https://kidzsearch.com/news A place where kids can share and discuss cool things with others. Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:43:24 PST en https://kidzsearch.com/news/australian-teens-heroic-swim-saves-family-swept-out-to-sea/ https://www.dogonews.com/2026/3/2/australian-teens-heroic-swim-saves-family-swept-out-to-sea Mon, 02 Mar 2026 13:43:24 PST kidzsearch 1 1 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/australian-teens-heroic-swim-saves-family-swept-out-to-sea/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/could-a-person-ever-wield-lightning-as-a-weapon/ https://www.snexplores.org/article/lightning-weapon-guide-electricity



In the Pokmon world, Pikachu is a chubby yellow mouse. It may look cute and harmless but dont be fooled. When its red cheeks start sparking and it whips out its lightning-shaped tail, Pikachu can fry its opponents with a giant surge of electricity. Its signature move, Thunderbolt, is said to carry 100,000 volts of power. 



Pikachu isnt the only character who fights with electricity. In the Marvel universe, Thor hurls lightning with his hammer, Mjlnir. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Azula bends lightning into crackling blue arcs.  



In fiction, electricity seems easy to control, like swinging a sword or pulling a trigger. But in the real world? Not so much. Thats because electricity is a flow of tiny charged particles. Those particles usually need a clear path, such as a wire, to travel along. Getting it to arc freely through the air on command and in a chosen direction is much, much harder.  



But nature offers some examples of how to generate electricity on the fly. And engineers already have some surprising tricks up their sleeves to wrest control over lightning. From the waters of the Amazon to the tops of Swiss mountains, researchers are learning how to make and direct electric power. 



Shocking creatures 



In the wild, some animals can generate their own electricity. Thats especially true of fish. Shocking swimmers include electric rays, electric catfish and the most powerful of them all: the electric eel. This long, snakelike fish lives in the Amazon River. Adult electric eels can grow up to about 2.5 meters (8 feet) long and weigh as much as 18 kilograms (40 pounds). 



Like Pikachu, electric eels can choose exactly how and when they want to use their electricity. Electric eels have amazing control over their superpowers, says Raimundo Nonato Mendes-Jnior. Hes a biologist at the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation in Brasilia, Brazil.  



Electric eels send out weak zaps to find prey or talk to each other. But when they need to defend themselves or attack, they can unleash a much stronger jolt. Their biggest shock can reach 860 volts, Mendes-Jnior and his colleagues have found. Thats about seven times the electricity in a U.S. wall outlet. 



Electric eels can leap partway out of the water to headbutt threats in the air, delivering even more powerful shocks than in water.Mark Newman/The Image Bank/Getty Images



They can do this thanks to thousands of special cells in their bodies called electrocytes. These cells work like tiny batteries. Theyre stacked in long rows, each with a positive and negative side. When the electric eel wants to strike, it sends a signal that tells all the electrocytes to fire at once. Then, a burst of electricity zaps into the water.  



Electric eels give lots of shocks, but they recover quickly, says Mendes-Jnior. Thats because they eat often and are really good at turning food into electric power. 



Because water spreads out electricity, the power gets diluted before it hits the target. So when electric eels are faced with a threat partly above water, such as a caiman (a relative of crocodiles), the eels jump. They headbutt their targets in the air to deliver devastating shocks not softened by water. The higher the eel rises out of the water, the more powerful the attack becomes.



Electric eels battery-like cells are impressive. But their zappy attacks still have nothing on Pikachu, Thor or Azula. To supercharge electrical powers in real life, we might instead tap into some of the biggest power surges on Earth: lightning storms. 



Aiming lightning 



Lightning forms when static electricity builds up inside a thundercloud. As the storm churns, tiny ice particles collide and swap electrons. This causes one part of the cloud to become packed with negative charge. 



Normally, air is a poor conductor. That is, electricity cant easily flow through it. But when enough charge builds up in a cloud, it can start to break down the air around it. Electrons get ripped off their atoms, making a hot soup of free-floating charged particles called plasma.  



Once plasma forms, it acts like a kind of invisible wire through the sky, says Jerry Moloney. Hes a physicist at the University of Arizona in Phoenix. Lightning strikes when electricity zips along that invisible wire. 



On July 24, 2021, fairly clear skies allowed a high-speed camera to capture the moment that a laser bent the path of a lightning bolt between the sky and a lightning rod atop a tower. The lightning followed the route of the laser light for some 50 meters.A. Houard et al/Nature Photonics 2023



Each bolt is loaded with power. Its the energy needed to power your house for a week, says Carmen Guerra-Garcia. She studies the physics of air at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. 



Lightning generally takes the easiest route to the ground. It often strikes the tallest object available, such as a tree or tower. Thats why Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod. Lightning is more likely to hit a big metal pole sticking into the sky than anything else around it, keeping buildings safe.   



But what if you didnt want to just catch lightning in a certain place but catch it, and then send it somewhere else? 



In 2021, scientists in Switzerland did just that. They used a high-powered laser to guide lightning during a thunderstorm. A laser is a super-focused beam of light that stays in a straight line. If its powerful enough, its energy can knock electrons off air molecules. This helps it create a thin line of plasma in the air that lightning can follow. 



When lightning struck near a Swiss mountaintop, it followed a plasma channel made by the laser about 50 meters (160 feet) to a lightning rod on a tower. 



If someone like Thor or Azula were to aim lightning in real life, theyd need to make a plasma path like this. In principle, you can fire the laser in different directions and create these wires at different points in space, says Moloney. Then, if you didnt want to wait for a storm, all you would need is a big enough electric charge to send your own lightning down the line. 



But dont try it at home. Moloney says, I always joke that if you have a graduate student on the ground firing a laser, the student might evaporate if struck directly by lightning. 



Good thing Pikachu is made of sturdier stuff.  










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Symptom (noun, SIMP-tum)







A symptom is a clue that something is wrong.



In medicine and psychology, a symptom is an effect of an illness or condition that a person feels. For example, imagine you wake up with a runny nose, fatigue and a fever. Telling a doctor about these symptoms can help them develop theories about whats wrong. Perhaps you have the flu or COVID-19.



But symptoms are not the disease or condition itself. For a diagnosis confirmation of a particular disease or condition a doctor often runs tests. The doctor chooses tests based on your symptoms. For instance, they might swab your nose or throat to test for the presence of a flu or COVID-19 virus. Experts might describe the results of such tests as signs of illness rather than symptoms since they are measured, not felt.



Other fields use the word symptom as well. Symptoms do not always refer to physical feelings in these fields. But they do refer to evidence that something is wrong. In engineering, a symptom may be a hint that a structure is not working properly. A strange rattling in a cars engine, for instance, might be a symptom of engine malfunction.



In a sentence



Teens who sleep in two hours or less on weekends report the lowest symptoms of anxiety.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.






]]> Mon, 02 Mar 2026 04:30:00 PST kidzsearch 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/scientists-say--symptom/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/sports/holi--indias-festival-of-colors-and-joy/ https://www.dogonews.com/2026/2/27/holi-indias-festival-of-colors-and-joy Fri, 27 Feb 2026 09:16:06 PST kidzsearch Sports 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/sports/holi--indias-festival-of-colors-and-joy/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/as-toddlers--chimps-are-major-risk-takers/ https://www.snexplores.org/article/toddler-chimps-risk-taking-behavior



Toddlers are the daredevils of the chimp world.



Those 2 to 5 years old are more likely than older chimps to free-fall from treetops or leap wildly from branch to branch. Past age 5, such dangerous behaviors decrease by about 3 percent each year.



Researchers shared these new observations in January in iScience. 



Among humans, teens are the real daredevils. Compared to younger children, for instance, theyre more likely to break bones or die from injuries. Kids might want to behave as recklessly as chimp toddlers but rarely get the chance. Parents and caregivers are likely to put a stop to such fun and the risk of broken bones among human toddlers.



If humans scaled back their oversight, our kids would be way more daredevilish, says biologist Lauren Sarringhaus. An author of the new study, she works at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.





No monkeying around



Human and chimp caregivers show different patterns. Chimp moms largely parent alone. Dads dont help. Nor, typically, do grandmothers, older siblings or other group members. Youngsters cling to their moms for the first five years of life. But by age 2 or so, young chimps begin to explore some on their own. Moms cant readily help kids swinging high up in the air.



Lets learn about chimpanzees and bonobos



Human children, by comparison, have caregivers beyond their parents. Called alloparents, these include teachers and coaches at supervised after-school activities. As such, todays kids spend less time unsupervised and playing outside than those in generations past. Some human-development experts criticize the rise of this type of intensive, or helicopter, parenting.



The new data point to really exciting research on how caregiving influences risk-taking behavior. Theres not a lot of research out there addressing this point, says Lou Haux. Shes a psychologist who studies primate behavior. Haux, who did not take part in the new study, works at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Thats in Berlin, Germany.



Risky moves



Sarringhaus and her team studied more than 100 chimps. Part of the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project in Ugandas Kibale National Park, they ranged in age from 2 to 65. The researchers observed the apes swinging through the tree canopy. Along the way, they measured how often each member lost contact with tree branches. That included falling to a lower branch or leaping across a gap to another branch.



Chimps 2 to 5 years old were three times more likely than adults (15 and older) to take risks. Teens aged 10 to 14 were no chumps either. These chimps still engaged in such behaviors twice as often as adults.




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Do you have a science question? We can help!



Submit your question here, and we might answer it an upcoming issue of Science News Explores




Risky maneuvers in tall trees come with a tradeoff, though. Roughly a third of chimpanzees show signs of past bone breaks, other research shows. But toddlerhood may be an ideal time for dangerous exploration.



Smaller chimps and humans have flexible bones and are relatively lighter weight than bigger ones. Thats why they are less likely than adults to suffer grave injuries from falls.



But, Sarringhaus says, my goal is not for this to lead to parenting advice.



Instead, Haux adds, this sort of research helps put human parenting in broader perspective, such as: How did all this evolve?




]]> Fri, 27 Feb 2026 08:30:00 PST kidzsearch Pets & Animals 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/as-toddlers--chimps-are-major-risk-takers/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/here-are-some-toys-you-might-see-everwhere-part-2/ https://net.kidzsearch.com/here-are-some-toys-you-might-see-everwhere-part-2/ Thu, 26 Feb 2026 23:44:38 PST kidzsearch Pets & Animals 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/here-are-some-toys-you-might-see-everwhere-part-2/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/favorite-stephen-king-book-or-book-in-general/ https://net.kidzsearch.com/favorite-stephen-king-book-or-book-in-general/ Thu, 26 Feb 2026 23:44:30 PST kidzsearch Pets & Animals 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/favorite-stephen-king-book-or-book-in-general/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/march-3-total-lunar-eclipse-will-be-the-last-until-2028/ https://www.dogonews.com/2026/2/12/march-3-total-lunar-eclipse-will-be-the-last-until-2028 Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:15:50 PST kidzsearch Pets & Animals 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/petsanimals/march-3-total-lunar-eclipse-will-be-the-last-until-2028/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/other/antarctica-faces-a-green-and-weedy-future/ https://www.snexplores.org/article/warming-antarctica-green-weedy-future





If you want a glimpse of the future of Antarctica, look at King George Island. It sits at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. This finger of land, which reaches toward South America, is the warmest part of the continent.



Thick ice blankets most of this island. But a rare oasis sits on its western edge. During summer, melting snow reveals rocky ground covered by a mushy green carpet. Its mostly moss and lichens, with a few other plants sprinkled in.



As our climate warms, this islands ice will shrink, expanding the green oasis. This will allow alien species from other parts of the world to take root. Human visitors are already unintentionally bringing in non-native species. These invaders could steamroll native plants and animals, transforming the landscape.



This thick ice sheet on King George island is in danger of melting away.Cyril Gosselin/Moment/Getty Images Plus



Within 200 or 300 years, scientists worry, the northern Antarctic Peninsula will likely look a lot different.



The biggest threat is that well get something that will look like South American [grassland], says Stef Bokhorst. A terrestrial ecologist, he works at Vrije University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He envisions an open scrubland of miniature trees, like whats found in Patagonia, at the bottom tip of South America.



Since 1850, Earth has warmed by around 1.44 degrees Celsius (2.60 degrees Fahrenheit), on average. But the Antarctic Peninsula is currently warming nearly twice as quickly. Summer snows are slowly turning to rains, says Steven Chown. A biologist, he studies the conservation of polar species at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.



Most of Signy Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, is covered in thick ice or barren rocks. But vegetation does cover some of the low-lying spots, as seen here.A.P. Taylor & S. Adlard, British Antarctic Survey (CC BY 4.0)



And Antarcticas warmer, wetter climate might not be good for its natives.



Vegetation at the south end of the world is very unique, notes Bokhorst.



Plants and animals found in the extreme north the Arctic resemble those elsewhere. The warmest parts of Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard Island (to their east) bustle with grasses, flowers, butterflies and bees. Rodents and foxes creep about.



Why Antarctica and the Arctic are polar opposites



Antarctica, in contrast, has been far more isolated, for 30 million years. It plunged into a far deeper cold than the Arctic. And its simple ecosystems look very different from those in the Arctic.



Across all of Antarctica and its islands, only two species of insects naturally exist. Both are flies, though one of them a midge lacks wings.



Antarctica hosts greenery only in a few places. Most of it is moss and lichens that creep over rocks. Across the whole Antarctic continent, youll find only two native species of vascular plants (those with roots, stems and leaves). One is a wispy hair grass. The other, a pearlwort, resembles a puffy green pincushion with tiny yellow flowers.



Antarctic hair grass and pearlwort (forming a green cushion above the grass) are the only two vascular plants native to Antarctica. These were found growing on Livingston Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.Gerald Corsi/iStock/Getty Images Plus



You will not find [this sparse ecosystem] anywhere else on the planet, says Bokhorst. And its now threatened by climate change and invasive species. Within two or three centuries, alien species could replace many of the natives. Parts of the Antarctic Peninsula may look lush and green during summer.



Polar biologists dont welcome this.




As this map shows (exploded from globe at lower right), the Antarctic Peninsula and its islands are not far from the southern tip of South America. Many species are poised to hitchhike south on planes and ships as a warming climate melts what had been the Antarctics deep, permanent ice cover. See the full, expandable and navigable map here: South Shetland Islands and the Northern Antarctic Peninsula.Tom Patterson/U.S. Library of Congress (https://lccn.loc.gov/2024586062)




Vanished forests



Today, its hard to imagine parts of Antarctica turning green. After all, ice up to four kilometers (2.5 miles) thick now blankets 98 percent of the continent. Most of the rest is bare gravel and rock a frigid polar desert. Seals, penguins and seabirds (such as skuas and petrels) inhabit only the outer coastal fringes.



But it wasnt always that way.



Forty million years ago, Antarctica was much warmer than today. The Antarctic Peninsula was inhabited by frogs, ponds and forests of southern beech trees. Fossils of extinct frogs, mammals, birds, trees and plants are still found there today.S.P. Barrette & J.G. de Puerto Montt/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0), and Mats Wedin/Swedish Museum of Nat. Hist.



Forty million years ago, forests of southern beech trees covered much of Antarctica perhaps even the South Pole. Furry marsupials, similar to modern-day possums and badgers, prowled the undergrowth.



It was a warmer, more pleasant climate, says Byron Adams. A polar biologist, he works at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. That ancient climate, he says, was more like South Americas modern-day Patagonia.



Until 35 million years ago, Antarctica was linked to South America. Then the two continents started drifting apart.



South America still hosts southern beech trees and marsupials. But Antarctica, isolated at the bottom of the world, plunged into permanent cold. Thousands of its species died off, including trees and mammals.



Antarctic rocks hold fossils of beech trees, water lilies, frogs, mammals and other creatures. Only a few types of land animals all quite small have survived.



Turn over a rock and you may find insect-like critters called springtails. Each is no larger than a comma on a page. Some soils harbor microscopic tardigrades, mites and worms. Mosses and lichens sparsely dot rocky sites that get water and direct sunlight in summer. But oases that are lush with native grass, pearlwort and flies exist only on the northern Antarctic Peninsula.



Some moss clumps have grown there for thousands of years. Scientists have studied their layers, like tree rings and discovered something alarming.



Bumpy moss and lichen covers the rocky ground on Ardley Island (next to King George Island), at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. This is the warmest area of Antarctica, where vegetation can grow for two to three months each year, once snow and ice cover has melted.Dan Charman/University of Exeter



An ominous growth spurt



For a long while, the mosses had grown at a slow, even rate. But as the Peninsula started warming around 1950, their growth started to spurt. By 2010, they were growing two to four times faster than before.



We were surprised, says Thomas Roland of these findings. This speedup, he notes, is unprecedented in the last 4,000 years. A paleoecologist, Roland works at the University of Exeter in England.



A more recent study found something similar on Signy Island. It lies 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of King George Island. Nicoletta Cannone is a botanist at Insubria University in Italy. Shes studied the expansion of Antarcticas native grass and pearlwort. And between 1960 and 2018, the area covered by these two plants roughly tripled. Her team reported the finding in 2022.



Hair grass (panels A and C-G) and pearlwort (panels B and H-M) are the only vascular plants native to Antarctica. They only grow on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula or on islands off its coast. Here, theyre seen on King George Island.L. Cavieres, Univ. de Concepcin, Chile



Most recently, Roland and Oliver Bartlett studied satellite images. They used color to analyze extent of vegetation over a wide swath of the Antarctic Peninsula. Bartlett is a remote sensing scientist at the University of Hertfordshire in England. The pairs analysis suggested that green areas on the Peninsula expanded rapidly from 1986 to 2021.



Such data suggest Antarcticas sparse greenery is already responding to a climate-related fever of just 1 to 2 degrees C (1.8 to 3.6 degrees F). By 2100, total warming on the Antarctic Peninsula will likely reach 2.3 to 6.1 degrees C (4.1 to 11 degrees F). Thats according to new projections published February 20 in Frontiers in Environmental Science. Even if warming happens more slowly, its possible that by 2300, the Peninsula could warm by 4 to 8 degrees C (7.2 to 14.4 degrees F). It will depend on how much more greenhouse gases humans produce.



Warmer seas trigger skyrocketing ice loss in 3 Antarctic glaciers



That much warming could have huge effects. Right now, the average summer temperature on King George Island is around 1.5 C (34.7 F). But by 2300, its average summer temperature could hit 5 to 9 C (41 to 48 F). Thats similar to some cities in northern Siberia, in Russia, where trees line the streets.



Warm summers are already causing hundreds of Antarctic glaciers to melt and retreat. One study estimates that within 75 years, ice-free sections of the northern Peninsula could nearly triple to 19,000 square kilometers (7,300 square miles). Thats an area larger than the state of Connecticut.



Even then, ice will still cover most of the Antarctic Peninsula. But retreating glaciers will leave thousands of ice-free patches along coastlines. Green landscapes could take root in these.



Ecology Glacier on King George Island has already retreated 800 meters (half a mile) since 1985. The newly exposed ground is strewn with rocks and sand. Soil will have to form before most plants and animals can easily take hold.



But that can happen in just decades, says Adams at Brigham Young.




Ice-free future

















Even in the relatively warm Antarctic Peninsula, glaciers (seen here in the vicinity of Barilari Bay) still cover most land. Within 75 years, however, the area of ice-free land could nearly triple to about the size of Connecticut. This would provide new areas where plants and animals can take hold, including invasive species.











All: D. Fox






Stinky fish and penguin poo



Adams has studied the return of life in other places where glaciers have retreated.



At first, single-celled microbes chew on rocks. They release nutrients, such as phosphorus, iron and calcium. That allows lichens and moss to move in, followed by Antarctic grass or pearlwort.



Plants accelerate soil-forming, Adams says. Theyre actually physically cracking rocks open with their roots.



Seabirds, penguins or seals may form new summer colonies. This could further speed the arrival of plants, says Juliana Souza-Kasprzyk. She works at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. A biologist, shes spent several summers studying these colonies on King George Island.



The future of Antarctic mainland could one day resemble this grassy meadow full of king penguins on the subantarctic South Georgia Island.Cindy Kassab/The Image Bank/Getty Images Plus



In these areas, Souza-Kasprzyk says, you have more vegetation. And that makes sense. Birds and seals hunt fish and krill in the ocean, then poop on land. Their wastes ferry tons of fertilizing nutrients from ocean to land each year. They are enriching the soils, she explains.



In 200 years, the Antarctic Peninsula will be significantly greener, Peter Convey predicts. A polar ecologist, he works for the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England.



Invading species may contribute to that greening.



Already, thousands of scientists and tourists visit Antarctica every year. Stray seeds, insects and other critters hitchhike along on their ships and planes.



Lets learn about Antarctica



There are already quite a lot of [species] that could survive [here] year-round, says Convey. At least 18 non-native species now live in Antarctica. Three are spreading quite quickly on the Peninsula.



An invasive grass, Poa annua, is growing on King George Island, Signy Island and a dozen other places. In experiments, it outcompetes the native grass and pearlwort. On King George, it is already taking hold in the bare rocky spaces that emerge as Ecology Glacier retreats.



Poa annua is hardly some special, rugged pioneer. This annual bluegrass is the same turf sometimes used on golf courses, notes Chown. You find it in the cracks of the pavement in cities across Europe and North America.



The winter crane fly, shown here, is native to Europe. Now its spreading on King George Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula.O. Volonterio/Sec. Zoologa de Invertebrados/Univ. de la Repblica, Uruguay



Boom town growth



Two species of fast-growing invasive flies are also spreading on King George Island: the winter crane fly and the moth fly. Both took hold in the sewage systems at research stations on the island. The flies are now spreading, gorging on stinky seal carcasses, penguin poo and rotting plants.



These invaders exhibit a fast-growing, boom town lifestyle. And that makes them a threat to Antarctic natives.



At first glance, Antarcticas native plants and creepy-crawlies seem tough. You can send them to space, you can put them in liquid nitrogen at -196 C (-320 F), and they survive, says Claudia Colesie. Shes a polar plant ecologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. In some cases, retreating glaciers have revealed mosses buried under ice for 600 years that can revive and grow.



But Antarctic species are also surprisingly vulnerable. Many of these mosses, springtails, worms and other critters spend most of their time dried out, in suspended animation. They only wake to grow when conditions are good. But the growth rates of the local species are very, very slow, explains Colesie. That allows them to survive in soils with few nutrients.



Coming warmer, wetter summers might favor the invaders. Species that live and grow faster, says Colesie, can outcompete some of the local species.



Worst of all, those invaders could change the environment in ways that give them an even greater advantage.



Invasive species could enrich the nutrient-poor soils. For instance, an invasive midge has been spreading on Signy Island. Its larval maggots live in soil. They have strong mouthparts and can eat tough, dead plant matter that native critters cannot. As they poop out digested material, the nutrients in it will fertilize plant growth.



Antarctica and its neighboring islands have only two native species of insects but are increasingly hosting invaders. One is a wingless fly, called a midge (left), seen on Signy Island. Its young maggots (right) are fertilizing the soils with nitrogen, which could pave the way for more invasive species to arrive.British Antarctic Survey (CC BY 4.0)



On Signy Island, Convey and Jesamine Bartlett have found that soils with this invasive midge have three to five times more nitrogen (a fertilizer) than normal. Bartlett is a polar biologist at the Equinor Research Center in Trondheim, Norway.



Bokhorst at Vrije University has done experiments showing that one species of wood louse (often called a roly-poly, or pill bug) would have similar effects if it took hold in Antarctica. (So far it has not.) But the invasive moth fly on King George Island might enrich soils there. If it does, these invasive insects could pave the way for fast-growing invasive plants to take over.



Invaders on a sugar high



My biggest concern, says Bokhorst, is that a new insect and plant invade as a team. As the insect enriches the soil, the invading plant will grow taller and faster. These traits would let them start enhancing each other, he says. In short order, he worries, their changes could spiral out of control.



Enriched soils would allow even more invasive plants to take hold. Bokhorst believes this could occur more easily than most people realize.



Several years ago, Bokhorst ran some lab experiments. These looked at how 26 non-native plant species would do if their seeds landed on a typical Antarctic soil.



After six months of simulated winter at -5 C (23 F), he warmed them to a summer temperature of 2 C (36 F). Eighteen species sprouted and grew. After a second winter and summer, 15 were still growing. Concludes Bokhorst, Antarcticas current climate conditions are already suitable for a lot of plants from other places.





Return of rodents … and trees?



A few islands north of King George Island show how this might play out. These subantarctic islands are cold, rocky, treeless and weather-beaten. They have penguin colonies. Some host glaciers. All are warmer than the Antarctic Peninsula but colder than Patagonia.



People have visited them since the 1800s, initially to hunt seals and whales. Dozens of non-native species now inhabit these islands. On South Georgia and Kerguelen islands, entire hillsides shimmer in summer with dandelions yellow blooms. Its the same weed that pops up in U.S. lawns and playgrounds. Bokhorst found that this flower can already grow and survive winters in Antarctic soils.




Make a wish?



Ashley Cooper/Corbis/Getty Images Plus
Dandelions growing on South Georgia, a subantarctic island. The non-native weed has spread rapidly and begun outcompeting native species. Dandelions arrived when Norwegian whalers insisted on putting soil from Norway atop the grave of a shipmate who had died on the island.





Anything that is already established in the subantarctic, we could plausibly regard as a risk [for invading the Antarctic Peninsula], says the British Antarctic Surveys Convey.



This is why Chown at Monash University worries about mice. A lot.



While working on subantarctic Marion Island, he saw evidence of house mice. After arriving from Europe in the 1800s, these rodents devoured native insects. By the 1980s, when Chown was there, they were preying on local seabirds called wandering albatross. They killed chicks and chewed on the heads of adult birds.



These wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) stand near their nest South Georgia Island. This bird naturally inhabits several of the subantarctic islands. It is threatened on at least one of them (Marion Island) by invasive mice, which kill chicks and injure the adult birds.Paul Souders/Stone/Getty Images Plus



Says Chown, that would just be a nightmare on the Antarctic Peninsula. Rodents could attack local seabirds, including penguins.



At least one dead rat has been found on King George Island. It probably hitchhiked there in a shipment of lumber. The little buck-toothed fellow didnt survive the cold. But by the 2080s, parts of the Peninsula might be warm enough for mice or rats. And thats not far off, Chown notes.



Some invading species on the Peninsula might be returnees. Fossil wood, leaves and pollen from southern beech trees have been found across Antarctica. Beeches may have grown on King George Island as recently as 20 million years ago. Forests of them still live close by, in Patagonia.




The past could be the future













This fossil (above, left) shows the leaf of a southern beech tree that grew on the Antarctic Peninsula 20 million years ago. Closely related trees (right) still live at the tip of South America, which was once connected to Antarctica. These trees grow in cold, mountainous areas of South America (below).



Top left: M. Leppe, H. Mansilla, C. Trevisan/Antarctic and Patagonia Paleobiology Laboratory/Chilean Antarctic Institute-INACH/Punta Arenas, Chile (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); Top right: Goddard Photography/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Bottom: emicristea/iStock/Getty Images Plus




On the Antarctic Peninsula, there are probably some sweet spots where they will already be able to grow, says Bokhorst. He imagines a rare north-facing cove with summer sunlight and water melting off a nearby glacier. The trees would be small and stunted, like bushes. And at first, they wouldnt easily spread beyond these isolated spots.



But if rapid warming continues for centuries, says Convey, all bets are off.



A return of southern beech forests to the Antarctic Peninsula would not restore the continent to its distant, lush past. These trees would lack the other species that filled those ancient ecosystems. They would mingle instead with many of the weeds and pests inhabiting cities and farms across the globe. Moth flies and mice might flit around penguin colonies. Dandelions and bluegrass could sprout from rocky meadows.



That mishmash of weeds and wildlife would replace current landscapes. And that would be a real shame, says Bokhorst. The unique ecosystem that took 30 million years to evolve could vanish in a few short centuries.






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Graphene is a wonder. This single layer of carbon atoms is stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum. It conducts electricity better than many other materials. And recent studies now show it can even kill germs. A new graphene-based material is being developed to harness that surprising superpower.



Lets learn about graphene



To turn on this germ killer, all you need is a little light. Exposing graphene to light starts a chemical reaction, says Giacomo Reina. That reaction produces molecules that can take down microbes such as bacteria, viruses or fungi.



A materials scientist, Reina works at EMPA, a research institute in St. Gallen, Switzerland. He was part of a team that unveiled the new material last year in EcoMat.



As a liquid, the substance could one day coat surfaces often rife with germs. Those might include doorknobs or handrails in hospitals. Right now, though, Reinas team wants to use it in the human mouth. Its a particularly germy place. Installing new dental implants can put someone at risk of infection. But coating the implant with this germ-fighting coating should greatly lower that risk.





Graphenes greatness



In the 22 years since graphene was discovered, scientists have probed and explored it in many ways. Theyve even developed different types of useful graphene. It can add strength to concrete and tennis rackets. It can also boost the performance of electronic devices.



Nowadays, Reina says, graphene is more a family of materials. His team used a type called graphene oxide. Its a layer of carbon atoms with oxygen-containing molecules attached. This formula mixes easily with water to form an acid.



To that liquid, the EMPA team added a dash of nitrogen. When scientists place some extra stuff in a material, they call it doping. So this new material is called nitrogen-doped graphene acid.



Making it requires high precision at a small scale. As such, graphene can be difficult to work with. Unplanned defects can make it unusable, Reina notes. The added nitrogen, he explains, helps keep it stable.



When I saw this [material], I fell in love, Reina says. I wanted to try to see if it [would] work as a germ-killer coating.



An acid made from graphene is plated onto the dish held up here by Reina. The black circles mark where bacteria cannot grow. EMPA



Graphene vs. germs



When light strikes it, the doped material responds in two ways. First, it warms enough to kill certain microbes. But that light also triggers a chemical reaction between the doped graphene and oxygen in the air. This now creates a class of microbe-fighting molecules called radicals.



Turning the doped material into a liquid that could be used to coat surfaces took more than a year of trial and error. The scientists had to answer many questions about how the light was interacting with it, Reina says. What happened with oxygen? What happened without oxygen? What kind of reaction are we generating? Does it work many times?



To find out, the scientists compared the radicals produced by the doped material under different conditions. They also mixed the acid with a liquid plastic that could be easily spread on a surface.



The resulting material, Reina says, improves on past anti-germ coatings. For instance, unlike others, this one uses no metals (which may need ultraviolet radiation to activate their germ-killing action).



It can become antimicrobial under just ambient light, says Sara Imani. She calls that a plus point for the new material. Imani is a mechanical engineer in Canada at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She, too, works on new antimicrobial coatings (although not this one).



The Porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria (illustrated above) occur naturally in the mouth and other places in the body. They play a role in gum disease and other oral infections. The new graphene-based material can kill those germs on contact.KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images



Taking down tough microbes



Reinas group combined its material with bacteria in lab experiments and found that it could kill germs when bathed in infrared light. Those wavelengths are present in sunlight and some room lighting. They also tested the doped acid on a chemical that mimics living tissue, such as skin. It triggered no harmful reactions.



Those tests suggest that the new material is safe for the human body, including the mouth. Thats critical for how Reina and his colleagues intend to use it.



Their team is now working with dentists and researchers to develop a splint. Its a type of tray filled with a liquid film that can fit over the teeth. Within a few minutes, the tray could coat teeth with the new graphene-based material. Then, light shined into the mouth would kick on its antimicrobial activity.



The researchers have been testing the material against common infectious agents in gum tissue. One day, after having a dental procedure, someone might wear the splint and expose it to light. Its something the patient can do at home, too, Reina says, to kill harmful germs in their mouth.



He sees the new coating as a potent new tool in the ongoing fight against microbial superbugs. Many harmful germs dont just spread easily. Some also have developed resistance to drugs, such as antibiotics. These infections are now very hard to knock out. In fact, resistant infections kill more than 1.25 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization.



Materials like graphene, which deliver germs a one-two punch, could offer new ways to quash such resistant germs.




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A basketball players smooth, nothing-but-net shot. A softball pitchers wicked curveball. A football quarterbacks beautiful spiral toss. These arent just athletic spectacles. Theyre feats of physics.



Making a ball take a specific path through the air is difficult, no matter the sport. Thats because the tiny details of a balls shape and spin can have a big impact on how it interacts with the air and therefore its motion.



See all the entries from our Lets Learn About series



Some physicists study these nit-picky details to give athletes an edge in their game. For example, scientists are trying to use physics to help football players improve their spirals. Engineers, meanwhile, have gone different routes. Some have redesigned balls. While others have applied some of this knowledge to design better vehicles.



For instance, a ball or other object flying through the air experiences a type of friction called drag. This force acts against an objects motion, slowing it down. But adding dimples to the surface of an object like those found on a golf ball allows air to flow around the ball more smoothly and reduces drag. Engineers recently borrowed this concept to design dimpled surfaces that could help vehicles cut through air and water more easily.



A balls path through the air also depends on how it spins. Thats because a balls spin causes air to flow differently around different sides of it. Softball and baseball players harness those effects to pitch balls that curve in various directions. These airflow affects also impact how other balls, including basketballs, arc through the air. Such effects could be used to improve the spinning cylinders that help power cargo ships.





Want to know more? Weve got some stories to get you started:



Precise tee placement can improve golf driving, teen finds This middle-school engineer built a golf-ball-hitting machine out of a clay-pigeon launcher. (2/10/2026) Readability: 6.0



How to make a pitched ball curve to your will Pitchers have many tricks up their sleeves. Physics explains how they work. (9/18/2025) Readability: 6.1



Holey basketballs! 3-D printing could be a game-changer An airless design makes Wilsons new basketball quieter and puncture-proof. (7/1/2024) Readability: 7.2





This video shows how a physical phenomenon known as the Magnus effect impacts spinning balls and could be used for better boat design.



Explore more



Scientists Say: Force



Explainer: What is friction?



Pickleballs inspire a new way to reduce drag on vehicles



Aerodynamics involved in shooting hoops can make vehicles greener



Due to global warming, major league hitters are slugging more home runs



Researchers reveal the secret to the perfect football throw



These young researchers take aim at sports



Activities



Word find



Want an excuse to play around at the gym or outside while you do science? Check out our experiment from Science Buddies investigating where a basketballs energy goes as it loses its bounce.  




]]> Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:30:00 PST kidzsearch Other -4 -2 2 https://kidzsearch.com/news/other/lets-learn-how-to-make-a-sports-ball-soar/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/orcas-and-dolphins-hunt-together-in-rare-ocean-partnership/ https://www.dogonews.com/2026/1/4/orcas-and-dolphins-hunt-together-in-rare-ocean-partnership Tue, 24 Feb 2026 03:56:45 PST kidzsearch 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/orcas-and-dolphins-hunt-together-in-rare-ocean-partnership/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/other/why-more-states-are-adding-back-cursive-writing-to-school-lessons/ https://net.kidzsearch.com/why-more-states-are-adding-back-cursive-writing-to-school-lessons/ Mon, 23 Feb 2026 22:02:23 PST kidzsearch Other 1 1 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/other/why-more-states-are-adding-back-cursive-writing-to-school-lessons/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/sciencetechnology/alysa-liu-caps-incredible-comeback-with-two-olympic-golds/ https://www.dogonews.com/2026/2/23/alysa-liu-caps-incredible-comeback-with-two-olympic-golds Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:35:36 PST kidzsearch Science / Tech 1 1 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/sciencetechnology/alysa-liu-caps-incredible-comeback-with-two-olympic-golds/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/school/prehistoric-sea-monster-also-lurked-in-rivers--data-show/ https://www.snexplores.org/article/mosasaur-tooth-fossil-river



Mosasaurs a fearsome group of ancient predators once ruled the seas. Now researchers have turned up a 66-million-year fossil tooth from one. And the big surprise: It came from a site that wasnt part of the ocean. As such, this tooth is rewriting the aquatic reptiles history. Some mosasaurs ruled the rivers, it suggests.





The tooth came from a genus known as Prognathodontini (Prog-NAH-thow-don-TEE-nee). These enormous animals could span up to 11 meters (36 feet) or about the length of a telephone pole. The lizard-like creatures showed up during the Late Cretaceous, some 100 million years ago. Then, like nearly all of their dinosaur cousins, mosasaurs went extinct when a massive asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago.



Explainer: The age of dinosaurs



Ancient dinos roamed the land. Mosasaurs prowled the water. More closely related to lizards and snakes than dinos, these giants had shark-like tails and paddle-shaped fins. These helped them glide through water to surprise their prey.



With powerful jaws, this lurking predator could bite through big turtles, fishes and reptiles [including dinosaurs]. It was terrifying, says Melanie During. She works at Uppsala University in Sweden. A paleontologist, she uses fossils to learn about ancient life.



In 2022, a team from the North Dakota Geological Society was digging for fossils in a former river floodplain. The North Dakota site is known as the Hell Creek Formation.



In one football-shaped piece of rock, the team found three fossils: a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth, an ancient crocodile jawbone and a mosasaur tooth.



That last one was unexpected. What was a sea reptile doing with a croc and a dinosaur? We were already surprised when a mosasaur tooth was in Hell Creek. We tried everything to prove that the tooth was from a marine reptile, says During. But thats not what the evidence showed.



This fossil tooth from a mosasaur was found in North Dakota.Trissa Shaw



Before giving up, the team compared the new fossils to ones at Vrije University Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Here, they turned to a chemical technique called isotope analysis. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. Isotope patterns can reveal parts of an animals life history, such as where it lived and what it ate.



Because all fossils at Hell Creek were 66 million years old, the researchers could compare them. They focused on isotopes of three elements: oxygen, strontium and carbon.



Oxygen isotopes pointed to what type of water the mosasaur lived in. Living in salt water, a mosasaur would have built up more of a heavier oxygen isotope. Yet the oxygen in the Hell Creek mosasaur tooth had more lighter isotopes than expected. Strontium and carbon isotopes showed a similar pattern.



The results point to the tooths owner having lived and died in freshwater. It was not merely a sea denizen that washed into a river.



Such data suggest scientists will have to reconsider what they know about mosasaur lifestyles, the researchers say. They shared their new findings in BMC Zoology on December 12, 2025.



Members of the North Dakota Geological Survey during a dig where they discovered the mosasaur tooth.Trissa Shaw



Adapting to change



Its a remarkable example of a species apparently adapting to a habitat, says Barry Albright. Hes a paleontologist at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville who didnt work on the study. It was entirely unexpected, he says. The reptiles were long considered to be exclusively marine.



Nicholas Longrich works at the University of Bath in England. In the sea, [mosasaurs] evolve a range of jaw shapes and tooth shapes, body forms and sizes, this paleontologist says. But now, were seeing them occupy other habitats, he says. It indicates they were diverse and thriving before the asteroid struck, killing off much of Earth’s life 66 million years ago.



Diverse predators at the top of the food web imply diverse prey, Longrich points out. So what drew mosasaurs into rivers?





Mosasaurs evolved into a number of species of many sizes. But all were serious predators, as this brief overview shows.



Heres one idea. During the Late Cretaceous, shallow tropical seas covered Earth. One of them the Western Interior Seaway split in half what is now North America. The rich ecosystems of this sea were full of fish and other prey for mosasaurs to eat. Later, as the continent uplifted, the sea underwent major changes.



One change was that its salt levels fell. Seaway mosasaurs might have adapted enough to be able to venture into freshwater. That could have included the river channels at Hell Creek.



Its possible that mosasaurs were following prey upriver, says Femke Holwerda. Shes a mosasaur expert at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.



Mosasaurs had been hardly the only ocean predators. They had rivals for food. Adapting to life in a river may have helped the Hell Creek mosasaurs occupy a new ecological role. Here, they might have competed less for food, Albright thinks.




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It wouldnt be the first time aquatic life left the ocean. Amazon river dolphins adapted to live in murky rivers. Other ancient marine reptiles have been found in riverbeds, too.



There is no reason why mosasaurs would have been constrained to only marine environments, says Kiersten Formoso. A vertebrate paleobiologist, she works at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.



It would be interesting to see more mosasaur fossils, says Formoso. Was this just a curious mosasaur? she asks. Perhaps a pioneer for its species?



To gather more data, Durings team hopes to return to Hell Creek. Finding the skeleton of this mosasaur would be like winning the jackpot. By finding the entire body, we could see how it adapted, says During.



Indeed, Longrich says, mosasaur bones in the area might have been misidentified before or even ignored. After all, researchers werent looking for them in riverbeds. I cant help but wonder if there are [somewhere, unidentified freshwater mosasaur] teeth and bones sitting in museum drawers.












]]> Mon, 23 Feb 2026 01:30:00 PST kidzsearch Educational 0 0 0 https://kidzsearch.com/news/school/prehistoric-sea-monster-also-lurked-in-rivers--data-show/ https://kidzsearch.com/news/scientists-say--pollination/ https://www.snexplores.org/article/scientists-say-pollination-definition-pronunciation



Pollination (noun, pah-lih-NAY-shun)







Pollination is a step in a plants life cycle that allows it to make seeds. It is the transfer of pollen from the male parts of a plant to the female parts. Some plants supply their own pollen. Others require pollen from another plant of the same species.



Consider a flower. The male parts usually look like fluffy-tipped stalks. These are called anthers. Their job is to make pollen. The female part of a flower is called the pistil. Its often shaped like a little bowling pin. The pistil has a sticky tip that helps incoming pollen cling to it. Different plants rely on different strategies such as wind, water or animals to get pollen to their pistils.



Some plants, especially flowering ones, rely on living things to help transfer pollen. Living things that play a role in pollen transfer are called pollinators. They include bats, birds and many insects such as bees, moths and butterflies.



Other plants mainly rely on wind for pollination. Corn, pine trees and most grasses are wind-pollinated. About 2 percent of plants rely on water for pollination. A group of aquatic plants called eelgrass (Vallisneria) is an example.



Almost 90 percent of wild flowering plants depend on pollinators to some extent. Yet, many pollinator species are declining. Experts estimate that more than 40 percent of bee species, for instance, may be threatened with extinction. Climate change, pesticide overuse and habitat loss threaten many of these species.



In a sentence



Japanese dogbane (Vincetoxicum nakaianum) uses the scent of wounded ants to attract flies to its flowers for pollination.



Check out the full list of Scientists Say.






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