football pitch, its wings would extend through the goals by 6 metres on either side!

9. Korabl Maket Known as the ‘Caspian Sea Monster’, the Korabl Maket was an experimental seaplane developed by the Soviet Union that could only fly between 5 and 10 metres above ground or over water.

Known as the ‘Spruce Goose’,** this giant flying boat was the largest wooden aeroplane ever built. It only flew once, in 1947, for 26 seconds.

8. Dornier Do X This flying boat was powered by 12 engines and took 4 years to build. At the time of its first flight in 1929 it was the world’s largest aircraft.

However, due to its high cost, it was eventually abandoned.

Aeroplane wingspan comparison in metres

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3. Antonov An-225 Mriya Only one of these gigantic planes has ever been built – in 1988. It is still in service today, transporting important cargo – such as medicines for the Covid-19 pandemic – around the world.

Stratolaunch

4. Boeing 747 At 76 metres, the Boeing 747 is the world’s longest airliner.

It can fly more than 14,400 kilometres between take-off and landing. Special versions have been used to carry NASA space shuttles and as Air Force One, the official aeroplane of the US President.

5. Lockheed C-5 Galaxy

97.5

Hughes H-4 Hercules

88.4

Antonov An-225 Mriya

68.4

Boeing 747

The nose of this military transport plane flips up to allow vehicles and other cargo to drive inside. It is big enough to transport helicopters – and other planes!

6. Airbus Beluga XL Designed to carry huge items of cargo around the world, the gigantic hold, or main body, of the Beluga XL is 63 metres long, 8 metres wide and the biggest of its kind in the world.

It’s shaped like a beluga whale, and also sports painted eyes and a smiling mouth.

7. McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender

67.9

Lockheed C-5 Galaxy

60.3

Airbus Beluga XL

50.4

McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender

The world’s largest aircraft tanker can carry 197,788 litres of fuel. By trailing a long hose behind it, the KC-10 Extender is able to refuel fighter jets and other planes in mid-air.

47.8

Dornier Do X *The Stratolaunch is designed to carry rockets high up into the sky, then release them so they can launch from Earth’s stratosphere into space.

**Newspaper reporters nicknamed the wooden plane the ‘Spruce Goose’ after the spruce tree, even though it was made almost entirely from birch.

37.6 Korabl Maket

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!

N I A BR E TH

The brain is the most amazing and mysterious organ of the human body. Here – with the help of our expert guide, Dr Brain – you can find out more about your brain and how it works.

T

he human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe.

Did you know, for example, that a single human brain contains as many as 86 billion neurons, or nerve cells?

Or that there can be as many as 1 billion connections between the neurons in a piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand?

So why is the brain such a powerful and complicated

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organ? The answer is that it is the body’s control centre. As part of your central nervous system, it receives and makes sense of signals sent from nerve cells in the rest of the body. It sends information to the body’s muscles and organs. It controls a person’s thoughts and feelings, allowing them to make sense of the outside world. And it

also helps the body to stay healthy and respond in the right way to its environment.

Are you ready to find out more? Across the following pages, our expert host, Dr Brain, presents a fun and fascinating guide to the human brain and how it works.

We start, on the opposite page, with some astounding brain facts.

Next, turn the page to explore the structure of the brain with our colour-coded diagram of its anatomy. After that, you will be ready to consider some of the universal human characteristics controlled by the brain, including emotions, senses and memories. As Dr Brain is about to demonstrate, you are the proud owner of perhaps the most brilliant and mysterious achievement of evolution: the human brain!

A USER’S

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THE BRAIN IN NUMBERS

160,000 The approximate length in kilometres of all the blood vessels in the brain. That’s long enough to stretch almost four times around the Earth!

12,000 The number of brain neurons that adults lose each day that are never replaced.

1,000 The number of nerve impulses a neuron can transmit every second.

MY BRAIN

431 The maximum speed in kilometres per hour that information can travel through the brain.

60 The percentage of your brain that is made of fat. The brain is mostly made of fat and is very soft and squishy like jelly.

BY ON A. NEUROSURGE

25 The age at which your brain is fully formed.

23 The amount of power in watts that the brain can generate – that’s enough to power a light bulb!

20

GUIDE

The percentage of your body’s total energy that your brain uses up.

0.01 How many seconds it takes a nerve impulse to travel from your spinal cord to your toe.

Some nerve signals travel through your body faster than an F1 racing car!

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ANATOMY

OF THE BRAIN! T

he brain has three major areas – the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brain stem – which are each highlighted on the right. The cerebrum contains four lobes: the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital, each of which is responsible for different functions in the body. Neurons in the brain – which are cells that send and receive messages – communicate with our sense organs and other parts of the body. The messages travel along the spinal cord, a long bundle of nerves found inside the spine.

WHAT ARE BRAIN WAVES? Brain waves are detected with very sensitive instruments that pick up how regularly neurons flash. This is an indication of how active the cells are. Brain wave patterns change depending on what people are doing and feeling.

WHAT ARE NEURONS?

Axon terminal Sensory neuron

Axon

Cell body Dendrites

Relay neuron

Motor neuron

Neurons are the information carriers inside your brain.

Each neuron consists of a cell body with branching structures that extend from the cell body like the branches of a tree. The average neuron is connected to 1,000 or more other cells through a complex network of axons and dendrites, which send and receive messages. The diagram on the left shows three different types of neuron. Neurons transmit information within the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body. The networks and pathways in your brain are constantly changing throughout your life as you grow and learn.

The temporal lobe controls memory, behaviour and emotions. It enables people to understand language.

The brain stem controls automatic functions such as breathing.

slowest brain waves DELTA The occur when a person is asleep.

THETA

These very slow brain waves happen when the brain is extremely relaxed, such as when going to sleep.

ALPHA

The brain produces these large, slow brain waves when a person is relaxed and calm.

These small, faster brain waves

BETA occur when the brain is alert and active, such as when talking.

The brain produces the fastest waves

it is actively thinking, such as GAMMA when when working out difficult problems.

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WHAT ARE REFLEXES?

The frontal lobe controls movement, memory, behaviour and intelligence.

The parietal lobe registers temperature and other sensations such as touch and taste.

CEREBRUM

CEREBELLUM BRAIN STEM

The occipital lobe is responsible for vision.

The cerebellum handles balance, movement and how our muscles work together.

The vertebrae protect the spinal cord.

RIGHT AND LEFT The brain is split into two. Both halves, or hemispheres, contain similar structures, so they are almost mirror images of each other. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere controls the left side.

Sensory neurons

send a message to A reflex action is the spinal cord that when your body the flame is hot. does something without you having to think about it.

Reflexes protect Hot flame. your body from harm – for example, automatically moving your Relay neurons in the hand away from spinal cord send a a hot flame. message to the motor Reflex action neurons, nerve cells that pulls your hand help control muscles. away from the heat before the signal that is sent from your hand to your spinal The hand cord arrives in your pulls away. brain to let it know you are in pain.

The spinal cord runs from the brain stem and along the back.

CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

The central nervous system, shown in pink, consists of the brain and the spinal cord.

If you joined all the body’ s nerve cells en d to end, they could circle th e Earth two and a ha lf times!

PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

The peripheral nervous system, shown in blue, consists of the nerve cells in all the other parts of the body.

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WHAT ARE THE

SENSES? I

nformation about the world outside and the workings of the body is collected and transmitted to the brain through the senses. Scientists think that humans could have more than 20 different senses – and here are some of the most important:

people’s emotions, such as fear and disgust, by the smell of their sweat.

1 TOUCH

6 INTEROCEPTION

Touch is thought to be the first sense a human develops, after just eight weeks in the womb. The areas of your body that are most sensitive to touch include your lips, tongue and fingers.

2 SIGHT

The human eye contains more than 100 million lightsensitive cells and can tell the difference between 10 million different colours.*

3 HEARING

Your ears are still working

WHAT IS A HEADACHE?

Although the brain collects pain signals from all over the rest of the body, it can’t feel pain itself – even if it is poked with a sharp object.

So a headache isn’t caused by the brain itself hurting. The painful throbbing sensation is caused by blood vessels or soft tissues that surround the brain.

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5 TASTE

Adult humans have between 2,000 and 10,000 taste buds, although each one is only alive for between ten and 14 days.

even while you’re asleep. During sleep, your brain ignores most sounds, only reacting to loud or unexpected noises.

4 SMELL

You have around 400 types of smelling receptors in your nose and can detect at least a trillion different smells.

Humans can also identify other

Close your eyes for a moment. What can you feel happening inside your body?

Is your heart beating fast?

Are you hungry or thirsty? Interoception is your awareness of the different sensations and processes happening inside your body.

7 PROPRIOCEPTION

This is the sense you have of the position and movement of your body. Proprioception enables you to touch the end of your nose with your finger while your eyes are closed.

10 CHRONOCEPTION

When you’re really interested in something – such as reading the latest issue of What on Earth! Magazine – it sometimes feels as if time is passing more quickly. When you’re bored, things can feel like they’re taking longer to happen, almost as if time itself is slowing down. This is chronoception: your own personal awareness of time.

*Synaesthetes have a rare condition called synaesthesia, in which a person experiences the blending of two senses. For example, some synaesthetes can see music as colours!

8 THERMORECEPTION

This is the way that your body senses heat and cold.

Thermoreception applies to the body’s awareness of both the temperature of the outside world and its own internal temperature.

9 EQUILIBRIOCEPTION

This allows you to balance, move and accelerate.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart, an d not the brain , was the sour ce of thought an d emotion.

HOW CAN YOU TRICK THE BRAIN? The brain has to make very quick decisions about how best to respond to its environment.

So if it has difficulty making sense of what the eyes see, the brain takes a guess and fills in

the missing pieces itself.

This is the basis of optical illusions, like the ones shown below, which can fool the brain into ‘seeing’ things that aren’t really there.

Magicians trick people’s brains by creating illusions for the senses. Sight, smell, touch and hearing all play a part. For example, magicians make the brain focus on seeing one thing

and not another, so an object – like a rabbit in a hat – seems to disappear. Optical illusions and other ways to trick the senses help neuroscientists figure out how the brain works.

ROLLING BALL

Even though you know that this image must be made from static shapes, it looks as if the dark red ball is rolling around a 3D shape as it slowly rotates from right to left. This illusion of movement is created by the combination of colours and shapes within the pattern, which sneakily trick your brain into ‘seeing’ a rotating shape when, in reality, it isn’t moving at all!

FACE VASE ILLUSION

What do you see?

A black vase? Or two white faces looking at each other? This illusion gives the viewer a choice between two different visual intepretations of a single image. Even if you’ve noticed both shapes, it is almost impossible to ‘see’ them both at exactly the same moment.

HERING ILLUSION Look at the two red lines running horizontally across the page below.

Are they straight or curved? Most people see them

as being bowed but when you check the lines with a ruler you will see that they are straight and parallel. This illusion

is created by the black angled lines in the background which confuse the brain by creating a false impression of depth.

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SADNESS

HAPPINESS

WHAT ARE J

oy, sadness, fear. These are emotions – and we experience a huge range of them. Emotions are the way we react to the world around us. Inside the brain, there’s an emotion control centre called the limbic system. It’s made up of different parts. One part, the hippocampus, helps the brain to remember and learn things. The amygdala is almond shaped and helps to regulate emotions such as anger. The tiny hypothalamus controls how you react to an emotion, like giving you goosebumps if you’re afraid.

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THE 7 UNIVERSAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS One of the most important ways humans communicate their emotions is through facial expressions. Humans can make up to 10,000 different facial expressions.

However, scientists believe that there are only seven universal ones, each used to communicate one of the seven basic human emotions. This means the seven facial expressions shown on this page are used and understood by human beings everywhere, no matter which country or culture they come from. (To prove that these seven facial expressions are truly universal, an American psychologist called Dr Paul Ekman went to find an isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea who had never met people from the outside world before. He wanted to see if they used the same facial expressions as everyone else. They did!)

ANGER

EMO

WHY DO PEOPLE DREAM?

Scientists are still trying to figure out why people dream. To do this, they use a machine to study electrical activity in the brain during sleep and dreaming. They know that the brain’s limbic system, which lies under the cerebrum and deals with emotions, is very active during dreams.

F EAR

E SURPRIS

OTIONS? DISGUST

CONTEMPT 12 COMMON HUMAN DREAMS 1. Falling.

2. Being chased.

3. Being late for an exam.

4. Flying.

5. Being naked in public.

6. Having their teeth fall out.

7. Missing a bus, train or plane.

8. Meeting a famous person.

9. Being in school.

10. Getting lost.

11. Moving in slow motion.

12. Discovering a secret room.

WHAT ARE MEMORIES?

Memory is the process of storing experiences in the brain and recalling them later.

People use their memories during every moment of their lives. For example, they remember words and ideas to speak or to write. Scientists know that memories cause chemical changes in the neurons in the brain. The chemical changes create what are called memory paths.

These paths can remain in the brain for seconds or for a person’s entire life. Many scientists believe that there are two levels of memory: short-term memory and long-term memory.

SHORT-TERM MEMORY is a way to store information temporarily. Short-term memory lasts about 15 to 30 seconds. An example is remembering different images as you play a game of spot the difference.

LONG-TERM MEMORY is the storage of information for longer periods. It can last days, months, years or a lifetime. Repeating and practising motions or tasks help the brain to store information for a long time.

For example, when you play a game repeatedly, the rules of the game will move from short-term to long-term memory. Scientists also think that there are different types of long-term memory. These include motor-skill memory, which tells people how to do physical things they have done before; factual memory, which lets people remember faces, numbers and things that have happened to them; and emotional memory, which is the long-term memory of strong emotions, which scientists think helps people to respond to similar situations if they happen in the future.

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Colour it in!

It’s time to get creative with your colouring pens and pencils.

Plus, don’t forget to send your finished artwork to editor@whatonearth.co.uk. We’d love to see it!

Ask the experts

Readers ask. Experts answer. Send your questions to: editor@whatonearth.co.uk Answer

DR JAMES O’DONOGHUE

Planetary scientist

Question How many planets are there in the universe, and how many might have life?

From Aziz, age 10

Our solar system contains one star, which we call the Sun, along with eight planets, including Earth.

People have known for thousands of years that Earth is not the only planet in our solar system. But it was only in 1992 that scientists first discovered planets orbiting around other stars. These planets are called exoplanets. ‘Exo-’ means ‘outside’ in Greek, and these planets are outside our solar system.

By the year 2000, scientists had discovered 46 exoplanets. By

systems near to discover tens of 2010, there were Earth. If just one thousands more 511. And today planet out of exoplanets! there are more every 10 million So, of all these than 5,500 developed life, exoplanets, how confirmed that would mean many are likely to exoplanets! About tens of thousands contain life? Well, three-quarters of exoplanets in of these were our galaxy are found because home to alien life. astronomers However, noticed that a the universe particular star The lar contains more would become gest kn exopla own than just our slightly less net, HD 10054 is more galaxy: there bright every 6 B , than six times bigger are more than few hours, than Ju piter!

1,000 billion days or months. galaxies out there!

This told us that With huge something (an numbers like there are about exoplanet!) was these, I can’t help 200 billion stars in regularly blocking but think that our home galaxy, starlight as it there must be the Milky Way. orbited the star. In billions of planets Each one is likely the coming years, in the universe to have at least missions by NASA with some form one planet in its and the European of life on them. As orbit, based on Space Agency we haven’t heard what we have seen are expected to from them yet, from other solar they must be very far away!

KEPLER TELESCOPE

NASA’s Kepler telescope found the majority of exoplanets known so far. Kepler found planets by watching for a dip in light of distant stars as planets passed in front of them. This is known as the transit method of detection.

KEPLER-186F Distance 500 light-years from Earth.

Dimensions 7,454 kilometres (4,632 miles) in radius.

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W R U !

Say hello to all things linguistics and languages!

W

elcome to Word Up, our brand-new feature about all things related to linguistics and languages. If you’re reading this page, you must know at least one language – English! Perhaps your family speaks another language as well, or you’ve studied another language at school.

But language is so much more than words on paper. Language is how people convey messages to each other – sometimes without writing or speaking

at all! And language is always changing and evolving in fascinating ways. For example, the slang words you use with your friends might be very different from the slang words your parents used with theirs!

The study of language is called linguistics. Linguists study everything about language, from the sounds the human mouth can make to how babies learn to talk. They also study how words come to be and why and how people use them in the patterns they

do. After all, if we had chosen a different order for the words in this sentence you would never have understood it!

This month we’re taking a look at the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is a handy tool for everyone – especially amateur linguists!

It may seem too good to be true, but this clever code can be used to help you write down or pronounce a word The full IPA ch art has in any language more than 10 0 symbols! instantly!

Fewer than

half of these sounds are us ed in English.

Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of sounds. Linguists study all the sounds humans can make. You may not have thought about it before, but to make some sounds you need your vocal cords, your breath, your tongue, or maybe even your teeth or nose! Some sounds are used in many languages, and some in just a few.

An individual unit of sound is called a phoneme.

Closed

TONGUE These body parts help make sounds.

Vocal cords open when you breathe and close when you talk or swallow.

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Open TONGUE

VOCAL CORDS

tically e n o h p s g in Writing th language may

e ow ho use the sam Even people words differently! Think of hut loud o w pronounce ord helicopter, or say it son say you say the wow might an American perfrom right now. H rd? What about someone d the same wo of these people understan it is Australia? Allmean the same thing whenight this word to tten down, but they all mic spoken or wri ifferently. Using a phonet say it a bit dn alphabet just for alphabet - a sounds - you can writing down of the differences make a note tion. in pronuncia

Why not just write everything phonetically?

ma

Some languages, such as Japanese, already have phonetic alphabets.

It becomes more complicated with a language like English, which is used by many people with different accents and uses an alphabet with letters that can be pronounced in multiple ways.

If an American person were writing this paragraph phonetically, it might look very funny to you!

ta

'bye' in Japanese

ne

The International Phonetic Alphabet This is a simple version of the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA, that shows the sounds commonly used in British English.

The IPA is used by many linguists around the world to make notes about language. There are many more symbols used for other languages. Notice how in English some sounds, or phonemes, can be written in multiple ways. For instance, the 'j' in 'jam' makes the same sound as 'dje' in 'fudge'!

ball

t

table

d

hopping jump

hobby herb

k

g

f

v

θ

ð

video

thick

mother

move of

healthy teeth

this with

see

zebra

z

shop

television

ʒ

m

n

city notice

cosy has

nation special

visual leisure

tummy lamb

funny knife

ŋ

j

l

r

w win

h

ʃ

house

where one

hungry who

sing

yes

light

right

uncle angry

onion view

smelly feel

berry wrong

uː

ə

][

good

moon

ear

put should

grew through

here career

e][

e

ə

ɜː

ᴐː

train

bed

about

say plane

dead said

police the

hurt work

walk saw

ʊə

ᴐ][

əʊ

æ

ʌ

sure tourist

point oil

low note

cat mat

money cut

ɑː

ɒ

eə

a][

aʊ

bath safari

what because

careful there

high fine

our house

hair

danger fudge

f ire

ship

not

itch picture

laugh phone

busy started

car

added played

green

sheep

your

little watched

jam

hug league

ʊ

coat

chips

ʤ

key

eagle field

boy

dog

ʧ

car luck

s

Vowels ][

b

pen

Consonants

iː

p

bird

apple

by

door

up

now

man

no

Test your skills...

Use the chart to ‘decode’ the words below and see how you get on. For more practice, why not try writing down the things your sibling says, or making a journal entry in IPA? /pʌpi/ /keɪk/ /fæmɪli/ /mæɡəˈziːn/ /fɑːðə/ /ʧɪps/ /ʤʌŋɡəl/ /sɪŋɪŋ/ For the solutions, see page 47.

25

How to chat...

DOLPHIN

By Dr Nick Crumpton Illustration by Adrienne Barman

Atlantic bottlenose dolphins are complex communicators. Each dolphin has a unique whistle, which acts as its name. They also use touch and other gestures, such as nods, to interact with one another.

p a l S eved!)

(I’m pe

If a dolphin slaps the water with its tail, it could mean that it’s annoyed or that it’s trying to get another dolphin’s attention. Tail slaps produce shock waves and can also be used to stun fish, making them easier to catch.

PUUUUis isOe OOOOF! (Th

xciting!)

When it’s having fun, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin blows air loudly out of its blowhole.

26

I’m in your gang!

Coordinated leaping helps to reassure all the dolphins in the pod that they’re friends.

I’m not happy...

When a dolphin nods its head up and down, it might mean that it’s annoyed by something.

Send It In!

We want to he ar your best do lphin impressions!

Record yourse lf making the dolphin no ises listed here and email the file to edit or@whatone ar th.co.uk The top dolphi n will win a co py of the new book How to Chat Ch icken!

K C C L I ICKCLICK L C K C I L C K C I CL g out – this is great!)

(We’re all hangin

Dolphins make clicking noises to help them find their prey. This is called echolocation. Clicks can also mean it’s playtime!

27

QUIZ

ANIMALS

6

Test your family’s brainpower by playing the What on Earth!

Quiz together. Regular readers 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!

1

How many brains does a jellyfish, which is pictured at the bottom of the page, have? a. None b. One c. Three d. Eight

2

Which is the only species of big cat that cannot roar? a. Tiger b. Lion c. Leopard d. Cheetah

3

What is the scientific name for an animal that only eats plants? a. Carnivore b. Herbivore c. Omnivore d. Vegivore

The What on 4

Fleas are among the greatest athletes of the animal kingdom. But how many times its own body length can a flea jump? a. 20 times b. 50 times c. 100 times d. 200 times

2

5

Approximately how many years ago did dinosaurs go extinct? a. 6 million years ago b. 36 million years ago c. 66 million years ago d. 106 million years ago

6

Relative to its size, what is the world’s strongest animal? a. Gorilla b. Elephant c. Leafcutter ant d. Dung beetle

9

1

SCIENCE & NATURE

7

What scale is used to measure tornadoes? a. Enhanced Fujita scale b. Richter scale c. Beaufort scale d. Mohs scale

10

HUMAN BODY

What will you find if you travel in a space rocket to the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way? a. A star b. A planet c. A black hole d. Empty space

13

Where is the most powerful muscle in the human body? a. Jaw b. Leg c. Bottom d. Arm

8

Which continent gets the highest average rainfall per year? a. Asia b. Europe c. South America d. North America

14

At around what age can babies see colour? a. 1 month b. 3 months c. 5 months d. 9 months

14

9

What percentage of all the water on Earth is found in the polar ice caps, snow and glaciers? a. 1.7 per cent b. 7 per cent c. 11 per cent d. 17 per cent

15

What is the only part of the human body that cannot repair itself? a. Teeth b. Bone c. Muscle d. Ligament

Earth! Quiz 16

11

16

12

17

The Mariana Trench is the deepest point of which ocean? a. Pacific Ocean b. Atlantic Ocean c. Indian Ocean d. Arctic Ocean What shape are the honeycomb cells inside a honey bee hive? a. Round b. Square c. Triangular d. Hexagonal

What does the ‘A’ in the genetic material ab breviated as DNA stand for? a. Activity b. Acid c. Adrenaline d. Antibody

Approximately how long do fingernails grow over the course of the average human lifespan?

Continued on next page  29

QUIZ

26

 Continued from previous page a. 30 centimetres b. 1 metre c. 3 metres d. 30 metres

18

Which of the body’s organs makes urine or wee? a. Pancreas b. Liver c. Stomach d. Kidney

HUMAN WORLD

19

In what shape did 18th-century French queen Marie Antoinette (right) once style her hair to celebrate a victory in battle? a. A ship b. A sword c. A bird d. A flag

19

20

What is the name of the Indian festival that involves throwing coloured paint? a. Diwali b. Navratri c. Holi d. Kumbh Mela

21

In which year was the first chocolate bar made? a. 1747 b. 1847 c. 1927 d. 1947

22 20 30

Which popular video game character was originally referred to as Jumpman?

a. Pac-Man, pictured below b. Donkey Kong c. Link d. Mario

23

The heptathlon is a sporting contest in which athletes compete in a series of different events.

How many athletic events make up a full heptathlon? a. 3 b. 5 c. 7 d. 10

22

Eating which of these common garden vegetables did the Ancient Greeks believe made them stronger? a. Spinach b. Carrots c. Aubergines d. Onions

GEOGRAPHY

25

In which European country can you find the Mount Vesuvius volcano, pictured on the right, which famously erupted in 79 CE, burying the nearby Roman city of Pompeii in ash? a. Spain b. Italy c. Greece d. France

25

3O

Which 10 countries are these the national flags of?

A

F

B

G

C

H

D

I

E

J

26

What is the national flower of the country known as the Netherlands or Holland? a. Tulip b. Cherry blossom c. Rose d. Orchid

27

Which country contains the largest total number of lakes? a. Russia b. China c. United States d. Canada

28

Which of Earth’s seven continents is home to the largest number of people? a. Africa b. Europe c. Asia d. South America

29

Of all the world’s major mountain ranges, which group of mountains is the highest? a. Alps b. Himalayas c. Andes d. Rockies

Answers: 1. a, 2. d, 3. b, 4. d, 5. c, 6. d, 7. a, 8. c, 9. a, 10. c, 11. a, 12. d, 13. c, 14. b, 15. a, 16. b, 17. c, 18. d, 19. a, 20. c, 21. b, 22. d, 23. c, 24. d, 25. b, 26. a, 27. d, 28. c, 29. b, 30. A – Switzerland, B – Jamaica, C – Iceland, D – Portugal, E – India, F – Israel, G – Zimbabwe, H – Italy, I – Spain, J – Nepal.

24

31

PICTURE THIS! Amazing information about our world brought to life by infographics.

Infographics by Valentina D’Efilippo

The fastest animals on Earth Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt is the world’s fastest human, and can run a 100-metre race in less than 10 seconds. He might be a world-record holder among humans, but even he is slow compared to these animals!

TOP FLYING SPEED miles per hour (mph) 0 mph

10

20

30

40

50

80

70

60

Peregrine falcon (diving)

186 mph (300 km/h) Golden eagle (diving)

150 mph (241.4 km/h) Common swift (level flight)

69.3 mph (111.6 km/h)

TOP SWIMMING SPEED The black marlin and other billfish are among the fastest swimmers in the world.

0 mph

10

20

30

40

50

60

Black marlin

80.2 mph (129 km/h) Sailfish

68 mph (109.4 km/h) Swordfish

59.7 mph (96 km/h) Mahi mahi

57.8 mph (93 km/h) Fastest human swimmer

4.7 mph (7.6 km/h) 32

Brazilian swimmer César Cielo Filho holds the world record for the 50-metre freestyle, making him the fastest human swimmer in history.

70

80

90

The ave rage jog ging speed f or a hum an is only ab out 4 to 6 miles per hou r.

110

100

160

150

140

130

120

180

TOP RUNNING SPEED

In 2012, an 11-year-old cheetah called Sarah ran 100 meters in 5.95 seconds, reaching a top speed of 61 miles per hour (98 km/h).

0 mph

10

20

30

40

50

70

Cheetah

61 mph (98 km/h) Springbok

55 mph (88 km/h) Pronghorn

55 mph (88 km/h) Ostrich

45 mph (72.5 km/h) Fastest human runner

27.8 mph (44.7 km/h)

Wait for me!

Usain Bolt’s top running speed was measured during a 100-metre race in 2009, which he completed in 9.58 seconds.

33

INFOGRAPHICS

The strongest animals on Earth Which animal is stronger: an elephant or an ant? The elephant can carry the heavier weight, of course.

But perhaps a fairer way to decide is to measure how much weight each animal can carry relative to the weight of its own body. Looking at it this way, small but powerful animals, such as ants and beetles, are even stronger – relative to the size of their bodies – than gorillas, bears and elephants!

1x

Harpy eagle

1x

Grizzly bear

This eagle can carry 7.5 kg, the same as (1 time) its own weight.

Tiger

African elephant

A grizzly can carry 250 kg, the same as (1 time) its own weight.

2x

A tiger can carry 400 kg, twice (2 times) its own weight (200 kg).

1.5x

An African elephant can carry 9,000 kg, 1.5 times its own weight (6,000 kg).

2x

4x

Musk ox

A musk ox can carry 570 kg, twice (2 times) its own weight (285 kg).

Gorilla

A gorilla can carry 640 kg, 4 times its own weight (160 kg).

HOW STRONG ARE HUMANS?

In 2022 weightlifter Tamara Walcott lifted a recordbreaking 291 kg, about twice (2 times) her own weight (134 kg). That’s more than the grizzly bear above!

2x 34

100x 8.8x

Leafcutter ant

This remarkable ant can carry nearly 9 times its own weight (0.02 g). This is equivalent to a human carrying a cow!

Rhinoceros beetle

A rhinoceros beetle can carry 100 times its own weight (2.4 g). This is equivalent to a human carrying an elephant!

530x

Oribatid mite

This mite can pull 530 times its own weight (0.0001 g), which is equivalent to a human pulling the weight of a Brachiosaurus dinosaur!

1,141x

Dung beetle

A dung beetle can pull more than 1,100 times its own weight (0.09 g).

This is equivalent to a human pulling a tank!

35

INFOGRAPHICS

Jumping champions!

When it comes to jumping, fleas are the champions. Kangaroos can jump 9 metres in a single leap, which is five times their body length. Fleas can jump 50 cm, which might not sound like much, but is actually 200 times their body length!

The flea’s ability to jump so far isn’t only thanks to the muscles in its legs. Inside its thorax, a flea has some rubbery stuff called resilin. When the flea folds its back legs, ready to leap, the muscles in its thorax contract, and this action squishes the resilin.

When the flea pushes off with its legs, the resilin bounces back, a bit like a coiled spring, enabling the flea to launch itself up to 50 centimetres away.

The awe-inspiring Britannica’s Encyclopedia Infographica is out now.

A kangaroo can jump up to...

9m or 5 times its body length

A flea can jump up to...

50 cm

or 200 times its body length 36

...which is equal to a human adult leaping over 3 40 m or 3.4 football pitches in a single jump.

MYSTERIES

M RI sca n n e r, n e u an r o s a c tivity as i f c n o s i i e d ns n e t t m p u lse er h s e al i l e b ad ric hin a t p w it e o r s s o n ’s

m a c h i n es l a i c ,s pe s uc g e f r f e i n d n i t e h s s p i n a U og tt s e e h c t e l ec r e h ow r ough t h t o l f a t c i g lo

37

co

ow nn s ca ta B u ex , ts . is in pl m n d… ra i m

Stumped? Don’t worry, you can find the answers to all the puzzles on page 47.

SPORT WORD SEARCH Can you spot the 23 sporting events and games hidden in our jumbo word search puzzle? Good luck!

G

K

P

P

V

P

M

U

J

G

N

O

L

Z

R

L

T

Z

A

Y

ATHLETICS

O

E

L

L

A

B

T

E

K

S

A

B

L

G

N

I

W

O

R

K

BASKETBALL

H

P

F

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A

P

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E

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Q

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P

O

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K

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Z

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C

E

B

F

N

N

FOOTBALL

H

V

T

W

E

H

X

L

N

C

T

E

F

K

B

N

L

Z

Q

S

GYMNASTICS

E

K

B

Q

K

O

R

I

E

N

T

E

E

R

I

N

G

O

T

B

HOCKEY

Y

M

A

U

C

C

S

N

T

T

T

K

V

T

U

I

B

R

M

W

ICE CLIMBING

A

A

L

I

T

K

B

Y

B

K

I

G

F

E

Y

S

A

B

E

T

JUDO

N

X

L

J

G

E

S

J

A

G

L

C

I

U

V

D

D

I

E

H

S

F

U

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N

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R

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L

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E

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S

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O

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C

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NETBALL

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K

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ORIENTEERING

T

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U

E

PING PONG

S

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K

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Y

V

U

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C

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M

N

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P

ROWING

A

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A

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ZORBING

C

D

CROQUET DARTS EVENTING

KAYAKING LONG JUMP MINI GOLF

SKIING TENNIS UNICYCLING VOLLEYBALL WINDSURFING

CUBE IT! The six-sided shape on the left can be folded up to form a cube. Only two of the cubes below can be made by it.

Which are they?

38

A

B

COLA

COLA

LEMON

COLA LEMON

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Can you spot all 2O differences between these two Bonfire Night illustrations?

COLA

LEMON

COLA LEMON

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

Clue: a curved piece of wood that, when thrown, can return to the thrower (9 letters).

Answer: Clue: a colour and a type of fruit (6 letters).

Answer:

B E

Clue: a person whose job it is to look after horses (5 letters) Answer: Clue: a strong feeling of hostility or annoyance (5 letters) Answer: Clue: the mother of Bart and Lisa Simpson (5 letters) Answer: Clue: a man-eating giant from fairy tales (4 letters) Answer:

M O R A N O G

39

Picture Quiz

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!

1

2

3

FUTOSHIKI! Fill in the missing numbers so that every row and column includes the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. Use the inequality signs as clues and make sure numbers always obey the inequality sign between them.

This means that the arrows between the numbers always point towards the smaller number.

40

Here is an example:

A  3 

B

A

1

4

B In the three squares shown above, the number A must be less than 3 and greater than the missing number B. We know all the numbers must be between 1 and 4, so therefore A must be 2 and B must be 1.

 



 1

 4

2

4

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

NUMBER TRIANGLES!

5

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

1

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 10 and a number can only be used once in each triangle.

6

A

4

7 9

7 B

12

6 1O

C

19

17 16

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.

SUDOKU! Fill all the empty squares so that every row, column and 3x2 box contains each of the numbers 1 to 6.

6 5

4

2

1

4

4

2 3

1

5 3

5

1

4

6 41

THE BIG READ

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: Early humans and Neanderthals!

T

he fossil specimen we call Lucy was an ape who lived in what is now Ethiopia in Africa about 3.2 million years ago. Her bones were discovered in 1974 by a team of scientists headed by Donald Johanson. They gave her a woman’s name because her skeleton was small, which they guessed meant she was female. They called her Lucy because when they were celebrating the find, the team was listening to the song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ by the Beatles. Her species name is Australopithecus afarensis.

Lucy was about 1.1 metres tall and weighed about twenty-nine kilograms. When her discovery was announced to the world, Lucy caused a sensation. Why? Because experts could tell from the shape of her bones that she had definitely walked on two feet, and humans are the only modern apes that do that consistently. Since then, fossils of 300 more individual Australopithecus afarensis have been found.

No one is quite sure what it was that made apes like Lucy start to stand upright, but it turned out to be a great 42

advantage. With their hands free, they could carry food more easily. Being hands free means you can carry tools, too.

And think how much easier it would be to hunt with a spear or to carry nuts wrapped in animal skin.

But was Lucy human? If being human means belonging to a group of apes that walks on two feet, then Lucy counts. But if it’s about having big brains, then we must wait another million years or so for our sort of Hadar, creature: Homo.

Ethiopia The first species that most experts agree to call human was Homo habilis.

Its brain was 500–800 cubic centimetres, nearly twice the size of Lucy’s (although still only half the size of our own brains). This species was very good at making tools. That’s why Homo habilis marks the beginning of what is known as the Old Stone Age, about 2.4 million years ago.

N

ow let’s fast forward about 600,000 years.

Enter Homo erectus.

Skulls of these humans show a second dramatic increase in brain size to about 750–1,300 cubic centimetres, almost as large as the brains of humans

HOW LUCY MEASURES UP Lucy’s bones suggest that she would have had much stronger arms for her size than a modern human does. This means she might have lived a life that involved a lot of tree climbing. It has been suggested that she died from a fall.

1.6-metre-tall modern human

1.1-metretall Lucy

CATCHING FIRE

In 2012, researchers discovered the earliest evidence of humans controlling fire in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. They found one-million-year-old charred animal bones and the remains of burnt plants.

‘If we still fed like other primates do – which must have been how our ancestors got hold of calories – we would have to eat [for] 9.5 hours every day.’

Suzana Herculano-Houzel, neuroscientist

today like us.

What was going on?

There is an ancient Greek myth that tells the story of a divine being whose name was Prometheus. He is said to have stolen the fire of the gods and smuggled it down to Earth in the stalk of a plant.

Prometheus was severely punished for his crime. When the king of the gods, Zeus, found out, Prometheus was tied to a rock. Each day an eagle was sent to peck out his liver. Each night his liver would grow back so that it could be pecked out again when the eagle returned the next day.

The story of Prometheus is a myth. But to the best of our knowledge, no creature anywhere in the world other than human beings has ever been able to start a fire from

scratch on purpose. We don’t know when they began to do this or which species was the first. There is evidence from about one million years ago, but scientists think humans may have started intentionally

using and controlling fires as long as 1.5 million years ago, or more.

Fire scares away dangerous wild animals and provides warmth in colder climates.

Perhaps that’s why humans

HEADS UP!

Homo habilis had large cheekbones and a small head.

Homo erectus had a flatter face and a much bigger head.

Homo habilis

Homo erectus

first wanted to control fires. But all the evidence suggests that, from the very beginning, fire served another, perhaps even more important, function in the lives of ancient humans.

Neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel studies the human brain. She has found a way to measure the number of brain cells inside our heads.

It turns out that, on average, a modern adult human has eighty-six billion neurons, the main type of brain cell.

A chimpanzee has only about twenty-eight billion.

So the question is this: why do humans have so many brain cells? Dr Herculano-Houzel believes cooking is the key.

That’s because brains take a lot of energy. Modern humans use

Continued on next page  43

THE BIG READ

 Continued from previous page

COOL CRAFTS

twenty per cent of all the energy we eat to fuel our big brains. Cooked food is easier to chew and digest, so it takes less energy from the body to absorb its fuel and nutrients.

That means we could take in enough food to fuel a bigger brain. So the beginning of cooking was a gigantic breakthrough.

Here’s a puzzle, though.

What made these ancient people even think of the idea of cooking? A few modern-day animals make use of naturally occurring fires. They prey on smaller animals who run from the flames and eggs that are exposed when the grass around them burns. Some, including Australia’s firebird, will even pick up a burning stick from one fire and use it to start a new fire elsewhere.

Some scientists think early humans were among those who hunted on the edges of brush fires. These people might have tasted some eggs that were made more delicious and digestible by having been heated by the fire. Maybe they even saw birds moving fire.

Could some of that have given

These polished eagle talons (far right) may well be a Neanderthal’s necklace from about 130,000 years ago.

They were discovered in present-day Croatia. The stone tool on the top was made by Homo habilis about 2.4 million years ago.

The one on the left was made more than 1.7 million years ago by Homo erectus.

them the idea of taking a burning stick from a natural fire, transferring that flame to some wood or dry animal dung, and carefully tending this new fire in a ring of stones, ready to cook food when it was available?

A

round the time people started eating cooked food, ancient humans became big travellers.

The earliest Homo erectus fossils are from Java, in what is now Indonesia in Asia. They date to about

1.9 million years ago. So Homo erectus might have evolved in Asia from an ape that had travelled from Africa. But Homo erectus fossils have also been found in Africa, so maybe it evolved there and migrated to Asia. Either way we are talking about thousands of miles of travel. How could our

early ancestors have gone all that way without roads and tracks, let alone cars, boats or planes? It is hard for us to imagine walking such enormous distances. But they did have one huge advantage over us today – they were not in a hurry.

In 1856, quarry workers in the Neander Valley in Germany found what looked like human bones. But they weren’t quite like our bones. They belonged to another species of human, Neanderthals, which first appear in the fossil record about 400,000 years ago.

Since then, many Neanderthal sites have been found.

Experts think that between 400,000 and 70,000 years ago, at least six different species of humans were living on the planet. There were Homo

had Early humans thicker stronger and e do, bones than w very as they lived ! es liv active

A TIMELINE OF HUMAN HISTORY

The timeline shows the periods during which different species of Homo lived – from the earliest humans 1.9 million years ago to us today!

HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS

About 700,000–200,000 years ago, Europe, Asia and Africa.

700,000

600,000

(years ago)

HOMO ERECTUS

1.9 million –140,000 years ago, Africa and Asia.

44

500,000

400,000

MODEL OF AN EARLY FAMILY

erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis (a small hobbit-like species) and Homo sapiens (that’s us!).

This museum exhibit of a Neanderthal family is from a Neanderthal Museum in Krapina, Croatia.

It is based on remains found in a cave in the southwest of France.

N

eanderthals are the extinct humans most like us. Their brains were at least the same size as those of modern humans.

Some might have had even bigger brains. Neanderthals were stronger than we are and had big noses and foreheads that sloped back above jutting eyebrows.

Neanderthals built houses from animal bones and were great tool users. Recent evidence shows that their hands were at least as nimble as ours. And their stone tools have been found in many places we know they lived, including all over Europe and near Jerusalem, in Israel.

They often put precious objects in the graves of those they loved, maybe to help them on to the next life. They made art, too. In 2018, archaeologists discovered paintings on the walls of caves in Spain that date back to 65,000 years ago,

before Homo sapiens arrived in the area. They think that Neanderthals were likely the artists. Plus, in 2018 and 2021, archaeologists working on Neanderthal sites found animal bones with regular notches in them. Much later humans used

this sort of tool to keep track of numbers. Perhaps Neanderthals did too.

And there’s one more thing: In 1989, a Neanderthal hyoid bone was found in a cave in Israel. The hyoid connects our tongues to our throats and allows humans to speak and sing. So probably Neanderthals could speak as well.

Making weapons and tools, chatting, holding funerals and creating art are all things that require brain power, creativity and skill. The evidence that scientists have found so far suggests that these ancient people were asking some very important and very human questions. Is there life after death? How do I take care of the people around me? What might bring me good luck?

These are the questions of curious minds that feel very much like our own. :

HOMO SAPIENS

About 200,000 years ago to today, all over the world.

HOMO NEANDERTHALENSIS

About 400,000–40,000 years ago, Europe and Asia.

300,000

200,000

HOMO NALEDI

335,000–236,000 years ago, Africa.

100,000

TODAY

HOMO FLORESIENSIS

100,000–50,000 years ago, Asia.

45

SEND IT IN!

The model supercar with almost as many parts as the real thing!

Young engineer Jake took three days to complete his awesome scale model.

Do you love making amazing machines at home? Then you will want to see this fantastic scale model of a supercar constructed from scratch by budding engineer Jake, age 9. As you can see, Jake’s LEGO model of a Ford GT 2022 is every bit as impressive as the real-life supercar, which costs

almost half a million pounds and has a top speed of 216 mph!

The LEGO version was fiendishly complicated to assemble. The box contained 1,466 separate pieces and came with its own 275-page instruction booklet! Over the course of three days, Jake completed the 1:12 scale model

by himself. This included building a model V6 engine with working pistons. Jake’s favourite feature, however, is the adjustable rear spoiler, which is controlled by a lever next to the steering wheel.

‘It would be so cool just to pop it up as you overtake someone!’ he says. Congratulations Jake!

Send us your best jokes!

!

A H HA!

Congratulations to readers Ryan and Lily who sent in the two rib-ticklers below. And remember: if your joke, riddle or limerick is featured in a future issue, you will win a copy of the fun and fact-filled Listified! So just send your favourite joke to: editor@whatonearth.co.uk What do you call

Which

foreign

language

do ducks learn

at school?

a bear

that’s been caught out in

the rain?

Portu-geese!

From Ryan, age 12 46

From Lily, age 7

A

drizzly bear!

!

L LO

HISTORY fact of the month Send your favourite fact to: editor@whatonearth.co.uk According to one historian, ancient Egyptians kept lions in temples and sang while feeding them. Some of the lions were mummified when they died!

PUZZLE ANSWERS Sport Word Search G K O E H P W H I P H V E K Y M A A N X S F C U I C T Q S V A Y N A M I Y I G F

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

U E U G F L I N Y J P L M Q I D E R N A

J G N K S A E G G S R N K W Z N C T E N T T T T B K I A G L L L E L G E A C N L G N C P I K E S O W V N B D I P L B Y E

Number Triangles!

B A 1

4

4 3

P B P T V H O C K E Y N I J V R B M P L

M T V C H X R S B S R A X G U M B R G L

8

6

6 10

Futoshiki!

A

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

C

12

7 9

O B I S I E E K G C C Z M I I C T N I L

10 19

2

17

9

16

7

4

1

B

1

4

2

3

3

2

3

1

4

2

1

4  2  3

2

3  1

4

4  3

1

2 

4

2

3

1

2

1

3

4

Spot the Difference

COLA

COLA

COLA

LEMON

LEMON

Cube It!

Picture Quiz

A

D

Connect the Planets Chameleon

Tomato Sudoku!

6 5 4 2 1 3

3 1 5 6 4 2

4 2 1 3 6 5

5 6 2 4 3 1

2 3 6 1 5 4

1 4 3 5 2 6

Tenpin bowling ball

Dalmatian dog

Changing Rooms

Tree trunk Leaning Tower rings of Pisa

If your photo, drawing, letter or favourite fact is featured in a future issue of What on Earth! Magazine, you will win a copy of the brilliantly bizarre History FACTopia!

So don’t delay and…

SEND IT IN!

Butterfly wing Word Up! 1. Puppy 2. Cake 3. Family 4. Magazine 5. Father 6. Chips 7. Jungle 8. Singing

Word Wheel 1. Boomerang 2. Orange 3. Groom 4. Anger 5. Marge 6. Ogre

Name the Artist 1. Georgia O’Keeffe 2. Jackson Pollock 3. Edgar Degas 4. Yayoi Kusama 5. Salvador Dalí 6. Andy Warhol 7. Edmonia Lewis 8. Banksy 9. Pablo Picasso

47

Yayoi Kusama (1929–now) is an artist from Japan who is famous for her installations and sculptures. She loves to incorporate polka dots into her art. In the 1960s she climbed the Brooklyn Bridge in the USA wearing a polka dot leotard to protest war.

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) was an American painter who is known for his technique of dripping or splashing paint onto a canvas. He would often use very large canvases – he even knocked down a wall in his home to make room for one!

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was a painter and sculptor from Spain who helped start the art style called Cubism. In this style, artists break down subjects into shapes and rearrange them from multiple perspectives. He was once accused of stealing the famous painting Mona Lisa, but he was proven innocent.

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was an American artist known for what is called pop art. He often made art of products and celebrities. He carried a tape recorder with him everywhere, jokingly calling it his ‘wife’.

See if you can match these famous works of art to their creators!

48

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) was an American painter who is known for her pictures of nature, especially flowers and

desert scenes. One of her paintings sold for a record-breaking $44 million in 2014.

Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) was an American artist known for her sculptures of famous people and classical figures. She was the first sculptor of African American and Indigenous descent to gain popularity in America and abroad.

1

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) was a French artist known for his paintings and pastel drawings. Degas was an Impressionist. His style of art uses visible brush strokes and focuses on lighting and everyday subjects.

Over half of his works featured dancers.

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was a Spanish artist who worked in Surrealism, a kind of art that sometimes looks nonsensical. It is meant to activate parts of the mind a person is not usually aware of.

Dalí had a pet ocelot, a type of wild cat.

Banksy (?–now) is a British street artist whose real identity is a mystery. Much of his art is graffiti that is stencilled on walls in secret – even inside the penguin enclosure at London Zoo!

9

8

2

3

4

6

7

5

For the answers, see page 47.

49

!

A H HA!

Who is the

cleverest

bird?

Owl-bert

Einstein!

Ques If you p tion: a person ssed the in second place a a runnin t the end of place didg race, what you finis h?

Answer : Second !

Question: e th What are letters o tw following quence: e s e h t in , F, T, L, I? T , A , W

What do you call a

Answer: e). uenc T(he) S(eq starts a r Each lette question! e h t in word

flying pig?

How do

ogs hedgeh play leapfrog?

Carefully!

What happened when the

tortoises

collided with the

It was a

terrapins?

turtle disaster!

50

Pig-asus!

BRITANNICA’S

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

What on Earth!

MAGAZINE

Published by What on Earth Magazines Ltd, The Black Barn, Wickhurst Farm, Leigh, Tonbridge, Kent, TN11 8PS Editor-in-Chief Andrew Pettie

What type of music do

Editor Alison Eldridge

mummies

Art & Design Director Mark Hickling Senior Designer & Illustrator Susanna Hickling

listen to?

Production Sarah Epton Contributors Andy Forshaw, Andy Smith, Paige Towler, Christopher Lloyd, Andrés Lozano, Julie Beer, Susanna Hickling, May, Valentina D’Efilippo, Kate Hale, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Dr Nick Crumpton, Adrienne Barman, Dr James O’Donoghue With thanks to Andy Forshaw, Natalie Bellos, Helen Thewlis and the whole team at What on Earth Publishing Editorial Consultant Nancy Feresten Marketing Director Luise Mulholland

Wrap music!

Business Development David Falzani CEO, What on Earth Magazines Christopher Lloyd For Encyclopaedia Britannica Mary McCudden, Director, Middle School and Elementary Products Printing and distribution Warners Midlands PLC, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH Editorial enquiries editor@whatonearth.co.uk

Why do

football strikers excel at school? They’re always using their

!

L O L

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDY SMITH

heads!

Question: Using only ad ditio and eight 8s, n how can you g et to 1,000?

Answer: 888 + 88 + 8 +

What are the

funniest animals on a farm?

Cow-m edian

s!

Subscriptions 01778 392479 whatonearth.co.uk Picture credits Selected library images from: Getty Images; Shutterstock; Nature Picture Library; Alamy; Science Photo Library; NASA. What on Earth: Astronomy Photographer of the Year/Andreas Ettl; Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards/John Blumenkamp; Epson International Pano Awards/Andy Wong; Ocean Photographer of the Year/Peter Marshall. Eureka: Malcolm Tisdale, Joel W Burdick.

Copyright 2023 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.

8 + 8!

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