What on Earth! Magazine

What on Earth! Magazine, published in partnership with Encyclopaedia Britannica, is the UK’s fastest-growing children’s magazine, helping curious kids fall in love with reading, knowledge and learning. Covering all their favourite topics – from space, animals and the natural world, to history, machines and inventions – each issue is bursting with amazing facts, photos, quizzes, puzzles, jokes and more!

COMPETITION!

FACTopia! • Follow the trail of crazily connected facts all the way from a giant parrot… to a job chewing gum!

WHAT ON EARTH! • Astonishi ng photos from around the world

Eureka! • The latest astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs.

GOAT • Humans can gather information from the words that they use when they talk. But they can also get extra information about how someone might be feeling from how they are talking. Amazingly, this is something that humans and goats have in common!

PIG • Pigs and their relatives, such as wild hogs, peccaries and babirusas, are very social and intelligent animals. They make nasal, throaty calls to keep in contact with other pigs.

Why do we laugh? • Set off on a highly amusing adventure, as we explore the history and science of comedy. (With lots of funny jokes, plus a 2,000-year-old riddle, to tickle your ribs along the way!)

A short history of… knock knock jokes! • From medieval castle guards to a famous play by William Shakespeare, we investigate the mysterious origins of a favourite type of joke…

Which came First, the chicken or the egg?

Do animals have a sense of humour? • Ticklish rats, cheeky chimps and giggling gorillas – meet the creatures which might just have a gift for comedy.

Clowning around! • Get ready to ride a unicycle, parp a clown horn and throw buckets of confetti, as we travel back in time to discover the extraordinary 4,000-year-old history of clowns…

A short history of… slapstick! • Find out how this popular type of physical comedy all began with a pair of actual wooden sticks.

GAMES QUIZ! • Can you work out which games are played on the six boards shown on this page? Find out if you got them all on page 50.

Treasure Hunt! • Can you spot these 23 things hidden in the picture below? Plus, work out the two words the eight hidden letters spell. Clue: it’s a game played at school fairs. (You can find all the answers on page 50.)

FLIGHT OF THE MONARCHS! • Flutter through these fascinating facts about monarch butterfies and their epic cross-country adventures.

Rocks from outer space… • Most of the solar system is empty space. But as well as the Sun, planets, dwarf planets and moons, you can find asteroids and comets. They are made from dust and rock left over from the formation of the solar system.

Alien worlds! • Planets found outside our own solar system are called exoplanets. The first exoplanets were discovered in 1992. Since then, astronomers have found more than 5,000 of them, with the number of discoveries doubling roughly every two years. Exoplanets vary in size. Some are smaller than Earth. Others are several times larger than Jupiter. This infographic shows every exoplanet that we have discovered so far.

Puzzles & Games • Stumped? Don’t worry, you can find the answers to all the puzzles on page 50.

EVOLUTION EVOLVING TOGETHER • In a fascinating extract from a brilliant new book by scientists Sarah Darwin and Eva-Maria Sadowski, we explore the story of evolution and how it has shaped the natural world – including you!

WORD UP! • Your guide to the wonderful world of linguistics and languages. This month: tongue-twisters!

BLUE WHALES IN NUMBERS…

LISTIFIED! • Help What on Earth! Magazine celebrate our second birthday with the unusual...