Dear Lydia,
A cookie is a tiny file of text that gathers information about you as you browse the web. You might be familiar with cookies if your computer has ever asked if you wanted to turn them on or off.
Read More ...Dear Michael,
A hundred years ago, human beings only lived to be about 50 years old. Now people are living longer, so there’s more time for cancer to develop in their bodies. That’s what I learned from my friend David Liu who researches cancer at Washington State University.
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Dear Hailey,
Cats love attention, but we don’t get jealous like humans do. It’s one of those emotions that set human beings apart from other creatures in the animal kingdom. But I can’t imagine it’s the most pleasant. The poet William Shakespeare once called jealousy a green-eyed monster. Still, it’s an emotion that can help you navigate the world.
Read More ...Dear Danielle,
Movies not only took the ideas and inventions of people, but also the work of a horse. Her name was Sallie Gardner and the debate of her day was whether or not horses ever had all four hooves off the ground during a gallop.
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 ...Dear Alexa,
My friend Kate Evans said the answer really depends on whether you want the perspective of a person, a plant, or even a cat. Evans is a plant scientist at Washington State University in Wenatchee, where she investigates fruit in the Apple Capital of the World.
She explained how long ago, wild apples actually grew in forests. Without farmers around to plant them in orchards, trees had to scatter their own seeds to survive.
For some trees, the key to survival is growing sweet, ripe fruit.
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Dear Jay,
We can use all kinds of animal, bug, and plant materials to make cloth. Even some of the tiniest living things on the planet can make cloth, too.
I heard about this from my friend Hang Liu, a Washington State University professor who studies the science of materials we use and wear every day.
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 Diedrich,
Like most cats, I enjoy curling up for a quick snooze by my sunny office window. But I know that some people don’t love sleeping. They want to go go go without a break.
I talked about that with my friend Greg Belenky. He runs the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University’s Spokane campus.
He told me that we need to sleep. Without it, we can’t do basic or complex things.
“All you have to do is look at behavior,” he said. “Somebody who’s sleep deprived for 84 hours can hardly do anything. They’re docile and easily led. They … » More …
Read More ...Dear Susan,
Cats aren’t usually big veggie-eaters. But working with humans means that I get to taste all kinds of new delicacies—like Brussels sprouts.
I talked about food preferences with my friend Carolyn Ross. She’s a chemist and food scientist at Washington State University.
She told me that some people are extra sensitive to how foods taste. They’re called supertasters.
“Supertasters actually have more taste buds,” Ross said. “We’ve found that people who are supertasters are particularly sensitive to bitterness.”
Bitterness really strikes at a supertaster’s fungiform papillae. Those are the mushroom-shaped lumps on your tongue that house your taste buds. Because of … » More …
Read More ...Dear Steven,
Donuts in the sky. That's the easy answer. The more difficult, and probably much more painful, answer depends on your view.
Read More ...Dear Elliot,
You are onto something. Quick, to the bat-lab! That’s where I met up with my friend Christine Portfors, a scientist at Washington State University who studies fruit bats.
Portfors explained that while bats don’t quite have habits like humans, they do have behaviors.
Bats are nocturnal. They sleep during the day and wake up in the early evening. The first thing they’ll do when they wake up is fly around and around their caves for a while.
Read More ...That crud is their food, Elliott. That’s what I learned from Steve Sheppard. He studies bees here at WSU.
Read More ...Dear Philip,
If you’re thinking of making a suit of rubber, forget it. It won’t work. There is nothing lightning won’t come near. It is unpredictable and very powerful, so just get that rubber suit out of your head.
Read More ...Dear Carlos,
Your question almost stumped me. I don’t really have dinosaur scientist pals. So, I turned to an expert on finding answers.
My friend Emily Cukier is a science librarian at Washington State University. She helps students and scientists find information. I asked her what dinosaur is the largest—and how she figures that out.
Cukier told me that I should think hard about my question. Are we looking for the tallest dino? The longest? The heaviest? Those might be different answers.
Then it’s time to ask the internet.
“I’m a librarian, but the first thing I would do is put it into … » More …
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