Whizz Pop Bang Science Magazine for Kids! Issue 10: EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS! by Whizz Pop Bang

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PLUS:

• WIN YOUR VERY OWN LIVING FOSSILS! • How can we save Britain’s wild seahorses? • SADDLE UP AND FIND OUT ALL ABOUT HORSES! • MEET A DARING SCIENTIST WHO EXPLORES VOLCANOES WWW.WHIZZPOPBANG.COM ISSUE 10

EXPERIMENTS PUZZLES AMAZING FACTS SCIENCE NEWS

Dear grown-ups, Welcome to WHIZZ POP BANG - the magazine bursting with enticing articles, mind-boggling facts and hands-on experiments to get your child hooked on science! Whizz Pop Bang is designed to capture your child’s imagination and help them to get excited about science. Every idea has been tested with kids and we’ve included the topics that interest them the most, whilst also introducing valuable science concepts. This makes Whizz Pop Bang a wonderfully useful resource for home educators. The magazine is also linked to the National Curriculum, so it will support children’s schoolwork as well. It’s not just science that your children will be learning either. Whizz Pop Bang will help with their literacy development too.

MEET THE GANG! I’m impressed with Charles

Lyell’s life story

– he seems really

down to Earth! I’m Emmi, by the way.

I’m Y– send me yo ur trick iest scien ce quest ions a nd I’ll do my be st to an swer t hem on the lette rs page!

Whizz Pop Bang is a gender-neutral magazine. Science is for girls just as much as it is for boys so expect to find plenty of inspirational female scientists as role models and content that appeals to all children. Whizz Pop Bang is only available by subscription. If you haven’t subscribed yet, simply go to www.whizzpopbang.com and sign up for as little as £2.95 per magazine, including delivery. With the help of WHIZZ POP BANG magazine, just imagine what your mini-scientist might one day discover! All experiments have been tried and tested by our team. The activities should be done under close adult supervision and are done at your own risk. Launchpad Publishing Ltd cannot accept liability for damage done.

WHIZZ POP BANG is made by:

Editor: Jenny Inglis Deputy Editor: Tammy Osborne Designer: Claire Brisley Illustrator: Clive Goodyer Contributors: Joe Inglis, Anna Emslie

Printed in the UK by The Magazine Printing Company using only paper from FSC/PEFC suppliers www.magprint.co.uk

I’m Gaak. The volcanoes on my home planet spew out molten marshmallows – much tastier!

My name’s Riley. Geology rocks, I really dig it!

get IN TOUCH Email: hello@whizzpopbang.com Post: Whizz Pop Bang, 20 Aldsworth, Cheltenham GL54 3QP Website: www.whizzpopbang.com Facebook: facebook.com/whizzpopbangmag Twitter: twitter.com/whizzpopbangmag

KEY You can make this at home

Linked to the National Curriculum

Have a go at this fun activity

For the super scientists out there

Setting the record straight

Can you guess?

Welcome! This issue is erupting with lava flows of exciting science – we’re exploring some of the most dangerous and inhospitable places on Earth! You can even make your own model volcanoes at home with our brand-new pullout section – simply pull out the centre page of this magazine and get creating!

fi n d th e sc ie n ce eq u ip m en t

Hidden on each double page is a piece of science equipment. Circle each one to find the complete ki t!

CONTENTS 4

Awesome News and Amazing Facts

In Depth

MOUNTAINS OF FIRE

Find out what’s happening in the world of science and hear about exciting new scientific discoveries Seahorses are magnificent, spiny creatures that live in our seas and oceans but their population is dwindling. Find out what you can do to help Take a peek inside a volcano and discover what makes them erupt. Try our experiment to make your own magma at home

SADDLE SCIENCE

INTERVIEW WITH A VOLCANOLOGIST

PULLOUT

COMPETITION

LIFE ON THE EDGE

10 AWESOMELY AMAZING

MY AMAZING LIFE

ASK Y

QUIZ POP BANG

Answers

SPECTACULAR SCIENCE

Vet Joe Inglis takes us on a canter through the history of horses! We talk to daring volcanologist Shane Cronin about his death-defying volcano research! Make your own model volcanoes in our brandnew pullout section Win some real-life pet triops creatures to hatch out at home! Meet all sorts of hardy beasts, including the miniature water bear that is arguably the toughest creature on Earth! The Whizz Pop Bang list of awesomely amazing Masters of Disguise Get to know the famous geologist and explorer Charles Lyell who travelled the world studying rocks and volcanoes Our super-smart robot Y answers your questions Test yourself with our Whizz Pop Bang super quiz! Find the answers to all the puzzles Want to see what a lightning storm in a volcanic ash cloud looks like?

Awesome News & Salt-f lavoured electric fork Japanese researchers have invented a fork that makes food taste salty. Adding salt to food often makes it taste nicer, but too much salt is bad for our health. At the push KIMOTO LAB KAMURA - RE © HIROMI NA of a button, this clever fork delivers an electric current that tricks your tongue into tasting saltiness, avoiding the need to add real salt. The researchers say that the electric shock doesn’t hurt, but pushing the button too much can produce a metallic taste, so perhaps there’s a bit more development work to do before we start to see these forks on our tables.

Chamber of secrets? The discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun was the archaeological breakthrough of the last century. Now, archaeologists think they may have evidence that further secret chambers lie beyond the tomb. Radar scans showed marks on the walls of the tomb that could indicate hidden doors leading to other chambers, undisturbed for 3000 years. Some even think that one of these chambers might be the lost tomb of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. If further scans confirm their suspicions, the archaeologists could drill a hole in the wall and push a camera through to reveal what the chambers contain. ©CARSTEN FRENZL

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Drilling into the past An international team of geologists has begun drilling into the enormous crater made by the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The Chicxulub crater in Mexico is buried under 600 metres of ocean sediment, making it difficult for scientists to study it. From a temporary drilling platform in the sea, the geologists will drill 1,500 metres into the sea bed to sample the rocks that the crater is made of. This is the first time the ‘peak ring’ – a circle of mountains on the crater floor – has been sampled. Analysing the rocks of the peak ring will help scientists to understand how craters are formed and to learn more about the impact itself and the immediate effect it had on the Earth’s climate.

Amazing Facts Could Disney World be powered by rotten tomatoes? Scientists in America have come up with a wacky way of generating power from unwanted tomatoes. At the moment, damaged or rotten tomatoes that cannot be sold are thrown away. Florida, where lots of tomatoes are grown, produces 396,000 tons of tomato waste each year. But this waste could one day be turned into energy, thanks to a new kind of ‘tomato battery’. The batteries use © M ANIMA bacteria to break down the tomatoes, releasing electrons, which creates an electric current. The researchers calculate that Florida’s annual tomato waste could potentially generate enough energy to power Disney World for 3 months!

‘Inf latable room’ sent into space Is it a giant pillow? Is it the world’s biggest marshmallow? No! It’s NASA’s new inflatable habitat that arrived at the international space station last month. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, was flown to the ISS inside the SpaceX Dragon rocket that was delivering supplies. A robotic arm then attached the module to the ISS, where it will soon be inflated to four and a half times its original size. This kind of expandable habitat provides valuable living space for astronauts, but is lightweight and takes up less space on a rocket. These units could one day be used as homes on Mars.

KOON

The world’s loudest animal Nope, it’s not a roaring lion. Nor a trumpeting elephant. It might come as a surprise to hear that the loudest sound made by an animal is a click lasting less than a second, and it’s made by the sperm whale. Sound is measured in decibels (dB). Normal human speech is around 60 dB. An ambulance siren is 120 dB. But the click of a sperm whale reaches an impressive 230 dB! whizzpopbang.com 5

News in depth

r u O e v a S : SOS

! s e s r o h a e S

n Faced with pollutio ct ion, and habi tat destru e sea Br itain’s most elusiv d creatures are in rapi t decline. Find out wha before you can do to help fish ever yone’s favour ite disappears from our coas tlines forever.

Sea-horsing around Everyone loves seahorses. You might have seen them in an aquarium or at the zoo, but did you know that we have wild seahorses right here in the UK? Two species – the spiny seahorse and the short-snouted seahorse – are native to Britain and can be found along the British coastline from the Shetland Islands in Scotland right down to the South coast. The scientific name for a seahorse is hippocampus, which means horse sea monster! In fact, seahorses are shy, gentle creatures that need our protection. Scientific evidence suggests they are disappearing fast. Some experts think that if we don’t act soon, they could become functionally extinct (meaning that there won’t be enough seahorses to continue to breed and keep up the population) in the next 20-30 years.

Why is this happening?

©THE SE

AHORSE

TRUST

“British Seahorses are under Around the world, over 150 million seahorses are threat from the loss of their habitat, which taken from the wild each year for use in Chinese medicine and as souvenirs and pets. In the UK, is caused by mankind. Boat anchors and wild seahorses are protected and it is illegal to moorings, bottom fishing and dredging destroy kill them. But their homes are not protected. the fragile seagrass beds and other areas Seahorses live in shallow water along the seahorses are found in. Pollution is also a major coast. Unfortunately, these coastal areas problem, killing the food seahorses eat, which are also heavily used by humans. is mainly small shrimps”.

Neil Garrick-Maidment, Director of The Seahorse Trust 16 6 whizzpopbang.com

What are we doing about it? Early this year, the UK government announced the creation of 23 new marine conservation zones, to protect our underwater wildlife, but conservation experts think that more needs to be done.

Some of the most important seahorse sites have not been protected. For some, like Studland bay in Dorset, it may already be too late. “We had 40 known seahorses in 2008 and in the last two years we have had none,” says Neil.

How can you help? Helping to reduce climate change by saving energy and reducing pollution will slow the temperature changes that are affecting the shrimps that seahorses eat. You could also write to your MP to suggest that more areas of the UK’s coastline are designated marine conservation zones. When you go on holiday, never buy souvenirs with dried sea creatures on them. If you see a shop selling dried seahorses you can report them to The Seahorse Trust by emailing neil.seahorses@tesco.net “Kids are the future, not only for seahorses, but the whole of the natural world,” says Neil. “They are the decision-makers of the future and it is up to them to learn from our mistakes and protect the environment and all the precious species that live in it.”

©THE SEAHORSE TRUST

Lots of illegal dried seahorses

Did yo u know?

Seaho

T ORSE TRUS ©THE SEAH

rses ar e the on ly anim al whose males get pregna the ba n t , carry bies an d give The bi b i rth. rthing proces s can las t up to 1 2 hours!

Seahorses can expand their snouts to fit in larger prey. whizzpopbang.com 7

Mountains

Fire

Volcanoes are some of the most devastating and dangerous natural forces on Earth – put on your heatproof suit and take a peek inside… Our intrepid robot Y is venturing deep underground…

The surface of the Earth is made up of huge tectonic plates of solid rock that measure thousands of kilometres across.

Earth’s giant tectonic plates are slowly moving. They sometimes grind against each other, causing earthquakes.

Y is digging through a layer of solid rock. This is the outer layer of the Earth, called the crust.

Y is now 100 km underground in the layer of the Earth called the mantle. It’s over 1,500 °C here – so hot that the rock has melted; the molten rock is called magma.

5. Volcanoes erupt when magma rises up through cracks in the Earth’s crust.

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Inside a volcano Gases and volcanic ash Crater

Side vent

Main vent

Layers of solidified lava and ash

Make your own 3D volcano model on page 17!

Lava flow

Magma chamber Crust

Magma Marvellous Magma Magma is the name for the liquid rock under the Earth’s surface; when magma comes up to the surface of the Earth, we call it lava.

Volcanic rocks are examples of igneous rocks, formed when magma or lava is cooled from high temperatures. Basalt, granite and pumice are all examples of igneous rocks that can be formed in volcanoes.

Mount Tambora toda y

This type of vo lcano is called a stratovolca no. It has stee p sides made by the build up of its explosive e ruptions.

The year without a summer The most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded was when Mount Tambora in Indonesia spewed out 10,000 million tonnes of volcanic rock in 1815. The explosion was so loud that it could be heard 2,600 km (1,600 miles) away. Ash blocked out light from the sun and lowered global temperatures and tens of thousands of people died from the eruption and resulting tsunamis (giant waves). Some experts believe the eruption also caused harvest failures around the world; 1815 is known as the Year Without a Summer.

©JIALIANG GAO

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Bubble Trouble Some volcanoes contain magma that is ‘runny’ and some contain much more viscous (gloopy) magmas – find out how different magmas affect volcanic eruptions by making your own eruptions…

You will need:

Disastrous effects Volcanoes can cause… 1. Tsunamis 2. Flash floods 3. Cyclones 4. Earthquakes 5. Blizzards 6. Mudflows 7. Rock falls Answers on page 34

Fiery Fact The most infamous volcanic eruption came from Vesuvius in Italy in AD 79, when the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were swamped by superheated flows of poisonous gas and ash.

• A small glass half-filled with water • A small glass half-filled with golden syrup, honey or other viscous (gloopy) liquid • An outdoor space or plastic sheeting • Two straws • Safety goggles

What you do: Protect your work surfaces and put on your safety goggles so your eyes don’t get splashed with spewing lava! Imagine that the water is runny magma below the surface of the Earth and that the gloopy liquid is viscous (thick) magma. Put a straw into each cup of lava. Gently blow bubbles – first into runny magma (the water) and then into the viscous magma (the gloopy liquid). Which is easier to blow into? Now try blowing really hard into each type of magma. What happens? You should find… It’s hard to blow bubbles into the viscous magma; the bubbles come to the surface much more easily in the runny magma (or water). When you blow bubbles into the runny magma, you create lots of small bubbles that quickly and easily rise to the surface. When you blow into the viscous magma, a large bubble builds up below the surface and then suddenly erupts, taking the gloopy magma up with it. Similarly, real volcanoes that contain viscous (thick) magma erupt much more violently – and so are much more dangerous – than volcanoes that contain runny magma. Fiery Fact In 2010 the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland ejected fine ash high up into the atmosphere. The ash cloud was blown towards Europe, closing 313 airports, cancelling around 100,000 flights and stranding over 7 million people.

Wobbly planets Take a globe or a ball and start it spinning steadily on a flat surface – is the rotation nice and smooth? Now take a glob of something sticky (like plasticine, play dough or bread dough), slap it in the middle of Europe and try to get the globe spinning again. No luck? Everything’s gone unstable? Well, that’s exactly what happened – on a titanic scale – to Mars several billion years ago.

Moon face Recently scientists have shown that it seems likely that volcanic activit y also caused the axis of the Moon to tilt – it appears that the Man In The Moon has not always been staring at us!

In a spin Closer to home, every time there’s a large volcanic eruption or earthquake on Earth, the shift in landmasses changes our planet’s axis and the length of the day. But don’t worry – even the huge and catastrophic earthquake in Japan in 2011 only shoved the landmass around by a few metres. This caused our planet’s wobble to change, its rotation to speed up and the days to get shorter – by perhaps two millionths of a second.

Fiery Fact Around the world there are about 20 volcanoes erupting at any one time.

Extra-terrestrial Er uptions For hundreds of millions of year s volcanoes spewed lava onto the surface of Mars, creating the lar gest known pile of volcanic rock in th e solar system – around a billion billion tonnes. Jus t like your glob of plasticine in the wobbly planet ac tivity, this weigh t completely unbalanced Mars. The outer layer s of the planet had to shift, or rotate, to regain stability. The shift was so great that, if the same thing happened on Earth, Whiz z Pop Ba ng would be published from the Nor th Pole!

Fiery Fact On Earth, volcanoes are mostly found where tectonic plates move towards or away from each other. Many of these plate boundaries are under the oceans.

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Marvellous Mares This month our vet Joe Inglis has saddled up and galloped off to find out all about horses… AL

ANIM

ANT

ICS

Forget about dogs being human’s best friends – throughout history horses have been our most valued and important animal companions, helping us to travel, transport goods around the world, and fight wars. Before the arrival of steam trains in the 19th century, horses (and other animals such as camels and elephants) were the only way to get around on land other than walking.

Wild horsrees sthat lived in rainforests

dog-sized creatu the same Hor ses evolved from oder n horses are in M o. ag s ar ye on illi about 55 m and tapirs. lated to rhinoceroses re so al e ar t bu , as es ticated family as zebr t to have been dom gh ou th e ar es rs ho t The earlies have found and archaeologists o, ag s ar ye 0 50 5, more than to 3,500 BC. khstan dating back za Ka in s rm fa e rs evidence of ho

A prehistoric cave painting of horses, found in Lascaux, France.

©PATRICK JANICE K

Smart stallions

Horses are more intelligent than you might think and they have complex social lives, displaying a level of social organisation comparable to that of other animal brainboxes like dolphins, elephants and chimpanzees. They can even count! Dr Claudia Uller from the University of Essex has shown that horses can count the number of apples being put in buckets and then use this information to choose the bucket with the most apples in.

& Super Stallions It’s a foal!

Female horses, called mares, carry their young for 11 months before giving birth, which is 2 months longer than humans. This extra time in the womb means that foals are more developed before they’re born, so they can walk within hours, unlike baby humans who take around a year to walk. In the wild this means they are better able to escape from predators – and for our domestic horses, it makes wobbly new born foals very, very cute! ©ELMA

Horses have more facial expressions than chimps.

Galloping on tiptoes

All mammals, including horses and people, have the same basic skeleton structure, but evolution has made some of the details very different between species. Horses have long and superlight legs, with all the muscles at the top, and very thin lower limbs, enabling them to run very quickly. The bones in their feet are actually the same as those in one of our fingers, just much thicker and stronger, so horses run on the very tips of their fingers and toes!

Hands up

Most people and animals have their height measured in metres or feet, but not horses - instead, the height of horses is measured in units of hands and inches. One ‘hand’ is equal to 4 inches, or just over 10 cm, and their height is measured at the withers, the point at which the neck meets the back. Fully grown horses that are less than 14 hands 2 inches tall are known as ponies. The largest horse in recorded history was probably a Shire horse named Mammoth, who was born in 1848 and stood 21 hands 2 1/4 inches (219 cm) high. A Shire hors e

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interview with a...

t s i g o l o n a c l o V

Professor Shane Cronin spends his days scaling erupting volcanoes. We tracked him down in New Zealand and asked him to tell us all about his exciting job…

What made you want to become a volcanologist? I was interested in volcanoes as a child because I grew up on the edge of New Zealand’s largest volcano, Taupo. I remember my parents and their friends talking about earthquakes and eruptions from the Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu volcanoes to the

south and wondering whether Taupo would wake up again one day. I ended up at university a number of years later studying Earth science. Ruapehu erupted in 1995 while I was doing my PhD. Right on cue, I had my first eruption and I have chased them and worked on them ever since! © DAVINA BRISTOW

OW © DAVINA BRIST

Have you ever climbed up an active volcano? Climbing up an active volcano, and down into the crater, is the most exciting work because you never know what things you will see. Volcanoes are such dynamic parts of the landscape. Their whole shape can change overnight in big eruptions and you can never know quite what is going to happen – even if you know the volcano well.

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What do you spend most of your time doing? The key research that I do is to try to figure out what types of eruptions have occurred in the past at volcanoes. Each one is different and has its own ‘personality’. I work out how often they erupt, using methods like Radiocarbon dating to determine their age, how large the eruptions were, mapping the areas they affected, and what types of events they were, ranging from gentle and producing lava flows, through to hugely violent and explosive. From these results I work with others to develop hazard assessments. Mind you, this is what I mostly do when I am waiting for the most exciting thing... the eruptions!

Ambrym volcano

Is it scary seeing a volcano erupting? Watching eruptions is only scary if you are in the wrong place. This has thankfully happened only a couple of times. Most times, I am trying to get closer to get a better view or sample. If you know what the limits are of the explosions or lava flows or mudflows, then you feel safe if you judge your position well – AND you have a retreat path!

What kinds of eruptions have you seen? I have witnessed many exciting different types of events – active lava flows, explosive eruptions and explosive underwater events. The spectacle is amazing. Recently I have also been working on volcanoes where there is always lava at the surface - Ambrym in Vanuatu has a lava lake! It sloshes around all the time. I have climbed down near to it to take gas and lava samples. I also work a lot on Tanna volcano, which is also in Vanuatu and is always blasting hot magma out in fountains like fireworks. This volcano is known as the ‘lighthouse of the Pacific’ because it explodes so regularly. Captain Cook visited here over 300 years ago and saw it doing the same as it does now!

Have you ever been in danger? I have been in a few tight spots. I recall working on the Te Maari eruption in 2012. We helicoptered into the explosion zone with a strict 1-hour time window. Jumping out of a hovering helicopter on to steep, icy slopes with the stench of the volcanic gas, and the long list of things to do before running to the pick-up point was adrenaline-pumping to say the least! The other time when I felt frightened on a volcano was high on the slopes of Merapi when there was a series of hot-rock falls that occurred just as a blanket of fog rolled in. My colleague and I could not see a thing, but we could hear the hot flows sweeping down the canyons on either side of us. We rushed down the flanks aiming for a sheltered place and to get below where these hot-rock flows were stopping. As the fog lifted and we looked back at where we were, we put that site on the ‘never visit again’ list! OCTER © JON PR

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Do you have any advice for kids who would like to become volcanologists when they grow up? If you want to become a traditional volcanologist, the things you need to know about include the chemistry and physics of the processes that build up the Earth. But there are many people that work on all aspects of volcanoes, from mathematicians who model the probability of eruptions and chemists who study the properties of magmas and volcanic minerals, through to people like me who concentrate on aspects of geology and working out what might happen in the future by comparing the deposits to modern eruptions.

Shane visitin g a crater la ke with his c hildren

Using a seismometer to watch the ‘pulse’ of an erupting vol cano

anaki, Mount Tar f o it m m u s the s ago Sunrise on d 200 year e t p u r e t s which la

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PLATZ

What’s the best thing about your job? Being able to travel a lot, visit exotic places and experience places that tourists don’t get to. Meeting people and working with them to improve their futures in terms of new hazard plans, warnings and understanding of the volcanic dangers in their regions. Above all, of course, being paid to have a job that is more like a hobby. Watching eruptions is cool, but there are many other parts of being a volcanologist that are rewarding and fun too.

pullout volcanoes

n w o r u o y e k a M

volcanoes! Erupting Volcano

You will need:

• The volcano template A from page 18 • A small container – a spice jar is ideal • 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda or baking powder

• • • • •

Take a good look at these instructions before you start cutting out the templates on the other side..!

Sticky tape Two tablespoons of vinegar Red and yellow food colouring Uncoloured soap or washing up liquid Tray to contain the mess (or go outside)

What you do:

1. Cut out volcano template A from page 18. 2. Curve it around to make a cone shape and adjust the

You should find…

Your volcano erupts! The acidic vinegar reacts with the bicarbonate of soda, opening at the top so that it fits neatly around the top of your small container. You might need to trim the paper which is a base. The reaction to size. Fix the cone to the top of your container with produces a gas called carbon dioxide. This gas gets trapped sticky tape all around. inside bubbles, which are held 3. Pour several drops of red and yellow food colouring into the container. Add the vinegar and a squirt of soap together with the help of the soap. The bubbles force or washing up liquid and then stir. themselves up to the surface 4. Put the volcano on a tray or take it outside. along with some of the liquid, 5. Tip the bicarbonate of soda or baking powder into your mimicking the way that lava volcano. Give it a quick stir and watch what happens! erupts from a volcano.

Fiery Fact Lava can reach a whopping 1,250 °C – hot enough to melt most metals!

Fiery Fact Volcanoes don’t just occur on land, there are also lots of volcanoes underneath the Earth’s oceans.

Fiery Fact The world’s tallest volcano, measured from its base (6,000 m below sea level) to its summit (4,205 m above sea level), is Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.

VOLCANO TEMPLATE A

model Volcano Make your very own 3D model of an erupting volcano! Carefully pull out this central page and cut out volcano template B. Fold and glue as illustrated on page 20.

VOLCANO TEMPLATE B whizzpopbang.com 19

model Volcano You will need:

• The volcano template B from page 19 • Glue • Scissors

What you do:

Take a good look at these instructions before you start cutting out the templates on the other side..!

1. Carefully crease all the fold lines so that you’re ready to begin. 2. Make the base by gluing tabs 1 and 2 as shown. 3. Curl the volcano to make a cone and glue tab 3 down. 4. Insert the cone into the base and glue the number 4 tabs in place. 5. Fold the smoke plume and glue tab 5 inside the curved volcano. 2.

3. and 4.

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COMPETITION

! IN

TRIASSIC TRIOPS

We’ve got five awesome Triop World sets to give away! Solve this puzzle and you could be hatching your very own crustaceans that have been around since the time of the dinosaurs! Five lucky winners will soon be hatching their own Triops and watching them grow up to 4cm long! When water is added to the packet of ‘dirt’ included in each kit, the bizarre life of an ancient little animal that has been around for hundreds of millions of years begins! Triops

HINT Look at how many letters each word contains to see where it fits.

(pronounced ‘try–ops’) are creatures that biologists often call living fossils because they first stepped onto the scene during the Triassic period. The secret of their success is down to their simplicity, which has allowed them to become masters of extreme environments.

Fit all of the words into the grid to reveal a new vertical word!

ADAPTATIONS EXTREME ENVIRONMENT VOLCANO HABITAT TEMPERATURE DRY EARTH LIFE

Triop World sets are available from www.interplayuk.com/my-living-world For your chance to win a Triop World set from Interplay UK Ltd, email the word revealed in the yellow boxes to win@whizzpopbang.com or post your entry to Whizz Pop Bang, 20 Aldsworth, Cheltenham GL54 3QP. Five winners will be picked at random. Don’t forget to include your name, age and address. Deadline: 5th June 2016. The Triop World kits are only suitable for children aged over 7 years old.

WI N ! Triop world set

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LIFE ON THE EDGE Hostile homes

Find out how creatures big and small are able to survive the world’s most extreme environments…

ggling Planet Earth has a mind-bo m baking range of environments, fro n trenches. hot deserts to deep ocea life can be Yet jus t about ever ywhere, s, creatures found. For billions of year d ever y big and small have colonise net, nook and cranny of our pla t would adapting to conditions tha u in freeze, boil or pulverise yo seconds!

Cool camels

Mos t mammals sweat to keep cool e so but, because deserts ar to lose dr y, camels can’t af ford have any water. Ins tead, they treme evolved to cope wi th ex rature changes in body tempe mmals. that would kill other ma To keep their brains cool, culation camels have a clever cir ading system where blood he oled towards the brain is co ly by blood that has recent el’s well passed through the cam the ventilated nose, keeping oler brain several degrees co . This than the rest of its body rent is called a ‘counter-cur mechanism’.

Too hot to handle?

Think of an inhospitable environment and the desert probably springs to mind. With temperatures reaching over 50 °C and virtually no water, it’s hardly surprising that the animals and plants living here have had to evolve some pretty impressive adaptations to survive. Camels have many other adaptations to desert life... Long eyelashes and transparent extra eyelid keep the sand out

A giant stomach enables it to drink enough water to fill a bath Large, wide feet spread its weight and stop it sinking into the sand

Thick coat protects the skin from the sun and keeps the heat out

Long legs keep its body further away from the hot sand

A camel’s hump stores fat, not water. By storing fat in one place, instead of all over its body, the camel avoids insulating its body and making it even hotter. 20 whizzpopbang.com

To avoid wasting water, its wee is as thick as syrup and its poo is so dry you can start fires with it!

ow? Did you kn d insects Reptiles an esert suited to d r e tt e b r fa are . Silver mmals are a m n a th life ert, for Sahara Des e th m o fr ants l ‘heat duce specia o r p , le p m exa aving s’ before le in e t o r p k c r sho w the silve o ll a e s e h T . their nests atures ith temper w e p o c to ants h to – hot enoug C ° 3 5 to p u fry an egg!

©BJØRN CHRIS TIAN TØRRISS EN

The big chill

L PHER MICHE ©CHRISTO

or penguin An Emper mth dle for war d u h y il m fa

Some like it hot

could You might think that nothing ng volcano, sur vive the heat of an erupti es are but you’d be wrong. Volcano cteria home to a special kind of ba means called ‘ther mophiles’, which have lived heat-lovers. These bacteria boiling hot among poisonous gases and ars and temperatures for billions of ye contact wi th would die if they came into the air that you breathe!

You might think you’ve got a warm winter coat, but the emperor pengui n’s is an incredible 3cm thick! Long, stif f feathers keep out the hundred-mile-an-hou r freezing Antarctic winds, while a layer of soft , fluf fy feathers locks in warmth. Winter tem peratures in Antarctica can drop as low as -89 °C, so adaptations like these enable the pen guins to sur vive temperatures that would free ze you solid! Penguins also use a ‘counter-cur ren t mechanism’ to stop them losing hea t through their feet. Warm blood flowing into the feet warms up the cold blood flowing bac k into the body before it has a chance to lower the penguin’s core body temperature. Penguins share their body heat by huddling together, tak ing it in tur ns to be in the cosy centre of the huddle.

Frozen fish Fish that live in the Arc tic have d eveloped an antifreeze pro tein in their blood that p revents them from freezing solid in the cold water.

whizzpopbang.com 23

Fathoms below

habitat on Earth, The deep sea is the largest to explore as but one of the most dif ficult g down on you the pressure of water pressin down. The deepest increases as you go fur ther is nearly 11 km part of the Mariana Trench er than Mount below sea level – even deep le to swim this Everes t is tall! If you were ab ashed as flat as a far down you would be squ times higher than pancake by pressures 1000 sea is home to those on land. Yet the deep creatures, perfectly many weird and wonderful pths – bit ter ly cold adapted to life in the dark de light and crushing water, ver y little ox ygen, no pressures.

©MASAKI MIYA

Anglerfish have special ‘lures’ to attract prey towards them in the pitch darkness.

©CLAF HONG

Gulper eels have huge mouths and stretchy stomachs so they can swallow prey twice their own size to make the most of a rare meal. Vampire squids have blue blood, which carries oxygen more efficiently, allowing them to live in the ‘oxygen minimum zone’ of the deep ocean that few animals can survive.

RARY

OTO LIB CE/SCIENCE PH ©EYE OF SCIEN

re ter bears a a w : ty h ig Small but m they m long but m .5 0 d n u o . only ar res on Earth tu a e r c t s e h are the toug 24 whizzpopbang.com

Super bears! Adapting to extreme environments takes a long time, so it’s no surprise that the animal best adapted to survive in a whole range of extreme environments has been evolving for over 500 million years! The water bear, or tardigrade, is able to cope with pretty much anything by rolling into a little ball, called a tun, and entering a state called ‘cryptobiosis’ where all its bodily processes come to a standstill. In this state, water bears can survive being boiled, frozen, crushed, poisoned, zapped with X-rays and even blasted into outer space! To enter cryptobiosis, the water bears need to dry themselves out and shrivel up like raisins. Most animals can’t survive this much dehydration – their cells would burst and their DNA fragment. But water bears avoid this by filling their cells with a special ‘sugar glass’ that perfectly preserves them. In this state they can survive without food, water or oxygen for hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of years.

Salty sea monkeys You may have heard of ‘sea monkeysTM’. You might even have some at home. But did you know that these novelty aquarium pets, which you ‘bring to life’ by just adding water, are actually brine shrimp? Brine shrimp are tiny but tough crustaceans

that have been living for over 100 million years in the ‘seas of death’ – salt lakes so toxically salty that few other creatures live there. To survive the salt, brine shrimp have evolved a neat trick: they pump salt out of their bodies through their gills, while their waterproof outer layer keeps the salt from coming back in. A sea monke y

Out of this world

Check out our competition on page 21 to win some crustaceans of your own!

The more we explore the varied habitats of planet Earth, the more we realise that, as long as there is water, life can adapt to pretty much anything! This has led some scientists to wonder whether life could be more common elsewhere in the universe than we previously thought.

Who lives where?

Draw lines to match the adaptation to the animal and the extreme environment it lives in. Use the pictures to help you. The first one has been done for you.

Adaptation

the way that the animal has become better suited to its environment

animal

Hollow hairs that trap warm air Flamingo

©DAMONGM AN

habitat

where the animal lives

Sahara desert (intensely hot) Salt lakes (very salty)

Enormous eyes Yak Nostrils with salt-excreting glands

Arctic tundra (freezing cold) Fennec Fox

Bat-like ears that release body heat Polar Bear

Tibet (high altitude, so little oxygen)

Deep ocean (very dark)

Large lungs

Colossal Squid

. .. g in z a m A ly e m o s e w 10 A

f o s r e t s a M In the wild, hiding from predators is a matter of life or death, so nature has come up with some pretty cool camouflage tricks…

Octopuses are able to ‘switch on’ their camouflage when they feel threatened, using special cells to change the colour and patter n of their skin to match their surroundings.

Decorator crabs are fond of fancy dress, adorning themselves with bits of seaweed and other things they find lying around, which they attach to the VelcroTM-like hooks all over their bodies.

©NATIONAL OCEAN

SERVICE

on these zebras Where’s Wally has nothing o a crowd. When when it comes to blending int ir colouring makes they stand close together the out individuals. it hard for predator s to pick TRICH ©DANIEL DIE

4 NA PA DO SEU

©P X

26 whizzpopbang.com

To predators, the owl butter fly is easily mistaken for the face of a big-eyed owl which could eat them! This clever mimicry protec ts them from attack.

The common baron caterpillar looks remarkably like the leaf it is sitting on.

RN AUSWANDE ©WOHIN

Disguise 6

The great potoo is an expert at look ing like just another branch on this tree! Can you spot him?

©US FISH

©KESTER CLAR

agon is a The leaf y sea dr but you seahorse-like fish, for thinking it could be forgiven ting seaweed! is a piece of floa

Plovers rely on camouflage to protect their eggs. The eggs’ colouring blends perfectly into their surroundings, making them hard for hungry scavengers to spot.

E LIFE SERVIC AND WILD

To avoid being eaten, the harmless scarlet king snake mimics the colouration of the deadly coral snake.

©GLENN BARTOLOTTI

Is it a stick? Is it an insec t? It’s both! The stick insec t is a whizz at the art of deception, looking and acting just like a stick.

©TA-GR APHY

V ©PAVEL KIRILLO

whizzpopbang.com 27

My Amazing Life:

C harles L yell

Charles was one of the founders of modern geology and helped to explain how earthquakes and volcanoes were formed. He was also a close friend of Charles Darwin and helped him to form his famous theory of evolution.

harles Lyell is my name â&#x20AC;&#x201C; actually, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet and Fellow of the Royal Society, to give myself my full title! I was born in Scotland in 1797, near some beautiful mountains, but it was the landscape of the New Forest that first sparked my interest in rocks and mountains. My family moved to the New Forest when I was just 2 years old, and it was there that I grew up with my nine siblings. My father was a naturalist and I loved walking with him. I much preferred having lessons at home than

at school, where I never really fitted in. As a child, I was fascinated by anything to do with nature. My first hobby was collecting butterflies. When I was 19 I left home to study at Oxford University but my heart was never really in my studies of Greek and Latin classics; instead I listened to lectures by geologists and headed off on trips to look at rocks and fossils whenever I could. After finishing at Oxford I moved to London to study law, but again my budding passion for geology soon began to take over. I took every opportunity to spend my holidays in places where I could explore rocks. I finally graduated with a legal degree, but even with my new qualification and the prospect of a long and well-paid career in law ahead of me, my work as a lawyer took a back seat to my passion for geology, which was now starting to dominate my life! Luckily my father was supportive and provided me with an income that allowed me to travel and study geology, and I soon had my first scientific paper published. At that time most people thought that the world was only a few thousand years old and had been shaped by abrupt events or catastrophes, such as biblical floods. However, I saw evidence that suggested

28 whizzpopbang.com

that the world was in fact much, much older. Instead of being formed by great supernatural events, I was starting to understand that the world was in fact shaped by slow, gradual processes over an immensely long period of time – and these processes were still ongoing and could be seen in action all around us. This theory became known by the snappy title of ‘uniformitarianism’, because it argues that geology is shaped by uniform forces that act throughout history. In 1828, at the age of 31, I travelled around Europe with another young geologist, Roderick Murchison. We went to France and then to Italy, heading south to the island of Sicily where Europe’s highest active volcano, Mount Etna, stands. Despite the difficult roads it was an amazing trip and seeing the smoking crater at the top of Mount Etna was incredibly inspiring for me as a young geologist. The rock formations I saw there and those across Europe provided more and more evidence for my theories and gave me ideas on how volcanoes are formed over hundreds of thousands of years. By the time I returned I was ready for a well-earned rest – and to start work on a book. For the next three years I laboured over my book, which I called Principles of Geology. It was published in three long volumes in the early 1830s. Because my theories were new, I knew I had to back them up with as many hard facts as I could, and this new approach to writing scientific books was almost as revolutionary as my ideas themselves! Years later, the famous scientist Charles Darwin, who became a very close friend, said “the very first place

An illustration from Principles of Geology which I examined, namely St Jago in the Cape Verde Islands, showed me clearly the wonderful superiority of Lyell’s manner of treating geology, compared with that of any other author whose work I had with me or ever afterwards read.” Quite a compliment from possibly the most famous scientist of all time!

Principles of Geology was very well received and I soon became well known and respected, and was awarded a knighthood in 1848. I spent many years refining and improving my books, and continued to travel and explore the world. I even went exploring in North America several times and saw some amazing geological features, including the magnificent Niagara Falls. As well as changing the way we understand how the world around us has formed, my work has been crucial to the understanding of evolution – even if I was never quite convinced by it myself. The theory of uniformitarianism showed that the world was far older than people thought, with millions of years for animals to evolve. This was crucial for Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, which required immense timespans to work. Since he died in 1875, Sir Charle s Lyell has been remembere d in many ways. Several mountains were named in his hono ur, including Mount Lyell, the highes t peak in Yosemite Nationa l Park in Americ a. There is a crater Lyell on the Moon and a cr ater on Mars named afte r him, a mining to wn in New Zealand and two Lyell Glaciers. Th ere is even a long-extinct ja wless fish, called Cephalaspis lyelli in honour of Charles Lyell.

ASK

Our very knowledgeable robot, called “Y”, would love to hear what you’ve been up to, so please send in your experiments, ideas, drawings, facts, photos, jokes, questions and theories and a selection will be printed in the next issue.

Dear Y, How do things get trapped inside stones to form fossils From Daisy Thomas, aged 8 ¾. Dear Daisy,

Dear Y, I did one of your experiments in issue 7. It was the gleaming coin experiment. I also did it for my homework too. I really love your magazines. I have also attached a picture of me and the coins. Eleanor Smith, age 7

Henry Weddell with his shellless egg

Esther Bird with one of her dragon’s eggs!

Email: y@whizzpopbang.com Post: Y, Whizz Pop Bang, 20 Aldsworth, Cheltenham GL54 3QP We can’t return any post so if it’s precious please only send a photocopy.

Thanks for your question. Usually, when a living thing dies it just rots away. But occasionally, when the conditions are just right, it becomes fossilised. There are several different ways this can happen. A ‘mould and cast’ fossil is formed when an animal’s body settles on the sea floor. Its flesh rots away, leaving bones which become buried by sediment (mud or sand). The sediment gradually thickens and turns into stone (called sedimentary rock). The bones trapped in the rock eventually dissolve, leaving a bone-shaped ‘mould’. Minerals from the water gradually crystallise inside the mould, forming a ‘cast’ of the bone. After millions of years, as the landscape changes and the sea bed rises, the fossilised bones become exposed – ready for you to find!

Hi, I’ve made this robot for my school project this half term, as we are studying robots for our topic work. I added the robot hands from Issue 8. His name is “Ganny” and he is a “Homework robot” he is going to help with all my future homework. I hope you like him. Caitlin Hallett, age 7

Dear Y, why does ice cream melt if you leave it in the cupboard too long I am loving your magazines Love Sophie Ailsby, aged 7 xxx Hi Sophie, That’s great that you’re enjoying Whizz Pop Bang! Ice cream would melt in a cupboard because its melting point – the temperature at which it turns from a solid into a liquid – is lower than the room’s temperature. When you take ice cream out of the freezer, it starts to warm up and absorb energy from the warm air around it. This energy makes its atoms jiggle about more and more until they become a liquid. The amount of ice cream and the ingredients in it will also affect how fast it melts. Mmmm… all this talk of ice cream is making me want some! e 8: Competition winner from issu derfully creative Thanks so much for all the won try competition. entries into our Whizz Pop Poe , Elsie Wiltshire Congratulations to our winner self an from Sidmouth who has won her ely books and electronics set, a bundle of lov e’s Elsie’s a Whizz Pop Bang magazine. Her m… inspirational poe

From

! Science, Science All Around Me Science, science all around me! st tree, the smallest plankton to the talle

where? I’m always asking – why, what, ? How does a badger build his lair

n below, Science, science up above, dow r flow? I want to know, how does a rive sea? How do fish breathe under the How can a flea hop over me? and blow Science, science – things bubble ano. volc Boiling hot geysers and a mountain, Plates that push up to make a a fountain? How can we use water to make danger! Science, science orang-utans in n by strangers. Their home, the forests, cut dow I want to stop them being sad, mum and dad. I want to be a biologist like my © 2016 Elsie Wiltshire, aged 6

Esme Williams, aged 8, doing March’s Egg experiments.

Hello. My name is Millie and I am 6 years old. I liked your feature on robots and decided to draw a robot to help me with the job I hate the most - tidying my room. I hope you like it. Love Millie Marjoram

Dear Y, What is the Earth made of From Lewis Meehan, aged 6. Hi Lewis! Nobody has been able to drill into the middle of the Earth to get a sample of it, but seismologists (people who study movements in the Earth) have looked at the way that seismic waves, during earthquakes, are reflected from the centre of the Earth. They found that the inner core is a solid sphere at very high pressure and is made up of a mixture of metals, mostly iron and nickel. The inner core is about as hot as the surface of the Sun – around 5,400°C. Surrounding the inner core is a layer of liquid metal, called the outer core, and around this is a very thick layer called the mantle. This is made of molten rock called magma – the stuff that comes out of erupting volcanoes! The outer layer of the Earth is called the crust and is made of solid rock, most of which is covered with sea water.

whizzpopbang.com 31

Quiz Pop Bang!

Test your knowledge on ex tre me environments and our othe r awesome topics this issue to see how many fac ts you can remember… 1) What does a camel store in its humps?

2) What is the name for the liquid rock that is buried underneath the Earth’s crust?

a) Water b) Its dinner c) Fat

a) Magma b) Lava c) Granite

3) Male seahorses are the only male animals that can become pregnant. Up to how long does it take for them to give birth?

4) There are moving plates under the Earth’s surface that can cause earthquakes. What are they called?

a) 12 hours b) 12 days c) 12 minutes

a) Vibrating plates b) Dinner plates c) Tectonic plates

5) How many seahorses are used for medicine and as pets and tourist items every year?

6) Which units of measurement are normally used to measure horses?

a) 100 million b) 150 million c) 200 million

a) Feet and toes b) Hands and inches c) Metres and fingers

7) The great potoo bird is really good at camouflage. How does it blend in with its surroundings? a) It changes colour to match its environment b) It looks like a cloud, so it can’t be seen whilst flying c) It looks just like a branch of a tree

9) Which country is home to Europe’s highest active volcano? a) Germany b) Scotland c) Italy 32 whizzpopbang.com

8) Charles Lyell wrote a book of his theories on rock formations and how volcanoes are formed. What was it called? a) Principles of Geology b) Principles of Geometry c) Principles of Geography 10) Horses have a special ability to sleep standing up! What other great talent do they have? a) They can read b) They can count c) They can paint

11) The Mariana trench reaches almost which depth below sea level? a) 2 km b) 6 km c) 11 km

12) The water bear can survive without food, water or oxygen for hundreds of years in what state?

a) Cryptobiosis b) Cryptography c) Cryptozoology

Answers on page 34.

I scored: ..............

What was your score? 1-4: Rumbling Earthquake

M E

A E

M R

D A

CAMOUFLAGE

A M

E R

LYELL

E O

CANTER

M L

N W

O M

5-8: Red Hot Magma 9-12: Erupting

T R

N A

Volcano!

EXTREME SEARCH Can you find all of these words hidden in our extreme puzzle? BASALT GRANITE

MAGMA CONSERVATION MANTLE CRATER SEAHORSE

CRUST EARTH SEDIMENTARY

FIERY FACT Reading from left to right and top to bottom, put the spare letters from the grid (the ones that werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t part of any of the wordsearch words) into the boxes below to reveal an interesting fact about volcanoes

EVEREST TAUPO THERMOPHILES GEOLOGY VOLCANO HIPPOCAMPUS

Answers

Back cover - Riddles 1) A stamp 2) The Moon 3) A duckling 4) A ton Page 25 - Who Lives Where?

Page 7 - True/Untrue True: Seahorses suck up food through their snouts like a vacuum cleaner. When they encounter prey that doesn’t fit, they can expand their snouts!

Hollow hairs that trap warm air Flamingo

Salt lakes (very salty)

Enormous eyes

Page 10 - True/Untrue

Yak

1) True 2) True 3) Untrue 4) True 5) Untrue 6) True 7) True

Nostrils with salt-excreting glands

Arctic tundra (freezing cold) Fennec Fox Tibet (high altitude, so little oxygen)

Bat-like ears that release body heat Polar Bear

Deep ocean (very dark)

Large lungs

Page 13 - True/Untrue

Colossal Squid

True: Horses use similar facial expressions Page 33 - Wordsearch to humans to communicate. Scientists at Sussex University recently identified 17 H V S O Y L G different facial expressions in horses I C N E O R L – more than in chimpanzees! Page 32 - Quiz 1) C 2) A 3) A 4) C 5) B 6) B

Sahara desert (intensely hot)

7) C 8) A 9) C 10) B 11) C 12) A

34 whizzpopbang.com

M E

A E

M R

D A

A M

E R

E O

M L

N W

T R

O M

N A

The spare letters spell “VOLCANOES WERE NAMED AFTER THE ROMAN GOD OF FIRE, VULCAN, WHO ANCIENT ROMANS BELIEVED LIVED BELOW ETNA”

Volcanic Sto r

R A L U C A T C SPE m

This is a pho tograph of lightning insi de a volcan ic ash cloud. N obody is cer tain why this happens but the lightn ing could be caused by ro ck fragments , ash and ice par ticles bashing into each other and creating s ta tic charges.

science

ÂŠTERJE SĂ&#x2DC;RGJERD

RIDDLES and jokes

Answers to these riddles are on page 34 (no peeking unt il you’ve tried your hardes t to work them out!)

1 2 3 4

What stays in the corner and travels all over the world?

If you’ve got a science joke of you r own, wr ite to us at jokes@whizzpopbang.co m and we might feature your joke in the nex t issue! What did the ground say to the earthquake? You crack me up!

It’s been around for billions of years but is never more than a month old. What is it?

What grows up while growing down?

What did one lightning bolt say to the other lightning bolt? You’re shocking!

What did the little mountain say to the big mountain? Hi Cliff!

What kind of horses go out after dusk?

Forwards I am heavy, backwards I am not. What am I?

Nightmares!

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