Wild Scientists

74 Pages·47.601 MB·English

by  Steve Mould

W I LD
S C I E N T I S T S
Written by Illustrated by
Steve Mould John Devolle
001_Half_Title.indd 1 12/12/2019 15:30
s 4 Introduction
t 6 Meet the scientists
n
Written by Steve Mould
Consultant Derek Harvey
e Physicists
Illustrators John Devolle,
Bettina Myklebust Stovne
t
Project editor Olivia Stanford 8 Colourful communication
Senior designers Katie Knutton, n
Fiona Macdonald
10 Surface skater
Project art editor Jaileen Kaur
Design assistant Sonny Flynn o
Additional design Eleanor Bates, Emma Hobson 12 Stargazing beetles
Jacket co-ordinator Issy Walsh
Jacket designer Elle Ward C
Senior picture researcher Sumedha Chopra 14 Packing a punch
DTP designer Ashok Kumar
Producer, pre-production Dragana Puvavic
16 Seeing with sound
Producer Barbara Ossowska
Managing editors Laura Gilbert,
Jonathan Melmoth 18 Hornbeam origami
Managing art editor Diane Peyton Jones
Creative directors Clare Baggaley, Helen Senior
20 Slime time
Publishing director Sarah Larter
22 Safe surface
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by
Dorling Kindersley Limited
80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL
Chemists
Copyright © Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2020
Text copyright © Steve Mould, 2020
A Penguin Random House Company
24 Spots or stripes?
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
001–316743–May/2020
26 Smelly scientist
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
28 Sticking around
stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, 30 Stinging spray
or otherwise), without the prior written permission
of the copyright owner.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-2414-1381-4
Printed and bound in China
A WORLD OF IDEAS:
SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW
www.dk.com
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32 Antifreeze fish 54 Beaver builder
34 Reflective road 56 Sun-tracking solar panel
Biologists Mathematicians
36 Remote control 58 Six-sided shapes
38 Zombie snails 60 Counting cicadas
40 Ant farmers 62 Killer countdown
42 Plant professor 64 Sunflower sequence
44 Feeling the heat 66 Staying dry
46 Beaked bullet train
68 Glossary
Engineers 70 Index
72 Acknowledgements
48 Web weaver
50 Insect gears
52 Animal architect
Inventors
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4
004-005_Introduction.indd 4 12/12/2019 15:27
Introduction
Your body is a machine, and an
amazing one at that! It’s packed
with levers, hinges, and even
a couple of pulleys – in your
knees. Just like humans, animals
have solved a load of difficult
engineering problems, such as
how to run fast, how to balance
upright, how to jump, and more.
Steve Mould
But the natural world is full of so many more examples
of ingenious solutions to technical problems. Some of
them bizarre, some of them terrifying, but all of them
discovered by trial and error over millions of years,
through a process called evolution!
This book is a collection of nature’s smartest
chemists, physicists, biologists, engineers, and
even mathematicians!
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Physicists
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Chameleons
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Sometimes chameleons clash over
territory. Before they get into a fight n
Different chameleons
where they might get hurt, they put
may have different stripe
on a display of colour. Bright colours
colours. This chameleon
are usually a sign of aggression, while
has red stripes and the
dull colours mean “I give up”. other has blue stripes.
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ce of a substance called guanine, which the
d crystals refl ect re d li g ht. chameleon can control. Normally they
are arranged in a tight grid that reflects
blue light. However, when the chameleon
spreads out the crystals, they reflect red light
instead, changing the colour of the skin.
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