Dear Fiona,

When I was a kitten, I loved chasing butterflies. It’s fun to run after them as they flit and flutter.

But I didn’t eat them.

I asked my friend Rich Zack if that was an oversight. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.

He told me that insects are animals with muscles just like other animals that people eat—like cows and chickens.

“Insect muscle tissue is almost exactly the same as mammalian muscle tissue,” Zack said. “So, if there were a way to get that muscle tissue and process it, you could eat an insect steak or an insect hamburger.”

Dear Lebron,

One of my favorite sights is when geese fly south in a “V” formation. As a cat, I’m pretty independent. So, I think it’s amazing to see birds fly together like that.

I talked about why birds migrate with my friend Heather Watts. She’s a biologist at Washington State University. She studies important animal behaviors like migration.

She told me that migration is a movement animals make that’s outside their normal day-to-day pattern. It’s usually a temporary movement. They leave for a little while and then come back.

Lots of animals migrate, but we usually think of birds doing it. The … » More …

Dear Ziyonna,

What happens if you do a big jump? Your body goes up into the air. But then it comes back down again. The reason you don’t just keep going up, up, up is because the force of gravity pushes your body and the Earth together.

It turns out gravity is a big reason the sun is so hot. That’s what my friend Michael Allen told me. He’s an astronomer at Washington State University.

He said that, at first, the universe was like a thick soup of gas and dust. Then, gravity pushed some of the gas and dust together. That’s how stars … » More …

Dear Trevor,

Everything we do and think is thanks to the 3-pound organ tucked into our skulls. But what is it made of?

I asked my friend Samantha Gizerian. She’s a brain scientist at Washington State University.

She told me the brain is surprisingly soft and mushy.

“We think about our other organs and tissues, and they’re squishy in a very solid way,” Gizerian said. “Like when you go to the grocery store and get a carton of meat. You can squish on the steak, right? Our other organs are mostly like that as well. But the brain is very, very delicate.”

She told … » More …

Dear Daniel,

When I think about dinosaurs, I usually picture the big ones. I think of triceratops with its pointy horns or apatosaurus with its long, long neck.

I asked my friend John Blong if those dinos ever lived with people. He’s an environmental archeologist at Washington State University. He studies early humans.

He told me that people and dinosaurs never lived at the same time. Well, mostly.

Dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid crashed to Earth. It threw up tons of dust and soot. It made Earth super cold and dark. It stayed that way for a … » More …

Dear Hudson,

The other day I walked into a cloud of gnats. I love insects, but it was unpleasant to have all those critters fly into my whiskers.

I asked my friend Rich Zack what they were doing. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.

He told me that most insects are individualistic. They don’t usually fly together in groups—unless they need to mate or travel. Then, some insects form a group called a swarm.

“The purpose of the adult insect is to mate,” Zack said. “They have short lives—so short that a lot of them don’t even feed as adults. So, the … » More …

Dear Jonathan,

There’s no doubt that the relationship between humans and dogs is special. But does your best pupper understand everything you tell them?

I asked my friend Cassidy Cordon. She’s a veterinarian at Washington State University.

She told me that dogs understand lots of human words. But dogs also pay attention to their human’s tone of voice and body language to figure out what the human means.

Let say you teach your dog that “walk” means you’re going to take a stroll. Your dog friend might recognize the word “walk.” But they might also notice that you’re picking up their leash or putting … » More …

Dear Dottie,

When I was a kitten, I learned to swim by diving for coins in the pool. It wasn’t easy seeing the coins underwater. It was blurry down there.

I talked about how fish see with my friend Nora Hickey. She’s a fish veterinarian at Washington State University.

She told me that fish eyes don’t work the same way mammal eyes do—even though we have the same eye parts.

Your cornea is the clear, squishy tissue right at the front of your eye. It’s in front of the colored ring in your eye—called the iris. There’s a dark dot in the center … » More …

Dear Jade,

Have you ever heard cats yowling? It’s expressive, that’s for sure. Sometimes when I yowl or sing, my voice cracks a little bit.

I asked my friend Alisa Toy why that happens. She’s a professional singer who teaches in the School of Music at Washington State University.

She told me it has to do with the muscles that move the larynx. That’s sometimes called the voice box. It’s a hollow tube that’s important for breathing and talking.

When you talk or sing, you push air from your lungs up through your larynx. The air passes through an opening made by your <a ... » More …

Dear Dakota,

When I think about exploring the ocean, I think about the discovery of giant tube worms. They live in super- hot, mineral-rich water deep in the ocean. They don’t do normal things like eat or poop—but they can live for 300 years or longer. Scientists were shocked when they found them—and there’s probably much more to find.

I talked about ocean exploration with my friend Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens. She’s a biological oceanographer and plankton ecologist at Washington State University.

She told me that you’re right that we’ve only explored about 5% of the ocean. But it isn’t because we stopped trying. The … » More …