Kids News - Science Articles

The Moon’s near side, the one we all see, has been the target of numerous robotic and human missions. However, our lunar companion’s far side, which is not visible from Earth, has never been explored. That changed on Jan. 2, 2019, when Chinese spacecraft Chang'e 4 made a soft landing on what is often referred to as the “dark side,” because it remained largely unseen until humans were able to send spacecraft around the Moon in 1959....

Thanks to its harsh environment, Antarctica remained largely untouched by humans for many millennia, allowing a thriving ecosystem to evolve. However, since the 1990s, the last true wilderness on the planet is becoming an increasingly popular destination for adventure-seeking tourists. Now, a new study asserts that the visitors may be leaving behind harmful bacteria which could devastate the area’s native bird population....

In its purest form, gold typically requires special furnaces that can withstand extreme temperatures of above 1,947 degrees Fahrenheit (1,064 degrees Celsius) to liquefy. Now, a team of researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden may have stumbled upon a way to melt the precious metal at room temperature....

With the days getting increasingly shorter and colder, it may appear as though winter has been upon us for many weeks. However, though meteorologists in the Northern Hemisphere consider December 1 as the start of the season, according to the astronomical calendar, the season will not begin until Friday, December 21. Often referred to as winter solstice, it is also the shortest day and longest night of the year. Southern Hemisphere residents, on the other hand, will celebrate summer solstice, the start of the astronomical summer, with the longest day and shortest night of 2018....

While elephants born without tusks are not unheard of, they normally comprise just 2 to 6 percent of the herd population. However, that is not the case at Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, where an astounding 33 percent of female elephants born after the country’s civil war ended in 1992, are tuskless. While that may appear to be just a coincidence, Joyce Poole, an elephant behavior expert and National Geographic Explorer, has another theory. The researcher thinks we may be witnessing an unnaturally induced evolution of the species due to the incessant poaching of the mighty mammals for their valuable tusks....

Though we are treated to several meteor showers throughout the year, most pale in comparision to the grand finale – the Geminids. Expected to be at their peak on Thursday and Friday night (Dec. 13-14, 2018), the dependable meteors rank high in both quantity and quality. Nicknamed the “900-pound gorilla of meteor showers” by NASA, they outweigh other dust streams by factors of between 5 to 500!...

Dolphins have been known to demonstrate many human-like behavioral traits. These include forming complex relationships to accomplish common goals, teaching one another survival skills, and even “babysitting” each other's kids. Now, some researchers at the Dolphin Plus Marine Mammal Responder in Key Largo, Florida have discovered another thing the intelligent mammals share with humans – a love for television!...

On most days, our brains do a good job at interpreting the myriad sights, sounds, and other sensory information that bombards us dawn to dusk. However, every now and again, even our highly-evolved minds get a little confused, resulting in what we call illusions. While all five senses are capable of tricking the brain, researchers have thus far largely focused on optical illusions simply because our vision dominates all senses. Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have devised two clever tricks that fool the mind using sound....

Hadi Partovi, founder of Code.org believes every student should learn the basics of computer science just like they do math, physics, or biology, regardless of what they want to do in the future. The expert says knowledge about the subject is important to understand how the world around us works and compares it to learning about photosynthesis, even though not every student is going to be a botanist. To spark student interest, he created the “Hour of Code,” which introduces the world of computing to anyone, from ages 4 to 104, in a fun, interactive manner. Observed annually during Computer Science Week, which will be celebrated from December 3 through 9, 2018, the event now draws tens of millions of kids from over 180 countries....