Kids News - Articles for Grade 7

With over 64 million monthly active players, up to 1 million of whom are logged on simultaneously during peak times, chances are you have heard of online game creation platform Roblox. Fans are probably also aware that all the games in the Lego-like virtual world are created by users, typically teens and young adults....

The “Ediacaran biota,” a common name given to a large group of over 200 types of fossils that have been found across the world, have baffled scientists for decades. Over the years, researchers have debated whether the strange-looking organisms were fungi, algae, or just ancient animals that had failed to evolve. Now, some experts believe they have proof that the mysterious creatures were indeed animals, probably one of the first ones on Earth....

Approximately 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system was a cloud of dust and gas known as the solar nebula. As gravity caused the material to collapse in on itself, it spun faster and faster and eventually flattened into a disk. Researchers believe that most of the material accumulated in the center, to form the sun, while the rest clumped together, creating protoplanets – balls of gas, dust, and rocks, about the size of Mercury or Mars. Over the years, some of the protoplanets collided to form our eight planets, while the rest continue to whirl around the sun as asteroids or rocky debris. However, the one thing scientists are not sure is the process by which the planets came together. Now, a 4.565 billion-year-old space rock, the oldest igneous meteorite ever discovered, may provide clues to this age-old mystery....

Even if an art museum featuring portraits of legendary singer Frank Sinatra and Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe is not your idea of fun, you may want to give Candytopia a chance. That’s because, in this museum, everything is made from candy! The best part? There is no need to find a “Golden Ticket” to gain admission to this real-life Willy Wonka world that is making its way around the US — tickets can be purchased online, or in-person at the venue....

Florida residents are no strangers to harmful algal blooms (HABs), or “red tides.” The natural phenomena, which occurs along the state’s Gulf Coast annually, is the result of excessive growth of microalgae Karenia Brevis. The single-celled organisms, which are only visible through a microscope, are dangerous because they release brevetoxin – a nerve toxin, that attacks the nervous systems of animals with often fatal results....

Think the prices at your neighborhood coffee shop are a little steep? Then you might want to avoid visiting the South American country of Venezuela, where the cost of a cup of coffee has risen more than tenfold, from a “reasonable” 190,000 bolivars in April 2018, to over 2 million bolivars in August 2018. What’s worse is that if the July 26, 2018 report from the International Monetary Fund forecasting a 1,000,000 percent annual inflation rate is correct, the caffeine fix could set the country’s residents back an astounding 5 million bolivars per cup by September! Welcome to Venezuela’s hyperinflated economy!...

Just a few decades ago, humans were the only species believed to be smart enough to grasp the concept of zero — the idea that nothing can be counted as something. While a select group of animals, including dolphins, primates, and a few birds, have since been added to the list, experts have always maintained that only “intelligent” species are capable of processing the difficult concept. Now, researchers from Melbourne’s RMIT University and France’s Université de Toulouse assert that honeybees, which like all insects are considered to be at the low end of the cognitive spectrum, also understand the abstract mathematical notion of nothing....

NASA’s ambitious mission to “touch” the Sun got underway at 3:31 a.m. EST on August 12 with the launch of the Parker Solar Probe from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Within six weeks, the spacecraft, which is currently traveling at 39,500 miles per hour, will conduct the first of seven flybys of Venus and use the planet’s gravitational pull to catapult itself closer to the Sun. The process, known as gravity assist, is instrumental in the probe’s mission to reach our fiery star....

While whales are known to grieve the loss of their loved ones, the recent story of an orca mom clinging to her dead calf for over two weeks demonstrates unprecedented evidence of the strength of the species’ familial bonds. The heart-wrenching saga began on July 24, 2018, after a female calf born to J35, aka Tahlequah — a member of the endangered Southern Residents Killer Whales (SRKW) pod — died 30 minutes after birth. Instead of letting the carcass sink into the ocean, the grieving mother began carrying the lifeless body by balancing it on her forehead or nudging it along the water surface with her nose....