Author: Lisa Mungovan

If you look on YouTube, you’ll find lots of videos of seagulls stealing people’s food. Bold birds will swipe a hot dog or ice cream cone right out of your hand, or walk into a store and snag a bag of chips! Scientists discovered a simple way to stop them. Just stare at them!

Harper-Collins, one of the world’s biggest book publishers, found that little changes can make a big difference. By slightly adjusting the layout and font style, they shaved a number of pages off every book. Since changing typefaces, they’ve saved hundreds of millions of pages, equaling thousands of trees, and lots of ink.

In 2021, an iceberg the size of Chicago broke off from Antarctica. Scientists took advantage of the easy access, exploring the newly-exposed, 209-square-mile area of seafloor. They found an astonishing deep-sea ecosystem, thriving despite a lack of nutrients raining down from the surface. Samples are still being studied, to identify new species.

Don’t call me Alexa today. Call me Malecksahchakahowie. It’s Name Yourself Day! Make a name tag with your new name on it so everyone else will know what to call you, too! It’s also Unicorn Day! Maybe your unicorn will name itself Frank, instead of Princess Rainbow Sparkle-Toes. Have a fun day!

This week, officers in Canada, rescued a dog from an ice floe. In Virginia, 7 fox kits were lifted out of a window well. A horse was saved from floodwaters in Illinois, a donkey was pulled from a canal in Arizona , and an abandoned bear cub was helped from a New Jersey ditch. Wow!

What looks like a hippopotamus, but is even cuter? A pygmy hippo! Pygmy hippos are much smaller than regular hippopotamuses, weighing only 400-600 pounds. A full-size hippo can weigh 4000 pounds! There are fewer than 2,500 pygmy hippos left in their native habitat, the West African rainforests. They’re nocturnal, so tell them Happy Pygmy Hippo Day tonight.

Today, eat all your meals packaged in pastry, because it’s Empanada Day. To make empanadas, fold dough around the filling of your choice. You could use cheese, vegetables, fruit, or whatever else you’d like. The pockets are then baked or fried. They’re so popular, some cities even have empanada carts on the street corners.

Today is Zoo Lovers Day. Look for the A-Z-A logo, to show that a zoo is accredited. That means they take great care of their animals! It’s also Draw A Picture Of A Bird Day. Try sketching the unusual birds at the zoo’s aviary, common ones at home, or crazy imaginary birds!

A cat in Kansas hates going to the vet so much, it took the fire department to get him there. The cat got stuck inside a mechanical reclining chair, while trying to avoid his annual checkup. Firefighters had to cut the chair open to free him. The cat’s vet visit went just fine.

Today is Beaver Day! Beavers are the national animal of Canada. The master engineers build dams and canals, and make lodges out of mud and sticks. Their dams create valuable wetlands. They can stay underwater for 15 minutes, and use their flat tails like rudders. Beavers eat trees for dinner, including the toothpick.