Author: Lisa Mungovan

23 years ago, Lisa Coolbaugh’s grandson found a diary from 19 38, in a bag of trash. Lisa recently posted about the diary, which had belonged to Donald Meeker, on Facebook. To her happy surprise, the owner’s daughter-in-law contacted her, and the family is now reunited with their Pop-Pop’s misplaced heirloom.

There are 750,000,000 people who use solar cells for power. This gives them electricity during the day, but without battery storage, they’re left in the dark at night. Researchers have developed a new photovoltaic cell, that turns the heat leaking from Earth back into space, into energy. It’s like solar power, in reverse.

NASA has detected a humongous comet. Data from the Hubble Space Telescope, confirmed the comet’s nucleus is 50 times bigger than most known comets, at 85 miles wide. The comet, with the exciting name of C/2014 UN271, comes from the distant icy Oort Cloud. It’s been traveling towards the Sun, for over 1,000,000 years.

Since 1948, people have enjoyed playing Scrabble, the game where you form words from randomly chosen letters. Today, on Scrabble Day, challenge your friends or family to a game! If you don’t have the board game, you can always get the app on a phone or tablet, and play online. Scrabble’s good for your brain!

Starting around April 17th, you can see a neat event in the Northern Hemisphere. For the best view, look in the sky, just before dawn on April 20th. A perfect line of 4 planets will be visible. Jupiter will be near the horizon, with Venus to its upper right, followed by Mars and Saturn.

There’s giant Malibu Barbie vehicle traveling around the USA right now. It’s part of the 2022 Barbie Malibu Truck Tour, celebrating Malibu Barbie’s 50th Anniversary. The colorful truck with a 70’s vibe, is selling retro-inspired clothing and accessories, so you and Barbie are ready to hit the beach. This weekend, it’ll visit McLean Virginia.

Today is Hamster Day, dedicated to the adorable little rodents. They can store a whole meal, in pouches inside their cheeks! Some lucky pet hamsters, get to live in Habitrail cages with plastic tubes to explore. It’s also Walk On Your Wild Side Day, so be a little crazy, and stuff your cheeks!

On April 12th 1934, the strongest gust of wind ever recorded, blew through the Mount Washington Observatory. The blast clocked in at 231 miles-per-hour, and the record is remembered every year on Big Wind Day. The record was broken in 1996, when a typhoon near Australia, created 256 mile-per-hour gusts of wind.

Today is Licorice Day. Its distinctive flavor comes from the licorice plant, and can be used in candy or tea. It’s also Deskfast Day, when you eat your breakfast at your desk. Don’t get food on your work! Since it’s Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day as well, you could eat one for Deskfast!

A black bear in North Carolina, got trapped in a vehicle outside the McGowin’s home, probably looking for a midnight snack. When the McGowin’s let their dogs out in the morning, their barking finally caused the bear to bust through the windshield, and flee with her 2 cubs. The SUV was completely trashed inside.