Our world is all about information.People are constantly measuring and observing. We measure the height of snow or the size of sunspots. We track giraffe herds or subway riders. We count customers or concert tickets or cheeseburgers. Then we collect those facts into groups called data.
It’s a lot of data. Every day about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created. How much is that? Let’s say you buy the latest Star Wars movie on a Blu-ray (high-definition) disc. When the movie’s picture and sound files were stored on that disc, they became 25 gigabytes of data. So one Blu-ray movie equals 25,000,000,000 bytes. That already sounds like a lot of data. But you’d need 10 million Blu-ray movie discs to add up to 2.5 quintillion bytes. If you stacked those 10 million discs up, they’d be taller than four Eiffel towers.
And every day that truly towering amount of data is uploaded to the web. That’s great when you’re bored and browsing. But when you need to understand something quickly, too much data can be a problem. How do we get all those facts under control? Can we make data easier to understand?
LIKE HERDING GOATS
Imagine you’ve been given a flock of pygmy goats. Now you have to convince your parents to up your allowance to pay for goat food. You need to tell them all about your herd. How many breeds do you have? Which goat’s milk makes the best cheese? Do any do yoga? Just telling your parents a list of facts might put them to sleep. And you can’t show off scattered goats. You need to gather the herd into one pen. Then they’ll be easy to see.
Denne historien er fra November/December 2018-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Denne historien er fra November/December 2018-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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.
