Bison Could Become National Mammal

DANNY LEHMAN—GETTY IMAGES

Bison Could Become National Mammal

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on April 26 naming the North American bison as the country’s national mammal. A wide range of groups, including conservation organizations, Native American tribes, and ranchers, have been working to win this designation for the animal. They say the bison represents the spirit of America and its people. "The American bison is an enduring symbol of strength, native American culture, and the boundless Western wildness," William Lacy Clay, a Missouri congressman, noted in a statement. The National Bison Legacy Act is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Barack Obama.

America has a complex history with bison. At one point, tens of millions of the animals roamed the country. But as the U.S. expanded westward around the turn of the 20th century, bison were hunted and killed in such large numbers that the species was close to extinction. Conservation efforts have begun to restore bison populations. Today, the U.S. is home to about 500,000 bison. It is the largest mammal in North America.

The bison is a mammal. Can you name any other mammals?

SpaceX Plans for Mission to Mars

SPACEX/AP

SpaceX Plans Mars Mission for 2018

SpaceX, the private space-travel technology company, is headed for the Red Planet. The company announced plans this week to send several spacecraft to Mars “as soon as 2018.” The goal is to “help demonstrate the technologies needed to land large payloads” on Mars.

SpaceX also hopes to learn more about the “overall Mars architecture,” especially the extent to which the planet could be colonized by humans. SpaceX plans to use its Dragon spacecraft for the mission. However, the craft will not have astronauts on board. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that the Dragon shouldn’t be used for transporting humans. That’s because its capsule is about the size of the inside of an SUV and “wouldn’t be fun for long journeys.”

What do you think the scientists will find when the space craft lands on mars?

GET SET FOR A SUMMER OF WATER SAFETY!

The ZAC Foundation and TIME FOR KIDS have partnered up to develop the Make a Splash with Water Safety! program.

What is The ZAC Foundation?

Karen and Brian Cohn cofounded The ZAC Foundation in 2008 in honor of their 6-year-old son, Zachary Archer Cohn, who died in 2007 when his arm was trapped in a pool drain.

The ZAC Foundation was established to prepare children and families for a lifetime of water safety. The organization works to strengthen pool-safety legislation and funds advocacy, education, and effective programming surrounding water safety. Zachary’s memory is the inspiration for the foundation’s mission and activities.

Know Your ABC and Ds

One of the missions of The ZAC Foundation is to spread the word about the importance of these four letters:

A is for adult supervision.

Children should be in the pool only if an adult is watching.

B is for barriers.

Fences and other barriers should keep a child from entering a pool alone.

C is for classes.

Water-safety and swim lessons provide children with important skills.

D is for drains.

The Polar Bear Who Couldn’t, Wouldn’t Swim

Pool drains can trap swimmers; children should stay away from them. If a drain cover is loose or missing, evacuate the pool immediately and alert an adult.

For more information about the ABC and Ds of water safety, download the free resources below and visitthezacfoundation.com.

- Download the student/family Make a Splash with Water Safety! Guide.

- Download The ZAC Foundation water-safety activity sheets.

- Visit thezacfoundation.com/ to access the full array of materials available.

- Visit thezacfoundation.com/book to learn more about The Polar Bear Who Couldn’t, Wouldn’t Swim.

Answer the Poll-er Bear’s Question!

Zeke the polar bear has a question for you:

How do you stay safe when you play in water or go swimming?

End of the Show for Elephants

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus said goodbye to its performing elephants

BILL SIKES—AP

Asian elephants perform for the last time in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on May 1 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Elephants performed their last show for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on May 1. For years, animal-rights activists have been calling for the circus to stop using elephants in its shows.

“This is a very emotional time for us,” ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson announced at the end of the show in Providence, Rhode Island. Describing the six Asian elephants as beloved members of the circus family, Iverson thanked the animals for their performances over the decades. “Thank you so much for so many years of joy,” he told them as they left the ring for the last time.

During the performance, the elephants danced, balanced on each others’ backs, sat on their hind legs, and pretended to sleep.

“We came to say farewell to the elephants,” Sheila Oliver, of East Providence, said. She brought her 4-year-old daughter, Lilliana, who was seeing the circus for the first time.

A Longtime Tradition

Elephants have been a show-business attraction in the United States for more than 200 years. The tradition is believed to have started in the early 1800s with “Old Bet,” an elephant owned by Hackaliah Bailey of Somers, New York. Bailey put the elephant in a traveling show and charged people money to see it. In 1882, showman P.T. Barnum added the gigantic African elephant “Jumbo” to his circus, which he called “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

TRANSCENDENTAL GRAPHICS/GETTY IMAGES

An illustrated poster for the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1913 shows an elephant baseball team in a stadium.

Over the years, elephants in circuses have been taught to do a variety of tricks, according to Ronald B. Tobias, author of the 2013 book Behemoth: The History of the Elephant in America. These tricks include playing baseball, riding bicycles, and playing musical instruments. The animals have also been dressed up as people, wearing outfits such as wedding dresses.

The end of elephant performances at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Tobias said, is the result of a shift in how Americans view the animals. Instead of seeing elephants solely as circus performers, people now see them as creatures “that are capable of a full range of human emotions.”

The change does not, however, mean the end of elephants performing in front of audiences. More than a dozen circuses in the U.S. continue to use elephants, according to the Humane Society, though none are as famous as Ringling Bros.

Still, even the traveling circuses that continue to feature elephants are finding it more difficult these days to tour with the animals. Dozens of cities have banned the use of bullhooks. A bullhook is a club or stick with a sharp metal hook attached at the top. It is used to guide and train elephants. People who oppose the use of bullhooks say the devices are used to poke and beat the elephants, and causes them pain. Some states are also considering passing laws that ban bullhooks.

Life in Retirement

Ringling’s now-retired elephants will live at the circus’s 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida, said Alana Feld. She is the executive vice president of Feld Entertainment, which owns the circus. The center is home to a herd of 40 Asian elephants, the largest in North America. The elephants are part of a breeding program there, and are involved in a pediatric cancer research project. The project involves the study of the elephants’ blood cells, according to an announcer at Sunday’s performance. Cancer is less common in elephants than humans, and their cells contain 20 copies of a major anti-cancer gene, compared with just one copy in humans.

Will other circuses follow Ringling’s lead and retire their elephants? It is possible. Tobias said people have become more interested in seeing the animals in a natural environment, such as a sanctuary, instead of in a circus or zoo. “It’s kind of a new age in our understanding and sympathy and empathy toward elephants,” he said.

Do you think that this is a good idea to stop the elephant shows? Why or why not?

An Earthquake Shakes Ecuador

Recovery efforts are underway after a massive earthquake rocks the country 

DOLORES OCHOA—AP

A police officer in Pedernales, Ecuador, evaluates the damage to a structure that was destroyed by the earthquake.

On Saturday night, the Earth rumbled in Ecuador. The massive earthquake registered 7.8 on the Richter scale, a system that measures the force of earthquakes on a 10-point scale. The last time Ecuador experienced a natural disaster this severe was nearly 70 years ago, in 1949.

The quake knocked out power in many parts of the country and sent people fleeing to higher ground, many fearing a tsunami and the sudden collapse of the structures that were left standing after the initial impact.

GUILLERMO GRANJA—REUTERS

Debris litters the streets of the Manta, a city off of Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

The city of Portoviejo, which is about 20 miles off Ecuador’s Pacific coast, was among the hardest hit. In the costal town of Chamanga, an estimated 90% of homes where damaged. In Guayaquil, the roof of a shopping center and a highway overpass collapsed. After the quake, 230 aftershocks were registered by Ecuador’s Geophysics Institute.

“Our grief is very large, the tragedy is very large, but we’ll find the way to move forward,” said Ecaudor’s president, Raffael Correa. The president, who cut his overseas trip short to oversee relief efforts, declared the country in a state of emergency. As of Monday morning, at least 350 people are known to have lost their lives, and 2,500 people are reportedly injured.

Aid Pours In

The Spanish Red Cross reports that as many as 100,000 people need assistance, including 5,000 who need temporary housing. As Ecuadorean officials and military personnel were dispatched to help citizens in Portoviejo with search-and-rescue efforts, support has been pouring in from neighboring countries.

On Sunday, more than 3,000 packages of food and 8,000 sleeping kits were delivered to Ecuador. Venezuela and Colombia, where tremors of the quake were also felt, organized airlifts, while Chile and Mexico sent rescue teams. Spain sent a military plane with 47 search-and-rescue experts and rescue dogs. The road to recovery is long, but president Correa stands strong. “If our pain is immense,” he says, “still larger is the spirit of our people.”

This is a tragedy! What can kids do to help the people in in Ecuador?

Drink up!

A new study shows that many kids aren’t drinking enough water

GETTY IMAGES

Kids should drink between 10 and 14 cups every day, according to a new study

Summer is almost here, and the weather is heating up.  Are you drinking enough water? Many kids aren’t, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study’s lead author, Erica Kenney, a scientist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, originally planned to look into the amount of sugary drinks kids were consuming in schools. However, during her research she found that many kids were simply not drinking enough water.

Kenney and her team examined data from a group of 4,000 children, ages 6 to19, between the years of 2009 and 2012. The data was taken from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, a study on the health of children in the United States conducted each year by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 

While looking through the survey results, she noticed that more than half of the kids who participated were dehydrated. Of that group, boys were 76% more likely than girls to not have enough water in their system. Nearly one quarter of the kids in the survey reported drinking no plain water at all.

“These findings are significant because they highlight a potential health issue that has not been given a lot of attention in the past,” Kenney said in a statement. “Even though for most of these kids this is not an immediate, dramatic health threat, this is an issue that could really be reducing quality of life and well-being for many children and youth.”

TONY GARCIA

It is important to drink a lot of water when you are being physically active.

How much is enough?

The human body is made up of 60% water. It regulates body temperature, delivers oxygen all over the body, assists in digestion, and performs various other tasks that keep our bodies healthy.

Not drinking enough water can lead to health problems such as headaches, irritability, poor physical performance, and even more serious issues.  Your body needs more water when you are in hot climates, when you are physically active, and if you have a fever.

The United States National Agriculture Library says on average, kids need between 10 to 14 cups of water every day. This water can come from a mix of drinks and foods that contain high amounts of water, such as celery, melons, or tomatoes. It is also recommended that fluids come from water instead of sugary drinks that are high in calories and can lead to weight problems.

“The good news is that this is a public health problem with a simple solution,” said senior author on the study and professor health sociology at Harvard University, Steven Gortmaker. “If we can focus on helping children drink more water – a low cost, no calorie beverage – we can improve their hydration status, which may allow many children to feel better throughout the day and do better in school.”

Tips for staying hydrated

The United States Center for Disease Control offers the following tips for people to stay hydrated:

- Carry a water bottle for easy access.

- Freeze some freezer-safe water bottles. Take one with you for ice-cold water all day long.

- Choose water instead of sugar-sweetened beverages. This tip can also help with weight management. Substituting water for one 20-ounce sugar-sweetened soda will save you about 240 calories.

- Choose water instead of other beverages when eating out. Generally, you will save money and reduce calories.

- Give your water a little pizzazz by adding a wedge of lime or lemon. This may improve the taste, and you just might drink more water than you usually do.

Why do kids need to drink water daily? Do you think you drink enough water?

The Jungle Boy

TFK talks to Neel Sethi about his starring role in Disney’s The Jungle Book. 

DISNEY

Neel Sethi plays Mowgli in Disney's "The Jungle Book."

Neel Sethi, 12, stars in Disney’s live-action remake of The Jungle Book, hitting theaters April 15. He plays Mowgli, an adventurous boy who grows up in the jungle among a pack of wild wolves. When a frightening tiger named Shere Khan threatens Mowgli’s life, the “man-cub” leaves his wolf-family and journeys into the depths of the jungle.

Along the way, Mowgli meets many animals. Some of them give him trouble, while others help to steer him away from danger. Bill Murray, Lupita Nyong’o, and Scarlett Johansson are among the actors who provide the voices for the animal characters. “I can’t pick a favorite actor to work with,” Neel told TFK. “They’re all really cool.”

DISNEY

Mowgli and his wolf-mother, Raksha, share a moment together.

As the only human with a starring role in the movie, Neel filmed most of his scenes in front of a blue screen. This is a special backdrop that lets a separately filmed or animated background be added to the final image later on. He acted many of his scenes out with puppets and other props that were eventually replaced by animated animals and jungle landscapes.

Neel particularly enjoyed his scenes with Baloo the bear, who was voiced by Murray. In Neel’s favorite scene, Mowgli floats on top of Baloo’s stomach as they sail down a river and sing “The Bare Necessities,” a song from the original 1967 version of The Jungle Book. This scene was actually filmed inside of a water tank, Neel says. “There was a big lump of styrofoam in the water with brown carpet on top of it. When [the brown carpet] got wet, it looked like Baloo.”

To prepare for all of the running and swinging that Mowgli does in the film, Neel trained in parkour, an athletic activity that involves quick movements through obstacles. “I run and jump around on my own time anyways,” Neel says, “so it really wasn’t that hard to turn into Mowgli.”

Neel grew up in New York City, a setting that’s very different from the wild jungle that Mowgli calls home. Yet the two boys have a lot in common, Neel says. “Mowgli and I are very similar, so there was no real character change. We’re both very stubborn, adventurous, and energetic.”

Have you seen this movie? Would you want to see the movie? Tell me why.

Success for SpaceX

The private space exploration company lands a rocket on a drone ship

SPACEX/PLANET PIX/ZUMA WIRE

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster rocket lands successfully aboard a drone ship on Friday, April 8.

NASA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

This NASA TV image shows SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule arriving at the International Space Station on April 10.

On Friday, April 8, a SpaceX rocket booster successfully landed back on Earth after it blasted off carrying a cargo capsule. Following the launch at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the rocket booster, Falcon 9, landed vertically aboard a special drone ship in the ocean. Dragon, the capsule, then successfully carried 7,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

The Falcon 9 landing was significant because rockets used to help with space exploration are very expensive, and typically are not able to be used again. Also, this is the first time that SpaceX has been able to achieve a water landing for a booster rocket after repeated attempts. “The rocket landed instead of putting a hole in the ship — or tipping over — so we're really excited about that,” says SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk. SpaceX’s last attempted cargo mission failed in June 2015.

Musk has said that the company’s goal is to make rockets as reusable as airplanes. SpaceX plans to reuse the Falcon 9 rocket again sometime in the next few months.

BIGELOW AEROSPACE, LLC.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is a small habitat that will attach to the ISS.

“It’s another step toward the stars,” Musk said. “In order for us to really open up access to space, we’ve got to achieve full and rapid reusability.”

Dragon arrived at the ISS on Sunday morning with the help of ISS’s robotic arm. The cargo it delivered included crew supplies, research material, and hardware. It also brought an inflatable habitat called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM). BEAM will be attached to the space station this Saturday, and will be filled with air at the end of May. After astronauts inflate the BEAM with air, they will spend two years running tests on its conditions. This new technology may change the way that astronauts live in space. NASA also said it could possibly use BEAMs during Mars expeditions planned for the 2030s.

Why do you think landing the drone was a big deal for the SpaceX company? Do you think it is important?

Wild Tigers on the Rise

Conservation efforts are helping tigers

ANIMAL PRESS/BARCROFT MEDIA/GETTY IMAGES

Tigers are bouncing back! This Siberian tiger is roaming in a forest near Vladivostok, Russia.

For the first time since 1900, the world’s count of wild tigers is on the rise. Wildlife conservation groups said Monday that the number of wild tigers roaming the forests from Russia to Vietnam is 3,890. India alone holds more than half of the world’s tigers, with 2,226.

Many say this is a promising trend. The last worldwide estimate in 2010 had the number of tigers at an all-time low of 32,00, according to the World Wildlife Fund and the Global Tiger Forum.

Experts say the new number is good news, but they are cautious. Since the last census, there have been advances in technology for tracking tigers. It may be that experts are just aware of more tigers this time around. The number of actual tigers might not have changed.

JONAS GRATZER—LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGES

Students in Sumatra, in Southeast Asia, track tigers by remote camera in 2013. Their work is part of an ongoing conservation effort .

Still, this is heartening news, according to Ginette Hemley, senior vice president of wildlife conservation at WWF. "More important than the absolute numbers is the trend, and we're seeing the trend going in the right direction," she said.

The Tiger’s Future

Tigers are still considered an endangered species. While the latest counts in Russia, India, Bhutan and Nepal all turned up more tigers, the numbers are still falling in Southeast Asia. Poaching is a huge problem in this part of the world, as well deforestation, which is shrinking the tiger’s habitat.

Since 2010, the governments of 13 countries have teamed up with conservationists. They are looking for ways to double the number of wild tigers by 2022. This high-level commitment makes all the difference, says Hemley. "When you have well protected habitat and you control the poaching, tigers will recover,” she says. “That's a pretty simple formula. We know it works."

What can people and kids do to help wild tigers even more? 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The saga, which began in 1977, continues with the seventh film in the series. 

LUCASFILM

Rated: PG-13

Release date: December 18, 2015

Directed by: J.J. Abrams

Starring: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega

It has been 10 years since the release of a new Star Wars movie. But the saga, which began in 1977, now continues with the seventh film in the series. Set “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away,” the new movie picks up the story about 30 years after 1983’s Return of the Jedi. It reveals that while the Rebel Alliance defeated the evil Galactic Empire, and the villainous Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader are gone, the struggle between good and evil is not over. New heroes and villains are carrying on the fight, while some old favorites return. The key players include Rey (Daisy Ridley), who lives as a scavenger on a desert planet, and Finn (John Boyega), a young soldier in the First Order, an organization inspired by the Empire.

Longtime Star Wars fans were thrilled to learn that characters from the original film, such as Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia, will appear. The actors who played those roles were happy to return, too. “I was proud and grateful to once again be involved,” Harrison Ford, who plays Han, told a crowd of more than 6,000 at San Diego Comic-Con in July. “It was great to be back.”

Did you know?

Return of the Jedi ended the story of Luke Skywalker and his friends. Around the time of its release in 1983, Mark Hamill, who plays Luke, told a television interviewer that Star Wars creator George Lucas had spoken to him about possibly playing a much older version of Luke in a future movie.

According to Hamill, Lucas expected the film to be released in 2011. Talk about planning ahead! As it turned out, Lucas was only a few years off. 

Which of the other Star Wars movies have you seen? Did you like them?

Sea World To End Killer Whale Program

SeaWorld announced on Thursday that it would end its iconic killer whale shows and stop breeding the animal. The decision comes after years of criticism that the park’s shows featuring killer whales, also known as orcas, are inhumane. SeaWorld says it plans to introduce "new, inspiring natural orca encounters.” The company also announced a new partnership with the Humane Society of the United States. "As society's understanding of orcas continues to change, SeaWorld is changing with it,” said Joel Manby, president and chief executive officer of SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. “We commend the company for making this game-changing commitment," said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society.

Do you think Sea World decision to end the killer whale program is god or not good? Explain in complete sentences.

Dinosaurs Are Among Us

A new museum exhibit looks at the connections between birds and dinosaurs

The Yutyrannus dinosaur had a shaggy coat of feathers, similar to what birds have today.

Dinosaurs ruled the planet for millions of years, and they are generally believed to have gone extinct. But the reality is that modern versions of dinosaurs are all around us. Scientists have been exploring similarities between birds and dinosaurs, and new research shows that these two types of animals are directly linked.

R. MICKENS—@AMNH

The exhibit Dinosaurs Among Us is now at the American Museum of Natural History.

The connections between birds and dinosaurs are explored in a new museum exhibit called Dinosaurs Among Us at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Mark Norell, the chair of the division of paleontology at the museum, is the curator of the exhibit. He said it is based on new scientific evidence collected over the last two decades. “I think this is really going to shake up the way people think of dinosaurs,” Norell told reporters at a preview event. “One could argue that we still live in the age of dinosaurs.”

Making Connections

The exhibit includes ancient fossils and lifelike models of dinosaurs of all sizes to show the evolution of dinosaurs into birds. It examines several features that are shared between the two species, including feathers, complex brains, the shapes and sizes of eggs, and the ability to fly.

ZHAO CHUANG—COURTESY PEKING NATURAL SCIENCE ORGANIZATION

The Oviraptosaur dinosaur looks like a bird. It was small in size, and had a toothless beak and claws.

 

 

Paleontologists have discovered that many dinosaurs had feathers. Thousands of feathered dinosaur fossils have been found in China in the last 15 years, according to Norell. Today, birds are the only feathered animals alive.

Birds today make nests, lay eggs and tend to babies. Fossil research shows that some dinosaurs also laid eggs and made nests.

Also, birds have wishbones and hollow bones, which are bones that don’t weight much and allow birds to take more air into their lungs. These adaptations help with flight. Some dinosaurs had these features as well. In addition, the exhibit shows that there are many similarities between the legs, claws, and feet of dinosaurs and birds.

New Techniques

Norell noted that the research behind this exhibit is the result of advanced scientific techniques and new technologies. For example, researchers used a scanning process called computed tomography (CT) to look inside the brains of extinct dinosaurs. CTs combine many X-rays to produce a three-dimensional image.

“Modern technology tells us more than we thought we could ever know about the connections between dinosaurs and birds,” Norell said.

Can you tell me how dinosaurs and birds are alike? 

Is This Billy the Kid?

A new photo of a famous outlaw may have been found.

He was a gunfighter and a thief who killed as many as nine people and broke out of jail twice. Billy the Kid was one of the most notorious outlaws of the Wild West.

Billy’s real name was probably Henry McCarty, though he also went by the name William H. Bonney. He was called “the Kid” because he was just a teenager when he became a criminal. He died in 1881, at the age of 21, after a sheriff shot him in New Mexico.

Despite the Kid’s fame, only one photo of him was known to exist. But now a company claims to have found a second photo of the famous outlaw—and it has been valued at $5 million!

DETECTIVE WORK

In 2010, a man named Randy Guijarro bought three photos for $2 at an antique shop in Fresno, California. When he took a closer look at one of the photos, he thought one of the men in it might be Billy the Kid. Last year, Guijarro took the photo to Kagin’s, a company that collects and sells historical objects from the Old West.

David McCarthy, an expert at Kagin’s, agreed that the man in the photo looks like the Kid.

“But just looking alike isn’t enough,” he says.

McCarthy and his team worked for more than a year to carefully authenticate, or prove, that the image was genuine. With help from historians and photography experts, they tried to match the other men in the photo with members of the Kid’s gang.

Last month, Kagin’s announced that it had enough evidence to prove that the man in the photo was Billy the Kid. Some experts believe the photo was taken during a wedding at a ranch in New Mexico.

Kagin’s has put the photo up for sale for $5 million. If it sells for that amount, it would be the most expensive photo ever sold.

NOT SO FAST

However, some people aren’t convinced that the new photo shows the Kid. Mark Lee Gardner, a historian who wrote a book about the outlaw, is one of them. He says there aren’t any historical documents to prove without a doubt that the Kid was ever at the place in New Mexico shown in the picture.

Gardner thinks the debate over the photo is sure to continue. But he says that’s part of the fun of studying history.

“When there’s controversy,” he says, “that means history is alive.”

Billy the Kid was an outlaw a long time ago. While he was famous for being a bad guy, can you make a connection to any people who are famous? Please tell why.

Is This a Lost Ancient City?

Archaeologists may have uncovered the location of an ancient Greek city—and the island that it was on.

For more than 400 years, the fate of an ancient Greek city, called Kane, has baffled experts. The city, mentioned in many ancient texts, was on one of a cluster of three islands in the Aegean Sea. These islands were all located off the coast of modern-day Turkey. Two of the islands, now known as the Garip Islands, are still there.

But the third island, an important stopping point on ancient trade routes, no longer appeared on maps made after the 16th century. Until this past November, no one knew why!

Geo-archaeologists—scientists who study ancient landforms—have helped solve the mystery. The island did not disappear, they say. Well, not exactly anyway. New evidence suggests that this former island is now a mainland peninsula. That’s a piece of land that sticks out from a larger land mass and is almost completely surrounded by water. Most of the state of Florida is an example of a peninsula.

How did the island turn into a peninsula? At one time, a channel, a narrow stretch of water between two areas of land, separated the island and mainland. “The original channel was silted up,” Felix Pirson of the German Archaeology Ins

titute, which led the study, told Scholastic News Online. That means the space between the island and mainland was filled with materials carried by running water. That’s how the peninsula formed.

DIGGING DEEPER

To test their theory of what happened to the island, the geo-archaeologists decided to drill into the peninsula. Instead of finding solid ground, they discovered loose soil and rock. To the scientists, this suggests that the land there had formed somewhat recently, perhaps because of earthquakes or the erosion of agricultural fields on the mainland.

The scientists are looking forward to doing further testing. They hope to figure out exactly when the land bridge between the mainland and the island formed. This could provide them with more information about the area during ancient times, they say. “The aim is to reconstruct the ancient environment [to] understand history,” Pirson says.

Scientists use the scientific method to solve lots of mysteries. What was one experiment we did that we use the scientific method?

A Helping 3-D Hand

A little girl gets a life-changing gift.

BY LILIAN JOCHMANN | FOR THE SCHOLASTIC NEWS KIDS PRESS CORPS

It all started in 2013, when Shea Stollenwerk, then eight years old, asked for a new hand for Christmas. Shea was born with a partial right hand, which restricts her ability to do things that other kids take for granted.

“My mom went online” to look for help, says Shea, who lives in Mukowango, Wisconsin. Shea’s mother, Ranee, soon learned about a community of artists, designers, and scientists who are making big breakthroughs withprosthetic (artificial) hands.

Frankie Flood, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, was among the designers who saw Ranee’s online request. Flood enlisted help from fellow professor Adream Blair and their students, who were learning how to make designs using a 3-D printer, a device that can create layers of material, like plastic or metal, one on top of the other, to produce solid objects.

“We made a mold of Shea’s hand out of plaster,” Flood explains about the beginning of the process. “We made a cast, and then we 3-D scanned her hand.”

A LOW-COST SOLUTION

Flood emphasizes that Shea’s “robo-hand” is not like devices that medical professionals make for people who have lost limbs. Such devices can cost thousands of dollars, whereas a “robo-hand” can be printed for less than $50.

While being fitted in Flood’s laboratory, Shea got to choose the color of her new hand. She went with bright pink. She now has a pink hand, a purple hand, and a purple and pink one, and can do things that she couldn’t do before, like peel potatoes, pick up objects, and catch a ball.

Flood and his team have since built hands for six other local children. Indirectly, they have helped dozens more, by posting their designs online so that people around the world can print them out. Flood is also working on prosthetic legs for military veterans who were injured on the battlefield. “Without a covering, the [prosthetic] leg is kind of ugly and plain,” Flood says. “Soldiers want something that will restore the shape of their leg and make it cooler to look at when they’re playing sports.”

As for Shea, the aspiring musician can now play her viola with help from an adaptive device that Flood’s team created. “Nothing is ever going to hold her back,” Shea’s father, Steve, told a local reporter. “She is going to do what she wants to do, and we are going to be there to help her.”

This is an amazing invention that can help make life easier for some. How is this like the inventors that we have learned about? 

A Supersized Dinosaur

People in New York City can now meet the world’s biggest dinosaur.

BY LINDSAY LOWE

When you think of the biggest creature to ever roam the Earth, you might picture Tyrannosaurus rex. But T. rex would’ve looked small next to a titanosaur. Titanosaurs were the biggest known dinosaurs that ever lived.

Visitors to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City can now see just how huge these creatures really were. Last month, the museum installed a life-sized model of a titanosaur skeleton.

A BIG DISCOVERY

Titanosaurs walked the planet about 100 million years ago. Scientists have found titanosaur fossils (bones, shells, or other traces of animals or plants from millions of years ago, preserved as rock) on every continent. But in 2014, researchers in Argentina unearthed 84 fossils of bones from the largest titanosaur specimen, or example, ever discovered. Scientists determined that this huge herbivore (animal that eats only plants) weighed nearly 70 tons and was about 122 feet long. That’s roughly three times the length of a T. rex.

BUILDING A GIANT

Getting what might be the biggest dinosaur ever to a museum in New York City was quite a challenge. For starters, building a skeleton with the real fossils wasn’t possible. “These bones are extraordinarily heavy,” explains Mark Norell, a paleontologist (scientist who studies fossils and other ancient life-forms) at the AMNH. “Just the thighbone weighs well over 1,000 pounds.”

So Norell and his team decided to create a life-sized replica of the titanosaur. They worked with a company in Canada that used 3-D printers to make lightweight foam copies of each bone. Those replicas were then covered in a hard material called fiberglass. The model of that 1,000-pound thighbone weighs just 25 pounds. Creating the skeleton took about six months. Then it was shipped in pieces to the AMNH.

Next came the really tricky part—fitting the giant dinosaur into its new home. Museum workers had carefully measured the exhibit space and found that the titanosaur was too big to fit into one room! At 39 feet, the dino’s long neck and skull stick out of the exhibit room and into a hallway. The skeleton’s back nearly grazes the museum’s 19-foot-high ceilings. Norell says this exhibit gives visitors a rare, up-close look at the biggest prehistoric beast ever discovered.

“You can see people’s faces when they walk by,” he says. “They’re just amazed.”

We have learned about animal adaptations. How do you think being one of the biggest dinosaurs helped the titanosaur survive?

Terrifying Tooth

A fossil from the biggest shark that ever lived washes ashore in North Carolina.

A man named Denny Bland recently found something much more interesting than a seashell on the shore of North Topsail Beach, North Carolina. He discovered a 6-inch-long tooth. The huge tooth once belonged to a gigantic prehistoric shark called a megalodon.

“Megalodon was one of the scariest predators that ever lived,” says Cynthia Crane. She’s a scientist who runs the Aurora Fossil Museum in North Carolina. “This is mostly because of its humongous size and its constant urge to eat.”

Megalodons could measure up to 60 feet long. That’s bigger than a tractor-trailer truck. It’s also about three times the size of megalodon’s modern-day relative, the great white shark.

These prehistoric giants became extinct more than 2 million years ago. Almost everything scientists know about megalodons comes from their teeth. Megalodons’ skeletons, like those of modern sharks, were made of a soft material called cartilage instead of bone. (We have cartilage in our noses and ears.) Cartilage doesn’t turn into fossils. So, unlike dinosaurs, megalodons left no skeletons. Only fossils of their hard teeth survived.

Scientists have compared the megalodon teeth they’ve found with the teeth of modern sharks. In doing so, they have been able to calculate megalodon’s massive size.

The serrated teeth—teeth that have a rough, jagged edge, similar to a saw—have also given researchers clues about what megalodons ate. Scientists think the teeth’s rough edges were designed to rip apart the flesh of giant whales.

What do you think the megalodon ate? A share that big must of had a huge appetite. 

Whale Hunters

Japan stirs up a debate by restarting its whale-hunting program near Antarctica.

BY JOE BUBAR

In December, four ships armed with harpoons set sail from Japan. They were headed to the icy waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. The ships are expected to capture and kill more than 300 whales by early March.

Japan’s whale hunts have been causing debates for years.Commercial whaling (hunting whales as a business) was banned worldwide in 1986, after many whale species had nearly been wiped out. But countries are still allowed to hunt whales for scientific research.

Japan has long claimed that its hunts are done in the name of science, but many animal rights groups and world leaders disagree. In March 2014, the United Nations (U.N.) ordered Japan to end its whale hunts near Antarctica. But this winter, Japanese whalers returned to the Southern Ocean in defiance(a refusal to follow rules or directions) of the U.N.’s orders.

A WHALE OF A DEBATE

Japan’s new whaling program is scheduled to last 12 years. During that time, Japan plans to kill 333 minke (MIN-kuh) whales per year—about one third as many as it hunted in the past. Japan claims that capturing whales will allow scientists to study the giant mammals up close and learn more about their diet and habits.

But opponents of Japan’s whaling program argue that the country is using research as an excuse. Critics say the true goal is to kill whales for their meat. The Japanese have been hunting whales for their meat for centuries and consider whaling an important part of their history.

WHALE WARS

One of the major opponents of Japan’s whaling program is a group called the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. As it has done in past years, the group sent a ship to the Southern Ocean to try to chase away the Japanese whalers. Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd, says that Japan is breaking international law. He argues that if Japan really wanted to study the whales, it wouldn’t be harming them.

“Anything that needs to be understood about the whales can certainly be discovered without killing them,” he says.

Do you think the Japanese whale hunters should continue or stop hunting whales? Tell why.