September 2009 Archives

Photograph by Mehgan Murphy/National Zoo


Happy the hippo was born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and lived there for 28 years. In recent years, he has been the zoo's only hippo and shared a habitat with the elephants. On Monday, September 28, Happy moved out in preparation for the Asian elephant exhibit expansion. His new home is at the Milwaukee County Zoo in Wisconsin. Zoo visitors in Washington, D.C. will miss him, but at least Happy will finally have some company--two female hippos named Puddles and Patti.

Learn more about Happy's big move on the National Zoo's website.

Get the facts on hippos on National Geographic Kids.

Beginning in 2010, coin collectors will be able to collect a series of 56 new quarters that will depict national sites in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The mint worked with state officials to select the sites and collaborated with the U.S. Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The first five quarters in the series will depict:

- Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas
- Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
- Yosemite National Park, California
- Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
- Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon

Get the release dates for all 56 quarters on the United States Mint website.

Quiz Your Noodle and find out how much you know about the national parks.

Illustration by Chris Rooney


Have you ever wanted to become a blogger for National Geographic Kids? Here's your big chance! NG Kids is searching for three new bloggers for DogEared, the book review blog by and for kids. If you love to read (and if you love to give your opinions), this is the perfect contest for you.

Learn more about the "So You Wanna Be a DogEared Blogger" contest.

Read the official rules and enter.

This is one weird-looking fish! It's six feet (2 meters) long, has tiny teeth, a long tail, and it doesn't have scales. Guy Marcovaldi captured video footage of the fish while working on the TAMAR project, which is involved in sea turtle conservation. The fish was found off of the shore of Brazil's Bahia coast. It was dead and floating near the water's surface.

At first the fish was reported as being a newly discovered species, but David Johnson, an ichthyologist with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, says that the fish probably belongs to a group of fish known as Jellynoses. Jellynoses are mysterious fish that live at the bottom of the ocean. Catch a glimpse of this large, gelatinous fish in this video!



Read more about this discovery on National Geographic News.

Check out pictures of more strange ocean dwellers on National Geographic Kids.

llustration by Todd Marshall via Science


Meet Raptorex kriegsteini, a new dinosaur species described this week in the journal Science. This "tiny" Tyrannosaurus rex ancestor would still look big to us at nine feet (three meters) tall., but quite small compared to its descendent T. rex. Other than the size difference, the two dinosaurs look remarkably alike, according to Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.

This new dino changes the way scientists think about the evolution of T. rex's short arms. Raptorex kriegsteini also had short arms, meaning that T. rex's short arms evolved later than previously believed, according to Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland (who is not associated with the study).

Learn more about this find on National Geographic News.

Get the facts on Tyrannosaurus rex on National Geographic Kids.

Search for T. rex bones in Zipper's Cave Maze.

Photograph by Evan Zhang, My Shot


Watermelons are delicious and great fuel for kids on a hot summer afternoon. But they also might make great fuel for cars!

Wayne Fish, a chemist with the Agricultural Research Service in Lane, Oklahoma, and his team were working on a project using watermelons when they realized that watermelon juice could be used to make ethanol, which can be used as fuel for cars. Only about four of every five watermelons grown are sold to people for food. The remaining fifth of the watermelons go to waste. That could be a lot of fuel!

Read more about this green (or is it red?) fuel on National Geographic News.

Put your own words into a photo of a woman eating watermelon on National Geographic Kids.

Saving energy is important. But what is energy, exactly? How is it measured? And how do we use it in our daily lives? Get answers to these questions and much more on the Energy Kids website. Play games, answer riddles, and get ideas for science fair projects while you brush up on your energy knowledge.

Get tips on how to save power on National Geographic Kids.

Learn how we can get energy from cows! Read Cow Power.

Photograph by Gerald Herbert/AP


This morning, President Barack Obama welcomed kids across the country back to school. He stressed the importance of getting an education in his remarks, saying "...no matter what you want to do with your life - I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it." He also challenged students to take charge of their own educations by setting goals for themselves and working hard to achieve them.

Was today your first day of school? Did you set new goals for this school year?

Read President Obama's speech on the White House website.

Get tips on how to go green and stay germ-free at school this year.

It's hard for most of us to imagine life without the Internet! The phenomenon, originally known as the ARPANET was born September 2, 1969, when one computer passed information to another through a cable. Soon other researchers and scientists connected their computers to this network and shared information over long distances. Watch this video to learn more about the birth of the Internet.



Read the video transcript on National Geographic News.

Play Pluto's Secret on National Geographic Kids.

Photograph by Bart Muhl/AP


Laura Dekker is a girl with a dream--to be the youngest person to circumnavigate (sail around) the world alone in her yacht, Guppy. Laura isn't new to sailing. She was born on a boat in New Zealand, and was sailing solo on lakes when she was six years old. She sailed across the English Channel to England and back at her father's insistence that she prove herself before tackling the open ocean. Laura is 13 years old.

A Dutch court has ruled that Laura is too young to make the trip alone, and has placed her under state supervision for two months to make sure she stays on dry land.

Do you think 13 is too young to sail solo around the world? How old do you think someone should be before sailing such a huge distance alone?

Read more about Laura Dekker on the BBC.

Read about a man's attempt to circumnavigate the world on his own power on National Geographic Kids.