Author: Lisa Mungovan

Playing video games is more fun, on a big screen. But there wouldn’t be enough room in your house, for snowboarder Grant Giller’s screen. He set a world record, by playing Destiny 2 on his Xbox Series X, on a 19,090-square-foot screen. It was projected on the side of a mountain in Colorado!

A forest in England, is providing 500 different types of food for Martin Crawford. Spending only a few hours a month, his wild garden is an example of successful agroforestry. The forest farm needs 7 layers. Tall tree canopies hold the moisture in, giving water to small trees, shrubs, perennials, ground cover, root crops, and climbers.

For the first time in over 40 years, an unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth, with a load of lunar samples. The Chinese probe brought back 4 1/2 pounds of Moon rocks and soil, from the Oceanus Procellarum area, an unexplored lava plain. China hopes to have a crewed space station soon, and send humans to the Moon.

Today is Wright Brothers Day. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first flight in a mechanically propelled airplane, near Kitty Hawk North Carolina, in 1903. That flight only lasted 12 seconds, and went 120 feet. The wingspan of a 747 is longer than that! It’s also Maple Syrup Day. Boiled tree sap sure does taste delicious!

Dogs love to roll in smelly stuff, but 2 canines in Florida, got in over their heads. Brenda and Bianca escaped from their yard, and ended up trapped in the neighbors’ septic tank. The dogs were swimming in sewage, with no way out. Animal Services Officer Yureisy Hernandez rescued the pooches. Time for a bath!

Understanding physics can be tricky, but 17-year-old Maryam Tsegaye does it with no problem. The Canadian teenager won the international Breakthrough Junior Challenge, by explaining quantum tunneling. She compared the behavior of electrons to how her brother cheats at video games. A real-life cheat code to walk through walls? I’m up for the challenge!

Humans domesticated dogs, cats, horses, sheep, and many other animals. Tamed animals became pets, or helped with jobs like farming, or providing food. Researchers discovered that the longfin damselfish, also domesticates animals. The fish recruit mysid shrimp, to fertilize their algae farms. Damselfish protect the shrimp, in return for their beneficial poop!

Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, announced the building of a gigantic park. But it’s not for playing. It will be the world’s largest renewable energy park. 180,000 acres in Gujarat, will contain windmills, solar panels, and solar energy storage units. It could reduce India’s emissions of CO2, a major greenhouse gas, by 50,000,000 tonnes-per-year!

What are you eating for breakfast? Cover it in chocolate! Are you having a peanut butter sandwich for lunch? Dip it in chocolate! How about spaghetti for dinner, with chocolate syrup for sauce! Today is Chocolate Covered Anything Day, so it’s your chance to see if chocolate covered brussel sprouts are gross, or delicious!

A cloud forest in the Andes mountains in Bolivia, is home to 20 new species. An expedition discovered previously unknown species like the lilliputian frog, which is only 10 millimeters long, and the red-yellow-and-green Bolivian flag snake. Although the Zongo Valley is close to urban centers, many species thought to be extinct, are still thriving there.