Page Type: Elementary

Until very recently, many people thought explorers had to be men. They thought the world was too dangerous for women to explore alone. But women explored anyway. A botanist named Ynes Mexia was one of them.

Ynes Mexia was born in Washington, D.C., in 1870, to an American mother and a Mexican father. She loved to read, write, and spend time outdoors. When Mexia finished school, she moved to Mexico, where she helped run, and eventually took over, her father’s ranch. After about 30 years, Mexia moved to San Francisco, California. Her love of the outdoors was as strong as ever, so when she met people who were working to help the environment, she joined them. One of the projects she worked on was to help stop loggers from cutting down California’s famous redwood trees.

Mexia’s interest in trees fed a new dream—to become a botanist, a scientist who studies plants. In 1921, at age 51, Mexia enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, to study this field. She graduated four years later. Mexia wanted to collect specimens (plant samples) so she and other scientists could study them. At the time, though, women were discouraged from traveling alone, especially in the wild, because of beliefs that they were not as capable as men. Mexia didn’t let this stop her.

Eddie Templeton loves to look for fossils, and he’s found quite a few in Mississippi, where he lives. But in August 2024, Templeton came across something he’d never found before—the tusk of a prehistoric, elephant-like animal called a Columbian mammoth.

Templeton found the tusk sticking out of a mudbank in a creek, where it had been for a long time. Scientists say Columbian mammoths lived between 11,700 and 75,000 years ago, during the Ice Age. Although they looked a lot like elephants, they were far bigger, weighing nearly 22,000 pounds (10,000 kilograms) and growing to be more than 13 feet (4 meters) tall. At 7 feet (2 meters) long, the tusk Templeton discovered was also huge. And it was still in one piece!

At first, Templeton thought the tusk had belonged to a mastodon, another relative of the modern elephant. Templeton and others have found many mastodon fossils in the area. But while Columbian mammoth teeth have been discovered in Mississippi, no one had ever found one of its tusks there. That’s because mammoths couldn’t live in as many different habitats as mastodons could, so their numbers were smaller.

Still, there was something about this tusk. It was curved, nearly making the shape of a C. Mammoths tusks were much more curved than mastodon tusks.

“When I learned it was a mammoth and not a mastodon, I got even more excited,” Templeton told the Mississippi Clarion Ledger. “I’ve never found any part of a mammoth. I always hoped to find a part of a mammoth, but that’s pretty rare down here.”

Templeton sent George Phillips, a paleontologist who works at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, a photo of the tusk. Soon, a team of scientists arrived at the site. It was clear that Templeton had found something rare and special.

“I was kind of open mouthed when I saw the picture,” Phillips told CNN. “I thought, ‘OK, well, cool, a tusk. Wait a second…it’s so curved…. This a mammoth tusk.’”

Beginning about 5,000 years ago, long before there were any motorized vehicles, people somehow arranged giant stone slabs into a monument called Stonehenge, in what’s now England. Recently, scientists found that one of these massive stones came from hundreds of miles away! The discovery makes Stonehenge even more remarkable.

Stonehenge is made up of slabs that have been placed in an incomplete circle, with other stones in the center. Scientists believe that some of the stones came about 16 miles (25 kilometers) away, while others came from about 125 miles (200 km) away, in Wales. The idea that prehistoric people somehow moved these massive stones 125 miles is amazing to think about. But when scientists took a closer look at one of the stones, they concluded that its journey was much longer.

The U.S. gymnastics team had an amazing run at the 2024 Summer Olympics, winning team and individual medals. The gymnasts couldn’t have done it without support from families, coaches, and one very special dog named Beacon.

Beacon, a 4-year-old golden retriever, is the first official therapy dog for the U.S. gymnastics team. His job title is “Goodest Boy.” Gymnastics is a difficult sport, and gymnasts can sometimes feel stressed and worried about competitions. Beacon’s job is to be there for the athletes, whether they want to pet him, rub his belly, chat with him, or just hang out with him.

Beacon and his human, Tracey Callahan Molnar, attended the Olympic Gymnastic Trials earlier in 2024. This is the competition that decides who will compete in the Olympic Games. 

Officials in Thailand say that one of the country’s tiger populations is growing. It’s a little bit of good news for these big cats, which have disappeared from many parts of the world.

Officials say the tiger population in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM), which is made up of 11 national parks and six wildlife sanctuaries, grew from 41 to 143 between 2007 and 2023. Some of this forest’s other endangered species, including a few that tigers prey on, are also doing well.

Officials say WEFCOM’s tigers have been well protected from their main threat, poaching (illegal hunting). The forest’s managers use GPS to figure out where poaching is taking place and then patrol those areas. They also use cameras to keep an eye on the area and the tigers that live there. WEFCOM currently has Thailand’s largest tiger population.

The Paisleys have big plans. Brad Paisley, a country music star, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, an actor, say they want to open a new free grocery store in Nashville, Tennessee. This will be their second one.

The Paisleys opened their first store, which is called The Store, in Nashville in March 2020. The Store lets people who are hungry and unable to afford groceries get them for free. It’s set up like any grocery store, so shoppers can choose what they like. The Store sits on land that is owned by Belmont University, which Brad Paisley attended. It pays for everything with some government money and donations from the public.

A pair of best friends from England and Ireland just raced from California to Hawaii—not in a plane but in a rowboat! Jessica Oliver and Charlotte Harris triumphed over rough weather, big waves, and aches and pains. They even broke some speed records in the process.

The Pacific Challenge

Beginning on June 8, Oliver and Harris rowed 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) from Monterey Bay, California, to Kaua‘i, Hawaii, along with other teams in a race called the World’s Toughest Row – Pacific Challenge. Oliver and Harris’s team, called Wild Waves, was the fastest pair, completing the race in 37 days, 11 hours, and 43 minutes. They beat the existing record for a pair of rowers by two days. Overall, Wild Waves finished the race in second place, faster than most of the teams of three and four rowers!

Oliver and Harris said the race was “absolutely grueling,” which means very, very tough. Freezing cold winds caused massive waves that tossed their boat around. In the first week, the boat’s automatic steering system broke. They had to steer by hand, which meant they got little sleep. But their friendship and ability to work together helped them get through these challenges.

“We can read each other so well,” Harris told Good News Network.

Going For It!

Like many beaches, the one in Scarborough Beach State Park in Scarborough, Maine, has a team of lifeguards trained to rescue any swimmers that are in trouble. Most of the lifeguards are human, but two of them are dogs!

Beacon and Buoy are the first canine (dog) lifeguards in the United States. They’re trained to go into the water with human lifeguards when someone needs to be rescued and help get that person back to land as quickly as possible. The dogs wear life jackets that give them extra help when they’re swimming. Each jacket has a handle along the spine so the human lifeguard, along with rescue equipment, can get a ride out to the rescue site.

Imagine you’re out late at night when a streak of light shoots across the sky…then another…then another. Is this an alien invasion? No! It’s a meteor shower. Scientists say two meteor showers will occur at the same time this summer. Delta Aquariids meteor shower and the Alpha Capricornids meteor shower are both set to peak on July 30. 

A meteor shower looks like many shooting stars racing across the night sky. But what some people call “shooting stars” are not stars. They’re meteors—pieces of rock that have broken off from comets or asteroids (large space rocks) and are falling to Earth. Meteor showers occur several times a year. What makes this summer’s event so special is that it’s a double meteor shower. If conditions are perfect, viewers could see up to 25 meteors per hour during the peak. 

It’s easiest to see a meteor shower in a very dark sky, away from city lights and without a lot of moonlight. The sky is darkest between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., making this the prime time for meteor shower viewing. Since our eyes take time to adjust to darkness, scientists recommend going outside at least 30 minutes early. 

Scientists say the best place to see this event is in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as in parts of the Northern Hemisphere that are close to the Equator. But people in other parts of the world may also be able to catch a glimpse!