Kids News - Articles for Grades 6-8

If you are in middle school, chances are you have been exposed to and probably even asked to memorize the 118 elements that currently make up the periodic table. Now you may have to make room for one more - Element 115! Nicknamed Ununpentium (combination of Latin and Greek for 115) until it gets official approval and a permanent name from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, it is one of the heaviest man-made elements created thus far....

What is futuristic, has the potential to transport passengers faster than an airplane, and resembles a Disneyland ride? It's Hyperloop - a design for a supersonic transportation system between high-traffic cities that lie within short distances conjured up Elon Musk, the visionary behind SpaceX, the world's first privately funded spacecraft....

If you are not a big fan of tomatoes it may be best to steer away from the charming town of Bunol around this time of the year. That's because every year on the last Wednesday of August, the normally staid and sleepy Spanish town of just 9,000 residents becomes center stage for the world's largest food fight - the La Tomatina. And as the name suggests, it involves . . . A lot of tomatoes!...

Ever since JK Rowling planted the 'invisibility cloak' seed, scientists all over the world have been rushing to be the first ones to make it a reality. Now there seems to be a winner - A tiny square sticker called Kite Patch. The only catch? It makes humans invisible only to mosquitoes!...

Imagine living on a planet where you could celebrate almost three birthdays in one day - Think that is just out of this world? Well actually it is - About 700 million light years away in the small constellation of Lyra, where scientists have discovered an exoplanet that zips around its star in a speedy 8.5 hours...

The scientists at US Space Agency NASA are planning a radical new mission, one that entails capturing an asteroid and then sending over a manned spaceship so the astronauts can obtain some samples and bring them back to earth....

During his short but effective life as preacher and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. gave many speeches. However the one that seemed to resonate with the entire country, race notwithstanding, was the one he delivered fifty years ago on August 28th, 1963, whilst standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C....

The unsolved mystery of the 'crop circles' - Intricately carved large designs that magically appear on farms all across the world, has been plaguing scientists for centuries. Some speculate that they are the work of farmers trying to attract tourists, whilst others believe that they are alien art. But when similar creations started to appear underwater off the coast of Southern Japan, there seemed to be no explanation - logical or otherwise!...

An intricately carved globe pieced together from two bottom shells of ostrich eggs may have just taken over the title of the oldest depiction of the 'New World', from the copper etched Hunt-Lenox globe that lies in The New York Public Library. What is even more interesting is that ostrich globe which is believed to have been created between 1504-1506 used Leonardo Da Vinci's unique 'triangle' technique to transfer the 2-dimensional map drawing into a 3-dimensional sphere, leading Belgian cartographer Stefaan Missinne to speculate that it may be the work of a skilled artist from Da Vinci's Florence studio....