News Articles for Kids

Source; www.dogonews.com

22 Feb 2019

Experts assert that if food were a country, it would rank third behind China and the US as one of the biggest greenhouse gas polluters. The reason is the ever-rising demand for meat. Livestock farming is responsible for 14.5 percent of global methane emissions. While cows are the worse offenders, pigs, sheep, and other animals contribute as well.

Animal husbandry also causes land and water degradation, biodiversity loss, and deforestation. With the world population forecast to rise to 9.8 billion by 2050, things are only looking worse for our already dwindling natural resources. While going vegetarian would undoubtedly help, meat consumption is too ingrained in most western diets to allow for such a drastic, permanent shift. That is why environmentalists are advocating substituting some of the beef, chicken, or pork with delectable bugs!

Insects, which transition from larva to pupa to adult within a matter of months, if not weeks, are ready for consumption much faster than livestock. They also require much less room, use a fraction of the water and food needed for animal livestock, and produce far less greenhouse gas and ammonia.

Of the 1.1 million insect species worldwide, scientists have identified 1,700 as edible. Among them are termites, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, and earthworms. Just like livestock, each insect has a distinct taste. Termites are tangy and minty, tree worms taste just like pork, and sago grubs are similar to bacon.

While eating bugs might be a new concept for Western Hemisphere residents, over 2 billion people worldwide​​​​​​ consume these critters as a regular part of their diet. Besides being delicious, bugs are high in protein, have very few calories, and are free of the saturated fat found in animal meat. Insects are also very versatile. Creative chefs can use them to whip up protein-rich soup stocks, make crunchy baked treats, and even stir-fry a few with their vegetables.

Fortunately, those unable to stomach the thought of cracking open the crispy shell of a tarantula the way they would tear into a Dungeness crab have other choices. They can replace some of their regular protein sources by using cricket flour for baking or select one of the many readymade products, such as pasta and crackers, which incorporate the insect flour. So go ahead and kick trepidation to the curb - both your body and Mother Earth will thank you for it!

Source: Newsela

17 Sep 2017

With four big hurricanes, a powerful earthquake and wildfires, it seems that nature recently has just gone nuts. Some of these disasters, like last Friday's earthquake in Mexico, are natural. Others may end up having a mix of natural and man-made ingredients after scientists examine them. We also always tend to look for patterns and order in chaos, even when they aren't there, psychologists say.

Source: Time For Kids

11 Sep 2017

North Korea has been in the news lately. The country’s leader has been testing weapons. Here’s what you need to know about what’s happening. North Korea has one of the world’s largest armies. The country’s leader is named Kim Jong-un. He is testing large weapons to show his country’s strength.

Source: Time Kids

04 Sep 2017

If you see a problem, you should find a solution. That is what Alex Knoll, 12, from Post Falls, Idaho, thinks. One day, he noticed a man struggling to open a heavy door. The man was in a wheelchair. “I wondered if there was a resource available to him to show which businesses had automatic doors, so he could actually access them,” Alex told TFK. “I couldn’t find anything, so I created it.”

Source: Scholastic News

04 Jul 2017

It’s been 80 years since the famous pilot disappeared. Will a team of specially trained dogs help researchers find some answers? On July 3, 1937, Amelia Earhart was on her way to making history. Already a world-famous pilot, she was about two-thirds of the way through her most daring mission: to become the first woman to fly around the world.

Source: Kiwi Kids News

13 May 2017

A massive cyber attack has infected a number of organisations around the world. There have been reports of infections in as many as 74 countries, including several in New Zealand. Computers in have been locked by a programme, WannaCry, that demands $300 in Bitcoin currency.

Source: Scholastic News

02 May 2017

Scientists in Australia recently got a chance to walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs. In March, they announced that they’d identified thousands of dinosaur tracks along a 15-mile stretch of Australia’s northwest coast. One of the footprints is the largest dinosaur footprint ever recorded

Source: First News

02 May 2017

The White House have today (Wednesday 3 May) has today announced that Russia and the US are strengthening efforts towards a Syrian ceasefire. The Syrian civil war is now in its seventh year and countless children men and women have been forced to leave their homes in Syria for their safety over the last few years.

Source: Kiwi Kids News

13 Mar 2017

The streets of India will be covered with colour as residents celebrated the spring festival of Holi.

Holi is also known as the “festival of colours” or the “festival of love”.

The holiday is celebrated mainly in India and Nepal and marks the beginning of spring and the triumph of good over evil.

Source: First News

07 Jan 2017

Scientists have noticed that the planet has been warming up in recent years and many are very worried about it. We explain the debate around climate change. Most think that much of this climate change is down to human activity, but some feel it’s part of a natural cycle. All are agreed that the world’s average temperature has risen by nearly one degree Celsius in the past 100 years. It may not sound much, but global warming is already having a big effect in some parts of the world.

Source: National Geographic

11 Dec 2016

Two grand sky-watching spectacles are about to battle it out this week, as the peak of the Geminid meteor shower meets the final supermoon of 2016. In a cosmic coincidence, the superlarge full moon will be flooding the night sky just as the annual shooting star show ramps up to its best performance on the night of December 13. While both sky events on their own would offer stupendous views, the timing means that meteor-watchers will have a challenge on their hands.

Source: National Geographic

08 Dec 2016

Life under the sea can be nasty, brutish, and short if you don’t have an effective form of camouflage.

The cuttlefish’s skin, for instance, holds some ten million color cells, allowing it to impersonate a chunk of a coral, a clump of algae, or a patch of sand. But for animals in the open ocean, there's no place to hide. For them, the best camouflage color is no color at all—transparent bodies allow them to partially blend into their watery surroundings.

Source: Dogo News

16 Sep 2016

Water, or rather the lack of it, is one of the most pressing issues of our times. Unprecedented droughts and growing populations have left many countries struggling to keep up with demand. Given that agriculture is the largest single user of freshwater, providing farmers with new conservation techniques would go a long way in alleviating our water woes. It turns out that a “miracle” powder has been helping drought-stricken Mexican farmers do exactly that for over a decade!

Source: Dogo News

18 Sep 2016

When it comes to currency innovation, very few nations can outdo Australia. In 1988, it became the first country in the world to replace paper money with polymer banknotes. Now, the officials have done it again with a five-dollar bill that is not just cool to look at, but also so technologically advanced, that many experts are dubbing it the money of the future!

Source: National Geographic

05 Dec 2016

If Mars explorers could literally step back 3.8 billion years, they would be walking on a warmer, gray world. The iron-rich soil had not yet rusted, and the planet was blanketed in a thicker atmosphere. Geologic clues suggest that Mars back then was covered with crater lakes, river valleys, and maybe even a large ocean in the northern hemisphere.

Source: Dogo News

13 Oct 2016

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski’s fascination with the Hranická Propast, or Hranice Abyss, an underwater cave in the Czech Republic, began in 1999. The diver, who once held the record for the deepest dive (283-meters) with a closed circuit rebreather, says the cave’s limestone unusual formation led him to suspect that it was a lot deeper than his dives had taken him.

Source: National Geographic

20 Nov 2016

Volcanic eruptions are among nature’s biggest, most deadly spectacles. But determining when one of Earth’s 1,500 potentially active volcanoes might blow is both difficult and costly. Scottish physicist and volcanologist Andrew McGonigle has spent the better part of two decades trying to improve the odds of forecasting eruptions.

Source: Dogo News

20 Nov 2016

The fact that the increasingly large amounts of plastic debris in our oceans is ending up inside the stomachs of marine animals is well-known However, experts had assumed that it was because the creatures mistook the colorful floating debris for food. Now, a team of researchers led by Oona Lönnstedt, a marine biologist at Sweden’s Uppsala University, has found that some baby fish may actually be choosing to eat plastic over regular food!

Source: National Geographic

19 Aug 2016

Orangutans, those lovable orange apes of Southeast Asia, are in trouble. In July, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared both Sumatran and Bornean orangutans critically endangered—the last stop before they become extinct in the wild.

Source: Dogo News

18 Aug 2016

While your pet fish may appear to be oblivious of your presence, chances are it knows you extremely well and can probably even identify you from a crowd of humans! At least that is the conclusion reached by scientists the University of Oxford in the U.K. and the University of Queensland in Australia, following an extensive study of the archerfish, a species of tropical fish that can be found all the way from India, to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia.

Source: First News UK

17 Aug 2016

The funny looking aircraft (nicknamed the flying bum!) took off from Cardington airfield in Bedfordshire on Wednesday (17 August). It spent about half an hour in the air before making a successful landing.

Source: Time for Kids

16 Aug 2016

It started as a small blaze Tuesday morning, on the side of Interstate 15, near Los Angeles, California. But by the end of the day, the Southern California wildfire had swallowed up 47 square miles, forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate, and destroyed dozens of buildings. The fire has thoroughly disrupted life in the area, blocking roadways, causing hours-long traffic jams, and sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes.

Source: Dogo News

14 Aug 2016

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), have been used to conduct undersea tasks, deemed unsafe for humans, for many years. But while they have been very successful at tackling projects like oil rig repairs, the vehicles lack the finesse and dexterity required to handle fragile missions like monitoring coral reefs. Their traditional boxy shape also makes it difficult for the robots to penetrate small areas without damaging the surrounding flora. Now thanks to Stanford University's mermaid robot, OceanOne, these shortcomings may be a thing of the past.

Source: Kiwi Kids News

09 Aug 2016

Dancing robots have set world record in China. More than a thousand robots were simultaneously set to dance at a festival in China. And, they’ve danced their way to a world record.

Source: Scholastic News

01 Aug 2016

On Saturday night, enthusiastic Harry Potter fans gathered in bookstores all over the country. They were counting down to midnight and the release of the newest Harry Potter story, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two. When the clock struck 12:01, fans cheered as the book was officially put on sale.

Source: Teaching Kids News

25 Jun 2016

The people in the UK* have voted to leave the European Union (the EU).

The European Union** is a group of 28 countries in Europe that have agreed to co-operate—to all become one group, in many ways. For instance, people in European Union countries can travel, live and work easily in any other EU country. And businesses that are in the European Union can send products back and forth more easily. Nineteen of the EU countries all use the same money (currency)–the Euro.