Kids News - Science Articles

In DC Film's recent action-packed blockbuster Aquaman, the superhero flaunts many spectacular powers. While the half-human, half-Atlantean’s ability to heal others and withstand intense heat may be hard for scientists to emulate, here are three Aquaman superpowers that may be available to all of us in the very near future....

Overnight from Sunday, Jan. 20 into Monday, Jan. 21, stargazers will be treated to what promises to be a spectacular total lunar eclipse. Also being referred to as the “Super Blood Moon” – “super” because the Moon will be at perigee and appear larger than normal, and “blood" because of its reddish-orange color during totality – the eclipse will be seen in its entirety in North and South America, Europe, and western Africa....

In addition to providing us with delicious honey, the hardworking honey bees also pollinate about a third of food crops and almost 90 percent of wild grasses, like alfalfa, used to feed livestock. Hence, it is not surprising that their declining population, caused by climate change, habitat loss, and deadly microbial diseases, has researchers scrambling to find ways to protect the vulnerable insects, which are so crucial to our existence. Now, scientists from the University of Helsinki in Finland have found a way to help honey bees fight off infectious diseases with a sweet, edible vaccine!...

The Moon’s near side, the one we all see, has been the target of numerous robotic and human missions. However, our lunar companion’s far side, which is not visible from Earth, has never been explored. That changed on Jan. 2, 2019, when Chinese spacecraft Chang'e 4 made a soft landing on what is often referred to as the “dark side,” because it remained largely unseen until humans were able to send spacecraft around the Moon in 1959....

Thanks to its harsh environment, Antarctica remained largely untouched by humans for many millennia, allowing a thriving ecosystem to evolve. However, since the 1990s, the last true wilderness on the planet is becoming an increasingly popular destination for adventure-seeking tourists. Now, a new study asserts that the visitors may be leaving behind harmful bacteria which could devastate the area’s native bird population....

In its purest form, gold typically requires special furnaces that can withstand extreme temperatures of above 1,947 degrees Fahrenheit (1,064 degrees Celsius) to liquefy. Now, a team of researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden may have stumbled upon a way to melt the precious metal at room temperature....

With the days getting increasingly shorter and colder, it may appear as though winter has been upon us for many weeks. However, though meteorologists in the Northern Hemisphere consider December 1 as the start of the season, according to the astronomical calendar, the season will not begin until Friday, December 21. Often referred to as winter solstice, it is also the shortest day and longest night of the year. Southern Hemisphere residents, on the other hand, will celebrate summer solstice, the start of the astronomical summer, with the longest day and shortest night of 2018....

While elephants born without tusks are not unheard of, they normally comprise just 2 to 6 percent of the herd population. However, that is not the case at Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, where an astounding 33 percent of female elephants born after the country’s civil war ended in 1992, are tuskless. While that may appear to be just a coincidence, Joyce Poole, an elephant behavior expert and National Geographic Explorer, has another theory. The researcher thinks we may be witnessing an unnaturally induced evolution of the species due to the incessant poaching of the mighty mammals for their valuable tusks....

Though we are treated to several meteor showers throughout the year, most pale in comparision to the grand finale – the Geminids. Expected to be at their peak on Thursday and Friday night (Dec. 13-14, 2018), the dependable meteors rank high in both quantity and quality. Nicknamed the “900-pound gorilla of meteor showers” by NASA, they outweigh other dust streams by factors of between 5 to 500!...