From enormous trees to the first flower in outer space, we celebrate nature’s amazing powers of growth on page 16
REGULARS
FACTOPIA
Follow the trail of crazily connected facts on page 4 all the way from a golf caddie goat to a rare ‘unicorn’ rhinoceros.
MAP IT!
See all of the world’s 44 landlocked countries on page 42. Plus, find out why access to the ocean is so important.
WORD UP!
Are there any words that people use exactly the same in all the languages around the world? Find out on page 14!
THE STORY OF MUSIC
Follow a timeline of musical instruments on page 34, from 35,000-year-old flutes to the electric synthesiser.
EUREKA
Celebrate the latest inventions and discoveries on page 10, including how scientists are trying to bring back the dodo…
HOW TO CHAT... NAKED MOLE RAT Page 12
SEND IT IN! Page 48
GADGETS IN NUMBERS
Marvel at fidget spinners and Dustbusters on the Moon on page 22, as we celebrate some brilliantly ingenious gadgets.
EYE DON’T BELIEVE
IT!
Will you be bamboozled by this month’s mind-boggling optical illusion? Turn to page 33 right now to find out!
THE BIG QUESTIONS
Discover the answers to some of the universe’s biggest questions on page 44 – including why giraffes have long necks!
PUZZLES & GAMES
JOKES & RIDDLES
Look out for this month’s selection, hand-picked by our jokes editor May, on page 50.
Get your brain buzzing on page 23 with our 10-page activity pull-out. It has a Quiz, Word Search, Spot the Difference and more!
Follow the trail of crazily connected facts all the way from a golf caddie goat to… a ‘unicorn’ rhinoceros!
By Kate Hale, Paige Towler, Julie Beer and Rose Davidson
Illustrations by Andy
Smith
At a golf course in Oregon, USA, you can hire a goat to be your caddie The goat will carry golf clubs and balls in a special pack on its back
At a theme park in Mexico, guests can use hanging bridges, ziplines and rafts to explore real caverns and canyons
There are
shapes hidden all over Disney theme parks
Mickey Mouse
tofindlostballs
Guests at one hotel in Tanzania can stay in an underwater room that is attached beneath a deck that floats off the coast
The Aquarius lab is the world’s only underwater laboratory – the scientists who study there are called aquanauts
In the 19th century, travelling theme parks across the USA and Britain exhibited a mysterious creature known as the Feejee Mermaid, which they claimed was from the island of Fiji in the Pacific Ocean. The creature appeared to be half monkey, half fish – but it was a hoax.
During the Gold Rush in California, USA, a ship named the Niantic was deserted in San Francisco Bay. It was pulled onto land and turned into a hotel – and then later buried beneath the city.
Chile’s Montaña Mágica hotel, set deep in the rainforest, is disguised as a mountain. To access it, guests have to cross a treetop wooden bridge
Christopher Columbus claimed to have spotted mermaids on his journey to the Americas – but they were probably manatees
Explorer Marco Polo thought he had stumbled upon unicorns during his travels – but they were actually rhinoceroses!
SNAP IT!
Astonishing photos from around the world
OPEN WIDE!
This Bryde’s whale was snapped just before it gulped down a bait ball of fish in the shape of a heart. Bryde’s whales are tropical whales that grow up to 15 metres long and can weigh up to 30 tonnes!
CUPOTY/RAFAEL FERNÁNDEZ CABALLERO
WHEN PIGS FLY!
OINK! SNAP IT!
These flying pigs were snapped mid-race at the Royal Melbourne Show in Australia. This fun event allows people who live in the city to sample rural life, with various animal shows and competitions, horse jumping and demonstrations of skills such as wood chopping. Competitors in the pig race included Pork Chop, Bacon Bone, Porky Pork and Ham Bone.
FIREWORK DISPLAY
This field of beautiful Paepalanthus plants in Brazil was photographed just as the sun was setting, which makes the plants look like little fireworks! One species of Paepalanthus is thought to be carnivorous, snacking on nearby termite mounds!
WPNA/MARCIO ESTEVES CABRAL
SMALL BUT MIGHTY
A golden damselfish picked an extremely dramatic backdrop of bright pink coral in this great underwater snap, taken off the coast of Indonesia. Damselfish come in a variety of colours and patterns, from stripes to bright blue. Although they are small, the fish are surprisingly territorial and will aggressively scare away intruders to their home territory!
CUPOTY/CHRIS GUG
COOL KICKS
Kotaro Tokuda appears to be floating in mid-air in this amazing photo from the Red Bull Street Style freestyle football competition in Japan.
RED BULL CONTENT POOL/NAOYUKI SHIBATA
Eureka!
The latest astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.
YUM! YUM!Electrictongue virtualreality tastes cake in
Scientists have developed an electronic tongue that can re-create the flavours of foods and drinks, allowing them to be shared via an electronic device!
First, special sensors collect data from a liquidised sample of a food or drink. The sensors detect five different taste chemicals and determine what concentrations they are in.
1 2 3
An outlet placed in a test subject’s mouth pushes the taste chemicals in the proper concentrations into a layer of gel. So the person gets the taste without ever seeing the original food!
Using the food chemical data, scientists re-create the tastes. Glucose creates sweet; citric acid, sour; sodium chloride, salty; magnesium chloride, bitter; and glutamate creates umami.
Blue Ghost lands on
For the second time in history, a privately made spacecraft has landed on the Moon!
Blue Ghost, made by a company called Firefly Aerospace, was launched in January in collaboration with the US space agency NASA. Working with private companies such as Firefly allows NASA to keep costs low. After its long journey to the Moon and some time spent in orbit, Blue Ghost touched down on the Moon’s surface on 2 March. (Scan the QR code on the right to see Blue Ghost’s flyby footage!) This was a big step forward for
private spacecraft. The previous private craft to land on the Moon, Odysseus, fell over after touchdown and so couldn’t do any exploring.
Blue Ghost’s mission was to explore a large Moon crater called the Sea of Crises for a full lunar day – about 14 Earth days. It carried 10 scientific instruments for experiments. Around a dozen landers are scheduled to touch down on the Moon this year. Missions with human astronauts are scheduled to begin in 2026.
the Moon!
The Sea of Crises is visible from Earth without a telescope.
statureBlueGhost’sshort waskeytoitssuccess.
It usually takes around three days for a spacecraft from Earth to reach the Moon. Blue Ghost took a different path to reach its destination, which took more than a month!
Canchickensbring back the
DODO? DODO?
Using a process similar to the one in the science fiction film Jurassic Park, scientists are hoping they can bring species back from extinction! They are experimenting with mixing the DNA of closely related birds. In the future they might be able to apply this to other types of birds, including me, the extinct dodo.
Are you smarter than AI?
You’ve probably encountered tests on the internet that ask you to ‘prove you are human’ by identifying images. These are useful for keeping AI bots from visiting websites. But over time bots have become better at identifying images.
Recently, computer scientists have discovered that AI bots are not able to spot optical illusions as we humans can. But in a brilliant twist, they’re very good at making them. So AI can be used to create visual tests that AI itself cannot pass!
NAKED MOLE RAT How to chat...
By Dr Nick Crumpton
Illustration by Adrienne Barman
A dialect is a form of language that people from a certain place use. For example, in the UK, people call a certain purple veg an ‘aubergine’, while Americans call it an ‘eggplant’. Animals can have dialects, too!
Scientists have noted that some species of animals have dialects depending on where they live. Naked mole rats are super-social rodents. They live
in colonies ruled by a queen, in a similar way to how bees live. They talk to each other with squeaks and clicks, which sound slightly different
depending on which colony they are from. If a mole rat squeaks with a different sound, it might be an invader from a rival gang! DID YOU KNOW? About25%ofanaked molerat’smusclesare initsjaws.Theycan chewthrough concrete!
W H O O - W H OO (Helloooo!)
Whee-whee
WHEE-WHEE (Howdy!) GRRRRR!
(You’re not from around here.)
W
U ! R
THIS MONTH: Are there any words that are the same in all languages?
By Alison Eldridge, Illustrations by Susanna Hickling
If you’ve ever travelled to a place where people speak a different language, you may have tried to communicate with limited words. Maybe you went to France and you knew the words for ‘hello’ (bonjour) ‘croissant’ (this one’s the same!) and ‘thank you’ (merci) and were able to request a snack by saying ‘hello, croissant thank you!’ It helps that the word ‘croissant’ was imported directly from French to English, so that you and the person you’re speaking to both use the same word. Are there any words this works for in all languages? The simple answer is, unfortunately, no. There are over 7,000 languages, so it would be difficult to have words that are the same in all of them! But there are a few words that are the same or similar in several languages. Here are four of them.
CHOCOLATE
TEA
Many words for tea around the world either sound like ‘tea’ or ‘chai’. Both of these words come from China, but they are from different dialects used in
PINEAPPLE
English is a bit of an odd one out in this case! Most words for pineapple come from either ananas or abacaxi, both words from the Tupí language of South America. The fruit is called some version
of ananas in Arabic, Czech, Finnish, Greek, Italian, Turkish and Ukrainian, among others. Interestingly, it is called abacaxi in Brazilian Portuguese and ananas in European Portuguese!
Chocolate might be the closest to a universal word there is. It comes from the Aztecan Nahuatl ‘chocola-tl’, and was spread around the world by the Spanish, who called it chocolate. People who had a taste of it demanded it
different regions. The trade route used to import this delicious drink determined what it was called. It is something like ‘tey’ in French, Finnish, German,
by name! The confection is called chocolate (or some variation) in Russian, Hindi, Swedish, Polish, Mandarin, Bengali and many more!
Latvian, Irish, Hungarian and Malay, among others; and like ‘cha’ or ‘chai’ in Portuguese, Persian, Japanese, Swahili, Urdu and more.
TAXI
This is a relatively new word, coined in 1907. It is a shortened form of ‘taximeter cab’, which is what these cars were called when they first appeared. (‘Taximeter’ means an automatic meter to record the distance and fare.) As taxi services spread around the world, the same word was used in many places. ‘Taxi’ or some variation of it (depending on the sounds a language has) is used in French, Danish, Portuguese, Korean, Russian, German, Thai, Dutch and many more.
TAXI
L ET IT
L ET IT
Meet some of the extraordinary plants and trees that make life
Son Earth possible.
pring is the time of year when nature comes back to life. The sun shines brighter, the days grow longer, animals wake from hibernation and flowers start to bloom.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that it is only thanks to plants that we call this season spring at all? Before the 15th century, people referred to this time of the year as ‘springing time’ or ‘the spring of the year’ because it was when plants literally sprung out of the ground. ‘Springing time’ was shortened
Beescanflyataround
25 km/h and beat their wings200times persecond!
first to springtime and then, during the 16th century, to spring.
So to celebrate the return of ‘springing time’, let’s explore some of the fascinating and extraordinary ways in which flowers and other plants grow.
GROW !
From record-breaking trees and pollinating bees in search of nectar, to priceless underground seeds and the first flower to bloom in space, here are just some of the amazing ways plants keep the world bursting with new life each year.
How bees make honey
Honey is an ingenious way of preserving nectar, which is a sugary liquid produced by flowers, so bees can store it in their hives, ready to eat at the times of year when flowers are no longer in bloom. Here’s how they do it:
1 A forager bee collects nectar from flowers through a hollow, straw-like tongue called a proboscis. A bee can forage, or search for, nectar up to 5 km away from its hive!
2
To transport the nectar back to the hive, the forager bee stores it in a special honey stomach.
3
Enzymes in the bee’s honey stomach break down the nectar into simpler sugars.
4 Once the forager bee has returned to its hive, it regurgitates, or brings up, the nectar. The sticky nectar is then passed
mouth-to-mouth between worker bees to reduce the amount of water in it. The bees also fan their wings to help the water to evaporate!
5 When water makes up less than 20% of the nectar, mould and bacteria can no longer grow in it. The nectar is now honey. Worker bees then push the honey into a honeycomb cell and cap it with wax.
6
The honey is now preserved forever. Archaeologists once found 3,000-year-old honey in an ancient Egyptian tomb and it was still good to eat!
7 In spring and early summer, all of the colony’s honey is used to feed young larvae. In the summer, a hive can contain 60,000 bees. This huge workforce spends 2–3 weeks collecting enough nectar to last the winter. It can take 12 bees their entire lifetime to make just one teaspoon of honey!
Meet the BIGGEST tree on Earth!
Gaze up at the majestic giant sequoia tree pictured on the right. You are looking at General Sherman, thought to be the largest individual tree (by both mass and volume) in the world.
Found in Sequoia National Park in California, USA, General Sherman stands 83.6 metres tall (which is 30 metres taller
than Nelson’s Column in London) and it has an above-ground mass of 582 tonnes. How heavy is that? Well, put it this way: General Sherman weighs more than 45 double-decker buses! Just the tree’s bark alone weighs 48 tonnes and its branches support a staggering 1.5 tonnes of leaves. It took General Sherman a long time to grow this big and it’s thought to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old. This means that General Sherman sprouted from the ground before the start of the Roman Empire!
A car driving through a ‘tree tunnel’ in a giant sequoia tree in the 1920s.
Picture Quiz
Many countries have chosen national plants, usually flowers, as a way to represent their identity, culture and history. Below are pictures of the national flowers of nine countries: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. Can you correctly match each country to its national flower? (You can find the answers on page 21.)
How to read tree rings
Each year, trees that grow in temperate regions add a new layer of wood around their trunks and branches. The size and colour of these rings reveals a fascinating story…
FIRST-YEAR GROWTH
BARK
The tree’s ‘skin’, which directs rainfall to its roots.
HEART WOOD
Dead cells support the tree at its centre.
SCAR FROM A FOREST FIRE
An injury to the tree caused by a forest fire, for example, can leave a scar. However, the scar will heal over time.
SPRING/EARLY SUMMER GROWTH
Shows up as lighter bands.
LATE SUMMER/ AUTUMN GROWTH
Shows up as darker bands.
RAINY SEASON
Trees grow more during wet, rainy seasons.
DRY SEASON
Less rainwater means a narrower band of growth.
Which plant grows the FASTEST?
Green plants grow thanks to an amazing process called photosynthesis, which enables them to use sunlight to make their own food. Photosynthesis is essential for life on Earth because, without it, there would be no green plants. And without green plants, there would be no animals, since almost all living things depend on green plants for food.
Photosynthesis starts when chlorophyll, a substance found in all green plants, absorbs energy from sunlight. Plants use this energy to change water and carbon
dioxide into oxygen, which is released into the air, and nutrients. All green plants use photosynthesis to grow. But some plants grow much faster than others!
The graphic below compares the average growth rate of five common plants with the average growth rate of a human child. As you can see, one type of plant is the clear winner!
✿ Many types of bamboo look like trees but they are actually tall grasses. There are hundreds of different species which grow in many parts of the world. A bamboo’s stem is called a culm. In the larger species, a bamboo’s culm can grow to be more than 30 metres tall!
✿ As you can see from the graphic on the left, bamboo is the world’s fastest-growing plant. In fact, some species of bamboo grow so fast that if you sit down to watch it for a few hours, you’ll be able to see the bamboo growing right before your eyes!
✿ Light and strong, bamboo is often used in construction and to make furniture. In fact, some bamboo is stronger than steel.
✿ Bamboo rarely flowers –sometimes as little as once every 130 years. But when it does, every plant of that species flowers at the same time all around the world!
✿ A giant panda can eat as much as 23 kg of bamboo in a single day! Bamboo makes up 99% of a giant panda’s diet, with meat and other plants providing the remaining 1%.
Plants in outer space!
Outer space is a tough place to live. The lack of food, oxygen and water makes it difficult for the organic, oxygen-breathing lifeforms that live on Earth (like us!) to thrive there. But space agencies such as NASA also know that if humans are to explore and live on other planets, we will probably need to grow plants there too, to provide us with food and oxygen. The first plant to seed in space was thale cress, which grew on board the Soviet space station Salyut-7 in 1982. Since then, all kinds of plants have successfully grown there, including rice, cabbage, tulips, onions, peas and sunflowers.
This orange zinnia was the first ever flower to be grown in space. It bloomed under artificial LED lights on the International Space Station in 2016.
Look inside the Global Seed Vault…
When disaster strikes, it’s always a good idea to have a back-up plan. And the Global Seed Vault is just that: an amazing insurance policy for the human race that is buried deep within a mountain on the Arctic island of Svalbard. This reinforced underground vault contains something ultimately more precious and important than gold or diamonds: seeds!
The vault already stores seeds from more than 1.3 million different plant species, and it has the capacity to hold 3 million more. Why are seeds from all over the world stored here? So that in the event of a global disaster, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, the human race will have a safe store of seeds to grow plants, crops and food again. Hooray!
Astronaut Kayla Barron is checking chilli peppers growing inside the ISS’s Advanced Plant Habitat, which automatically controls the temperature and levels of humidity, light and carbon dioxide the plants inside are exposed to. Above right, fellow astronaut Raja Chari enjoys a taco made using freshly harvested ‘space chillies’!
Seeds are brought to Svalbard from more than 150 different countries around the world.
PORTAL BUILDING
The entrance has a glowing artwork above the door.
RUSSIA
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Pole
If humans are to live on other planets for long periods of time, they will need to grow their own food. This picture shows an artist’s illustration of a portable space greenhouse that is being developed by NASA to grow plants and vegetables on the surface of Mars.
The Seed Vault contains three separate chambers. At present, only the middle chamber is filled with seeds.
COOLING SYSTEM
Keeps the seed chambers at an ideal temperature of -18C. If there is a power failure, the permafrost will keep the samples frozen.
ACCESS TUNNEL
The 130-metre access tunnel is reinforced and fully waterproof.
The seeds are stored in vacuum-sealed packages so they are not exposed to oxygen.
SEED CHAMBERS
Located 130 metres above sea level, so the vault is not at risk of flooding if the Arctic ice cap melts. It can also withstand a nuclear missile attack.
In Apple iPhone adverts, the time displayed on the iPhone’s clock is always 9:41. This was the exact time when Steve Jobs, the head of Apple at the time, unveiled the first iPhone, on 9th January 2007.
Command, an earlyTVremotecontrol. * buttons on theZenithSpace The numberof2
62
cancompleteinonesecondaccording to calculations bymathematicianMattParker.
The year the Dustbuster cordless vacuum was invented using ingenious new technology developed by NASA to help astronauts collect rock samples from the Moon!**
*It was invented in 1956 and used high-frequency sound. It had no batteries. **Other everyday gadgets that were first developed by NASA include mobile phone cameras, infrared ear thermometers and wireless headphones.
***Scan the QR code to watch Sam’s record-breaking bopping!
Colour itin!
Inside this 10-page activity section, you will find quizzes to do, puzzles to solve and fun activities to try. And don’t worry if you get stuck – all the answers are on page 32.
ANIMALS
1 Which land animal is thought to travel on the longest annual migration?
a. Wildebeest
b. Caribou
c. Grey wolf
d. Tortoise
2 Approximately how many years ago did the dinosaurs go extinct?
a. 6 million years
b. 66 million years
c. 166 million years
d. 600 million years
3 Which of these animals is NOT native to Australia?
a. Wombat
b. Echidna
c. Platypus
d. Capybara
4
Which of the following words is sometimes used as a collective name for a group of peacocks?
a. A flutter
b. A dance
c. A pride
d. A fan
1 In multiple surveys held in different countries around the world, which ice cream flavour is usually voted the most popular?
a. Vanilla
b. Chocolate
c. Mint choc chip
d. Strawberry
2 Whose official home is 11 Downing Street?
a. The Prime Minister
b. The Prince of Wales
c. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
d. Nobody. It is always left empty
3 In which sport could you nutmeg your opponent?
a. Fencing
b. Badminton
c. Snooker
d. Football
4
What name does the initial J in the name of the famous author J.K. Rowling stand for?
a. Jane
b. Joanne
c. Jocelyn
d. Jacqueline
NUMBER TRIANGLES
In the triangles below, the numbers inside the squares are the sum of the two numbers in the connected circles.
For example:
Can you work out which number should appear in each of the circles? All the numbers in the circles are between 1 and 10 and a number can only be used once in each triangle.
EMOJI COUNTRIES
Each of the emoji sequences shown on the right represents a country. Can you work out which country it is in each of the five examples?
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!
SUDOKU
Fill all the empty squares so that every row, column and 3x2 box contains each of the numbers 1 to 6.
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.
Here is an example:
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.
HUMAN BODY
1 Which part (or parts) of the body is primarily responsible for keeping your balance?
a. Ankles
b. Tongue
c. Inner ear
d. Skull
2 Around the world, what is the most common naturally occurring human hair colour?
a. Brown
b. Black
c. Blonde
d. Red
3 At approximately what speed can electrical nerve signals travel through the neurons in your brain?
a. 100 km/h
b. 200 km/h
c. 300 km/h
d. 400 km/h
4 What is octophobia a phobia or irrational fear of?
a. The month of October
b. The number eight
c. Octopuses
d. Captain Barnacles
HIDDEN ANIMALS
Four sneaky animals are hiding somewhere in these photos. Can you find them – and tell what kind of animals they are?
1 NASA use a modified airplane so astronauts can experience zero gravity. What is its nickname?
a. The Starlight Express
b. The Space Shuttle
c. The American Eagle
d. The Vomit Comet
2 Which planet in our solar system has the shortest day (lasting 9.9 hours)?
a. Mercury
b. Venus
c. Jupiter
d. Uranus
3 What proportion of all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from Earth?
a. 0.003%
b. 0.0003%
c. 0.00003%
d. 0.000003%
4 What is the name of the main scientific theory that describes how the universe began?
a. The Big Rip
b. The Big Bang
c. The Big Freeze
d. The Big Crunch
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 maze or complicated network of paths or passageways (9 nine letters).
Answer:
Clue: a computer coding system entirely composed of the digits 0 and 1 (6 letters).
Answer:
ARCHERY
BASEBALL
CURLING
DISCUS
DIVING
FENCING
FOOTBALL
GOLF
HOCKEY
JAVELIN
JUDO KAYAKING
WORD WHEEL
R A T H Y L B N I
Clue: the fattiest organ in the human body (5 letters). Answer:
Clue: an item of clothing worn by nuns (5 letters). Answer:
Clue: a new form of transport invented by the engineer Richard Trevithick in 1804 (5 letters). Answer:
Clue: food placed on a hook to catch a fish (4 letters). Answer:
Can you spot the names of the 20 sports and games hidden in our jumbo word search puzzle? Good luck!
ROWING
RUGBY
SUMO
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.
A link word is a word that can be added to the end of one word and the start of another word to create two new nouns. For example, the word SAND can be added to the end of the word QUICK to create QUICKSAND, and also added to the start of CASTLE to create SANDCASTLE. Can you think of link words that fill the gaps below and create two new nouns in each case?
1
The photo on the right shows the Amazon rainforest. How long can it take a raindrop to fall through the thick canopy all the way to the forest floor?
a. Up to 1 minute
b. Up to 2 minutes
c. Up to 5 minutes
d. Up to 10 minutes
2 The national flag of which country is shown above? (Clue: the symbol in the middle is a trident.)
a. Barbados
b. Cuba
c. Iceland
d. Cyprus
3
The Bering Strait is a passage of water separating which two countries?
a. Japan and South Korea
b. United States and Russia
c. Australia and New Zealand
d. Scotland and Ireland
4
The city with the largest population today is Tokyo in Japan, which has 123 million inhabitants.
d. Rome 1
But which city had the world’s biggest urban population in the year 100 CE?
a. London
b. Beijing
c. Paris
The six-sided shape on the left can be folded up to form a cube. Only two of the cubes on the right can be made by it. Which are they?
Can you spot all 2O differences between these two futuristic illustrations?
Picture Quiz
Piano strings
Geode
Blood oranges
Hedgehog
Strawberry jam
Cat Roe deer
Vietnamese mossy tree frog
Cicada
Hidden Animals
BELIEVE IT! EYE DON’T
Amazing optical illusions that trick your brain…
Skye Café Wall Illusion
When you look at this image, does it seem as if the orange stripes are slanted? If you focus on just one of the stripes you might be able to see that… they’re actually completely parallel! This illusion happens because the contrasts of the light and dark colours and the angles of the black and white chequered diamonds at the intersections between the colours trick your brain.
This optical illusion is called the Skye Café Wall Illusion. It was dreamt up by an illusion artist called Victoria Skye. Skye was inspired to create the illusion after seeing the tiled wall of a café, pictured left, in the city of Bristol, UK. As you can see, the green wall tiles appear to slant at different angles. Skye won second prize for her work in the 2017 Best Illusion of the Year Contest.
A timeline of musical instruments!
This year, 2025
Do you love playing or listening to music? According to the latest archaeological evidence, humans have been creating music together for tens of thousands of years. But although music is a common feature of human cultures all around the world, the instruments people use to make it are different and have changed over time. On the timeline below, you can see when various popular musical instruments were first played –from prehistoric bone flutes to the electric synthesiser.
DIDYOUKNOW?
Flutes are the earliest known musical instruments. Archaeologists have found examples of flutes carved by early humans from bird bone and mammoth ivory that are at least 35,000 years old! The modern, metal flute was invented in 1847.
Worth $20 m, the ‘Messiah’ Stradivarius violin is the world’s most expensive musical instrument! GONG 1st or 2nd century CE, Europe (Roman), Asia
DIDGERIDOO
A didgeridoo is a long wind instrument first developed by Australian Aboriginal peoples. It is traditionally made from a hollowed-out tree –often a eucalyptus. A rim of beeswax is sometimes added at one end to create a mouthpiece.
Australia
around
By 14th century, Europe
BANJO 16th century, Africa GUITAR, SPANISH Early 16th century, Spain TROMBONE 15th century, Western Europe
HARPSICHORD Early 16th century, Italy SITAR 16th century, India
CLARINET Early 18th century, Germany
CELLO Around 1550, Italy VIOLIN Around 1550, Italy BASSOON 17th century, Europe FRENCH HORN 1650, France OBOE Mid-17th century, France PIANO 1709, Italy
ELECTRIC HARPSICHORD 1761, France ACCORDION 1820s, Germany/Austria HARMONICA 1821, Germany TUBA 1835, Germany
SAXOPHONE 1846, France
HARPSICHORD
Although it is shaped like a piano, the harpsichord has two important differences. It has two keyboards instead of one. And its strings, instead of being struck by a hammer, as in a piano, are plucked by a plectrum to create the sound.
BAGPIPE
The bagpipe is associated with Scotland but many other countries have their own version. An airtight bag holds the supply of wind, which passes through a tube called a chanter that has eight finger holes and a reed, and which creates the sound.
MUSICAL TELEGRAPH
Created by US inventor Elisha Gray, the musical telegraph was one of the first electronic instruments. Playing the keys created musical tones that were then transmitted over a telegraph wire, and so could be heard many miles away.
THEREMIN
MUSICAL TELEGRAPH 1874, USA
THEREMIN 1920, Soviet Union GUITAR, ELECTRIC 1936, USA SYNTHESISER 1955, USA
Named after Soviet inventor Leon Theremin, this strange instrument produces sound as the player’s hands move through the invisible electromagnetic fields around its metal antennae. This means you play a theremin without touching it!
SAXOPHONE The saxophone was designed to combine the best qualities of woodwind and brass instruments. Its inventor, Adolphe Sax, lived in the Belgian city of Dinant, which has since erected a series of giant saxophone sculptures in his honour.
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By
WE ARE ALL ANIMALS
Humans are animals, too! Join us as we explore the amazing ways we are just like them.
Ben Hoare & Christopher Lloyd.
Illustrations by Mark Ruffle
We all need oxygen
Everything around you – from your kitchen table to your little toe – is made from a small number of simple substances called elements. In fact, there are about 90 elements that make up everything in the entire universe! You and I are built of elements. One of them forms about 21% of the air we breathe and it’s super important. It’s called oxygen.
There’s more oxygen in the human body than any other element, with carbon and hydrogen a long way behind in second and third place. We animals need a constant supply of oxygen for one simple reason – it gives cells the power to turn food into energy. Oxygen gives us the gift of life!
Everything that lives on land breathes the same air and the same oxygen. This means vast numbers of oxygen particles, or molecules, pass through every animal throughout the world, every day. Some of the oxygen molecules you breathe will have already been breathed by polar bears, lizards and flamingos!
Breath of life
Earth is the only planet we know of where the air has enough oxygen to support life.
We all breathe
Breathing is amazing! You and I breathe 7.5 million times every year – from the moment we’re born until the moment we die. Yet often, we’re not even aware we’re doing it. All mammals can breathe without thinking, too. Apart from whales and dolphins, that is, who have to focus on what they’re doing as they come up to the water’s surface to breathe. Other animals breathe in all sorts of different ways.
Insects
Grasshoppers and other insects breathe air through holes in their skin.
Birds
Back-up system
When turtles are in water they come to the surface to breathe through their lungs. But some have a back-up system, too, which means they can also take in oxygen through their bottoms!
Mammals
When mammals like us breathe, fresh air rich in oxygen enters the nose or mouth and is sucked into the lungs. Tiny balloon-like structures in the lungs, called alveoli, allow red blood cells to absorb oxygen and deliver it to every other cell in the body. At the same time, waste carbon dioxide leaves the blood in the alveoli, and is breathed out.
Chickens, like all birds, have a network of air sacs, in addition to lungs. These sacs boost the air flow through their body.
Breathing problems
Just like us, other animals catch colds and flu. They can also suffer from a condition that makes breathing difficult, which is called asthma. No cure has yet been found for asthma but there are treatments to soothe the condition, which can work for humans and other animals. Some animal companions use an asthma inhaler similar to one people use.
Water enters a turtle’s bottom and oxygen is absorbed
Gills take in oxygen from water the way lungs take it in from air. They look like slits.
A dog using an asthma inhaler
Gills
We all have a skeleton
Can you feel the bumpy ridge down the middle of your back? This is your spine. It’s a column of bones stacked one on top of the other. It’s strong but bendy – a supremely useful combination. The bones are called vertebrae and animals that have them are called vertebrates. All the world’s mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are in this bony club.
Only 3% of the animals on Earth are vertebrates. The remaining 97% – insects, spiders, crabs, snails and many, many more – are known as invertebrates. They have this name because they don’t have a spine. Instead of an internal skeleton built from bones, their skeleton is outside their body! It forms a hard case for the body – an exoskeleton.
Human bones are very similar to those of other mammals. The bones differ in how big and thick they are, but they do the same jobs, such as supporting the body and protecting the organs. Mammal skeletons also fit together and move in much the same way. For example, we have seven vertebrae in our neck, and so do nearly all mammals. Even giraffes!
The bony club
Humans and dogs are both in the vertebrate ‘bony club’. In fact, the bones in our skeletons are the same – just different sizes and slightly different shapes. Can you spot the similarities and differences?
The famous five
When it comes to bones, there is something special about the number five. You see, we’re not the only ones who have limbs with five bony digits. Many other animals do, too!
Chimpanzee hand
Chimps have a thumb and four fingers on each hand. Like us, they can bend their thumbs towards their fingers to grip things and pick them up.
Mammal-only bones
The tiniest bones in our body – the hammer, anvil and stirrup – are in our ears. These three bones are part of what makes us mammals because it is only mammals that have them.
Human hand
The human hand has five fingers and 27 bones in it. Human fingers don’t have any muscles in them. Instead, the muscles that control the fingers are located in the palm of the hand and the forearm.
Bat wing
The bones in bat wings form five digits, very much like the finger and thumb bones in human hands.
Turtle flipper
Sea turtles have flippers for swimming. If you look carefully, there are five digits in each flipper, though the bones have joined together for strength.
Bone surgery
Human and veterinary surgeons use the same methods to mend broken bones (see below). They both use pins, plates, screws and frames called fixators. Some vets and doctors are working towards One Medicine, an initiative which could help humans and other animals at the same time.
Each year, our friends at Humanimal Trust hold a global creative competition for children called the Creative Awards. This year, the theme of the competition is We Are All Animals, the brilliant new book featured on these very pages.
To enter
All you have to do is submit an original piece of visual art, writing, video or photography that ‘captures the incredible similarities between humans and animals, and how closely linked our lives really are’. There are five age categories and a variety of fantastic prizes to be won!
The deadline for entering is 30th April 2025 and if you’re in need of creative inspiration, look no further than two of the brilliant winning entries from previous years, created by Marcus from Austria and Madhav from India.
MADHAV, WINNER IN 2024
MARCUS, WINNER IN 2023
To find out more, including how to submit your entry, visit: humanimaltrust.org.uk/creativeawards-2025-are-now-open Or scan the QR code: Good luck!
Hammer
Stirrup
Anvil
Patagonian cavy with fixator to mend a broken leg
We Are All Animals, by Ben Hoare & Christopher Lloyd and illustrated by Mark Ruffle, is out now.
MAPIT
Countries with ocean access
Landlocked countries
Double-landlocked countries
DID YOU KNOW?
There are 195 officially recognised countries in the world, 44 of which are landlocked. The newest is South Sudan, which became independent in 2011.
DOUBLE-LANDLOCKED COUNTRIES!
When a landlocked country is only bordered by countries that are also landlocked, we say it is double landlocked. Just two countries in the world share this rare geographic distinction: Liechtenstein, which is located between Switzerland and Austria, and Uzbekistan (pictured), which borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
ALL THE LANDLOCKED COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD
When a country does not have direct access to an ocean, or to a sea that is not landlocked, such as the Mediterranean, we say that it is landlocked. Around 20% of all the world’s countries are landlocked. On the right, you can find out some of the problems this can create and why having access to the ocean is so important. Below left, we look at the only two countries on Earth that are double landlocked.
DID YOU KNOW?
Canada is the country with the world’s longest coastline. It measures over 200,000 km and borders the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
WHY IS ACCESS TO THE OCEAN SO IMPORTANT?
Throughout human history, it has been important for countries to have direct access to the ocean. The disadvantages of being a landlocked country, without direct access to the ocean, include that it is harder to travel to, and trade with, countries in other parts of the
The Port of Shanghai, China.
EUROPE
1. Andorra
2. Switzerland
3. Luxembourg
4. Liechtenstein
5. Czech Republic
AFRICA
AFRICA
27. Mali
28. Burkina Faso
29. Niger
30. Chad
31. Central African Republic
6. Belarus 7. Moldova
8. Slovakia
9. Hungary 10. Austria
11. San Marino
12. Vatican City 13. Serbia 14. North Macedonia
world. In times of war, it is also more difficult to defend a landlocked country from attack than it typically is to defend an island country such as the UK. To appreciate the important role access to the ocean still plays in global trade, look at the photo on the left of Shanghai Port in
China, which is the world’s busiest port. China is also the world’s biggest manufacturer of products. But without direct access to the ocean via ports such as Shanghai, it would be much harder for China to transport and sell its products to people all around the world – including you!
DID YOU KNOW?
Kazakhstan is landlocked even though it borders a sea. This is because the Caspian Sea is not connected to an ocean. Some people think it is therefore a very big lake!
PACIFIC OCEAN
ASIA & FAR EAST
15. Armenia
16. Azerbaijan
17. Turkmenistan
18. Uzbekistan
19. Kazakhstan
20. Kyrgyzstan
DID YOU KNOW?
The biggest island country by land area and population is Indonesia. Australia doesn’t count because it is considered to be a continent rather than an island.
We all yawn, but nobody is sure about the reason why. We yawn when we wake up, when we’re bored or anxious and especially when we’re –yaaaaaaawn – tired! Some scientists think we yawn because we need more air or our lungs need a stretch. Others think
yawns cool us down and make us more alert. Whatever the reason, we do know this: once somebody else yawns, most people can’t help yawning along with them!
People yawn about 20 times a day. On average, a yawn lasts six seconds.
WACKY FACT
Animals yawn, too. And dogs often join in if they see their owners yawn!
Giraffes travel together in groups. A group of giraffes is called a tower.
Why do stars twinkle?
Stars don’t actually twinkle, they shine with steady light. Stars just appear to twinkle when we see them from the surface of Earth. A star’s light travels through space and reaches our atmosphere, the blanket of gas that surrounds our planet. Moving air in the atmosphere bends the light from the stars, bouncing some of it away from us and some of it towards us. That makes the star look like it’s twinkling.
WACKY FACT
Stars are different colours. The hottest ones are blue.
Why do giraffes have long necks?
A giraffe’s long neck allows it to reach leaves in tall trees that shorter creatures can’t get to. This means giraffes don’t have to compete with other animals for food in the grasslands where they live. Another huge advantage of being head and shoulders above the rest is that giraffes can see predators coming from very far away.
WHO KNOWS?
We don’t know for sure, but some scientists think that a giraffe’s long neck helps keep it cool by allowing heat to escape from its body. More neck means more surface area for heat to escape from and a more cooling effect for the giraffes!
Blue and red stars glow brightly in this picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Britannica First Big Book of Why, bySallySymesand StephanieDrimmer, is out now.
DID YOU KNOW?
Astronomers think there might be as many as one septillion stars – that’s a one followed by 24 zeros!
An ice cream
Please make sure you use rounded safety scissors. You will need an A5-sized piece of paper.
1
Trace around the outside of your scissors with a brown pencil. Make sure your scissors are not open for this shape.
TOP TIP
You can draw extra scoops.Notice how the circles sitting at the back are drawn as if partially hidden.
3
When you remove your scissors you will have the shape of an ice-cream cone. Pick some pencil colours that resemble your favourite flavours of ice cream or your favourite colours.
Now draw your ice cream scoops. Start with a full circle at the front, following the numbered order.
4
Position the tip of your scissors between two scoops and trace around it, stopping before the hinge.
SCISSORS Use your
A pelican
Please make sure you use rounded safety scissors. You will need an A3-sized piece of paper.
1
Position your closed scissors at least 5 centimetres from the top of the page and trace around the outside using an orange pencil. Then draw around the two handle holes.
2 2
Turning your scissors upside down, align as shown and trace just around the outside of the coloured handles.
3
With a blue pencil, draw a circle that brushes the edges of the two small circles. Go over the top half of the circle with a black pencil. Then draw two teardrop shapes. These are the eyes.
4
Mark your paper with a blue pencil (see arrow) and use this as a centre point to draw a large circle. Go over the bottom half of your circle with a black pencil. Now draw the start of an egg shape on each side of the circle for wings.
5
Open the scissors and position with the hinge placed on the base of your circle. Draw around the outside edge with an orange pencil. These are the legs. Notice that the more you open your scissors, the wider apart the legs will be.
5
Give your cone some detail by adding cross-hatching, which are lines that show dimension. Curving the lines slightly will make the cone look three-dimensional. Then add some ice-cream drips to the side of your cone.
to draw...
6
Close the scissors and position them at a 45-degree angle starting at the base of your wing to create the feathers. Draw around the bottom half with a black pencil, stopping at the hinge. Then move your scissors slightly up and in twice more, each time tracing around the same part of your scissors. Mirror this on the other side.
6
Time to colour it in! Use pencils, felt tips or crayons to complete your ice cream. You can go over your waffle cone lines to emphasise them and add some stippling to your chocolate flake. Stippling means using small dots to add texture. You can add toppings, too!
TOP TIP
If you don’t want to draw all the circles freehand, you can find a round object that is the right size, such as a jam jar.
7
Time to colour it in and add extra details, like the feathers sticking up on our pelican’s head!
TOP TIP
Why not try to create your own type of bird?
Check out what fellow What on Earth! readers have been up to this month…
A huge thank you to all the fabulous What on Earth! readers who sent us their photos, jokes and riddles this month. Here is just a handful of the goodies we’ve received – including a couple of brilliant creations from readers of our sister magazine in China! Would you (or your pet) like to star in a future issue? Then send a photo to letters@whatonearth. co.uk with your name, age and what you love most about What on Earth! Magazine. Each reader who features will win a copy of a brilliant new What on Earth! book.
Thanks to you, the What on Earth! inbox is overflowing with rib-tickling gags and riddles. Here are three of May’s favourites, which each win a copy of SecretFACTopia!
We’ve loved receiving so many photos of readers with their pets. Here’s Elsie telling her adorable cat Percy about all the latest inventions and discoveries in Eureka! One advantage of owning a robot dog is that it knows how to read. Just ask Henry and his loyal companion Mr Scruffles!
Talented artist Zexi’s artwork was inspired by the famous Chinese landscape painting that you can see behind him.
Anna’s pet hamster Muffin is clearly a big fan of What on Earth!
Magazine – but will Muffin read it or eat
As you can see, Zikang loves building things –including a super-sized model of the manga character Doraemon!
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Editor-in-Chief
Andrew Pettie
Editor
Alison Eldridge
Art & Design Director
Mark Hickling
Senior Designer & Illustrator
Susanna Hickling
Production
Sarah Epton
Contributors
Andy Smith, Paige Towler, Rose Davidson, Julie Beer, Valentina D’Efilippo, Kate Hale, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Ben Hoare, Mark Ruffle, Dan Knight, May, Dr Nick Crumpton, Adrienne Barman, Sally Symes, Saranne Taylor, Kate Slater, Stephanie Warren Drimmer
With thanks to Andy Forshaw, Natalie Bellos, Helen Thewlis and the whole What on Earth! books team
Editorial Consultant
Nancy Feresten
Business Development
David Falzani
CEO, What on Earth Magazines
Christopher Lloyd For Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mary McCudden, Director, Middle School and Elementary Products
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.
Awards
Did you know that a kiwi bird is the only bird
Or that prairie dogs kiss each other to say hello?
Or that narwhals can use their tusks to taste the amount of salt in the water?
What’sQuestion: easyto getintobuthard togetoutof?
Answer: Trouble!
Question: How do you start a jelly race?
Answer: On your marks, get set!
Send your favourite joke or riddle to our jokes editor May at jokes@whatonearth.co.uk. If your joke is featured in a future issue of the magazine, you will WIN a copy of Secret FACTopia!
