Ask Science and Arts Magazine for Kids and Children

Wild pandas are shy animals. There’s still a lot we don’t know about them. Including, why do they like to roll in horse poop? Scientists studying wild pandas first noticed this odd behavior many years ago. So they set up cameras in the woods to spy o

You can call me Blockhead. Everyone else does. One day when I was just a boy, Maestro wrote out a math problem and gave us 10 minutes to solve it. I solved it in two seconds. That’s the way I am with numbers. I have loved them since I was very little

Long ago, people didn’t need a lot of fancy numbers. After all, you know who your children are; why would you need to know that there are “4” of them? But when small villages grew into big cities, people started to need bigger numbers to count sacks

Long ago in India, there was a wise mathematician called Sessa. He invented a new game to amuse his friend, the king. He called it “chess.” The king loved chess and told Sessa to name anything he liked as his reward. Anything! The king enjoyed boasti

Unless you don’t like cookies, you’ll pick the plate with three—and so would a monkey, a bird, or a dog. Animals don’t have to know the words one, two, and three, or 1, 2, and 3, to know that three cookies are yummier than one. Being able to tell mo

A die has six sides, so when you roll it, each number has the same chance—1 in 6— of landing face up. But with two dice, the odds change. That’s because there are more ways of making some numbers than others. Out of the 36 different ways the two dice

There are different ways scientists can test animals’ counting ability. Some set up tasks, like choosing the correct door based on the number of spots above it, or the number of bells they hear. Scientists also study whether animals (and babies) can

To prepare for this trick, announce that you can predict the future! With a mystical flourish, write the number 1089 on a piece of paper (but don’t show the audience what you’ve written). Seal it in an envelope and give it to someone to hold. Give a

Numbers are so clever, mysterious, and delicious. Do you have a special favorite? 11, because it’s so easy to multiply? 26, because it looks like a swan? For this month’s contest, celebrate your favorite wonderful number with a flattering portrait, p

Take 1 through 9. If you put them in a square grid in just the right way…. Every row, column, and diagonal adds up to 15! The order of the numbers matters. If two numbers trade places, it won’t work any more. Squares like this where the columns, ro