Contents Introduction Whipping Up a Batch of Planet Earth There’s a whole amazing world below your feet and all around you Why is ocean water salty Why is some water turquoise and some water brown If metal sinks how do boats float How does gravity keep us down Where does wind come from Why can’t we feel the Earth moving What came first the tree or the seed How do trees know about seasons Is there enough food in the world Why don’t cars run on apple juice Creeping Crawling Living Things From the smallest to the tallest animals are born to be WILD Why do worms come out when it rains Why don’t jellyfish have brains Can rats burp Why do we have different faces but ants do not How do whales sleep Why can’t you live with a wolf If a dog says woof will other dogs understand What’s the smartest animal on Earth How many unfound species are there in the world Human Bodies from the Inside Out The skin you’re in houses your brain heart and a whole lot more Why do my toots smell Why do you always have to go to the bathroom Why is poo brown Why are we tired when we run Why can’t humans breathe underwater Why do humans have two eyes Why do teeth fall out 6 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 25 26 28 29 30 31 32 34 36 37 38 39 40 41
Why is everybody different How do people think without language Why do people find things funny Why is everyone so funny Why do people need to sleep Why do we die Stars Moons Planets and Outer Space Gazing into the night sky just got way more interesting Are there creatures on other planets How do the stars stay in the sky What happens inside a black hole Will another asteroid hit Earth Why are planets round If I were to sneeze in outer space would my head blow up Can sound move in space What causes a solar eclipse Why do diamonds rain onto Saturn If the universe is expanding then what’s outside the universe Big Ideas Past Present and Future Mind-blowing keep-you-up-at-night scientific theories How did we discover the Big Bang Why are dinosaurs so BIG How do we really know a meteor killed the dinosaurs What would the world be like if dinosaurs were still alive Can we make dinosaurs from dino DNA How did the Ice Age start What is time Is time travel possible What hasn’t been invented Conclusion Acknowledgments Further Reading and Select Sources Index 42 44 45 46 47 48 50 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 62 64 66 68 70 71 72 74 75 76 78 80 82 86
Introduction Have you ever asked a question Of course you have Everything around us from the deepest darkest spot in the ocean to our twinkling stars above fires up the imagination and inspires us to want to know more But there’s a funny thing about questions they always seem to lead to more questions Check it out Question Is the center of the Earth hot Answer Yes How hot does it get If we can’t travel to the center of the Earth to take its temperature how do we measure it Is that why volcano lava is so hot What would happen if I threw a big diamond into a vat of lava If the human body is 18 percent carbon can I be turned into a diamond
That’s perfectly fine The universe is a big complex and puzzling place but humans have a powerful tool to help us make sense of it It’s called SCIENCE Ask Test Repeat It works Science isn’t just a class at school It’s not a thing Science is a process of asking questions in a way that helps us find answers that we can test to see if they’re true At least based on what we know at the time It’s okay if the questions are hard and the answers confusing at first Scientists spend a lot of time scratching their heads That just means you need to keep asking more questions Real Kids Real Questions Every question in this book came from kids who visited the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto Canada at a café where the amazing and intriguing things they asked were captured in a computer and laser-cut into personalized wooden coasters They even got to keep them Cool Educators and science researchers who work at the Centre came up with answers But that’s just the beginning Hopefully this book will spark some new ideas and get you to ask yourself one very big question What are you wondering about these days
