Kids News - Science Articles

With memories of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, which ravaged Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico in 2017, still fresh in their minds, residents of the US Atlantic and Gulf Coast are bracing for yet another busy hurricane season. Researchers at Colorado State University predict a slightly above-average 2018 season with 14 tropical storms, at least three of which are expected to be major hurricanes, Category 3 or higher! Though having the advance warning is helpful, it would be even better if we could find a way to stop the deadly storms from forming altogether. Now, Norwegian researchers may have found the answer in — of all places — air bubbles....

Experts predict myopia, or nearsightedness, will reach epidemic proportions by the end of the decade, with over a third of the world’s population requiring glasses or contact lenses. However, if a team of Israeli ophthalmologists from Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center has their way, the crisis may be averted with special “nanodrops” created to correct refractive errors responsible for nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia), or blurred vision (astigmatism)....

Though the harmful effects of plastic on wildlife and human health are well-documented, the versatile material is hard to avoid. Nearly everything we touch, from grocery bags to drink bottles to food packaging, contains plastic. Now, Amsterdam’s Ekoplaza supermarket is making it a little easier for consumers to reduce consumption of single-use bags and containers, which are clogging our landfills at alarming rates, with a dedicated plastic-free aisle. Believed to be the world’s first, it features 700 products, including rice, beans, yogurt, chocolate milk, cereal, snacks, and even meat....

Reports of an out-of-control space station hurtling towards Earth may sound like a bad April Fools’ prank. However, this was no joke. At 5:16 pm PDT on April 1 (April 2, 00:16 GMT), China’s school bus-sized Tiangong-1 met a fiery end over the South Pacific, ending weeks of uncertainty as to when and where it would land....

While gorillas are perfectly capable of walking on two legs, most take just a step or two before dropping on all fours. However, Louis, a 16-year-old male gorilla at the Philadelphia Zoo is often seen taking longer strolls, especially when the ground is wet or he is holding a delicious snack or two....

When the ashes from a December 2014 eruption of a submarine volcano created a 400-foot (120-meter) island in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga experts predicted it would last a few months at most. However, over three years later, the land mass, situated between the uninhabited Polynesian islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai, is showing no signs of dissipating. Now, NASA scientists believe it may be around for as long as 30 years!...

Scientists have always known that a majority of the brain’s neurons, specialized cells responsible for transmitting information throughout the body, are formed at the fetal stage. However, after studies on mammals, like rats, showed that neurogenesis continues in the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus area of the brain vital to memory formation, through adulthood, it was assumed the same was true for humans as well. However, scientists from the University of California, San Francisco are challenging this long-held belief with a new study which asserts the human brain stops adding new neurons by age 13....

It might sound like 1.5 million penguins are a hard thing to miss. However, that is indeed the case with this super-colony of Adélie penguins ( Pygoscelis Adeliae ) who have managed to remain undetected for decades in the Danger Islands of Antarctica. The remote, difficult to access, landmass, which lies off the continent’s northern tip, is always surrounded by thick ice. It was, therefore, believed to be uninhabitable and largely ignored by scientists....

Experts believe that the optimal time to teach kids language skills is when they are infants. Most times the task is easily accomplished with parents reading or talking to their babies. However, in some cases that is not possible due to busy work schedules or when kids are born deaf. In the latter case, parents either have to quickly become adept at sign language or risk the child facing potential learning delays in the future. Now, an adorable blue-eyed robot, a human avatar, and some high-tech neuroscience may be able to assist parents and guardians with this crucial developmental task....