Kids News - Science Articles

While world population continues to increase, our freshwater supplies appear to have stagnated and in some cases even trickled to a halt. Residents all the way from California to Brazil are battling multi-year droughts. Earlier this year, some citizens of Sao Paola were so desperate that they drilled through basements and parking lots to try access groundwater. Experts estimate that there are currently a billion people in the world that lack clean drinking water....

An invisibility cloak might be easy to come by if you are a young wizard like Harry Potter, but developing such a device for the real world has proven to be a challenging task for scientists. Over the years, there have been numerous attempts. While each version has been slightly better than the previous one, none has come even close to the original 'created' by J.K. Rowling....

Fans of the Avengers film series will recall Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, that can only be lifted by someone 'worthy,' AKA the superhero himself. However, while the one in the movies was probably a prop, Alan Pan's Mjolnir is the real deal!...

Prosthetics have come a long way since the first known artificial limb - A wood and leather toe was created for an Egyptian noblewoman nearly 3,000 years ago. However, though they have certainly become increasingly sophisticated and nimble they remain extremely expensive, not to mention very industrial looking....

Styrofoam, a plastic made of expandable polystyrene foam (EPS) is a useful invention. In fact one could call it almost too useful! The lightweight and buoyant plastic can be used for a myriad of things from thermal insulation to disposable plates & cups, packing material, and even to build boats! The only problem is that the versatile product is almost impossible to recycle....

In 1920, Johnson and Johnson employee Earle Dickson created the first bandage to cover the frequent burns and cuts his wife Josephine inflicted on herself while cooking. The hand-made prototype was instantly adopted by his employer and marketed as Band-Aid, a brand that has become synonymous with the word bandage. However, while the adhesive strips may now look different from Dickson's creation they still perform the same job - Prevent bacteria from entering wounds....

On October 3rd, East Coast residents were relieved to hear that Hurricane Joaquin which had been hurtling towards the U.S., was no longer a threat. According to meteorologists, the hurricane that was weakened to a category 3 after battering the Bahamas, would likely remain out to sea instead of ramming into the coastline as had been previously thought....

On September 25th, US first lady Michelle Obama and China's first lady Peng Liyuan announced that the recently born giant panda at Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C. would be called Bei Bei. The name which means 'precious treasure' in Mandarin Chinese, was selected from a list suggested by officials at the zoo and the Wolong Nature Reserve in China....

This morning, William Campbell, Satoshi Omura, and Youyou Tu, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on parasitic diseases. Though the brilliant scientists certainly deserve the honor for their groundbreaking research, for most of us, reading about their and the achievements of other Nobel laureates can be overwhelming and perhaps even a little boring. However, the same cannot be said about the winners of the IG Nobel Prize that celebrates 'fun' scientific research....