Some people think of mummies as scary monsters, but kids science knows better. A mummy is actually any body that has been dried out; this can happen in ice, in acid bogs, and in the desert. By using science to study these ancient bodies, we can learn the stories of people who lived thousands of years ago!

One day in late spring in the Italian Alps, a man and some of his friends got into a fight and the man was shot with an arrow. He was quickly covered by snow and ice, where he remained frozen for 5,300 years! Because he had been frozen so quickly, his body was preserved until the ice thawed, and this ice mummy (nicknamed Ötzi) became famous around the world.

Ötzi’s body tells the story of last days. His skeleton shows that he walked all over hills and mountains, and was probably a shepherd. He was also a very important man – the kind of axe he carried was only owned by powerful families. Scientists even managed to look inside his stomach to discover that his last meal was bread, deer meat, roots, and berries – yum!

Over two thousand years later, and half a world away, a fourteen year old boy named Nakht lived with his family in Egypt. His family were poor weavers, but after Nakht died, they used their savings to buy a beautiful coffin for him that they placed in a temple in the desert.

The ancient Egyptians were experts at preserving their dead. To mummify a body, they would remove all the organs (all those wet squishy things go bad quickly and smell bad) and cover the body with a salty substance called natron that would dry it out. Forty days later, they wrapped the body in bandages and placed it in a tomb. The body looked nice, but all the things that would tell future scientists about how these people lived were destroyed.

Fortunately for us, Nakht’s family was too poor to have him mummified. Instead, he was placed in the desert, which was so hot that it dried out his body and perfectly preserved him for 3,200 years. When he was rediscovered, scientists were able to learn many incredible things about him.

Nakht had a very hard life – he had lines on his bones that somebody gets when they are sick a lot as a kid and don’t grow. We do know that he got beef and pork to eat, because his body was full of parasites you can only get when these meats aren’t cooked properly.

Nakht’s coffin tells us that he was an expert weaver, and would probably have started work when he was seven, but his lungs tell us another story; that he might also have been a bit of a troublemaker! His lungs were full of red granite dust, which isn’t found anywhere near the town where he lived. Scientists believe that the only way this dust could have gotten there is if he’d gotten in trouble with the law, and been sentenced to polish granite statues in the temple as punishment!

But whatever he did, we know his family loved him, because they bought him the beautiful coffin that preserved him so well and gave us this amazing look at what life was like for an ordinary boy who lived over three thousand years ago.

Maybe someday, thousands of years from now, scientists might want to know how you lived, too!

Post by Sarah

Have you ever pricked your finger and looked at the drop of blood that forms? In that one tiny drop of blood, there are thousands of living cells, and some of those cells are locked in a fight to the death!

Our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny living building blocks called cells. A cell is so tiny that you can only see one using a microscope. We have over 200 different kinds of cells in our bodies: hair cells, skin cells, blood cells, muscle cells – everything in your body is made up of different kinds of cells. And every single cell in your body will die without the oxygen we breathe in. So how does that oxygen get all the way from your lungs to the cells in the tip of your little toe? It’s carried by your blood!

Blood is actually made up of many different things, just like soup is made up of many ingredients. If you put a drop of blood under a microscope and take a look, most of what you’ll see are red blood cells. These cells are shaped a little bit like a doughnut, and their job is to carry oxygen through your body. They are bendable to fit through your smallest blood vessel, and almost half of your blood is red blood cells – that’s why your blood looks red.

Blood cells float in a liquid called plasma that helps to carry them around your body. If you take all the red blood cells out of it, plasma actually a pale yellow colour. It’s full of dissolved salts and other good things that help keep your cells healthy.

Any elementary science class will tell you to avoid cutting yourself because it lets your plasma and blood cells escape. Ouch! The good news is that your blood also contains tiny bits of cells called platelets. If you get a cut, platelets will stick to the edge of the cut and to each other. Eventually, so many platelets stick together that they form a plug, or clot, that stops any more blood from getting out. But sometimes, if the clot doesn’t form fast enough, some tiny invaders might find their way in.

Have you ever gotten sick and been told that you’ve caught a bug? What that means is that tiny living things called microbes have gotten into your body and are producing nasty chemicals that make you ill. Those same microbes can sneak into your body through a cut. Fortunately, you have some pretty tough defenders – your white blood cells!

White blood cells are the biggest cells in your blood, and their job is to seek out and destroy any invading microbes that get in. If a white blood cell senses the chemicals made by a microbe, they will swallow up that microbe and digest it! Sometimes kids science is just like a video game — in the arcade game Pac-Man, our hero is just like your white blood cells, travelling around your bloodstream and gobbling up the invading microbe ghosts.

So next time you prick your finger, remember that in that tiny drop of blood there are hundreds of living cells fighting against the nasty microbes that want to make you sick. Your tiny drop of blood is a battlefield, but luckily you’ve got the white blood cells on your side!

Post by Sarah