Why do stars blink? -Xitan, Philippines
rcwebberDear Xitan,
Look up to the twinkly stars and you’ll witness starlight traveling from deep space to your eyeballs. That twinkling you see is the light taking lots and lots of detours.
Read More ...Dear Xitan,
Look up to the twinkly stars and you’ll witness starlight traveling from deep space to your eyeballs. That twinkling you see is the light taking lots and lots of detours.
Read More ...Dear Diary,
Oh, I mean...Dear Nimra,
Making a diary is like creating your own top-secret book. So, I headed straight for a Washington State University library where there are more than a million books.
My friend Linnea Nelson was working with some of the books from the special collections when I went to visit her in the lab. She is a conservator, so part of her job is to repair and re-build old books. It preserves their history.
Some of the books had an old smell that wafted up into my little nose. The smell comes from different chemical compounds that escape into the air, including one similar to vanilla. The compounds are in the ink, paper, and other materials used to keep the pages together. And one way to keep the pages together is to bind them with thread.
Read More ...Dear Zoe,
Scientists could see and feel electricity in nature long before they discovered how to make it. Maybe you’ve seen it during a powerful electrical storm or felt a little shock from static electricity.
It happens because of tiny parts of atoms. They’re called electrons and they are everywhere.
Read More ...Dear Eston,
Springtime sets the stage for one of the greatest transformations in the natural world.
“It’s the construction of a butterfly or moth from caterpillar soup,” said my friend David James, an entomologist at Washington State University. James studies the science behind metamorphosis, or how a creature transforms.
Read More ...