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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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A mistake paid off for a lucky New Jersey woman. Oksana Zaharov wanted to buy a $1 lottery ticket, but the clerk handed her a $10 scratch-off ticket instead. She didn’t want to make the clerk feel bad for ripping off the wrong ticket, so she just bought it. It was worth $5 million!
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A prime number is a number divisible only by itself and 1, like the numbers 2 3 5 7 11 and so on. A Mersenne prime is a number found by multiplying many twos together, then subtracting one. The newest prime number is M77232917, found by multiplying 77,232,917 twos, minus one. The answer would fill 9000 pages!
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A story in the news this week warned that chocolate may go extinct in 40 years! But while climate change may threaten the current growing area for cacao, it can be cultivated in other places. Scientists are also making cacao plants more resistant to disease. Everyone is united to keep chocolate safe forever!
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Today is National Tempura Day. Tempura is a Japanese dish of vegetables or seafood that are dipped in batter and deep-fried. It’s also National Bobblehead Day. The toys with big heads bobbing on springs have been around more than 100 years! Just be sure you don’t deep-fry your bobbleheads today!
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Archaeologists are excavating around a 1000 year-old stone sculpture in a pond in Mexico. The Tetzacualco may represent a Mesoamerican legend of creation, when four gods created the Earth from a fish monster named Cipactli. Evidence shows that irrigation systems kept the stone carving covered in water even during droughts.
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At the center of most galaxies you will find a black hole, which is a place where gravity pulls so hard that not even light can escape. Scientists found evidence that black holes a million times more massive than our sun, can control how many stars form in their galaxies!
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The sale of ivory has been banned in China! Most ivory is obtained from elephant tusks. Elephants are an endangered species because of poaching and habitat loss. Nearly 30,000 elephants a year were killed illegally for their tusks, so conservationists are excited that China has taken this big step to help protect them.
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In Florida, unusual cold weather has been causing iguanas to fall from the sky. The large cold-blooded lizards have been falling from their perches in trees because they become immobile at low temperatures. They generally recover once they thaw out, so if you find frozen iguanas, move them to a sunny outdoor location.
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In much of the world today, it’s colder than Antarctica! Of course, maybe that’s not as impressive when you realize it’s summer there, with nearly 24 hours of daylight. The highest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica was a mild 63 degrees Fahrenheit. Antarctica’s lowest temperature was 135.8 degrees below 0, the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth!
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