Dear Skye,
Every weekend, I make pizza dough. I love watching the dough bubble and rise.
I asked my friend Mel Darbyshire why that happens. She’s head of baking at Washington State University’s Breadlab. There, scientists and bakers work together to develop grains that make super bread.
It turns out bread rises because it contains yeast.
Yeast is a microscopic, single-celled fungus. Like all living things, yeast needs energy to grow and reproduce. It gets that energy by eating sugar.
When I make pizza dough, I mix together warm water and sugar. Then I sprinkle a packet of yeast over the top and … » More …
Read More ...Dear Wrigley,
It can be hard to relate to animals that look very different from me—like squirmy worms.
I asked my friend Cynthia Gleason about your question. She studies a specific kind of worm at Washington State University.
Those worms are called nematodes or roundworms. They have unsegmented, smooth bodies. Most nematodes are so small you need a microscope to see them—and their teeny tiny mouths.
There are gobs of nematodes.
“They’re the most abundant of all the multicellular organisms on Earth,” Gleason said. “If you pick up a handful of soil, there could be thousands of roundworms there.”
» More …
Dear Penelope,
I love the feel of freshly fallen, fluffy snow. But then it turns crunchy and wet. That feels yucky under my paws.
I asked my friend Jaitun Patel why that happens. She’s a data scientist at Washington State University’s AgWeatherNet. She makes sure weather stations put out reliable data.
She told me that fluffy snow turns crunchy because of how falling snowflakes land then melt and refreeze.
Snow forms when water vapor freezes way up in the clouds. That makes ice crystals called snowflakes.
Snowflakes look different depending on the conditions when they form. Some look star-shaped. They have lacy or … » More …
Read More ...Dear Opemipo,
We usually think of adult butterflies. Those fluttery insects flit from flower to flower. They sip nectar and move pollen. They’re beneficial insects. They help plants and people.
But baby butterflies are another story.
I talked about it with my friend Dowen Jocson. She’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
Young butterflies or moths are larvae, or caterpillars. They hatch from an egg deposited near a plant. Then they get busy eating and growing.
Caterpillars have jaws adapted for chewing. Their munchy mouths will change when they transform into adult butterflies. Then, they’ll have a straw-like mouth for slurping up … » More …
Read More ...Dear Nora,
I live near a few volcanoes. One of them—Mount St. Helens—is bubbling with molten material that will probably gush out as lava someday.
I asked my friend Johannes Hämmerli about lava. He’s an earth scientist at Washington State University.
He told me Earth is mostly solid.
“The very center of Earth is a solid metal ball,” Hämmerli said. “Outside that ball, there’s a thick shell we think is liquid. And the rest of Earth—if you go through the mantle and crust—is pretty much solid.”
Earth formed when a cloud of dust in space collapsed. The elements inside the cloud squished … » More …
Read More ...Dear Kristen,
This answer is fueled by coffee with a splash of milk from a dairy cow.
I asked my friend Kimberly Davenport why my morning milk doesn’t come from a beef cow. She’s an expert in cow genetics at Washington State University.
She told me that all cows are the same species: Bos taurus. But different kinds of cows have different traits—like making lots of milk or growing big muscles.
“Over time, we’ve selected these cows to either make more milk or more meat,” Davenport said.
Selecting means noticing the traits you like and keeping animals with those traits. When those animals reproduce, … » More …
Read More ...Dear Lucy,
When I go to the veterinarian, they measure how big I am. They use a scale to check my weight. They find my length and height with a measuring tape.
But nobody can put a planet on a scale. Or wrap a measuring tape around it.
I asked my friend Katie Cooper about it. She’s a geologist at Washington State University. She studies our planet and other planets, too.
She told me we send satellites to orbit our solar system. When a satellite swoops around a planet, it snaps pics and takes measurements. Those images and measurements help scientists estimate the … » More …
Read More ...Dear Garrett,
On very clear days, I can see five volcanoes from my campus. They’re Rainier, Hood, Adams, St. Helens and Baker. That’s…a lot.
I asked my friend Katie Cooper about it. She’s a geophysicist at Washington State University.
Check out the view of Mt. St. Helens from the … » More …
Read More ...Dear Rachel,
Every spring, I see spiny bugs that look like tiny alligators. They spend all day chomping up other insects outside my window.
I asked my friend Rich Zack about them. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me those spiky gobblers are immature ladybugs.
The ladybug life cycle includes complete metamorphosis. They undergo big body changes to become adults. An insect that does that is holometabolous.
“Millions of years ago, holometabolous insects split up their duties between the immatures and the adults,” Zack said. “An immature’s job is to feed. An adult’s job is to mate.”
There are … » More …
Read More ...Dear Macmillan,
There are some amazing deadly things out there. Like a frog that oozes poison from its skin. Or a jellyfish that uses itty bitty hooks to inject venom into its prey.
But it turns out the most poisonous thing on Earth is everywhere. It’s in our soil. It’s in our water. It might be in your kitchen.
It’s a species of bacteria called Clostridium botulinum.
I talked about it with my friend Susie Craig. She studies food safety at Washington State University.
She told me that C. botulinum makes the toxin that causes botulism. People can get it by eating … » More …
Read More ...Dear Varish,
If we count all the species that humans have described so far, it’s about 2 million. New species get added all the time—about 15,000 of them every year.
But we have no idea how many species we’ve never met. Scientists think there could be 5 million species out there. Or maybe billions.
We’ll only know for sure when we describe all those organisms.
I asked my friend Rich Zack what that means. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me how we identify and name a new species.
Imagine we’re in my backyard collecting insects together. We see a … » More …
Read More ...Dear Arielle,
Language changes all the time. Words get new meanings. New words get made up.
I talked about it with my friend Rich Zack. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University. He does taxonomy. That’s the science of naming and classifying living things.
The way language changes is amazing—and skibidi. It’s neat that language morphs as we use it. But that can limit how well we understand each other. Some readers might see “skibidi” and think I passed out and hit random keys.
That’s the main reason scientists use Latin or ancient Greek to name things. They’re dead languages. Nobody uses … » More …
Read More ...Dear Carmen,
Right now, there’s a fly walking on the window in my office. I asked my friend Rich Zack how it does that. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
It turns out my window isn’t as smooth as it looks. If we zoomed in on the glass, we’d see bumps and dips. It’s kind of like a rock face or a climbing wall.
“Surfaces look pretty smooth,” Zack said. “But if you get really, really close, you see there are all kinds of little indentations and crevasses. Even a pane of glass is not perfectly smooth. It’s got little nicks and … » More …
Read More ...Dear Remmi,
Mars is about 140 million miles from our cozy planet. A human mission to that cold, rocky neighbor would mean being away from Earth for about 3 years. But the things those explorers would see and learn would be mind-blowing.
I asked my friend Katie Cooper about that. She’s a scientist at Washington State University. She studies how geology and physics work on Earth and other places in space.
She told me the weirdest thing on Mars is a ginormous volcano.
“Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system,” Cooper said. “It dwarfs Earth’s volcanoes! Its massive size helps … » More …
Read More ...Dear Lucy,
Cats like me don’t have wisdom teeth. So, imagine my surprise to learn some of my human buddies get extra chompers.
I asked my friend David Carsten about it. He studied biochemistry at Washington State University. Now he’s a dentist who teaches about dental sedation and anesthesia at Oregon Health & Science University.
Dr. Carsten told me that humans can get three sets of permanent molars. Molars are the big grinding teeth in the back of your mouth. The third set—also called wisdom teeth—usually come in when you’re between 17 and 21 years old. If you get them at all.
Wisdom … » More …
Read More ...Dear David,
I like big bugs. I cannot lie.
But which insect is the biggest? I asked my friend Rich Zack. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me the answer depends on how you define big.
One way is how much matter makes up an insect’s body. The insects with the most body mass are giant beetles. These include titan beetles, Goliath beetles, rhinoceros beetles and elephant beetles. They can be the size of a mouse.
Read More ...Dear Maeve,
There’s just something special about those powerful, snow-white polar bears. That’s probably why it’s so hard to learn about what’s happening to their habitat.
I talked about that with my friend Anthony Pagano. He used to work with the grizzlies at Washington State University’s Bear Center. He studies polar bears in Alaska.
He told me that scientists classify polar bears as marine mammals—like whales, dolphins and other mammals that live in the ocean.
“They’re reliant on the sea ice that occurs over the Arctic Ocean,” he said. “They use the ice as a platform to catch seals.”
Polar bears spend … » More …
Read More ...Dear Gabby,
As a science cat, I don’t stir honey into my tea or drizzle it on my biscuits. I don’t have taste receptors for sweet things. Honey doesn’t have a taste to me.
But my human friends gobble up the honey made by the Washington State University bees. I asked my friend Rae Olsson why bees make that sticky stuff in the first place. Olsson is an insect scientist.
It turns out honey is the way honey bees store food for the winter.
“Just like we store food in our refrigerators and pantries, bees turn nectar from flowers into honey, so it doesn’t spoil,” Olsson said.
Read More ...Dear Lily,
I love thinking about things I can’t see with just my eyes. Like the atoms that make up everything.
I asked my friend Fred Gittes how to figure out the number of atoms in a leaf. He’s a physicist at Washington State University.
He showed me a worksheet he gives his students. It included a question exactly like yours!
“It’s a question I assign college students for fun,” Gittes said.
So, you’re in great company when you ponder big questions like this.
We decided to use stoichiometry to find the answer. That’s a kind of math that scientists do to understand chemical reactions.
Read More ...Dear Grant, William and Kate,
When I was a kitten, I liked to scratch tree trunks. I loved sinking my claws into their bark. Now I mostly hug trees—but I still love the way bark feels under my paws.
I asked my friend Henry Adams why trees have that tough outer layer. He’s a tree scientist at Washington State University.
He told me that bark protects trees.
“Bark is like our skin,” Adams said. “It protects trees from all kinds of attackers that might want to get in—like viruses, bacteria, fungi, insects or even non-living things like fire.”
Read More ...Dear Seth,
Since I’m a fluffy cat, my fur protects me from the sun. But my hairless cat and human friends use sunscreen when they go outside.
I asked my friend Michael Smerdon how it works. He’s a biochemist at Washington State University.
He told me that the sun puts out different kinds of light. Some light is visible to humans. Some is invisible—like UV light.
Read More ...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.”
Read 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 mating period is very important to them.”
That’s what my gnats were doing.
The conditions outside were just right, so a bunch of male gnats showed up in the same place. When female gnats got there, it was easy for them to find a mate—because everybody was together.
Read More ...Dear Israel,
It just so happens that July is National Ice Cream Month. To celebrate, I decided to whip up some homemade ice cream. You can try it at home, too.
Put milk, sugar and vanilla into a freezer bag and seal it up tight. Fill another gallon freezer bag with ice and rock salt. Place the liquid mix bag inside the bag of ice and give it a good long shake. Some scientists might call this part "agitating." After five minutes or so, you'll notice the liquid mix in your bag becomes solid. Then you can dig in with a spoon.
After making my own homemade tuna-flavored ice cream, I decided to take a trip to the Washington State University Creamery to see how the professionals make ice cream for Ferdinand's Ice Cream Shoppe.
Read More ...Dear Zadok,
When I was a kitten, a tornado tore through the neighborhood I was visiting. It got eerily quiet outside. Then the sky turned green. My littermates and I climbed into an empty bathtub to stay safe. After that, it got super loud.
I talked about extreme weather with Nathan Santo Domingo. He’s a weather scientist at Washington State University.
He told me that how to prepare depends on where you live. Different places have different kinds of extreme weather.
“Keep an eye on the forecast and know what's coming your way,” Santo Domingo said. “Be smart about what happens in your area.”
Read More ...Dear Juan Simon,
The deadliest animal on Earth isn’t a shark or a bear. It’s an insect. Mosquitoes kill way more people than any other animal.
I talked about it with Jeb Owen. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me mosquitoes are dangerous because of the way they sometimes eat.
“Through blood feeding, mosquitoes can transmit pathogens that make people and animals sick,” Owen said.
Read More ...Dear Valerie,
Every summer I grow peppers in my garden. I always thought they were vegetables. But you’re right that my peppers have gobs of seeds like fruits do.
To figure out what’s going on, I talked with my friend Jacob Blauer. He’s a plant scientist at Washington State University.
He told me that whether something is a vegetable or fruit depends on what part of the plant it comes from.
“Plant products that come from plant parts like roots, leaves or stems are veggies,” Blauer said. “If they come from a flower and bear seeds, they’re a fruit in botanical and scientific terms.”
Read More ...Dear Emmie,
When I want something sweet, I pull out a jar of honey made by my bee friends at Washington State University. I talked about your question with one of the insect scientists there, Rae Olsson.
They told me a honey bee colony includes one female queen, many female workers and, depending on the time of year, some male drones.
Workers have lots of jobs. They gather nectar and pollen. They take care of each other, the queen and the baby bees.
A drone’s only job is to mate with a queen from another colony.
The queen’s only job is to … » More …
Read More ...Dear Landon,
I love taking selfies with my insect friends. They’re so tiny and look so different from a big cat like me.
But my friend Rich Zack told me that insects and humans have lots in common. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
“There are body systems that every animal needs,” Zack said. “Insects are relatively advanced animals, so they do a lot of things like humans do.”
That means many of an insect’s body systems are like yours. But there are three body systems that are super different for insects. Those are the skeletal, circulatory and respiratory systems.
Read More ...Dear Carla,
I keep mason bees. They sleep in cardboard tubes all winter long. I worry about my little bees until I see them chew out of their nesting tubes in the spring.
I talked about how mason bees and all kinds of bees survive winter with my friend Brandon Hopkins. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University. He manages the honey bees on campus.
The honey bees we see in North America today first arrived with Europeans in the 1600s. We love honey bees because they pollinate our crops and make delicious honey. But there are lots of bees that have always lived here—like bumble bees, squash bees and mason bees. Those are native bees.
Most native bees survive the cold by overwintering in the nests where they were born. That could be tucked into the soil or leafy debris. It could be nestled inside hollow plant stems, holes in wood or tubes like my mason bees. Some native bees like bumble bees live in colonies. Only the queen survives the winter. She digs into the earth or finds a hollow tree and hibernates there.
Read More ...Dear Eden,
I live close to a natural area with lots of birds of prey like hawks and eagles. I love to watch them sit in ginormous nests on top of electrical poles. Or swooping around in big circles while they search for a meal.
I talked about why they circle with my friend Jennifer Phillips. She’s a wildlife ecologist at Washington State University. She studies the relationship between birds and the environment.
She told me that birds of prey fly in a circle because they’re riding warm air currents called thermal updrafts or thermals. As the sun heats the Earth, some pockets of air get hotter than others. That warmer air rises. Birds can hop on those warm, rising thermals and ride them. That saves energy.
Read More ...Dear Alivia,
My neighbor has a very prickly garden. It’s full of cactuses—including one thorny plant nearly as tall as my house. That’s not something you see every day in the Pacific Northwest. Cactuses usually live in dry places like deserts.
I talked about your question with my friend Linda Chalker-Scott. She’s a garden scientist at Washington State University.
Read More ...Dear Mya,
It’s hard to imagine that one space rock wiped out the dinosaurs. But it did more than that. It killed 75% of the plants and animals on Earth. Me-OW.
I talked about that with my friend Barry Walker. He teaches geology classes about Earth’s history at Washington State University.
Walker told me that we call a space rock that hits Earth a meteorite. The meteorite that took out the dinosaurs set off changes on Earth. Those changes lasted for thousands of years. That’s how it killed so many things.
Read More ...Dear Asher,
When I was a kitten, there were tons of fireflies in my grandparents’ yard. My litter mates and I loved to gently catch them and let them go.
I talked with my friend Richard Zack about how and why fireflies light up. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
Those glowing insects are a kind of beetle. But we call them fireflies or lightning bugs. Their glow is a form of bioluminescence. That’s when a chemical reaction inside a living thing makes it light up.
Read More ...Dear Anabelle,
When I was a kit, I looked a lot like the adult cat I would become—even though I was smaller and fluffier. But wiggly caterpillars don’t look like butterflies at all.
I talked about this with my friend Allan Felsot. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me cocoons are mostly silk. But they’re usually made by moths. A butterfly “cocoon” isn’t really a cocoon at all. It’s called a chrysalis.
Read More ...Dear Charlie,
There are about 40 kinds of cats out there—like me. There’s only one kind of human on Earth now. But there are more than a million kinds of insects. That’s just the insect species we know about.
Every single one of those insects has six legs.
I talked about why that is with my friend Allan Felsot. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me there must be some evolutionary reason insects have six legs—like better stability when walking.
“In biology, every ‘why’ question has the same answer,” Felsot said. “Things are the way they are because of adaptations that have allowed organisms to live longer.”
Read More ...Dear Carola,
Have you ever read the book “The Very Quiet Cricket?” It’s about a young cricket who can’t chirp until he grows up.
My friend Rich Zack reminded me of that book when we talked about your question. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University.
He told me only adult male crickets make sound. Sometimes they chirp to defend their territories. It’s how they tell other male crickets to stay away.
But the main reason they chirp is to find a mate. Cricket chirps are mating songs. That song will be different for different kinds of crickets—and the song changes when the female cricket shows up.
Read More ...Dear Raman,
You probably don’t look like an insect. You don’t have feelers or wings. You keep your skeleton inside your body instead of on the outside. But what about blood? Do insects have blood like yours?
I talked about this with my friend Richard Zack. He’s an entomologist at Washington State University.
“Insects have hemolymph,” he said. “It’s very similar to blood.”
Zack told me hemolymph moves differently through the body, and it doesn’t do everything blood does.
Humans and other mammals have closed circulatory systems. That means their blood travels in blood vessels. A heart pumps the blood all over the … » More …
Read More ...Dear Jacob,
When I wake up from a cat nap, I stretch and take a deep breath. It feels good to fill my lungs with oxygen.
But that wasn’t always possible on Earth.
I talked about this with my friend Sean Long. He’s a geologist at Washington State University.
“The cool thing is the answer has to do with life,” Long said. “Early life forms on Earth gave us all the oxygen. They were single-celled bacteria.”
Our planet is about 4.5 billion years old. There’s been life on Earth for 3.5 billion years. The first life forms were made of just one cell. They were bacteria and their cousins called archaea.
Read More ...Dear Garrett,
When most people think about hibernation, they picture bears snoozing away the cold winter in their dens. You’re right that other animals do that, too.
I talked about your question with my friend Laurel Hansen. She’s an entomology professor at Washington State University. Her specialty is carpenter ants.
“We think most ants in our temperate climate will have diapausing larvae and what I would call overwintering adults,” Hansen said.
Diapausing and overwintering are like hibernating but not quite the same. There are a few things to know about ants to understand what these terms mean.
Read More ...Dear Tu,
If beetles seem to be everywhere, that’s because they are. Some beetles stand out because they’re colorful. Think about jewel beetles and ladybugs. Others play useful and weird roles in the ecosystem—like the poop-rolling dung beetle. Their ancestors probably even ate dinosaur poop.
Nobody knows exactly how many beetles there are, but scientists have some ideas. I talked about it with my friend Joel Gardner. He’s the collection manager for the insect museum at Washington State University.
When scientists find a new species, they describe what it looks like. They give it a name. They publish that information so other people know about it. That’s called describing a species. Scientists describe new insect species all the time.
Gardner told me scientists have described about 400,000 species of beetles so far. There are many more beetles we don’t know about yet. Altogether, there are probably between 1 million and 2 million beetle species.
Read More ...Dear Katy,
Don’t let the lab coat fool you. I enjoy chattering at birds as much as the next cat. Staring out the window and vibrating my mouth to “chirp” helps me relax after a long day.
My wild cousins do take things a bit further—namely, predation. It’s not pretty, but it’s an important part of keeping life in balance.
I talked about predators with my friend Travis King. He’s a Ph.D. student at Washington State University. He studies big cats like lynx and jaguars.
“It's a balancing act between predators, disease, food and space,” King said. “If you take away predators, you lose one of the factors keeping an ecosystem in balance.”
Read More ...Dear Riley,
There’s really nothing cuter than baby animals. Many animal parents invest lots of time into caring for their young and teaching them to survive.
I talked about your question with my friend Amber Adams-Progar. She’s an animal sciences professor at Washington State University. She’s also an expert in dairy cow behavior. She told me that non-human animals learn in ways that are like how humans learn.
Read More ...Dear Raymond,
When I reached out to my friend Christopher Clarke with your question, he said, “That’s so cool that a kid is asking about inflation!” I agree.
Clarke is an economics professor at Washington State University. He told me inflation is the average rise in prices for goods and services.
So, what are goods and services? Let’s say you go to a restaurant and order enchiladas. The enchiladas are goods. You can see them, touch them and taste them. Services are the other parts of your dining experience. The people who take your order, cook your food and wash your dishes are all providing services.
The price you pay for goods and services changes over time.
Read More ...Dear Jett,
When I was a kitten, I loved collecting rocks and gems. So, I was very excited to talk about your question with my friend Johannes Haemmerli. He studies minerals in the School of the Environment at Washington State University.
Minerals are solids that form from non-living elements in nature. They have a very specific structure for how those elements are arranged. Haemmerli told me that nearly all gems are minerals or sometimes mixtures of minerals.
You’re right that gems form underground. A diamond forms when the element carbon is buried nearly 100 miles deep inside the Earth. It’s super-hot and there’s tons of pressure down there. Eventually the pressure pushes the carbon atoms together to form the mineral we call diamond. Above ground, where there is much less pressure, the same carbon can come together and form a mineral we call graphite. That’s the “lead” of your pencil.
Read More ...Dear Henry,
It’s easy to love bees. They’re furry and buzzy. Along with other insects, birds and bats, they pollinate about one-third of the plants we eat.
I talked about how long bees have been buzzing around Earth with my friend Silas Bossert. He’s an evolutionary biologist in the Department of Entomology at Washington State University.
“The oldest bee fossil that is really without doubt a bee is between 65 and 70 million years old,” Bossert said.
Read More ...Dear Kelsey,
The universe is a big place. Thinking about how we fit into it is part of what makes humans (and cats like me) special.
I talked about your question with my friend Afshin Khan who studied astrobiology and environmental science at Washington State University. Astrobiologists explore how life began. They also look for signs of life outside Earth.
Khan told me your question is a huge mystery.
“We have very good ideas about what could have happened,” she said. “In different labs around the world, we’ve gotten very close to simulating some of those conditions. But simulations can only get so … » More …
Read More ...Dear Gillian,
Archaeologists exploring ancient Egyptian tombs sometimes find honey. It’s thousands of years old, but you could still safely spread it on your toast!
I talked to my friend Brandon Hopkins, professor in the WSU department of entomology, about why honey lasts so long. He told me honey is one of the only foods that never spoils.
Read More ...Dear Henry,
An octopus has three hearts and long arms with suction cups. It probably seems very different from you. But you have the main ingredients of octopus ink in your body, too!
I talked about octopus ink with my friend Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens, associate professor in WSU’s School of the Environment. She told me that ink isn’t just an octopus thing. Most animals called cephalopods (sef-uh-luh-pods) make it. These include octopus, squid and cuttlefish.
Cephalopods including octopuses use color a lot. They have sacs of colored pigments all over their bodies. They use those sacs to change their body color. That helps them blend into their environment.
They also make and store a dark pigment in special ink sacs.
Read More ...Dear Peter,
At the end of the day, you probably curl up in a cozy bed for a little shut eye. Unlike you, most spiders have eight eyes, and they never shut any of them. They don’t even have eyelids!
I talked about spider sleep with my friend Richard Zack, an entomologist and professor in WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. He also runs the biggest insect museum in the state of Washington at WSU. He told me that spiders and insects do rest. They nestle into a safe spot and enter a “stupor,” which means they’re very still.
Read More ...Dear Natalie,
If you draw with a pencil, you can tell how soft the graphite inside is. Pieces of graphite break off to leave the pencil mark. But can you imagine drawing with a diamond? Diamonds and graphite are both what you might call rocks. How come they’re so different?
To find out, I talked to my friend Katie Cooper, a geologist and associate professor in the Washington State University School of the Environment. Geologists often study how different types of rocks and minerals form—and that’s the secret to whether they’re easy or hard to break.
Rocks are made of minerals, and minerals are made of elements, which are substances made of a single type of atom. You can get to know the Earth’s elements by looking at a Periodic Table.
Some minerals are made of a single element, like diamond and graphite, which are both made of carbon. Others are a mix, like limestone, which is made of calcium and carbon.
Read More ...
Dear Fisher,
Dear Luke,
I’ve been wondering the same thing lately. Every time I go on walks, I notice new splashes of color. Watching bugs in the grass, I pretend they’re crawling through a jungle. Everything is bright and bursting with green.
When I saw your question, I knew Michael Neff would know the answer. Green is his favorite color, too. (In fact, when we talked over video, he wore a green Hawaiian shirt.) Neff researches plants at Washington State University, and he is especially curious about grasses.
If you chopped a piece of grass and looked at it with your eyes alone, you might not see much. But if you looked at it under a microscope, you’d see tiny structures containing even tinier parts.
Read More ...Dear Joe,
You’re not alone—cats don’t like broccoli much either. As a carnivore, I think a nice, meaty buffalo wing sounds great.
But humans are omnivores, meaning they eat both plants and meat. They’ve developed a taste for all kinds of things growing and living all over the world. So where do individual people’s preferences come from?
To find out, I visited Carolyn Ross, a professor of Food Science at Washington State University. Like you, she is very curious about why people like the foods they like.
Read More ...Dear Kathrine,
Sinkholes can be scary to think about. They don’t happen too often, but when they do, they can take people by surprise. The solid ground disappears, and a hole suddenly appears.
It might seem like sinkholes appear out of nowhere. But they actually need specific conditions to form.
To have a sinkhole, you first must have a cave.
Read More ...Dear Emma,
For most of human history, people have enjoyed chocolate in a spicy, bitter drink. But when people discovered how to turn chocolate into a solid, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
That’s what I found out from my friend Omar Cornejo, a scientist at Washington State University who is very curious about the history and life of the cacao tree. Chocolate comes from the seeds of leathery fruits that grow on the tree.
If we cut open the fruit, we would find about 20 to 60 seeds on the inside. In ancient times, people would grind up the seeds … » More …
Read More ...Dear Courtney,
That’s a great observation. When it rains, worms sometimes leave their home in the soil and wiggle their way up to the surface, where we see them on sidewalks and roads.
Read More ...Dear Lucy,
There are a lot of different grasshoppers living on our planet. In fact, scientists have discovered more than 11,000 species. Exactly how these grasshoppers spend their winter depends on what kind of winter they experience.
Read More ...Dear, Finn, Emily, and friends:
When a raindrop falls from a cloud, there are quite a few places it could end up.
Read More ...Dear Joseph,
If you’ve ever had a headache, it might have felt like pain was radiating right out of your brain.
Read More ...Dear Anita,
Ants are pretty good little weightlifters. My friend Rich Zack, a scientist at Washington State University who studies insects, knows a lot about ants. One kind of ant that he has studied can carry up to 20 times its own weight.
Read More ...Dear Rhemi,
Astronauts eat all kinds of different foods up in space. The food is often similar to what we have here on Earth. But in space, there's very little gravity. There’s very limited refrigeration, too. On the International Space Station, the refrigerator is only about half the size of a microwave. That means scientists who prepare and package astronaut food have to do it in ways that take up very little room and don’t need to be kept cold.
Read More ...And while we’re at it, let’s answer these questions:
When lightning strikes the ocean, what happens to the fish? –Olivia, 12, Manchester, UK
Why is lightning attracted to metal objects? –Grant, 11, Pullman, Wash.
Why does lightning sometimes just happen in clouds? –Leo, 11, Cayman Islands
Dear Monica, Olivia, Grant, and Leo:
While you are probably not in the middle of an electrical storm right now, there are more than 1,000 happening at any given moment on our planet. They happen on Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter, too.
Dear Charan and Aishwarya,
Imagine you are playing a game of soccer and your best friend is on the opposing team. The sun is out, you are having a great time, and you score the winning goal. You’d probably feel pretty happy and so would your team.
Read More ...Dear Christina,
You know summer is just around the corner when the smell of barbecue is in the air. It’s a great question you ask and it leads us to the Meats Lab at Washington State University. That’s where I met up with my friend and animal scientist, Jan Busboom.
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Dear Gianni,
Our planet is home to more than seven million amazing animal species. While we have our differences, we also have something in common: We are all made up of a bunch of cells.
Read More ...Dear Tanya,
You know it’s springtime when animals start coming out of hibernation. That includes ladybugs that crawl out from their cozy winter hiding places.
Read More ...Dear Nadia,
A lush tropical rainforest, a field of sunflowers, a garden in your neighborhood. Our Earth is home to all kinds of plant life. From trees to catnip, there are thousands of different species of plants. Most of these plants are green, but not all of them.
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Dear Emily,
Just the other day I was biting into a crunchy, delicious red apple when I was reminded of your question. I started wondering why apples are red, too.
Read More ...Dear Kera,
Try as we might, it can be hard to hold back tears while chopping up onions.
Read More ...Dear Laurenz,
When I saw your question, I set out to explore with my bug net and a magnifying glass. I was searching all around for tiny insects when I ran into my friend Laura Lavine, a Washington State University scientist who studies bugs.
She said there are nearly a million different kinds of insects on Earth. The smallest of all the known ones are called fairyflies.
Read More ...Dear Allison,
My ears perked right up when I got your question. Like you, I’ve heard the sounds crispy rice cereal makes. But the truth is, I wasn’t entirely sure why it happens. There was only one way to find out.
Read More ...Dear Phillip,
Iron is found in buildings and skyscrapers. It makes up most of the Earth’s core. It’s even found in the Sun and stars. And yes, it’s also in a bowl of cereal.
Read More ...Dear Alysin,
At first, I thought the answer to your question might take us deep into the ocean. But it turns out the source of our salty seas is actually on land.
Read More ...Dear Garrett,
You know, your question reminds me of a couple other science questions from curious readers. Evangeline, age 7, wants to know why her hair is black. Sureya, age 8, wants to know why some people have curly hair.
It just so happens that one of my favorite science projects explores our questions about what makes us unique. It has to do with our DNA, or the blueprint for life.
Read More ...Dear Susan,
It just so happens that when I looked out the window here in Pullman, Wash., everything was covered in glittering snow. I watched it fall from the sky and wondered how exactly it formed, too.
Read More ...Dear Lily and Heidi,
Well, we don’t know for certain. Looking up to the stars at night, I’ve often wondered if alien cats are out chasing alien mice or taking naps on other planets.
My imagination aside, your questions are like those scientists are asking, too. And it’s no wonder we are so curious.
With billions of planets in our galaxy, including small Earth-like worlds, the possibility of life out there is an exciting thought to many people. So, humans have set out to look for planets that might support life.
In fact, this month scientists announced the Kepler spacecraft’s discovery of … » More …
Read More ...Dear Arielle,
Language changes all the time. Words get new meanings. New words get made up.
I talked about it with my friend Rich Zack. He’s an insect scientist at Washington State University. He does taxonomy. That’s the science of naming and classifying living things.
The way language changes is amazing—and skibidi. It’s neat that language morphs as we use it. But that can limit how well we understand each other. Some readers might see “skibidi” and think I passed out and hit random keys.
That’s the main reason scientists use Latin or ancient Greek to name things. They’re dead languages. Nobody uses … » More …
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