Kids News - Articles for Grade 6

The phrase “good things come in small packages” certainly appears to hold true when it comes to ants. The tiny creatures can survive floods by morphing into rafts, find their way home using an internalized GPS system, and even lift up to 20 times their body weight. In 2013, scientists discovered that the insects, whose brains are smaller than a quarter of a small pin’s head, could even use tools, a skill that was once believed to be the realm of “intelligent” species like humans and a select number of animals. Now, researchers from the University of Szeged in Hungary have discovered that when given a choice, the clever insects even have the smarts to select the most efficient tool for the job....

Even if math doesn’t rank high on your list of favorite subjects, chances are you still look forward to Pi Day. That’s because though the discussions may begin with Pi — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — they invariably end with a piece or two of yummy pie! The event is commemorated on March 14 because though the irrational number (its decimal representation never ends and never repeats) has been calculated to over ten trillion digits, it is widely recognized as 3.14....

In August 2013, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk released a 57-page white paper concept for Hyperloop — a supersonic mass transit system between high-traffic cities that lie within short distances. The founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX envisioned it to be a frictionless system where pods inside low-pressure, vacuum-sealed tubes would transport passengers and cargo at up to 760 miles an hour — approximately the speed of sound. Powered by solar energy, it would be strong enough to withstand extreme weather and earthquakes....

After a relatively calm 2016, Europe’s most active volcano — Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy — came to life on February 27. The eruption that occurred at about 6:00 pm local time from the relatively new Southeast Crater formed by a 1978 eruption lit up the dark Sicilian skies with fountains of bright orange lava. As is characteristic of all Mount Etna ejections, the lava stream was accompanied by Strombolian eruptions. The short-lived, explosive outbursts that are caused by trapped bubbles of gas escaping through the lava can reach heights of several hundred meters, making for a spectacular show....

On Sunday, March 12, most Americans will ‘lose’ an hour by moving their clocks forward sixty minutes. This small sacrifice that marks the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST) is designed to allow residents to enjoy longer days during the upcoming spring and summer months....

The steady increase in global temperatures has been particularly disastrous for the polar ice caps. Experts warn that if this trend continues, there will be no late summer ice in the Arctic region by the 2030’s. The most effective solution, of course, is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late. But since that is not happening, scientists are frantically trying to come up with alternative ways to try to reverse the situation....

About forty light years, or 235 trillion miles, away in the constellation Aquarius lies a planetary system with seven Earth-sized planets, at least three of which could be habitable. The exciting news was revealed to the public at a NASA press briefing and through the release of a study in the journal Nature on February 22....

A large otter the size of a wolf, roamed the wooded marshlands of China’s Yunnan Province about six million years ago. Xiaoming Wang, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California, and her team arrived at this conclusion after an extensive study of fossils found in the 6.2 million-year-old sediment of the Shuitangba coal mine in Yunnan, China in 2010 and 2015....

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have tremendous potential to deliver emergency supplies to remote or disaster-struck regions. However, they are expensive to mass produce and often require special pads to launch and land safely. Additionally, the need for the aircraft to maintain enough battery life to return, cuts the delivery distance to half. But these issues may be history, thanks to an affordable and disposable drone that is designed for a one way journey....