Author: Lisa Mungovan

When a fire alarm goes off at the International Space Station, does everyone have to evacuate? Luckily, the answer is no. The station’s smoke alarm went off Thursday morning, but the reason it was triggered is still unknown. Aztronauts will do a spacewalk later today, to make sure everything is functioning normally.

Today is Swap Ideas Day. Everyone think of a good idea, then trade! If you’re thinking of dinner ideas, remember it’s also TV Dinner Day. One person can pick the meal, and the other one can pick the show. Ask your grandparents, to tell you about Hungry Man Salisbury Steak dinners in foil trays.

Today is Alpaca Day. The furry mammal is a camelid, and looks like a llama. They are native to South America, and were raised by the Incas for their soft fleece, 6000 years ago. Alpacas will use a common dung heap, so some people keep them in the house! You can also take alpaca-yoga classes.

Great-great-grandma Edith Murway-Traina, is also a great great weightlifter. The 100-year-old started lifting weights in her 90’s and now holds the world record for oldest female competitive powerlifter, and is enjoying all the attention. Edith might be a sweet little old lady, but she can deadlift 150 pounds!

A dog in England wanted to go for a ride, so he simply walked onto a city bus and enjoyed himself. Passengers soon noticed he hadn’t brought his human along. After posting photos on social media, Patch’s family was located, and they were all happily reunited.

Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs were fierce, but there was an even bigger predator living 90,000,000 years ago. The Uglughbegsaurus uzbekistanensis, named after the 15th century mathematician and astronomer, Ughlugh Beg, was twice as big as T-rex. Paleontologists found the apex predator’s massive jawbone, still full of shark-like teeth, in Uzbekistan.

Iceland has a new way, to fight against climate change. The country just opened the world’s biggest carbon collector. The ORCA storage plant, will collect carbon dioxide from the air, mix it with water, then pipe it deep underground, where the carbon will petrify. It will capture 4000 tonnes of carbon per year.

Ok all you weirdos, here’s the day you’ve been waiting for. It’s Wonderful Weirdos Day! Be proud to be different; it makes the world a more interesting place. It’s also Teddy Bear Day. When President Teddy Roosevelt was nice to a bear cub in 1902, the first stuffed bear toy was named after him.

Titanokorys gainesi, is a newly discovered species, that lived 500,000,000 years ago. The fossil, found in Canada’s Burgess Shale, is a gigantic moth. The Cambrian period didn’t have huge animals, like the massive dinosaurs of the Triassic, so the 1.6-foot-wide insect is one of the biggest Cambrian creatures ever found.

A new kind of floor, collects energy when you step on it. Researchers in Switzerland created wooden flooring, that generates enough electricity to power a lightbulb, when a human steps walks over it. They found that nanogenerators made from spruce wood, worked the best.