3 Awesome Science Things to Show Your Kid Today
Including some crazy new discoveries about Jupiter and a self-cloning fish.
Every day the internet gifts us a weird, wonderful mix of videos, GIFs, and memes, the best of which offer funny, informative, horizon-expanding stuff to share with your kids. Problem is, it takes a while to wade through all the other nonsense to find them. And who has time for that? Not you. Here, then, is a daily dose of new science-related content to share with your kids. Hopefully, they’ll spur some interesting family conversations or just keep them from playing with a fidget spinner for a while. Today’s finds include a fish that cloned itself and an amazing time lapse from the South Pole.
Some Strange Finds About Jupiter
After a long, difficult journey, Juno completed its 53.5-day orbit of Jupiter and provided a lot of new information about the fifth farthest planet from the sun. And it turns out everything we knew of Jupiter is stranger than we realized. There is not a ton that can be said conclusively, but even nuggets of new information were confusing — like the fact that weather patterns might exist several thousand feet beneath the planet’s surface.
A South Pole Time Lapse
Nothing beats a good time lapse, and it really can’t get better than a time lapse of the stars in the skies of the serene, isolated South Pole. The view is breathtaking, as the unblemished night sky is filled with shimmering lights and countless shooting stars.
A Self-Cloning Fish
Once again proving that real science is stranger than science fiction, researchers have discovered a Squalius alburnoides, a small Portuguese fish, that is apparently capable of cloning itself. One of the fish fathers had 261 offspring, but one was found to have its exact DNA. How exactly does that work? It’s an example of a process androgenesis, which is when males manage to reproduce without females. It’s so rare that scientists still aren’t entirely sure how the whole thing works. What they do know, however, is that there are risks involved due to the reduction of genetic variation, so this is a pretty major find.
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