Dear Serenity,

Butterfly wings may be quite thin, but they are also durable and strong. This strength comes from the material that makes up the wings: chitin (KITE-IN).

Chitin is a kind of building material we find in nature. Chitin makes up not only the wings of butterflies but also the outer skeletons—or exoskeletons—of crabs, shrimp and lots of other insects.

My friend David James, an entomologist at Washington State University, told me all about it.

Dear William,

When you get hiccups, it might seem like they are coming out of nowhere—and before you know it, they’re gone.

To find out exactly why hiccups happen, I talked to my friend Dr. Luisita Francis, a professor of medicine at Washington State University.

She told me part of the reason humans get hiccups has to do with a very important muscle in the abdomen: the diaphragm (DYE-UH-FRAM).

Dear Sophia,

You’re stuck inside on a rainy day when all of a sudden you start to feel a bit bored. Maybe you aren’t sure what to do with the feeling. Maybe you decide to read a book or bake some cookies and the feeling starts to fade.

Perhaps you then start feeling happiness from doing an activity you love. You know, pretty much everyone experiences a variety of different feelings every day.

Dear Tara,

When you think of the Jurassic Period, you might think of dinosaurs, but all kinds of insects, including praying mantises, roamed the Earth back then, too.

Some of the mantises died and fossilized into rock and amber, which helped to preserve them for hundreds of millions of years. As scientists uncover these fossils in modern times, they can learn more about the life histories of insects.

That’s what I found out from my friend Elizabeth Murray, an entomologist at Washington State University, who is very curious about the diversity of insects on our planet.

Dear Pearl,

Our brains have the amazing ability to gather information and interpret it. This ability to gather and interpret—or perceive— is a big part of what helps humans see colors.

Our eyes have tiny cones that receive light, turn it into chemical energy and activate nerves that can send information to the brain. You might see an apple and think to yourself, “That’s the color red.”

My friend Rachna Narula, an optometrist at Washington State University, told me all about it.

Dear Emilio,

During a thunderstorm, there are often lots of tiny water droplets in the clouds that form precipitation like water, snow or hail. But that precipitation doesn’t always fall right to the ground.

Sometimes a falling raindrop will get swept back up in a current of air. The air current can carry the raindrop to higher parts of the thunderstorm cloud where temperatures are below freezing.

Under these super cold temperatures, a raindrop will freeze. Then, other water droplets will start clinging to the frozen droplet. This is how hail, or a hailstone, begins to form.

Dear Conner,

When objects like spacecraft pass through Earth’s atmosphere, things can really heat up.

To investigate the answer to your question, I talked to my friend Von Walden. He’s a professor and researcher with Washington State University’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Research.

First, he said it helps to know a bit about the differences between Earth’s atmosphere and space.

Dear Kaden,

There are a lot of steps that go into making a baseball. As we investigate this question, we’ll focus on the ones made for Major League Baseball.

My friend Lloyd Smith, a mechanical engineer and director of the Sports Science Laboratory at Washington State University, told me all about it.

A while back, he had a chance to visit a facility in Costa Rica where they make MLB baseballs. Smith said it begins with a small sphere called a pill, which has a cork center and a couple of rubber layers.

Dear Kolton,

A lot of researchers around the world are investigating this very question. While we don’t know everything about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus affects household pets, there are some things we do know.

My friend Dr. Raelynn Farnsworth, a veterinarian at Washington State University, told me all about it.

The risk of household pets spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans currently seems to be very low, she said. But a human who has the virus could potentially spread it to an animal, like a cat or dog, if they’ve been in close contact.

Dear Ava,

One of the most eye-catching hot springs in Yellowstone National Park is the bright and colorful Grand Prismatic Spring. It’s blue in the middle with bands of colors ranging from green and yellow to orange and reddish-brown.

My friend Peter Larson is a geologist at Washington State University who is very curious about hot springs. He spent much of his research career in Yellowstone National Park.

Dear Beau,

Before humans even knew how to predict solar eclipses, they were fascinated with the phenomenon. To figure out how to predict an eclipse, astronomers asked lots of questions and made observations about the motion of our moon, sun and Earth.

Dear Austin,

There are all kinds of tiny pathogens, including bacteria and viruses, in our world. Some of them are helpful and do things like keep the human gut healthy—but there are others that can make us quite sick.

I talked to my friend Alan Goodman about it. He’s an associate professor at Washington State University who knows a lot about the pathogens that can cause illness in people and other animals.

Dear Wyatt,

When humans want to look into the past, they often dig into the ground. Under the soil, archeologists can find all kinds of things that help us learn about life long ago.

That’s what I found out from my friend Rachel Horowitz, an archaeologist at Washington State University who is very curious about the lives of our human ancestors.

Dear Dorothy,

You’re right—different animals can hear different types of sounds. To find out more about it, I talked to my friend Dr. Vishal Murthy, a veterinarian at Washington State University.

Murthy reminded me sound comes from vibrations that travel through the air. For instance, when you feed your pet, the kibbles that fall into the bowl send out vibrations to your pet’s ears.

Some animals, like cats, dogs, elephants and humans, have ears that stick out and can help funnel these vibrations into the inner ear.

Dear Kaitlyn and Aiden,

You’re right, each year during the fall, we often see a lot of trees dropping their leaves. To find out exactly what happens when leaves fall, I talked to my friend Henry Adams, a researcher at Washington State University.

Dear Fatima,

A few different things happen when a bee stings you, and a few things happen to the bee, too.

When I got your question, I called up my friend Brandon Hopkins, who works as a honeybee researcher at Washington State University.

Dear Jacob,

You have a heart that beats every single day—even when you aren’t thinking about it. It likely beats about 60 to 100 times per minute. That adds up to more than a billion beats in a lifetime.

To find out how exactly how it all works, I talked to my friend Garry Smith, a researcher at Washington State University.

Dear Asia,

You may have noticed ice cream and popsicles will melt when they are out of the freezer for too long. To find out exactly why this happens, I headed to the Washington State University Creamery.

My friend John Haugen, the creamery manager, was happy to help with your question. He said a big part of the answer has to do with something called matter. All things in our universe are made up of matter—even ice cream and popsicles.

Dear Sabrina,

There are all kinds of different things to think about, along with a few challenges, when it comes to growing organic food.

My friend Lynne Carpenter-Boggs is a soil scientist at Washington State University who works with many different farmers and knows a lot about what it takes to produce food that is organic.

Dear Zane,

When you walk around on land, you are walking on top of Earth’s rocky crust. Below the crust is another thick layer of rock. These layers form Earth’s tectonic plates and when those plates collide with each other, they often form mountains.

[caption id="attachment_6257" align="alignright" width="198"] Julie Menard[/caption]

To find out more about how mountains form, I visited my friend Julie Menard, a professor at Washington State University who is very curious about geology.

Dear Nolan,

If you’ve ever been outside on a cold day, you may have noticed how your arm hairs stood up and you felt some goosebumps.

Humans get goosebumps for different reasons and one of those reasons has to do with temperature.

My friend Ryan Driskell, an assistant professor at Washington State University, is really curious about the innerworkings of skin.

Dear Zinnia,

That’s a great observation. When you breathe out, you let a couple of different things into the air.

Not only do you breathe out carbon dioxide, but you also breathe out teeny tiny droplets of water. These water droplets are so small we can’t see them with our eyes.