A kangaroo and her joey forage in the grasslands of Western Australia.

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Summer 2014

Science Newsinthe

By Jane King, PhD

A World-Class Soccer Ball Takes the Field

Plant Reflects Sound to Attract Bats

Fluid Recycling on Trip to Mars

Gigantic Dino Discovered

What’s Inside:

KangarooTootsMay Save

the World!

P o w e r e d b y , a d i v i s i o n o f L e a r n i n g A - Z

Credits: Front cover: © iStock/mburt; page 2 (center): © anankkml/iStock/Thinkstock; page 2 (right): © GlobalP/iStock/Thinkstock

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Digesting food gives animals energy. But it also creates—you guessed it—

gas. All that gas can’t stay in the body, so it comes out as flatulence, from the mouth or the other end. Cows make a lot of gas, and they are more than just stinky. Each time a cow has flatulence, it gives off a greenhouse gas called methane. Greenhouse gases cause climate change by trapping heat from the Sun in Earth’s atmosphere. Millions of cows are raised around the world for meat and milk, and all that gas is warming our planet. Is there a way to stop cows from producing methane and keep Earth cool? The answer may come from kangaroos!

Helpful BacteriaDomesticated cows and kangaroos are both grazers that eat mostly grass. Unfortunately, grass is not easy to digest. These herbivores have specialized digestive systems that allow them to break down their grassy meals. They also have billions of bacteria in their gut to help with the job. Despite their reputation, not all bacteria are bad. Many are essential to the health of animals, including humans.

Summer 2014

K a n ga r o o s M a k e

E a r t h - F r i e n d l y G a s

Cows and other livestock, along with their manure, produce more than 30% of all methane emissions worldwide.

Kangaroos produce little to no methane. A typical cow, however, produces 120 kg each year.

Cow = 120 kg

oil – 1%

SOURCES OF METHANE FROM HUMAN ACTIVITIES

METHANE EMISSIONS PER ANIMAL PER YEAR120

110

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

amo

unt

of

met

hane

(kg

)solid waste – 14%

One role for these bacteria is to help with digestion. Bacteria can help break down food so that sugars and other nutrients are available to the animal for energy. Cows have a kind of bacteria that makes methane as it breaks down food. When the cows have flatulence, out comes the methane.

“Green” GasKangaroos also eat mostly grass, but do they release harmful methane? Scientists from Australia studied kangaroo digestion. They found that the bacteria in kangaroos are different from those in cows. The bacteria in kangaroos produce acetate instead of methane. Acetate is a harmless substance similar to vinegar. In fact, the scientists reported that kangaroo manure smells a bit like vinegar.

The scientists are working to see if they can make cows produce more acetate instead of methane. That way, cows would still be able to digest grass without producing large amounts of methane. Less methane in the atmosphere would help slow down global warming. v

wastewater – 11%

biofuel combustion – 4%

manure – 4%

livestock – 29%

rice – 12%

coal – 8%

natural gas – 16%

Kangaroo = 0.19 kg

fuel – 1%

SCIENCE in the NEWS

Environment

Credits: top, center: © speedpix/Alamy; bottom: © Adidas

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On June 12, the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament began in Brazil. This month-long

tournament hosts the top men’s soccer teams from around the world. To become champions, teams must kick the ball into the net and score goals. But could the design of the ball impact whether a kick makes the ball land between the posts or sail long and go out of bounds?

This year, a ball called the Brazuca takes the field. This ball is very different from a regular soccer ball. Most soccer balls are made of thirty-two panels, shaped like hexagons and pentagons, that are stitched together. The Brazuca has only six panels, shaped like windmills, that are glued together with heat. Also, this new ball is covered with tiny little bumps, similar to a golf ball. Scientists at the University of Tsukuba in Japan tested out the Brazuca to find out if the design affects how it flies through the air.

Fewer panels on a ball make the surface rounder. A rounder surface means that the ball will move predictably no matter where on the surface it is kicked. But make the ball too smooth and it acts like a knuckleball in baseball, swerving when you least expect it. A very smooth ball moving through the air creates a large wake, or path behind it, that can be easily disturbed by wind, sending the ball off course.

To measure the consistency of the Brazuca flight path, the scientists used a robotic foot that kicked the same way over and over again. They found that the Brazuca landed in almost the same place with every kick. The small bumps on the ball give it a rougher surface that breaks up the air as it flies, creating a smaller wake and less drag. At the World Cup, the Brazuca should move exactly as a player intends. The players may not be the only stars in Brazil! v

Summer 2014

A Wo r l d - C l a s s S o c c e r B a l l Ta k e s t h e F i e l d

The Brazuca is the official ball of the 2014 World Cup.

A worker assembles a Brazuca using windmill-shaped panels.

The robotic foot used to measure the accuracy of the Brazuca

SCIENCE in the NEWS

Physical Science

Brazuca means “Brazilian” in Portuguese. It is a word the Brazilian people use to mean national pride. The ball was named by a national vote in Brazil.

Credits: top right: © Merlin D. Tuttle/Science Source; center, bottom: Signe Nordin/© Learning A–Z

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On a summer evening, the scent of jasmine wafts through the air.

A moth flies toward the scent to find a jasmine plant covered with delicate white flowers. The white flowers are easy to see against the dark sky. As the moth drinks the nectar, it gets covered with pollen. At the next flower, the moth transfers the pollen and pollination occurs. Since plants depend on pollinators to make seeds, they use several strategies—including smell and color—to make sure pollinators find them. A new study shows that plants also make use of sound to attract pollinators. But the plants don’t have to make the sound!

Sensing SoundMany species of bats use sound to navigate. They send out high-pitched calls and listen to the returning echoes. The echoes give bats information about their surroundings. Bats use this echolocation to “see,” even on the darkest night. Leach’s long-tongued bat is a nectar-feeding bat found in Cuba. It pollinates the flowers of a special rainforest vine. Scientists from universities in Germany and England studied this vine to find out how the flowers attract bats in the dense rainforest.

Enticing EchoesOn a stem just above the main flower sits a leaf, sometimes two, shaped like a satellite dish. The scientists discovered that these bowl-shaped leaves focus and reflect echolocation calls made by bats. The bats could easily pick out these echoes from all the background noise in the area.

To test whether these leaves help bats find the flowers, the scientists set out feeders filled with nectar. They attached regular leaves to some of the feeders and bowl-shaped leaves to others. It took the bats 50 percent less time to find the feeders with the bowl-shaped leaves. This showed that the bats used echoes from the leaves as beacons to find a yummy meal. Luckily for the plant, the bats unknowingly picked up pollen during their dinner! v

Plant Reflects Sound

to Attract Bats

Summer 2014

An insect-eating bat uses echolocation to find moths. A Leach’s long-tongued bat uses echolocation to find flowers.

A Leach’s long-tongued bat (Monophyllus redmani) drinks nectar from a flower of the rainforest vine Marcgravia evenia. The yellow dust on the bat’s back is pollen from the flower.

bowl-shaped leaves

SCIENCE in the NEWS

Life Science

Credits: top left: courtesy of NASA; top right: © Mopic/Dreamstime.com; bottom: © Museo Paletontológico Egidio Feruglio/AP Images

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fluid recycling on trip to mars

Gigantic Discovered

Summer 2014

Even though Mars is our neighbor and spaceships can

travel super fast, it still takes several months to get there. So far, only robots have made this journey. But NASA scientists hope to send people to Mars one day. If they do, the astronauts will probably be drinking something unusual—recycled urine!

Water is very heavy and takes up a lot of space. It would be impossible for a spaceship to carry enough water for people to survive the long trip to Mars. So engineers invented a machine that can change urine into drinking water. The urine is passed through filters that separate the water in the urine from urea—a substance found in pee. The water is then available for drinking. The urea can also be used—as an energy source to produce electricity. v

A newly discovered dinosaur is

the largest species ever found! This dinosaur, a titanosaur, was found in Argentina. It weighed 80,000 kilograms (180,000 lb.) and was 40 meters (130 ft.) long. That’s about as long as three school buses lined up! Titanosaurs were herbivores. They grew that large despite eating only plants.

Paleontologists found the bones of seven individual titanosaurs. They think the massive dinos all died together after they became stuck in mud. The scientists also found teeth from a carnivore that may have munched on the titanosaurs after they died. v

A urine recycling system is already being used on the International Space Station. These astronauts are drinking water recycled from their urine.

A paleontologist lies next to the thighbone (femur) of a titanosaur. The titanosaur was related to the brontosaurus.

SCIENCE in the NEWS

Space Science

Earth Science

Fill in

the Bl

ank

Writ

ing

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After reading the articles, use what you’ve learned to complete the sentences.

Write your own Science in the News story! Look in newspapers or magazines, or on the Internet, to find a current event related to science. Learn all you can about the topic. Fill in the following information and then use separate paper or a computer to write your story. Be sure to include the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your story. Also include photos or illustrations with your text. Share your story with classmates, family, and friends!

Sources ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Show What You Know

Summer Science Activity

1. During digestion, cows release a greenhouse gas called _______________________________ .

2. Greenhouse gases trap heat from the Sun and cause Earth to get _______________________________ .

3. Kangaroos and cows have different kinds of _______________________________ in their digestive tracts.

4. The _______________________________ on the surface of the Brazuca help it create less drag as it flies through the air.

5. Pollinators are animals that transfer _______________________________ from flower to flower.

6. Flowers use color, scent, and even _______________________________ to attract pollinators.

7. Urine can be _______________________________ to produce drinking water.

8. Bones from a newly discovered titanosaur may be the _______________________________ ever found.

Detail DetailMain Idea

Detail Detail

Fill in the Blank Answers: 1. methane; 2. warmer; 3. bacteria; 4. bumps; 5. pollen; 6. sound; 7. recycled or filtered; 8. largest

Summer 2014SCIENCE in the NEWS