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What can help protect your heart, lower blood pressure, is made from a bean, and is celebrated today? Bittersweet chocolate! The bitter tasting flavonols that carry health benefits are removed from cacao beans to make sweeter chocolate, so if you want your chocolate to be good for you, bitter is better!
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If the pirate Blackbeard had a book club, what would they read? The wreck of his ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, could hold a clue. Waterlogged paper rarely survives a shipwreck, but 300 year-old scraps of paper were found stuffed in a cannon. They were from a book about a sea captain’s adventures!
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SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Zuma spacecraft for the U.S. Government. The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket delivered the Zuma to its position in low-Earth orbit, while the rocket’s first stage maneuvered back to Earth to land 8 minutes after take-off. Zuma’s mission is top secret.
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The Toronto Zoo got its first baby of the new year when Ashakiran the one-horned rhinoceros gave birth last week. She had a male calf after a 16 month pregnancy. There are only 3500 one-horned, or Indian, rhinos left in the wild. The 138 pound baby rhino has not been named yet.
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The Central American country of Belize is ending all offshore oil drilling. Its waters are home to the Belize Barrier Reef, part of the longest coral reef in the Western Hemisphere. Belizeans have fought hard to save the reef. The ban on oil extraction is a promising step to protect the environment.
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Are you shocked to hear it’s National Static Electricity Day? Static electricity is produced when the positive and negative charges of an atom become unbalanced. See static in action by rubbing a balloon against your head. It will stick! Shuffle around the carpet with rubber-soled shoes and try to zap someone. Yee-ouch!
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Last week, the cold weather in Nantucket Massachusetts gave photographer Jonathan Nimefroh and his friends an unusual treat. They surfed Slurpee waves! Ice crystals were forming in the ocean waves turning them into rolling waves of slush. The water temperature was only 12 degrees Fahrenheit. I hope those surfers had warm wetsuits!
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A dinosaur fossil found in the nineteenth century is still providing new data. The Compsognathus longipes ate a lizard 150 million years ago but died before digesting it. The lizard has been reclassified as a new species. Researchers named it Schoenesmahl dyspepsia, which translates to “beautiful meal that is difficult to digest.”
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Do you love key lime pie? You should head to Merritt Island Florida for the Florida Key Lime Pie Festival next Saturday. They will attempt to break a world record by making a key lime pie over 12 feet in diameter. It will use thousands of limes and have a gazillion calories!
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In 1981, Joan White decided to spread joy every January 8th. She thought happiness could be infectious, so she called it National Joygerm Day. Just do something nice for someone or write an e-mail or letter. Tell them you are spreading germs of joy and ask them to help you infect the world!
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