Tumbleweed Invasion

Victorville California didn’t get buried in snow. The town on the edge of the Mojave Desert got covered in tumbleweeds! The dry brush rolled in on 50 mile per hour wind gusts, and piled up to 7 feet high. The fronts of some houses were completely covered by tumbleweeds, stuck together like Legos. Cleanup could take a while!

Eat Those Leftovers, People!

A new study shows that Americans are wasting huge amounts of food, averaging a pound a day per person! That’s about 25% of all food in the United States once it gets to your house or a restaurant; it doesn’t even count food waste in stores, or the agricultural system! Stop throwing out food and eat your leftovers!

Gutsy Moves to Protect Colony

A new species of ant was discovered in the rainforests of Borneo. Colobopsis explodens have a unique way of defending themselves: the ants latch onto enemies and explode their toxic guts onto them! Other workers plug the nest hole up with their heads to keep intruders out. The workers sacrifice themselves to keep the colony safe.

New Species Abound in Indian Ocean

An expedition of scientists from Singapore and Indonesia collected specimens from deep in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of West Java. In only 2 weeks, they’d found 11 new species! From an orange-striped lobster, to a crab that decorates its shell with debris as camouflage, to a foot-long giant sea cockroach, the ocean is still full of surprises!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Mr. L-I-M-A Bean

Don’t dis your vegetables; it’s National Lima Bean Respect Day. It’s also Cheddar Fries and Pineapple Upside Down Cake Day, but I guess you don’t have to respect them, tee hee! After eating cheese fries, cake, and beans, celebrate National Look Alike Day by dressing like someone or something else. Maybe your brother? Maybe a lima bean!

Sea-Monkeys Control the Ocean?

Brine shrimp are tiny sea creatures that you may know as Sea-Monkeys. Scientists have shown that swarms of brine shrimp in the ocean can actually create powerful underwater currents! They migrate vertically to the surface every night to feed, churning the ocean and causing turbulence. Trillions of organisms moving together make a huge impact!

Archive

Still Searching for Habitable Planets

SpaceX made its eighth rocket launch this year, and successfully landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. It carried NASA’s newest satellite, TESS: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. TESS will be looking for planets outside our solar system, hunting especially for Earth-like planets. Then the James Webb Space Telescope will take a closer look!

Archive

1 1,208 1,209 1,210 1,211 1,212 1,283