Kids News - Environment Articles

Space food has come a long way since John Glenn orbited Earth in 1962. He and other members of Project Mercury, the first American human spaceflight program, had to endure unappetizing foods that came in the form of bite-sized cubes, freeze-dried powders, and semi-liquids stuffed in aluminum tubes. Today astronauts can select from an extensive menu of over 70 foods and 20 beverages. The one thing they still can't get? Fresh fruits and vegetables!...

Camouflage is not a new concept in the animal kingdom. From grasshoppers blending in with leaves to owls mimicking tree barks, many animals, birds, and insects, depend on their ability to hide in plain sight for survival. But if there were an Oscar for the species with the best disguise, it would surely go to the dusky dottyback. The crafty predator fish can change its color to mimic that of its prey's parents, allowing it to feast on their juveniles, without raising suspicion....

Food waste is a growing concern. According to a recent report by the United Nations Environmental Programme, consumers in industrialized countries waste as much as 222 million tons of food annually. To put it in perspective, that is almost equivalent to the net food production of sub-Saharan Africa. Now the residents of the small Spanish town of Galdakao have devised a simple solution to help reverse the trend - a community refrigerator!...

Every year about this time, stargazers start to get excited about the Perseids, the biggest and most spectacular of all meteor showers. The "shooting stars" are already streaming through our skies at the rate of about a dozen an hour. However, from August 11 to 14, the pace will accelerate to almost a hundred an hour, making them fairly easy to spot even without a telescope. The best part is that unlike last year, there will be no "super" supermoon to steal their thunder....

To the novice listener, the Australian Chestnut-crowned babbler's sweet melodies may sound like any other birdsong. However, to ornithologists it is a series of sounds which when combined, forms a unique bird-like vocalization or what we refer to as language. The discovery is exciting because the tiny birds are the first nonhuman species known to communicate using language....

Often the most incredible innovations come in the tiniest packages. That is certainly true for the origami robots created by some Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers. The microbots that made their debut earlier this summer at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle, WA, are not just adorable. They also possess skills that may come in handy to combat human ailments....

Cheers erupted at "Plutopalooza" parties all across the United States as the New Horizons spacecraft soared past the dwarf planet at 7:49 am EDT on Tuesday, July 14th. The historic encounter that brought the spacecraft within 7,800 miles of Pluto, successfully ended the three billion mile journey that began almost a decade ago....

In late April and early June, two giant eel-like fish washed ashore on the beaches of Aramoana, New Zealand and Catalina Island, California. Known as oarfish or Regalecus russelii, the colossal deep-sea creatures that measured 10-feet and 17-feet long respectively, are a rare sight. Hence the news of two appearing almost simultaneously caused much excitement and also a little trepidation....

Some people like to grow fruits, others prefer to focus on vegetables. Then there is Gavin Munro, who is partial to cultivating furniture. No, he is not a scientist with a crazy idea, but an ordinary man who is living his dream of growing "green" chairs!...