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Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. The sun’s maximum elevation will be at its lowest, meaning the period of darkness is longest. Starting tomorrow, the days will gradually get longer. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the summer solstice!
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9 year-old Mikah Frye had asked for an Xbox for Christmas. Then he saw some homeless people. It made him remember how his family had been homeless a few years earlier and he bought blankets for the homeless with the Xbox money instead. Microsoft heard about his generosity and gave him an Xbox!
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Japanese scientists have discovered a new species of worm that lives on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean. The Xenoturbella japonica is an orange sack-like creature with no internal organs. The two inch-long worm also has no butt! It eats and expels waste from the same opening. He’s a real potty-mouth!
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Moon Express is a private spaceflight company with big plans. They plan to land on the moon in 2018! The Rocket Lab company developed a booster to propel their lunar lander. Moon Express is also competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE, where they will have to land, travel and broadcast images on the moon.
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Do you ever get your shoelaces tied in tight knots? Not like this knot! Chemist David Leigh andd fellow researchers set a world record by tying the tightest knot out of strands of molecules! They braided molecule strands together to make them strong enough to twist into microscopic knots.
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The biggest celebrity at the zoo in Tokyo Japan is a baby panda. Xiang Xiang made his first public appearance to thousands of lucky people. The zoo held a lottery to limit visitors and 250,000 people applied! The panda cub rolled around, ate bamboo, and looked adorable!
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Today is National Hard Candy Day! Most hard candy is made by boiling sugar syrup, adding flavorings, then pouring the 320 degree sugar into molds to cool and harden. The first lemon and peppermint candies were prescribed for stomach ailments. Just be careful you don’t break your tooth on one!
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Alan Tennyson found prehistoric giant penguin fossils encased in a boulder on a New Zealand beach. The penguin stood five and a half feet tall and lived in the late Paleocene epoch 60-56 million years ago. The new species, named Waimanu Biceae, is not the largest ever found, but it is the oldest!
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A volcano in Italy is spewing lava into the sea! The Stromboli volcano had a major explosion in early December which started a new flow of lava. Nicknamed the Lighthouse of the Mediterranean, it’s been extremely active for the last 2000 years, erupting almost non-stop since 1932. Stromboli is an Aeolian Island near Sicily.
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Glaucoma is a condition that causes pressure to build up in the eye and damage the optic nerve. It can cause vision loss or even blindness. Researchers found that people who drink a daily cup of caffeinated hot tea could have a 74% less chance of developing glaucoma! Pour me a cup of tea, please!
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