Author: Lisa Mungovan

Get your appetites ready, for Cheese Lover’s Day! Cheese is made from milk, and has been around since at least 5500 BCE. It comes in over 1400 varieties, so whether you like mozzarella on your pizza, bleu cheese on your salad, parmesan on your pasta, or American on your grilled cheese, cheese is really gouda!

In 2018, Patches the cat went missing, during the mudslides in Southern California. Her human, Norm Borgatello, never thought he’d see her again. Luckily, Patches was microchipped, and an animal shelter was able to reunite Patches and Norm, 3 years later! Make sure your pets have a microchip implant, in case they ever get lost.

Ginkgo Biloba trees are known as living fossils. The species has been around for 200,000,000 years, possibly thanks to mankind. Evidence suggests that ginkgo trees had disappeared from most of the Earth by 66,000,000 years ago, remaining only in China. Scientists believe Paleolithic humans helped them survive, by planting their seeds. Everything else went extinct.

Would you ever describe a planet, as puffy? An exoplanet in our galaxy, called WASP-107b, has an extremely low density. It’s known as a super-puff planet, and although it’s nearly the size of Jupiter, it has only a tenth of the mass. Most of the planet’s mass, is in its puffed-up gas atmosphere.

Today is Tin Can Day. Peter Durand patented the perfect way to store food for years, in 1810. Ask your grandparents, how to play Kick the Can. It’s also World Quark Day, but it’s not about sub-atomic particles. Quark is a superfood similar to yogurt or sour cream. It’s a high-protein, low-fat creamy cheese.

Pop. Pop. Pop, pop, pop-pop-pop-pop! It’s National Popcorn Day! In the 16th century, popcorn was used in Aztec headdresses in Mexico. It became a popular food in the United States in the 19th century. Charles Cretors developed a steam popper, and sold popcorn on horse-drawn wagons. You can even pop corn on the cob!

Miners in Uruguay, recently found an incredible rock formation. They split a chunk of ordinary looking basalt, and discovered a geode inside. A geode is a rock with a hollow cavity, filled with crystals. This geode was the shape of a perfect heart, and filled with purple amethyst crystals. It’s Mother Earth’s Valentine!

Last week, NASA announced that 2020 was Earth’s hottest year on record. Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, said 2016 still held the record for hottest year. Either way, the planet is warming enough that the last 7 years, were the 7 hottest years ever, causing more severe hurricanes, floods, heat waves, tornadoes, and wildfires.

You might use a cellulose sponge to clean the dishes, but natural sponges are creatures that live in the ocean. Researchers just discovered 3 new species, of carnivorous sea sponges. Deep underwater off the coast of Australia, the meat-eating sponges catch small crustaceans on hooks, and absorb the nutrients through their many holes.

It’s Winnie the Pooh Day! A-A Milne’s books about the lovable bear, Piglet, Tigger, and friends, were inspired by a black bear at the London Zoo named Winnie. Christopher Robin, the author’s son, loved to visit him! It’s also Thesaurus Day, a wonderful, fantastic, magnificent, phenomenal, terrific tool to give you synonyms for words.