Kids News - Articles with 600-800 Words

Pesky as they may be, ants are truly incredible insects. The tiny creatures can survive floods by joining together to morph into living rafts, predict earthquakes, lift up to 20 times their body weight, and even select the best tool to complete a job efficiently. Now, it appears that the elusive Dracula ant (Mystrium camillae) can snap its jaws shut at a mind-boggling speed of 90 meters per second (more than 200 miles per hour) – the fastest-known animal movement on record....

On February 5, 2019, over a billion people in China and millions around the world will celebrate the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival. The ancient tradition, whose date is determined by the lunar calendar and falls somewhere between January 21 and February 20 each year, is the longest and most important of all Chinese festivals....

Many of us experience mood shifts during the colder, shorter, and gloomier winter days. However, for those diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), winter blues take on a whole new meaning. While mental health professionals have attributed the symptoms of SAD, which include depression and a feeling of hopelessness, to the lack of sunlight, no one was sure how the brain made the connection. Now, some researchers have found the culprit – a brain circuit which connects special light-sensing cells in the retina with the areas of the brain that impact our moods....

In DC Film's recent action-packed blockbuster Aquaman, the superhero flaunts many spectacular powers. While the half-human, half-Atlantean’s ability to heal others and withstand intense heat may be hard for scientists to emulate, here are three Aquaman superpowers that may be available to all of us in the very near future....

Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), whose life and legacy is celebrated annually on the third Monday of January, was an extraordinary man. It is thanks to the vision, courage and leadership of the clergyman-turned-civil-rights-activist that all Americans are granted equal rights, regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin....

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....

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, launched in 2006 with a primary mission to perform the first-ever flyby of Pluto, has provided researchers with invaluable information about the dwarf planet. Now, the space probe has made more history with its January 1, 2019 flyby of distant world 2014 MU69. The close rendezvous with the icy rock, located four billion miles from Earth in the Kuiper Belt, is not only humanity’s furthest encounter with a distant object, but also the most primitive one ever visited by a spacecraft....

While visiting the North Pole in winter may not be at the top of your bucket list, the ever-changing ICEHOTEL, which opened its doors to visitors on December 14 this year, may change your mind. Located 200 km north of the Arctic Circle in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi, the hotel, which is carved entirely from ice, is rebuilt annually, with each iteration getting increasingly beautiful and impressive....

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....