2020-05-01 23:04
COVID-19, or the CoronavirusYes, these things have a name rooted in Ancient Greek, but they also have a discoverer, and someone who names them. In this case, the coronavirus was known and is… Read More
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Kids Need Science is devoted to simplifying science, technology, engineering and math words, names, and concepts so that everyone can participate in a conversation about science. Check back often for...
2020-05-01 19:51
kidsneedscience:
There are approximately 2500 species of Mayflies throughout the world, over 600 of which live in North America alone. Mayflies are part of an ancient species of insect… Read More
2020-05-01 02:54
Pandemic and EpidemicWhat’s the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic? With the wide spread of COVID-19, people in every country are learning the difference. A pandemic is a di… Read More
2020-04-28 02:19
Quarantine700 hundred years ago, as disease and plague ravaged Europe, cities and states attempted in every way they could to limit the spread of disease. Already a important hub… Read More
2017-11-23 16:23
kidsneedscience:
When Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492 convinced he had found Read More
2017-11-23 16:18
kidsneedscience:
Every year we hear the same stories about the narcotic effects of eating too much Read More
2017-10-26 02:42
nasa:
Weather permitting, you can observe the Moon most nights, unless it’s a new moon, when the Read More
2017-10-06 17:31
Looking for a Plan B for Planet Earth?On October 6, 1995, astronomers Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor made an announcement that while it had been long anticipated was still stunning: th… Read More
2017-10-04 17:45
The Space Race Begins!Today is the 60th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, but the first use of the word satellite to indicate a man-made object was 1936, over twenty years before the Rus… Read More
2017-02-24 19:40
The Little Green MenThe Little Green Man is 50 years old today! On this day in 1967 astronomer Jocelyn Burnell Bell found an unusual object blinking in a dark corner of the sky in the… Read More
2017-02-23 01:17
Dolly at 20Twenty years ago today on February 22, 1997,
Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute, announced the existence of a 7 month old sheep named Dolly… Read More
2017-02-23 01:17
Dolly at 20Twenty years ago today on February 22, 1997,
Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute, announced the existence of a 7 month old sheep named Dolly… Read More
2017-02-21 21:25
Discovering the Structure of DNAOn February 21, 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) using unacknowledged photographs and researc… Read More
2017-02-17 20:46
Happy Birthday to the Elements, I guess?Today is the birthday of the Periodic Table of the Elements, created by Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev, first published on this date on February 1… Read More
2017-02-14 17:26
Happy Valentine’s Day?!?!Look, instead of spending the day messing around on the internet looking for a last minute reprieve, you really need to be out there finding something special… Read More
2017-02-14 17:12
What’s in a Name?When it is a rose, symbol of love and St. Valentine’s day, everything. But are you still on the internet, looking for some last minute inspiration? Ok, let… Read More
2017-02-12 18:39
Happy Birthday, Charles DarwinBorn February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin revolutionized science and the culture around it. On 24 November 1859 Charles Darwin published his monumental work… Read More
2017-02-06 15:58
From Phlogiston to OxygenHappy Birthday Joseph Priestley, the chemist who discovered OXYGEN. Words enter language and sometimes words disappear-often as quickly as they appeared. &nbs&hell…Read More
2017-02-06 15:50
The Leatoli Footprints and Early Human AncestorsIn 1978 a team led by British paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey found trace fossils of animal footprints left in ash several million years old… Read More
2017-02-05 15:55
THE PASS THAT REVOLUTIONIZED AND SAVED FOOTBALL, THE SCIENTIST, AND DDTTrue story: the man who threw the first forward pass in football-yes, THE VERY FIRST FORWARD PASS, was also a scientist… Read More
2017-02-05 15:48
Winners and Losers-In Science, not the Superbowl!Yes the Superbowl is almost here (go PATS!) but science has its own winners and losers. This gorgeous beetle is commonly known as the D… Read More
2017-01-29 03:42
The Challenger Disaster, 30 years laterPlease stop in your day and take a moment to remember the Crew of STS-51L, who all perished on this day, January 28, 1986. Pictured here, the cre… Read More
2017-01-25 16:59
Wait, how do I pass a Litmus Test?The word litmus has two possible etymologies: the first possibility litmose comes from the Old Norse combination of litr meaning color and mosi meanin… Read More
2017-01-09 22:00
Columbus and Mermaids?On January 9, 1493 while sailing in the ‘New World’, Christopher Columbus and his crews saw strange creatures, which they imagined to be mermaids or si… Read More
2017-01-05 16:47
Ok, so Pluto’s not a planet. What about the rest of them? This question has troubled scientists and students for decades, and the recent demotion of Pluto from planet to pl… Read More
2016-12-30 16:26
Hubble and the Edge of the UniverseOn December 30, 1995 the Hubble Space Telescope completed the series of 342 images that were rendered in to the Hubble Deep Field View, (pictured above top… Read More
2016-12-29 19:50
Vulcanize-Charles Goodyear and the Roman god of FireThe early nineteenth century saw tremendous advances in chemistry, with scientists leading teams all across the world to improve both scie… Read More
2016-12-28 15:01
The Race to find Neptune400 years ago, a great arms race began in the scientific community: using the newly developed technology afforded by the telescope, astronomers and natural scientists… Read More
2016-12-22 16:17
Crypto-Biology and Unusual Creatures!On December 22, 1938, Captain Hendrik Goosen caught an unusual fish of the coast of South Africa. He took it straight to port to local museum official an… Read More
2016-12-19 20:37
Ozone has a Birthday? Kind of.Today is the birthday of Irish Chemist Thomas Andrews, born to a linen merchant in Belfast Ireland in 1815. Andrews was the first scientist to understand… Read More
2016-12-18 13:25
President Eisenhower’s Dark Christmas CardLaunched on December 18, 1958, a little over a year after the Soviet Union stunned the world with the launch of Sputnik, Project SCORE used an… Read More
2016-12-15 15:23
The Co-Discoverer of RadiationHenri Becquerel was born in Paris, France on December 15, 1852 into an illustrious scientific family, which produced four generations of scientists. He studied… Read More
2016-12-13 14:57
The USNA, Einstein, and Betelgeuse (and did I mention Gunsmoke?!?!)On December 13, 1920, Albert Abraham Michaelson and Francis Pease measured the diameter of the star Betelgeuse, the fi… Read More
2016-12-12 15:55
12:12 on 12/12Ok, this may be the thinnest reason to talk about word origins, but a fun word in any case. The word twelve was early in the English language, forming in Old English as t… Read More
2016-12-11 18:45
The Harvard Computers (Hint: They were women, not machines!)Today is the birthday of Annie Jump Cannon, born December 11, 1863, known as one of ‘Harvard’s Computers’. She i… Read More
2016-12-09 15:42
John Glenn, the World’s First Astronaut!Yesterday the world received the sad news of the death of the very first astronaut, John Glenn. Yes, yes, Yuri Gagarin beat us Americans a… Read More
2016-12-05 15:43
Darwin’s Finches Then and NowAlthough Charles Darwin has been strongly associated with the finches of the Galapagos Islands since returning on the Beagle, he was himself initially unaw… Read More
2016-11-23 13:50
Air Pollution and SMOGNot all science words denote progress or an advancement in knowledge or technology. Some words denote the opposite-the recognition that humans have changed things… Read More
2016-11-15 16:59
The Challenger Crew Official Portrait STS-51-LPlease stop in your day and take a moment to remember the Crew of STS-51L, who all perished on board the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28… Read More
2016-11-15 16:00
Shakespeare, Astronomy, the Mad King George, and William HerschelThe planet Uranus has 27 known and named moons, the first two of which (Titania and Oberon) were discovered in 1787 by the ma… Read More
2016-11-15 15:00
The Microprocessor that changed the WorldIn the spring of 1970, Intel hired Italian-American physicist Federico Faggin, who earned his paycheck almost immediately by leading the design team… Read More
2016-11-15 04:08
Was Moby Dick Real?On November 14, 1851, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, or The Whale was first published. The story of a mad whaling captain pursuing a monstrous white whale across… Read More
2016-11-11 19:40
The ORIGINAL BUZZLong before the Toy Story franchise made Buzz a hero, there was a real life space cowboy named Buzz who set fire the imaginations of millions of people around the world. &nb&hell…Read More
2016-11-10 17:37
Great Grey Shrike, the Butcher of the BushesTo kick off Project Feeder Watch, a bird word today, and actually a three for one word special: the Great Grey Shrike, Lanius Excubitor. &nb&hell…Read More
2016-11-09 16:00
Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!!!Few people are as connected with a number as thoroughly as Carl Sagan is connected with the word billion. The word (and concept) of billion is relatively ne… Read More
2016-11-09 14:58
Anniversary of the FIRST Saturn V Launch!Today is the 49th anniversary of the first Saturn V flight carrying the Apollo IV mission. The Saturn V rockets were responsible for some of Am… Read More
2016-11-08 21:44
Happy Birthday, Vesto Slipher!Vesto Melvin Slipher was an American astronomer born on November 11, 1875 and died almost a century later on November 8, 1969, mostly remembered today for his c… Read More
2016-11-07 17:54
Happy Birthday to the Mother of Radiation!Today is the birthday of Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), a Franco-Polish chemist and physicist famous for her pio… Read More
2016-11-01 14:03
Plate Tectonics and Alfred WegenerAlthough the word tectonic has existed in English since the 1650s as an adjective meaning related to construction or building, it wasn’t seen as a nou… Read More
2016-10-31 17:38
Happy Birthday, Michael Collins!While humans have been dreaming of flight since the dawn of time, it wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that the Wright brothers achieved t… Read More
2016-10-21 12:59
Planets and PlanetariumsOn October 21, 1923, The Zeiss Mark I was taken down and shipped to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, where it was installed in a 10-meter dome, becoming the f… Read More
2016-10-19 14:25
The Merope NebulaOn October 19, 1852, German born astronomer Wilhelm Tempel discovered the Merope Nebula (NGC 1435), also known as the Tempel Nebula in the Pleiades star cluster. … Read More
2016-10-17 15:18
The Mystery of Saturn…Solved!Today is the birthday of Edouard Roche, born October 17, 1848 in Montpellier, France (one of my favorite cities), for whom the Roche limit or Roche Radius… Read More
2016-10-12 17:30
Voskhod-the first multiple-manned missionAlthough we now take for granted the long term success of the International Space Station, it wasn’t too long ago that we were totally earthbou… Read More
2016-10-03 16:50
Nobel Prize Series Words: Physiology/MedicineCongratulations to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Frontier Research Center, who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Phys… Read More
2016-10-01 22:11
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NASA!On October 1, 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration opened for space exploration. Signed into law in July 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower, as… Read More
2016-09-27 19:40
Googol and Google10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000In 1938 American mathematician Edward K… Read More
2016-09-24 14:01
The ‘Foreign’ BirdThe Peregrine Falcon is the most geographically diverse bird of prey in the animal kingdom-other than the North and South Polar regions, the only place the Pere… Read More
2016-09-23 13:04
The Unlikely Etymology of CloudFile Under: you can’t make this stuff up! While today in Modern English we think of clouds as light, ethereal, fluffy, the etymology of the word tells a… Read More
2016-09-22 12:58
The Equinox on Earth and Saturn. Yes, Saturn!If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, get ready for the Autumnal equinox, which hits the East Coast of the United States at 10:21 am… Read More
2016-09-20 15:53
kidsneedscience:
The First Irregular Moon Discovered on this Day!On September 19, 1848, astronomers William Cranch Bond, George Phillips Bond and William Lassell discovered the first non-sp… Read More
2016-09-15 13:25
Today is the birthday of Murray Gell-Mann, who is credited with (co)discovering the quark in the same year as George Zweig. Gell-Mann, however, deserves all the credit for naming the q… Read More
2016-09-14 20:04
kidsneedscience:
The genus python comprises seven species of non-venomous pythons, including one of Read More
2016-09-12 13:52
The Marathon and Phidippides, or the intersection of Science and HistoryFor the last century and half and specifically since the rebirth of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, September 12 has… Read More
2016-09-10 12:27
Lutetia, asteroid and ancient French tribe
image
The asteroid Lutetia lies almost directly in the plane of the ecliptic approximately 230 million miles from the sun, on average. It was disc… Read More
2016-09-09 14:46
Amalthea, Jupiter’s third MoonOn September 9, 1892, astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard discovered the third moon of Jupiter, which was named after the Greek nymph Amalthea (Αμ… Read More
2016-07-02 20:00
skunkbear:
skunkbear:
What makes fireworks colorful?
It’s all thanks to the luminescence of metals. When certain metals are heated (over a flame or in a hot explosion) their electron… Read More
2016-06-28 14:59
The Owl Family and NomenclatureComparative anatomy and cladistics have long been tools used to organize organisms into meaningful taxonomies, but they have their limitations, and Owls typify… Read More
2016-06-16 20:10
First Woman in Space, Valentina TereshkovaThe Tereshkova Crater is a small lunar crater on the dark side of the moon near the Sea of Moscow. Identified during the Soviet lunar missions the c… Read More
2016-06-13 14:29
The June BugKnown commonly as the June bug, June Beetle or less commonly as the May bug or beetle, the genus Phyllophaga is very large member (260 species) of the New World Scarab family (fa… Read More
2016-06-04 17:34
Jurassic World, Here We Come!The Quagga is an extinct species of zebra that lived in South Africa. Thirty two years ago today on June 4, 1984 scientists were able to clone the DNA sequ… Read More
2016-05-27 17:16
Regulus, The Little King of LeoThe brightest star in the constellation Leo is Regulus, and it is also one of the brightest stars in the night sky, with only 21 stars brighter. Regulus… Read More
2016-05-23 14:27
Carl Linneaus, the father of TaxonomyBorn on May 23, 1707, Carl Linnaeus would rise to such a level of greatness that the philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau once said “Tell him I know no… Read More
2016-05-19 13:02
About those Near Misses, Fly-bys and End of the World Meteors:On May 19, 1910 the Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet, the closest the earth has ever come to a comet during… Read More
2016-05-17 02:03
nasa:
The International Space Station is a microgravity laboratory in which an international crew Read More
2016-05-16 18:37
The Invention of the LASERIt is easy to forget that LASER is an acronym as they are so ubiquitous and downright commonplace these days. But on May 16, 1960, Theodore Harold Maiman oper… Read More
2016-05-15 12:54
The First VaccineOn May 14, 1796 English doctor Edward Jenner inoculated an eight year old boy named James Phipps with the cowpox virus known since antiquity as variola vaccinia. It ha… Read More
2016-05-13 15:38
Happy Friday the 13thFear and superstition has been a part of culture for as long as people could count. Examples of superstition, hear specifically to mean irrational fears of beliefs… Read More
2016-05-11 18:26
From England to the Galapagos to Mars: the BeagleOccasionally a scientific advance or discovery can be as everyday as finding something that was misplaced. But in this case the thing m… Read More
2016-05-05 14:02
The Avocado and Testicles,Or, Your Cinco de Mayo Party TriviaIt is estimated that almost 20% of the entire half billion ton production of American avocados will be consumed today on Cinco de… Read More
2016-05-04 15:57
Agnostic, not Atheist: What You Need to Know!Thomas Henry Huxley, English naturalist and scientist was born today, 1825. An early and important champion of Charles Darwin’s theory of e… Read More
2016-05-03 14:37
The May Fly-Unlikely Hero of Evolution!Despite having incredibly short active life spans, and despite being (generally) small and vulnerable, and despite occupying a fairly low rung of their… Read More
2016-04-24 17:16
The Monkey Trial, 91 Years LaterOn April 24, 1925, substitute science teacher and Rhea County High School football coach John T. Scopes was charged with violating Tennessee’s Butler Ac… Read More
2016-04-23 15:01
The Birth (and Death) of William ShakespeareHappy Birthday, William Shakespeare, born April 23, 1564, and, tradition has it, who died 400 years ago today on April 23, 1616. The date of… Read More
2016-04-22 15:02
Happy Earth Day 2016!Forty four years ago, one of the most famous images of the planet Earth was taken by either Astronaut Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans of the Apollo 17 crew. It was a photo… Read More
2016-04-19 14:16
Australia and the Antipodes
The presence of Southern continents was predicted and speculated about since antiquity, but it wasn’t until the time of European Exploration that they were… Read More
2016-04-18 14:06
Running, Scholarship, and The Boston MarathonBefore I get into the word history, I want to ask you to consider what it means to remember these stories, to honor and remember the scientists… Read More
2016-04-14 18:36
Noah Webster and the first American DictionaryFew people have had an influence on a nation like Noah Webster. Born in 1758, Webster attended Yale University at the age of 16 during the… Read More
2016-04-12 15:56
Yuri Gagarin-the First Man in Space!Three days ago was the 57th anniversary of NASA’s announcement of the first 7 American astronauts, and marks the day that the word astronaut went fr… Read More
2016-04-12 14:58
The VERY FIRST Shuttle Launch!April is the month of Space Science anniversaries! In addition to NASA naming the first American astronauts on April 9, 1959 and Yuri Gagarin’s firs… Read More
2016-04-11 15:04
Apollo 13 and the Successful FailureMuch has been written about how NASA ensures the safety and efficiency of its missions, with every single nut and bolt on every single space craft examine… Read More
2016-03-30 14:20
Fire Color, with a Hooked Beak: The Northern CardinalWhile most know the fire-engine red colors of the male cardinal found throughout most of North America, the Pyrrhuloxia sinuatus (also kn… Read More
2016-03-30 14:13
brilliantbotany:
Brilliant Botany has a new homepage!
Don’t worry, the tumblr isn’t going anywhere, but Brilliant Botany has a new home! Check out the new www.brilliantbotany.co… Read More
2015-09-22 19:53
The Extra-Terrestrial Equinox!I hope everyone is ready to celebrate the beginning of Fall tomorrow with the arrival of the Autumnal Equinox. Did you know that Earth is not the onl… Read More
2015-03-13 15:13
The discovery of UranusOn this day, March 13, 1781,German born British astronomer discovered the planet Uranus. He also discovered two of Uranus’s moons, Titania and Oberon and t… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Happy Birthday, Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955)! His 1915 General Theory of Relativity earned him worldwide fame and a firm place in history. He also won the Nibel Pr… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
The Monarch Migration and SanctuaryForty one years ago today, on January 9, 1975, volunteers led by Canadian scientist Fred Urquhart finally discovered the over winter site visited by millio… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
On January 9, 1839,
Louis-Jaques-Mandé Daguerre and the French Academy of Science announced the invention of the first photographic process, which was named for its inventor a… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Modern Words, Ancient LanguagesWhile the expression ‘it’s Ancient Greek to me’ is used to mean something incomprehensible, the truth is that Ancient Greek is both accessibl… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Europa Io Callisto GanymedeGalileo and the Jovian SatellitesOn the nights of January 7/8, 1610, Galileo Galilei noted in his notebooks the discovery of the first 4 Jovian moons, which he na… Read More
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