The Earth is really, really old. It’s so old that it’s tough to imagine how old it is. The best we can do is come up with a metaphor that compares it to things we deal with in everyday life. Dinosaurs went extinct around 66 million years ago. That’s a long time ago, about 1,000 times further back than humans have been around. People that looked like us first turned up about 300,000 years ago. But here’s where it gets wild: the Earth itself formed about 4.54 billion years ago. If you could time travel 66 million years in a single step, you’d have to take about 70 steps to get to the first days of the planet! By the time dinosaurs went extinct, almost 99 percent of Earth’s history had already happened.
A Cross-Country Flight
Esta historia es de la edición March 2020 de Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Esta historia es de la edición March 2020 de Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
