Kids News - Articles for Grade 8

Future generations take note — deep inside the heart of a Sierra Diablo mountain, along the Texas-Mexico border, lies a 200-foot-tall, mechanical clock that ticks once a year, has a century hand that advances once every 100 years, and a cuckoo which will emerge once every 1,000 years! Meet the 10,000 Year Clock!...

Marvel’s Black Panther superhero T’Challa, the king of East African dynasty Wakanda, is not the only one ascending to the throne. Since its February 16 release, the film has collected over $1.2 billion at the box office worldwide, making it the 14th highest grossing movie ever. It is also the fourth highest grossing superhero movie, surpassed only by Iron Man 3 ($1.215b in 2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1.4b in 2015) and The Avengers ($1.5b in 2012)....

On March 14, 2018, the world mourned the loss of one of the most brilliant minds of the modern age – Stephen Hawking. The 76-year-old theoretical physicist, who was born exactly 300 years after the death anniversary of Galileo and died on Albert Einstein’s 139th birthday, finally succumbed to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), which he had been battling since the age of 21. The brilliant cosmologist, best known for his invaluable discoveries about black holes and the origins of the universe, was beloved for his sense of humor and his engagement with the public....

Ireland is known for many things — its rich history, lush green landscapes, and of course, St. Patrick’s Day. Celebrated annually on March 17, the holiday gained prominence in the early-20th century as a religious feast day. However, it is now widely recognized as a celebration of Irish and Irish-American culture with fun traditions that include hunting for leprechauns, feasting on corned beef, and donning bright green clothing....

You don’t have to be a fan of math to get excited about Pi (“π”) Day. While the event, which is also Albert Einstein’s birthday (139 th this year ), may start with some calculations, it is more than likely to conclude with a slice or two of delicious pie. The holiday, which celebrates the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, is held every March 14, because the infinite number is widely recognized as 3.14....

It might sound like 1.5 million penguins are a hard thing to miss. However, that is indeed the case with this super-colony of Adélie penguins ( Pygoscelis Adeliae ) who have managed to remain undetected for decades in the Danger Islands of Antarctica. The remote, difficult to access, landmass, which lies off the continent’s northern tip, is always surrounded by thick ice. It was, therefore, believed to be uninhabitable and largely ignored by scientists....

Though it may not feel like it to the US East Coast residents getting pummeled by snow, sleet, and rain from the back-to-back nor’easter storms, spring is almost here. In anticipation of the season’s official start on March 19, Americans will “spring forward” on Sunday, March 11, by moving their clocks an hour ahead. While the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST) means losing sixty minutes of precious sleep or play, it does allow for longer days during the spring and summer months....

On January 8, 2018, as Amazon Inc.’s stock soared to an all-time high of $1250 a share, its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns 17% of the company, dethroned Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates to become the world’s richest person. Since then, the company’s stock has risen an additional 20 percent, increasing the entrepreneur’s net worth from $105 billion to $125 billion! To put it in perspective, that is more than the GDP of over 125 of the world’s 195 nations....

Stereo, or 3D, vision is what enables humans to gauge the depth and distance of surrounding objects. The right and left eye capture slightly different images and send them to the brain, which merges them and then calculates the proximity of everything in the vicinity. The ability, which requires an intricate network of neurons and lots of processing power, can also be found in a select group of animals like cats, horses, owls and sheep, as well as one insect — the praying mantis....