Everything is awesome on page 38, where you will find 50 fascinating facts about LEGO.
HOW TO MAKE A MUMMY
Budding embalmers: turn to page 46 for a step-bystep guide to making your own Egyptian mummy!
REGULARS
FACTOPIA!
Follow the trail of crazily connected facts on page 4 from hay-filled taxis to… the game of Oozeball!
HOW TO CHAT…
…elephant! Discover how African elephants communicate with each other on page 12
EYE DON’T BELIEVE IT!
IN NUMBERS
Page 45
Page 37 PUZZLES & GAMES
SNAP IT
Page 6
Page 27
SEND IT IN!
See whose furry friends have been enjoying our recent issue about pets on page 48. Plus, find out how to turn mathematical data into ice cream!
DO YOU SEE FACES IN THINGS?
Then turn to page 14 to investigate the mysterious phenomenon of pareidolia.
HIDDEN PHRASES
Give your brain a workout on page 25 as you tackle the latest round of our ingenious picture quiz. Good luck!
EUREKA!
Catch up with the latest inventions and discoveries on page 10, including how to grow a coral reef.
JOKES
& RIDDLES
Look out for this month’s selection, hand-picked by our jokes editor May, on page 50.
COLOURS!
Take a fascinating journey through the spectrum from Acid yellow to Barbie pink on page 16, as we explore the science and secrets of colour.
Follow the trail of crazily connected facts all the way from taxis filled with hay to… the game of Oozeball!
By Kate Hale, Paige Towler, Julie Beer and Rose Davidson. Illustrations by Andy Smith
Genghis Khan, medieval ruler of the Mongol Empire, set up the Yam: a collection of more than 50,000 HORSES
that were used to create one of the first international postal systems
Legendary racehorse
Sec r e tariat
had a heart more than twice as big as the one in an average horse.
According to legend, a group of ancient Greeks once captured the enemy city of Troy by hiding inside a giant, hollow statue of a wooden horse. After presenting the statue to Troy as a gift, the Greeks waited until night, when they burst out of the horse and seized the city
According to one account, in 1830 a US businessman tried to prove the power of locomotives by racing his train against a horse – but the
horse won horse won horse won
START HERE
Until 1976, taxi drivers in London were required by law to have food on hand for their horses – even though horse-and-buggy taxis were a thing of the past
For centuries in Japan, people at the Paantu festival have dressed up as masked spirits and covered everything they can – including streets, cars, buildings and people – in mud for good luck
Found buried in mud in Cairo, Egypt, a 3,000-year-old statue of a pharaoh was nearly two storeys tall
A knight’s full suit of armour could weigh up to 50 kilograms –that’s like carrying about nine bowling balls on your back
From the 16th to the 18th century, Polish soldiers known as the Hussars wore armour with giant wings attached
From the Middle Ages to the late 19th century, warriors – and their horses – across parts of subSaharan Africa often wore brightly coloured cloth-quilted armour
heavy too
In full armour, most British knights were for the local horses. So until the 1500s, larger breeds were brought in from other countries to carry them
Paintings found in ancient Egyptian pyramids suggest that some pharaohs wore armour covered in hundreds of leather, iron or bronze scales
Scientists are considering bringing back the ancient treatment of covering wounds in mud, which can contain bacteria to fight infections
Students at some universities in the USA play
,
a version of volleyball played in muddy pits!
SNAP IT!
Astonishing photos from around the world
BACK OF THE NET!
This dramatic photo was taken at the very moment the goalkeeper and players of the Minnesota Wild saw the puck zoom into their net during a recent game against the San Jose Sharks. Both teams play in North America’s top ice hockey league, the NHL.
URBAN JUNGLE
This beautiful garden hideaway in the city was captured by Yuan Yakun in Chengdu, China. Chengdu is the fourth most populous city in China, with around 20 million inhabitants.
PANO AWARDS 2024/YUAN YAKUN
CATCH OF THE DAY!
This great photo of a brown bear in Alaska was taken just before its jaws clamped onto a leaping salmon! Bears catch lots of salmon during the summer as the salmon migrate upriver to lay their eggs. The waterfall creates a barrier that forces the salmon to leap into the air – where hungry bears await!
SIENA AWARDS/DAVID SWINDLER
A TWIST IN THE TAIL
SNAP IT!
Can you tell what sort of animal’s tail is pictured above? It’s a zoomed-in photo of a chameleon! Chameleons are lizards that are able to change colour by controlling pigments in their skin cells.
SONY WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS/PEDRO JARQUE KREBS
PINK SKY AT NIGHT
To take this stunning photo of the aurora australis (also known as the Southern Lights), a clever photographer used a modified camera that captured all of the pink hues. Just like the Northern Lights, the Southern Lights are caused by magnetic storms in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
ASTRONOMY PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2023/LARRYN RAE
Eureka!
Can we save coral reefs by growing our own?
Coral spawns under the right conditions
Climate change has endangered coral reefs, which are an important part of sea life. But Dr Jamie Craggs and his team have discovered a way to help corals make a comeback –by growing them at London’s Horniman Aquarium!
To look at, you might think that coral is an underwater plant or fancy rock. But it is actually made up of thousands of tiny animals called polyps. One thing that makes corals difficult to protect is that their reproductive process is very precise. Corals in the wild spawn only once each year for just 30 minutes, releasing their genetic material into the sea. Corals only do this under
specific conditions, which include the length of the day, phase of the Moon and water temperature. Using computers and special lights, scientists can now recreate these conditions in an aquarium. Dr Craggs is preserving the corals’ genetic material so they can be revived in the future should they die out in the wild. He is also trying to develop hybrid coral species that can survive in warmer oceans. Scan the QR code below to find out more!
Mature coral is ready to spawn
The latest astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.
Revealed: how a polar bear keeps ice off its fur
Have you ever noticed that ice doesn’t stick to a polar bear’s fur? Indigenous peoples of the Arctic have long worn polar bear furs for this very reason. But until recently, nobody knew why this happens! Scientists in Norway have found out the key
to this polar superpower: oils released by the hair follicles. Scientists compared polar bear fur to human hair. They found that it was much easier to shake ice off polar bear fur. However, when the fur was washed, the ice stuck to it more. This led to the discovery that polar bear sebum – a type of oil animals release from hair follicles – has unique properties that prevent it from freezing.
BOOM! BOOM!
Why do we scratch an
It usually feels good to scratch an itch. But why? Scientists have now discovered that scratching helps to trigger our immune systems to fight off infection and support the healing process. Even so, don’t scratch too much! Scratching too hard or often opens the skin which can invite in harmful germs, even if the immune system is ready to defend against them.
New jet plane goes supersonic!
An experimental airplane called the XB-1 flew faster than the speed of sound! It is the first plane not owned by an army to do this in a long time. Representatives of Boom Supersonic, the company that made XB-1, are hopeful that its technology can be used to make extremely fast airplanes for regular passengers. Perhaps you’ll be one of them!
AFRICAN ELEPHANTS How to chat...
By Dr Nick Crumpton.
by Adrienne Barman
(This is so much fun!)
African savanna elephants live in extended family groups led by a powerful female. Family members look out for each other, especially the little ones. They are the world’s biggest land animals and have very powerful voices – so get ready to SHOUT!
But not all trumpets are loud. Young elephants make these quieter sounds when they’re playing.
A trumpet blast means that the elephant is angry and will attack if it needs to.
(Stay away!)
Illustration
These huge rumbles can scare lions away, and can be louder than a jet plane!
AAAAAR
It’s hard to make this noise if you’re not a 6-ton mammal, but you can try. These rumbles are very, very low noises and are felt as much as heard.
Elephants can flap their ears to wave hello to each other. They will often do this when reunited with members of the group that they’ve not seen for a while.
What is pareidolia?
Do you sometimes look at the world around you – at the bark of a tree, or clouds scudding across the sky –and see a human face? You are not alone! Because pareidolia, which is a brain phenomenon in which people see something significant in a random image or pattern, is a common human experience. The word pareidolia (pronounced ‘par-i-DOH-lee-a’) comes from the Greek words para, meaning faulty or wrong, and eidōlon, meaning image or shape. So pareidolia really does mean that your brain is perceiving something that isn’t actually there!
DO YOU SEE FACES IN
Why does it happen?
People experience pareidolia because the human brain has evolved to quickly identify faces and other patterns in our environment. The ability to spot another human face – or to notice the shape of a predator lurking in the shadows – is an important survival tool. Interestingly, our brain doesn’t just turn random objects into faces. It also perceives the faces as having a personality or displaying an emotion. For example, the microscope on the right looks happy. Whereas the red peppers shown above look terrified (perhaps because they’re about to be cooked for dinner!). Quickly working out whether a person is friendly or hostile to us is another important skill. Humans are now so good at it that our brains can see happy and sad faces everywhere!
Aerial view of an office in Bristol, UK.
Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.
Coast Mountains in Canada.
IN THINGS?
Is it unique to humans?
Although pareidolia is mostly a human phenomenon, it is not unique to humans. In various studies, scientists showed chimpanzees pictures of random objects that contain face-like features. The chimps’ reactions revealed that they too recognise the hidden faces – just like humans would!
...AND CAN YOU NAME THE HIDDEN ANIMALS?
QUACKERS Do you think that this church in Florida, USA, looks like a startled duck?
RHINO ROCK It looks like a rhino having a drink but is in fact a giant basalt rock formation just off the coast of Iceland.
SPACE BEAR This photo actually shows a hill and craters on Mars’s surface.
BIG BIRD This rocky outcrop in Oregon, USA, looks like a giant bird scanning the sky.
CAMEL ROCK This rock in Turkey formed millions of years ago from volcanic ash.
Wheal Jenkin Mine, Bodmin Moor, UK.
Explore all the colours of the spectrum as you’ve never seen them before! Discover the ‘lost purple’, why the sea is blue and more…
CIs black a colour?
If you look at a box of crayons, you’re sure to find a black crayon there among all the other colours. So you might be surprised to know that, according to science, black isn’t really a colour at all! A beam of light is made up of particles that travel in a wave pattern. And scientists define colours as being specific wavelengths of light. The surface of an object either reflects certain wavelengths (which means they bounce back to our eyes) or absorbs
them (which means our eyes don’t receive any information from them). The wavelength of the reflected light (which is how long the wave is from the top of one wave to the top of the next wave) determines what colour our eyes see. For example, if the surface of your bicycle
reflects light waves with a wavelength of around 700 nanometres, you will see your bicycle as red because that is the wavelength of light that the bicycle is reflecting. This means that, technically speaking, black isn’t a colour. It is what we see when an object’s
surface absorbs all of the light waves and reflects very little or no light waves back to our eyes. (This is why outer space is black: because there is no nearby light to reflect back to us.) Interestingly, when you mix all the paint colours together, it creates black. This is because each colour absorbs different wavelengths of light. So when you combine them, all wavelengths of light are absorbed and none are reflected – so the mixture of coloured paints looks black!
OU R S
Is white a colour?
There are of course ways to make white materials, such as white crayons or paper, for art and other uses. But according to science, white – just like black – isn’t really a colour! How can this be? Well, white is what our eyes see when all the wavelengths of light are reflected back to us from an object. You can see this in action by using a glass prism. A prism has angled surfaces, which cause light to bend as it travels through them. If you shine a light into
one side of a prism, you will see a rainbow of colours appear from the other side. This happens because each colour has a different wavelength, which mean that it travels through the prism at a different speed. Red travels the slowest and appears at the top. Violet travels the fastest and appears at the bottom. We call the colours of light that the human eye can see the visible spectrum. But the visible spectrum represents only a very small fraction
of the wavelengths that light can travel in. There are types of light on both sides of the visible
spectrum that humans cannot see. These invisible wavelengths include microwaves (which heat your food), infrared (which sends a signal from your TV remote to your TV), and ultraviolet (or UV, which gives you sunburn). Some animals, such as birds, have the ability to see wavelengths that humans can’t. What does ultraviolet light look like? We don’t know – try asking a pigeon!
Droplets of water act as prisms to create a rainbow!
Which colours signal danger?
You’ve probably noticed that the colour red is sometimes used to signify danger. Road signs such as ‘no entry’ signs and stop signs are coloured red. Even in nature, bright colours, including red, can signify that a certain animal or plant is dangerous or poisonous to eat. Ladybirds, for example, are poisonous and their red colour warns birds not to eat them.
Scientists have noted that the colour red can provoke strong emotions in people. We also use red to symbolise these strong emotions, such as love and anger. One way to describe feeling angry is to say that you are ‘seeing red’!
Animals react strongly to red, too. Elephants, for example, go mad when they see it. But why does this happen? One scientist thinks it’s because red is the
This poison frog’s bright red colour says, ‘Stay away!’
colour that can be seen from furthest away. Red colour waves are scattered the least by fog or smoke. (That’s why it makes such a good colour for fire engines.)
PUCE
This red-orange colour, often used to describe people’s hair, is named after a great Italian artist of the 1500s, Tiziano Vecellio, known in English as Titian. Titian painted lots of people with distinctive red hair in his pictures. Many women were inspired by these paintings to dye or bleach their hair in order to achieve a Titian red.
It could also be because red objects stand out well against a background of green, such as trees or grass.
This colour’s name comes from the French word puce, which means ‘flea’! Fleas are brown in colour but puce was named after the bloodstain left after a flea has been squashed. King Louis XVI coined this colour’s name when he exclaimed that his wife Marie-Antoinette’s dress was ‘puce!’. (It’s thought he didn’t like it…)
BAKER-MILLER PINK
US scientist Alexander Schauss designed this soothing pink colour. He had studied the effect different colours had on mood and behaviour and hoped his new pink would make people who looked at it less worried and frustrated. It’s named after two members of staff at a prison where Schauss completed one of his experiments.
We may also associate red with danger because it is the colour of dangerous things, such as blood and fire.
As for the elephants, they could be associating red with the clothes of the Maasai warriors who hunt them in Africa.
BARBIE PINK
Dolls can have their own signature colours, too! Barbie pink is the official colour of Mattel’s popular Barbie doll, used for her clothes and accessories and logo. The first BarbieBarbiedollappearedin1959.Although signaturehaslongbeenafanofpink,the colourwasonlytrademarked (whichmeansonlyMattelcanuseit)in2008.
This bright orange-red pigment was used in the Middle Ages to decorate the capital letters and illustrations in manuscripts. It was one of the first pigments to be made artificially and is still in use today! The modern word miniature comes from minium – first referring to manuscript decorations, it came to mean any small picture.
Which came first: the colour or the fruit?
Some fruits are described by their colours – which certainly makes them easier to find in the supermarket! Blueberries were named because they’re blue, green grapes because they are green and red currants because they are red.
But what about the orange?
There is just one word for both the fruit and the colour!
Oranges are a bit of a special case: the fruit came first.
AMBER
Orange the fruit originated in tropical Asia and spread from there throughout the world. It was called nāranga in Sanskrit (a language of India) and nāranj in Arabic, which led to names including
Amber the colour is named after the natural material of the same name. Amber is a hard substance that forms from tree resin,astickyfluidthatcomesoutofpine andfirtrees.Thismakesitanimportant sourceoffossils.Longago,insectsand plantsgottrappedinthestickyamber andtheirremainsarestilltheretoday!
SAFFRON
Saffron is a yellow-orange which is named after a spice. Saffron spice is one of the most expensive and sought-after spices in the world. It is made from the dried stigmas (the part of a plant that receives pollen) of the autumn crocus flower and is harvested by hand. The dried spice can also be used to make fabric dyes.
naranza as the fruit travelled northwest to Italy. Over time it became called variations of ‘orange apple’ in Northern Europe, including pomme
VANDYKE BROWN
Anthony van Dyck was a 17th-century painter from Belgium best known for his portraits of kings, queens and members of their courts. Van Dyck often used a deep, warm brown colour in his paintings and the colour was later named after him. In order to get the perfect shade of brown, van Dyck often added real dirt in with the paint!
d’orenge in Old French and oranjeappel in Dutch. By the 1400s, it was finally called simply orange in English. However it took another hundred years before English speakers started using the word to describe other things that had a similar colour. The first known reference to orange as a colour is from a Scottish accounts book that in 1532 listed a measure of orange velvet cloth as ‘Ane 1/2 elne orenze veluot’.
Highlighter pens are extremely useful for students who want to be able to easily refer back to key points to study. They’re also important for business professionals – to mark a
MINION YELLOW
place where a contract needs to be signed, for instance. Their signature neon hues make them nearly impossible to ignore. It seems as if someone must have set out to create such a useful tool on purpose, but the
New colours are still being invented and named today. In 2015, the bright yellow animated characters known as the Minions, who appear in the Despicable Me series of films, were given their own colour. It is called Minion Yellow. Yellow is a colour that is often associated with happiness and hope – and, in this case, silliness!
ACID YELLOW
This shade of yellow is the colour of the iconic smiley face symbol. Although its specific origins are uncertain, the smiley face was invented during the 1960s. By 1972 a pair of American brothers had sold around 50 million smiley face badges. Now people exchange yellow smiley faces every day in text messages as emojis!
highlighter was actually invented by accident!
The highlighter was invented by Francis J Honn in 1963 when he was trying to create a new kind of marker for children. He wanted to create a marker that had non-permanent ink. In his experiments with
GOLD
Gold is another colour named after a natural substance – one of the most valuable on Earth. People just can’t get enough of the stuff! Gold is often made into jewellery, but can also be used to create art by weaving it into cloth of gold, or as gold leaf, which is a very finely hammered sheet of gold that is applied with tweezers.
colours and chemicals, Honn found that instead of concealing regular black text, a water-based fluorescent yellow ink made it stand out. The first highlighter was yellow, and yellow is still very popular today. If you want to highlight something that you will later photocopy, yellow is your best choice because it will not create shadows on photocopies.
Nowadays highlighters come in many other colours, including orange, blue, green and pink. Because highlighting individual words and phrases is so beneficial to many people, computer programs have also developed their own ways to highlight text. For example, if you have a digital textbook, you can now highlight your study points in the Kindle app.
Do all people see the same colours?
There is actually a lot of variation in the ways that different people see colours. Human eyes have receptors in them called rods and cones. Rods help us see in low light. Cones come in three different types, each of which helps us see a different wavelength of light. If you’ve read the articles on black and white you’ll know that the wavelength of light determines what colour we see. Some people have genetic variations that can affect their rods and cones. If a certain type of cone is different, it can change how a person sees certain colours. This might mean that some people have better or worse colour vision than others. Some people are missing certain cones altogether, which leads to a condition
called colour blindness. It is a common misconception that people who have colour blindness only see in black and white. It is actually very rare for this to happen. Ninety-nine per cent of all people who have colour blindness have red-green colour blindness, which means they have difficulty seeing shades of red and green. The spotted image on the right is a type of test eye doctors use to tell if a person might have red-green colour blindness. Most mammals have only two types of cones and see the world in a similar way to a person with red-green colour blindness.
EMERALD
This colour’s name is based on the valuable gemstone. The brilliant emerald is one of the most expsensive gems, and also one of the most popular. You may have seen the dazzling Emerald City, where everything is bright green, in the films The Wizard of Oz or Wicked. Witches, including in these films, are often depicted with emerald green skin.
KELLY GREEN
Named after the popular Irish surname, Kelly green is inspired by the lush green Irish countryside. This colour is used around the world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, which is connected to the heritage and culture of Ireland. In the American city of Chicago, the Chicago River is dyed green every year on St. Patrick’s Day.
When you look at a glass of water, what colour is it? It’s not really any colour at all, is it? But when you look at the sea, there is no denying that it looks very blue. Other bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers, sometimes look blue, too. Why is this?
Water appears blue for two reasons. The first is that water slightly absorbs wavelengths of light on the red end of the spectrum. This means it reflects back blue. A glass of water is doing this, too. It’s just not big enough for you to notice the reflection effect.
Large bodies of water can also appear blue on clear days because they mirror the blue colour of the sky. When it is cloudy outside, these bodies of water look more greyish or even green.
WALLIS BLUE
In most of the ocean, however, it is very dark. About 200 metres down from the surface there is very little light to be reflected back as any colour! At 1,000 metres down there is no light at all, and everything appears to be black rather than blue.
In 1937, Wallis Simpson married Edward, Duke of Windsor, the former British king who had abdicated, or given up, the throne to be with her. Her wedding gown, pictured below, was a light, greyish blue that was reportedly designed to match her eyes. The company that made the dress, Mainbocher, called the colour Wallis blue.
EGYPTIAN BLUE
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of the 26th US president Theodore Roosevelt, was known for wearing dresses of this icy pale blue colour. She favoured the colour so much it was named after her! A hit song ‘Alice Blue Gown’ was written about it, and the colour is used by the US Navy for the trim on the ship USS Theodore Roosevelt.
This pigment was used for thousands of years in ancient Egypt. It is considered to be the first synthetic pigment. The ancient Egyptians believed that this bright blue could ward off evil and bring prosperity. It was often used on beads, other jewellery and ornaments – such as King Tut’s sarcophagus.
WOAD
Woad is a flowering plant of the mustard family that can be used to produce a blue dye, which is also called woad. It was used by the Celts, the ancient Egyptians and others as a dye for cloth, pigment for art and as a paint for the face and body. The ancient Egyptians used woad to dye the cloth wrappings for mummies.
ULTRAMARINE
One of the most expensive colour pigments, ultramarine was originally made from ground lapis lazuli stones. The complicated process of washing and grinding the stones made ultramarine ten times more expensive than lapis lazuli itself! This pigment was often used by Renaissance painters when depicting the Virgin Mary.
INDIGO
Like woad, indigo is the name of a dye that is extracted from a plant. In fact, because the colours are very similar, some people refer to the dye created by woad as ‘indigo’ even though they are from different plants. Marco Polo was the first European to report on the preparation of indigo in India. It was used as a paint in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Who invented the colour wheel?
The ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) set of colours we use today was developed by the English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton. You might be familiar with Newton as the person who discovered gravity! In the 1660s, Newton did several experiments with prisms, proving that white light was made up of all the other colours. In around the year 1665, he identified these colours as: red, yellow, green, blue and purple. In 1675, he expanded his list to include orange and indigo.
If you study art, you will probably have heard the colours red, yellow and blue referred to as the primary colours. They are ‘primary’ (meaning first in order or
French artist Yves Klein invented a dark blue colour, then registered the formula for his new colour with the government. At one point in Klein’s career, known as his ‘Blue Period’, he only exhibited paintings and other works of art that were blue. To celebrate one of these exhibitions, Klein released 1,001 blue balloons above Paris.
most basic) because using these colours you can create all the rest. Orange (red plus yellow), green (yellow plus blue) and purple (red plus blue) are called secondary colours because they can be made by combining two primary colours. Indigo, however, is what is called a tertiary colour, which is made by mixing a primary colour and a secondary colour. It’s a mix of blue and purple. Why did Newton add indigo to his rainbow? It is thought he did this because he wanted the seven colours to correspond with the seven notes on a musical scale. Whether or not this makes indigo an important part of the rainbow is still hotly debated by artists and scientists today!
Newton experimented with light and prisms to make rainbows.
The lost purple
Nowadays, you can buy a whole box of crayons or pots of paint in any colour you like for just a few pounds. In ancient times, pigments for dyes, inks and other uses had to be painstakingly crafted. And some of these colours were more in demand than others. For thousands of years, a colour called Tyrian purple was the most valuable colour in the world – three times more valuable than gold! It was a favourite of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, who is said to have used it for the sails of her boat. Roman emperors
Mauve is named after the mallow flower (mauve in French). In 1856, a British chemist named William Perkin accidentally created a synthetic dye in this shade. It became hugely popular in Europe after Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, said that it matched her eyes. In 1859 one magazine said London had a case of ‘Mauve Measles’!
MAGENTA
The reddish-purple shade called magenta was created by a similar process to mauve, but a few years later, in 1859. And its popularity was also connected to Emperor Napoleon III. The colour was originally called ‘fuchsine’ but was then renamed after the Battle of Magenta, won by Napoleon III in what was then Austria.
made laws that said only they were allowed to wear the colour and anyone else caught wearing it would be sentenced to death! But over time, the recipe used to make Tyrian purple was lost.
What we know today about Tyrian purple is that it was made from the slimy mucous glands of sea snails! They were fermented and cooked. After that, the process gets a bit murkier. Dyers kept their recipes secret because they didn’t want to be copied. But we know it would have taken about 10,000 snails to make just a single gram of dye!
In recent years, a man named Mohammed Ghassen Nouira has developed a method to create Tyrian purple again. But the sea snails that make it are now in danger of extinction from climate change. Will Tyrian purple be lost forever?
PURPLE
People have been drawn to the colour purple for centuries, perhaps in part because it is difficult to make. It has often been worn by royalty, as with Tyrian purple above. It is also important for the Catholic Church, and often worn by priests. Purple is still a popular colour for professors’ gowns at some of Europe’s oldest universities.
Tyrian purple dye was used to colour some mosaic tiles seen in this portrait of Jesus Christ.
HIDDEN PHRASES!
Each of these pictures represents a common expression. Can you work out what each visual clue is trying to say? Don’t worry if you get stuck, the answers are at the bottom of the page.
Illustrations by Esperanza Hickling
ANATOMY OF A SOCK
Here are all the proper names for parts of a sock:
1. Cuff – the very top of the sock, often elastic or ribbed to help it stay up.
SOCKLESS SCIENTIST
PORTYANKI
From the 1700s until 2013, Russian soldiers didn’t wear socks. They wore cloths called portyanki instead, which are wrapped around the foot.
LOST SOCKS
A study once found that the average family of four people loses as many as 60 socks each year!
2. Ankle – the part of the sock from the cuff to the heel.
3. Instep – the curved part over the top of your foot.
4. Heel – a pocket for your heel to fit into.
5. Foot – the part from heel to toe and all around the foot.
6. Sole – the bottom.
7. Toe – a rounded part to cover your toes.
Famous scientist Albert Einstein disliked socks – so he stopped wearing them!
10fascinating facts about
Socks!
Tall, short, striped or spotted… socks are sensational! Here are some startling facts about them you probably didn’t know.
SOCKSTOCKPILE
OLD SOCKS
The oldest known pair of socks is 1,600 years old, from a Greek colony in Ancient Egypt. They are made of red wool and their toes are split for wearing with sandals! The famous Egyptian pharaoh King Tut was buried with a similar pair. And there are socks even older than these finds – scientists think cavemen were the first to invent socks, by wrapping and tying animal furs around their feet.
Your socks soak up about half a litre of sweat every day!
WORLD’S BIGGEST SOCK
The world’s largest sock was nearly 10 metres tall. It was made from almost 12,802 metres of cotton thread and was cream and brown in colour to resemble a sock monkey toy.
THE SOCK POLICE
In the 1500s, London had sock police! They made sure people didn’t wear the wrong type of socks. Nowadays, traditional etiquette, which is a code of polite social rules, says that socks should match a person’s shoes or trousers or should be one shade darker than their trousers and one shade lighter than their shoes.
SOCK CITY
About 35 per cent of the world’s socks are made in Datang, China, which is known as ‘Sock City’. Here, workers make billions of socks – nearly 2 pairs of socks for every person on the planet every year!
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 36.
ANIMALS
1 On average, what proportion of baby turtles, which are called hatchlings, survive to adulthood?
a. 1 in 10
b. 1 in 50
c. 1 in 100
d. 1 in 1,000
2 Which of these animals has the most arms, legs and tentacles?
a. Octopus
b. Spider
c. Woodlouse
d. Giant squid
3 Which of these words is a collective noun for a group of ferrets?
a. A business
b. A wriggle
c. A squirm
d. A posse
4
The lion has the loudest roar of all the big cats. What’s the longest distance from which it can be heard?
a. Two kilometres
b. Four kilometres
c. Eight kilometres
d. Ten kilometres
1
Invented in the 1960s, what is the name of the high-jumping technique that involves leaping backwards over the bar?
a. Backwards bound
b. Leap of faith
c. Fosbury flop
d. Vertical vault
2
The first ever email message is thought to read QWERTYUIOP, which are the 10 letters on
the top line of a keyboard. In what year was it sent?
a. 1971
b. 1991
c. 2001
d. 2011
3
What would you do with a cravat?
a. Play it
b. Eat it
c. Wear it
d. Sleep on it
4 Which letter of the alphabet starts the fewest number of English words?
a. Q b. X c. Y d. Z
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 CITIES
Each of the emoji sequences shown on the right represents a capital city. Can you work out which city 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!
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 The photo above shows red blood cells magnified 3,000 times. In what part of the body are they produced?
a. Heart
b. Brain
c. Liver
d. Bone marrow
2 On average, how long does a human being spend asleep across the whole of their lifetime?
a. 14 years
b. 20 years
c. 24 years
d. 30 years
3 What is eisoptrophobia a persistent and irrational fear of?
a. Mirrors
b. Toothbrushes
c. Shopping trolleys
d. Driving through an automated car wash
4 In total, how many muscles are there in all eight of your fingers?
a. None
b. 8
c. 16
d. 24
HIDDEN ANIMALS
Six sneaky animals are hiding somewhere in these photos. Can you find them – and tell what kind of animals they are?
1 If it were possible, roughly how long would it take you to walk to Mars?
a. 50 years
b. 100 years
c. 500 years
d. 1,000 years
2 The lenses of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are coated with a thin layer of which element?
a. Gold
b. Zinc
c. Platinum
d. Copper
3 Which planet in our solar system has the shortest day? (Clue: it lasts for just under 10 hours.)
a. Mercury
b. Venus
c. Jupiter
d. Neptune
4 What is the name of the second astronaut to walk on the Moon?
a. Neil Armstrong
b. Alan Shepard
c. Buzz Aldrin
d. Gene Cernan
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: an athletic contest that consists of three different events (9 letters).
Answer:
Clue: the part of the human body that contains the larynx and oesophagus (6 letters).
Answer:
WORD WHEEL
A H N I R L T T O
Clue: one of the four points of the compass (5 letters).
Answer:
Clue: a large, endangered mammal that lives in Africa and parts of Asia (5 letters).
Answer:
Clue: worn by saints and angels (4 letters).
Answer:
Clue: a solemn and sincere promise (4 letters).
Answer:
Can you spot the names of 20 animals hidden in our jumbo word search puzzle? Good luck!
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.
WORDS
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
This photo shows a chunk of ice breaking off from a glacier in a process known as calving. Roughly what percentage of all the land on Earth is covered by glaciers?
a. 1%
b. 5%
c. 10%
d. 20%
2 Which country uses the flag shown above?
(Clue: the name of this country’s capital city begins with the letter A.)
a. Tunisia
b. Pakistan
c. Morocco
d. Turkey
3
Can you rank the four longest rivers in the world in the correct
order, longest river first?
a. Amazon, Yangtze, Nile, Mississippi
b. Nile, Amazon, Mississippi, Yangtze
c. Amazon, Nile, Mississippi, Yangtze
d. Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi
4
In which European capital city would you find a bronze statue of the Little Mermaid sitting on a rock overlooking the sea?
a. Lisbon
b. Copenhagen
c. Athens
d. Stockholm
Picture Quiz
Papaya
Hairy stingfish
Dead leaf mantis
Cheetah
Flounder
Animal Word Search
BELIEVE IT! EYE DON’T
Amazing optical illusions that trick your brain…
Munker-White Illusion
Look at the water being poured into the glass in the image above. Does the water change colour as it enters the glass? You’re probably thinking: ‘Yes, of course it does! The water’s a lighter blue as it flows out of the bottle and then a darker blue inside the glass.’ Well, if you do think that… you’re completely wrong! All the
blue lines are, in fact, an identical shade of blue. This mind-boggling optical illusion is caused by the colour of the lines that separate the blue lines. When these lines are white, the blue lines look lighter. When the dividing lines are black, the blue lines look darker. Still don’t believe us? Visit whatonearth.co.uk/illusions for proof!
THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT LEGO!
Prepare to enter the awesome world of LEGO, as we tell the extraordinary story of how a collection of colourful plastic bricks conquered planet Earth.
1932 1936
Master carpenter and joiner Ole Kirk Kristiansen starts making wooden toys in Denmark. He aims for high quality and craftsmanship in all the toys he makes.
Ole
Kirk Kristiansen
Taking letters from the Danish phrase ‘LEg GOdt’, meaning ‘play well’, Kristiansen names his company LEGO, unaware that the word lego in Latin means ‘I put together’.
Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s son Godtfred starts designing wooden toys at the age of 17.
1946 1937
Ole Kirk Kristiansen orders the company’s first plastic injection moulding machine from the UK.
HOW LEGO BRICKS ARE MADE
1. A LEGO brick starts its life as a pile of tiny plastic granules, each about the size of a grain of rice.
2. The granules are sucked up and travel along pipes to the moulding hall, which contains hundreds of moulding machines.
3. Inside the moulding machines, the granules are heated to a temperature
between 230°C and 310°C, which melts them into a mass of gooey plastic.
4. The moulds then apply up to 2 tonnes of pressure per cm2 to shape each brick. The dimensions of the bricks are accurate to 0.005 mm to ensure every LEGO brick fits together. The bricks cool and harden in 10 to 15 seconds and are ejected from the moulds.
5. The bricks are dropped into crates, which travel along a conveyor built to the distribution warehouse.
6. Assembly machines then attach arms and hands to bodies, tyres to wheels and so on. Printing machines add faces to heads and complex designs to decorated elements.
7. The finished LEGO pieces are transported in trays to the packing department, where they are organised and boxed – ready to be taken to toy shops!
Ole Kirk Kristiansen sees the potential in plastic bricks and tries to convince his sons: ‘Have you no faith? Can’t you see, if we do this right, we can sell these bricks all over the world?’
The company’s first plastic toy is created: the Automatic Binding Brick.
Automatic Binding Bricks change name to become LEGO Mursten (LEGO Bricks). The name LEGO is moulded on every brick.
AWESOME LEGO FACTS
Just six classic 2x4 LEGO bricks can be combined in 915,103,765 different ways!
More than 60 billion individual LEGO bricks are produced each year.
LEGO has an amazingly accurate production process. On average, there are just 18 mistakes for every million pieces made. Kyle Ugone is the proud owner of the world’s largest collection of Minifigures. Kyle owns 9,079 figures!
1949 1958 1960 1953 1949
LEGO Minifigures representing the astronomer Galileo and the Roman gods Jupiter and Juno travelled aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft on its mission to Jupiter in 2011.
At the LEGO House in Billund in Denmark,
you can eat meals served by LEGO robots.
A solid 14-carat gold version of the Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett is the most expensive Minifigure ever made. Only two exist, with each gold Boba Fett valued at £8,115!
1955
Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen launches the LEGO System in Play, based on the fact that the more bricks you have, the more you can build. ‘Our idea has been to create a toy that prepares a child for life, appealing to its imagination and developing the creative urge and joy of creation that are the driving forces in every human being.’
The LEGO brick is patented with a new coupling principle, the one we know today, creating endless building possibilities.
A fire destroys the company’s wooden toy warehouse and the production of wooden toys ends.
Continued on next page
LEGO GOES TO THE MOVIES!
The first LEGO film, The LEGO Movie, was released in 2014. It took two years to make and used a special type of digital animation that follows the rules of LEGO building. This means that everything you see on screen could be made from real LEGO bricks. And that all the characters only move like real Minifigures!
The soundtrack to The LEGO Movie features the catchy song ‘Everything is Awesome!!!’. The song was nominated for an Oscar and has since been streamed more than 61 million times on Spotify. Truly awesome!
Some characters from The LEGO Movie are available
AWESOME LEGO FACTS
On average, seven new LEGO sets are sold each second around the world. In the run-up to Christmas, this rises to 30 LEGO sets per second!
In 1997, nearly 5 million LEGO pieces spilled into the sea when a huge wave hit a container ship off the coast of Cornwall, UK. LEGO was still washing up on nearby beaches 10 years later!
LEGO is the world’s largest toy company.
LEGO fans can submit their own models to LEGO Ideas.
If their concept reaches 10,000 public votes, it has a chance to become an official LEGO set.
More than 318 million LEGO tyres are made each year, making LEGO the world’s No.1 tyre manufacturer!
The largest LEGO set is the World Map. It includes 11,695 pieces! The Eiffel Tower is second with 10,001 pieces, followed by the LEGO Titanic with 9,090.
as collectible Minifigures. They include William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Velma Staplebot and ‘Where Are My Pants?’ Guy.
There are 40 collectible Minifigures based on The LEGO Batman Movie, which came out in 2017 – and eight of them are Batman!
Batman’s spin-off Minifigure characters include Glam Metal Batman and Mermaid Batman.
A sequel to The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, was released in 2019. So many animators worked on the sequel that the list of credits at the end lasts for 13 minutes!
1978
New themed groups of products launch, including Castle, Space and Town.
1980
The Legowood sign in LEGOLAND California.
The LEGO Pirates theme launches. Pirate Minifigures are the first to have multiple facial expressions.
1995
The first LEGO video game, LEGO Fun to Build, launches in Japan.
1989 1996
LEGOLAND Windsor opens in England. It now attracts 2 million+ visitors each year.
1999
The LEGO brick is chosen as Toy of the Century.
Continued on next page
A new department – now called LEGO Education –is set up to help teachers encourage learning through play in schools.
There are an estimated 9 billion individual LEGO Minifigures on Earth. This means that there are more than a billion more LEGO people on our planet than there are human beings! This chart compares the human and LEGO populations since 2000.
There are more than 17,000 different LEGO Minifigures!
LEGO Minifigures launch. The very first character is the Police Officer.
Continued from previous page
LEGO DUPLO bricks – twice the size of a LEGO brick in all dimensions – launches globally for younger children. 1962 1966 1978 1969
LEGO Technic launches, challenging older children to build and create. Projected rise across the rest of this
3.7 billion Minifigures on 25th birthday
The first LEGO wheel launches, introducing movement to the world of LEGO.
The first step-by-step LEGO building instruction is introduced.
The first batterypowered LEGO trains run on new LEGO rails.
The first LEGOLAND park opens, in Billund, Denmark.
Continued from previous page
The LegoBrücke (which is German for Lego Bridge), pictured above, spans a road in the city of Wuppertal, Germany.
Around 70 to 80 per cent of LEGO Minifigures are male, though more diverse characters are being added. The first LEGO Minifigure of colour featured in a Star Wars set in 2003.
One LEGO brick can
support the weight of 370,000 other bricks on top before it is destroyed. It can withstand 4,240 Newtons of force. As a comparison, hammering a nail into wood applies 3,000 Newtons of force.
There is an underground vault in Billund, Denmark, which contains a collection of every single LEGO set ever created!
This life-size model of a Star Wars X-Wing fighter weighs 23 tonnes!
2001
LEGO Creator products launch, encouraging children and adults to build without rules and limitations.
2004
LEGO licensed Minifigures no longer have yellow faces – Harry Potter, for example, has a more natural skin tone.
2011
LEGO Ninjago launches, featuring young ninjas who practise the art of Spinjitzu!
LEGO House contains more than 25 million individual
2014 2012
LEGO Friends launches, introducing a range of mini-doll figures.
The LEGO Movie premieres in cinemas. It takes almost $500m at the box office.
LEGO bricks.
THINGS TO DO WITH LEGO!
1. Film a stop-motion movie starring your favourite Minifigures. To create a stop-motion movie, first take a picture of a LEGO scene with a phone or iPad. Next, move one Minifigure slightly and take another picture. Put lots of these pictures together in a sequence and you’ll have your own LEGO animation!
2. Use every LEGO brick you can get your hands on to
Play a LEGO football game!
build a huge LEGO tower. The world record for the tallest LEGO structure was set in Italy in 2015 by a
tower that stretched more than 35 metres off the ground, which is taller than the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt. The tower used more than half a million bricks!
3. Design and build a colourful stationery holder for your pens and pencils.
4. Play a game of LEGO football, using a straw to blow the ball towards your opponent’s goal.
2017 2020
LEGO BOOST launches, combining digital programs and physical building.
2017
The TV series LEGO MASTERS, in which teams of expert LEGO builders compete to win an annual trophy, launches in the UK.
2018
LEGO House, the ‘Home of the Brick’, opens in Billund, Denmark.
AMAZING LIFE-SIZE LEGO MODELS
What’s the biggest model you have ever built out of LEGO? Whatever the size, it’s unlikely to match the life-size Star Wars X-Wing fighter pictured on the left. It took 32 professional LEGO master builders more than 5 million LEGO bricks, and a staggering 17,000 combined working hours, to complete! And if you prefer fast cars to spacecraft,
why not go for a spin in the LEGO Technics supercar pictured above. Built from 342,817 LEGO Technics parts and powered by an electric motor, the full-size car is modelled on a real-life supercar, the McLaren P1. Standing alongside it is racing driver Lando Norris, who became the first person to drive a LEGO car on a full circuit of a Formula 1 racetrack!
LEGO Braille Bricks are introduced to help children with vision impairment.
2021
The world’s largest LEGOLAND opens in New York, USA. It includes a virtual reality ride in which visitors become Minifigures!
2022
The LEGO Group celebrates its 90th birthday. The LEGO House’s one millionth guest wins a free pass for life!
2025
The LEGO company aims to hit its target of eliminating all single-use plastics from LEGO packaging.
MAPIT
JUPITER’S GREAT RED SPOT IS BIGGER THAN EARTH!
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in our solar system. Jupiter and the three planets beyond it – Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – are called gas giants. They are huge and made up mostly of gases and so do not have a solid surface. The coloured patterns you can see on Jupiter’s surface are ribbons of cloud. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, highlighted below, is a giant whirling storm that humans have observed for centuries. The Great Red Spot is so huge you could fit the whole Earth inside it!
J U P I T E R
DID YOU KNOW?
Jupiter is the oldest planet in our solar system. It formed about 4.6 billion years ago, from the dust and gases left over after the formation of the Sun.
DID YOU KNOW?
Jupiter’s enormous size makes it one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Only the Moon, Venus and sometimes Mars appear brighter from Earth.
GREAT RED SPOT
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is the largest storm in the solar system. It is like a hurricane on Earth but much larger. Winds inside this giant swirling storm can reach speeds of nearly 650 km/h!
DID YOU KNOW?
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. In fact, it is so big you could fit all the other planets inside it. Alternatively, 1,300 planet Earths would fit inside Jupiter!
FOR A READER’S JOKE ABOUT JUPITER, TURN TO PAGE 51.
30,000 kilometres
11,854
The top speed in km/h of the NASA X-43, the world’s fastest jet aeroplane.
524
The largest number of hot air balloons launched at one time, at the 48th Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico, USA.
116
The age in years of the oldest plane still flying, the Blériot XI. It was one of the first planes ever built, in 1909, and is still flown in New York, USA.
640
Themaximumtake-off weight in tonnes oftheAntonovAn-225Mriya . Theheaviestaircraftever made, it could transportaherdof125elephants!
117
The wingspan in metres of the Stratolaunch Roc. The Stratolaunch’s record-breaking wingspan is the largest of any plane – and longer than a football pitch!
AIRCRAFT IN NUMBERS
AIRCRAFT IN NUMBERS
88.31
The furthest flight in metres by a paper aeroplane, achieved by Dillon Ruble from the USA on 2nd December 2022. Ruble had practised for over four months before setting a new world record.
2.5
The weight in grams of the Piccolissimo drone, which is thought to be the world’s smallest self-powered aircraft. Piccolissimo means ‘smallest’ in Italian.
Add lucky charms Place a piece of jewellery over the closed wound to stop evil spirits from entering the body.
13 A winged scarab pectoral from Tutankhamun’s tomb.
A gold-faced mummy in its sarcophagus.
Add a mask Place a ceremonial mask over the mummy’s face to protect the head. 15
Wrap the mummy First, wrap the head and neck in linen bandages. Then move on to the fingers and toes. Lastly, wrap the arms, legs and body, using a sticky resin to glue the bandages together. Make sure you have enough bandages –you’ll probably need a few hundred metres of them at least.
The mummy is ready Put the finished mummy inside a wooden coffin. Then place the coffin inside a sarcophagus, which is a large stone coffin decorated with sculptures. 16
Glue any holes Use a sticky resin to seal up the hole that was made to take out the internal organs. 12
Clean the body After the body has completely dried out, wipe away the salt and clean the body using wine, oils and scented waxes.
the body Fill the body with dried grass, straw, sawdust and mud so it keeps its shape.
Mummies aren’t only from Egypt! Other cultures have mummified people using their own techniques.
Replace the heart Now is the time to put back the cleaned heart.**
Store the organs in jars Next, place the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines into separate containers called canopic jars. You should keep the heart to one side. Each of the jars should have the head of a different Egyptian god on it. 6
Wash the organs Now wash the organs in a special type of salt, called natron, to dry them out. Take out the organs Make a cut on the left side of the body. Remove the lungs, liver, stomach, heart and intestines. 4 5 Add accessories Once the sarcophagus is inside the tomb, surround it with clothes, jewellery, furniture, food and drink so your mummy can use them in the afterlife. 17
Sailing boats on the Nile near Luxor, Egypt. A scene from a wooden Egyptian sarcophagus which depicts Anubis, the god of the dead. Wash the body Clean and purify the body –preferably in the River Nile. 2
*The ancient Egyptians mummified both humans and animals that they believed were sacred, including cats, mice, birds and crocodiles. **The Egyptians left the heart inside the mummy because they believed that the heart –and not the brain –was the centre of human thought and feeling.
HOW TO MAKE AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY
Learn the fascinating process of making a mummy, from mashing the brain and wrapping to accessorising! From Britannica’s Listified! , with illustrations by Andrés Lozano
Clear your diary The entire process of mummification* can take up to 70 days to complete. 1 Mash the brain Make a hole in the skull. Poke a long tool through the hole and wiggle it around to mash up the brain inside. Allow the liquefied brain to drain out through the nose. 3
Does your pet like reading this magazine?!
As loyal subscribers will know, the recent February issue of What on Earth! Magazine was all about pets. From cats, dogs and ponies to axolotls, capybaras and even a domesticated hippopotamus, the issue featured an astonishing collection of creatures that people like to keep as pets. We thought the Pets issue would be a hit with humans but were surprised and delighted to discover that it has proved hugely popular in the animal kingdom, too!
As you can see, we’ve received some fantastic photos of readers’ pets enjoying the magazine. Do you or your family have a pet? Then why not send in a photo of you and your pet reading What on Earth! Magazine? Pets (and their owners) which feature in a future issue will win a copy of the fantastic AnimalFACTopia!
Yummy data: how to turn numbers into
Did you know that around 70 per cent of the way our brain perceives the world is visual?
This is why it’s sometimes easier to tell a story in pictures than in words. In a recent workshop, data visualiser Valentina D’Efilippo showed readers how to present data about their favourite ice cream toppings and flavours in an eye-catching infographic. As you can see, their creations were deliciously informative!
Readers learn how to create infographics about
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Did you know that we are made mostly of the leftover bits from exploded stars? Or that salt is the only rock we eat?
Or that there are more microbes on and in your body than there are people on Earth?
Or that a microphone and a speaker work the same way – just backwards!
WhatQuestion: do you always find at the end of a rainbow?
Answer: The letter w!
Send your favourite joke or riddle to our jokes editor May at letters@whatonearth.co.uk. If your joke is featured in a future issue of the magazine, you will WIN a copy of Secret FACTopia!
Question: What happened when the numbers 19 and 20 had a fight?
