Author: Lisa Mungovan

Anika Moritz and her cat Alexis, set a new world record. Alexis performed 26 tricks in 1 minute. The Austrian teenager got Alexis as a kitten, when she was 11-years-old. Anika started teaching her tricks, a few weeks later. Alexis can give high-fives, ring a bell, open boxes, and weave between your legs on command.

If you hate mowing lawns, there’s a great house for you in Massachusetts. It’s built on a boat! It’s not a houseboat, but the 18 hundred-square-foot home sits on a barge. If you love the house, but not the water, you can always float it to a new location, and move it onto dry land.

The next phase of the Mars 20 20 mission began, after a successful arrival on Mars yesterday. The Perseverance sent its first photos, a few minutes after landing. The rover has multiple cameras, to give Earthlings a good view of the Jezero Crater, while it searches the rocks and river remnants, for signs of ancient life.

Today is International Tug-of-War Day. It’s an ancient game of strength that used to be an Olympic sport, where 2 teams pull on a rope in opposite directions. The Vikings used to play tug-of-war over a fire pit! Give the winner a box of Thin Mints, because it’s also Chocolate Mint Day. Yum!

Marc Goldstein was playing a round of golf in Florida, when his ball landed near a pond. By the time he got there, an alligator was holding the ball in its mouth! Marc decided the rule, play it as it lies, no longer applied. The alligator happily swam away with its new toy.

The Mars 20 20 mission, which launched last July, will land today at 3:55 Eastern Standard Time. It’s delivering the latest Mars rover, Perseverance, as well as a helicopter drone called Ingenuity. After traveling over 292,000,000 miles, Perseverance and Ingenuity are ready for a rest stop! Watch the touchdown online, at NASA.gov.

Much of North America is experiencing record cold temperatures, but extreme cold can be fun in small doses! Make candy by boiling pure maple syrup and pouring it onto clean snow. Watch a balloon deflate outside and re-inflate indoors. Try blowing bubbles high in the air and watch them freeze on the way down!

Today is Battery Day. Alessandro Volta built the first electrochemical battery in 18 hundred. Count all the things in your house that use batteries. Battery University experts have advice for charging your phone correctly. Remove it from the charger as soon as it’s near 100%, plug in a few times-per-day, and always keep it cool.

Poor little Pluto. It used to be one of the 9 planets in our solar system, until it got down-graded, because it can’t clear it’s neighborhood. It’s now classified as a dwarf planet, along with Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris. But at least Pluto gets its own day to celebrate. Happy Pluto Day!

Under the streets of Paris France, lie many abandoned parking garages. A company called Cycloponics, is putting the space to good use, by turning them into mushroom farms. Organic oyster and button mushrooms, microgreens, and chicory, are some of the crops grown in The Cave. They can harvest up to 400 pounds of mushrooms-per-week!