Page Type: Elementary

Most cars are powered by gasoline or electricity. But a group of students in the Netherlands designed a car that’s powered by the Sun’s energy.

The solar-powered car, called the Stella Terra, recently completed a 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) test drive across part of the Sahara desert in Morocco. Driving across a desert isn’t easy. There are no service stations, and the sandy landscape can be rough. But that was the point. The students, who are all in their 20s, wanted to see if the car could handle being off-road for such a long distance, getting its energy from only the Sun.

One thing the desert does have is sunshine. The Stella Terra has panels on its roof to capture solar energy, so all it needs is the Sun. But the car also has a lithium-ion battery that can provide power. The battery allows the car to drive shorter distances in places where the Sun shines less often.

But if a car can run on the power of the Sun, why aren’t more cars solar powered? Experts say solar panels are expensive. Rooftop solar panels that make electricity for homes and other buildings are very large. But car solar panels need to be much smaller, which means they need to be super efficient to make enough power. And that makes them costly.

Still, the students hope car companies will figure out how to make cheaper solar-powered cars so that people can afford to buy them.

“We hope this can be an inspiration to car manufacturers such as Land Rover and BMW to make [solar-powered cars] a more sustainable industry,” Bob van Ginkel, one of the students, told the Guardian.

Check out the slideshow to learn more about the Stella Terra’s adventures!

The British rock band the Beatles broke up in 1970, more than 50 years ago. But in 2023, they released a new song, which they produced with the help of technology.

Called “Now and Then,” the song was written by former band member John Lennon long after the Beatles had broken up. Lennon recorded the song at his home on a small device called a tape recorder in the late 1970s. It’s not a very clear recording. Lennon’s piano playing made his voice difficult to hear, and a TV could be heard in the background. Lennon never made a professional recording of the song. Sadly, he died in 1980.

Today, only two of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, are still alive. The other Beatle, George Harrison, died in 2001. The three of them last worked together in 1995, when they added their voices and instruments to a couple of Lennon’s other recorded songs. They tried to work on “Now and Then,” but it was impossible. They weren’t able to make Lennon’s voice clearer or erase the sound of the TV in the background.

But today, a technology called machine learning allows people to separate different sounds on a music recording. With help from music producer Giles Martin, McCartney and Starr cleaned up Lennon’s recording of “Now and Then” so that only Lennon’s voice and piano could be heard, and his voice was clearer. Then they added more sounds. McCartney played guitar and piano, and Starr played drums. The song also includes a recording of George Harrison’s guitar playing.

John Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, is a fan of the finished song.

“My dad would’ve loved that, because he was never shy to experiment with recording technology. I think it’s really beautiful,” said Ono Lennon in a short video the Beatles released.

A runner stopped in the middle of a race, giving up the chance for a record finish to help a tiny kitten!

Sarah Bohan was running the Chicago Marathon, a 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) race. She had only 5 miles left when she saw the black and white kitten in a pile of leaves near the side of the road. Bohan thought maybe the mom cat would be back soon. Then again, it was also possible the mom cat wouldn’t come back. After all, the kitten was alone, with none of its brothers or sisters. Bohan decided to pick it up.

Bohan loves animals—and she has two cats of her own. Her participation in the race was even being sponsored (paid for) by PAWS Chicago, an animal shelter. 

Bohan took the 1-pound (0.5-kilogram) kitten in her arms and walked along the racecourse. Another racer, Gia Nigro, soon noticed Bohan carrying the kitten and stopped running to find out what was happening. Together, the two runners decided to find someone in the crowd who might take the kitten.

Andrea Maldonado was watching the race with her family. She promised to adopt the kitten and take him to a vet to make sure he was okay.

Bohan ended up finishing the race in just over 3 hours and 31 minutes. It wasn’t her fastest time, but Bohan is okay with that. She says she’ll try for a record again next year.

Today, the kitten—named Casper—is part of Maldonado’s family, which also includes four kids, a dog, and two other cats.

“Our girls love him,” Maldonado told Business Insider. “Our family loves him. Our dog loves him.”

You can check out more photos of Casper in the slideshow below!

The next Summer Olympic Games will take place in 2024, but officials are already planning for the 2028 Summer Games. The International Olympic Committee has decided to add five new sports to the 2028 Games. They are baseball/softball, cricket, squash, lacrosse, and flag football. All five are team sports.

The Olympics take place in a different city each time. The 2028 Summer Olympics are set to occur in the American city of Los Angeles, California, so it’s fitting that three of the new sports were invented in North America. Here’s a bit more about how each of the sports is played.

Baseball/Softball

In professional sports, baseball is usually played by men while softball is usually played by women. The two sports have similar rules. A hitter hits a ball with a bat and then tries to run around three bases and back to home plate to score before someone from the other team has a chance to tag the player with the ball. If a player from the other team catches the ball before it hits the ground, or if the hitter is tagged while running around the bases, they are out and don’t score.

Cricket

As in baseball, cricket players try to hit a ball with a bat, but there are many differences between baseball and cricket. In cricket, the game area is a rectangle called a pitch. A batter stands on each end of the pitch in front of small wood structures called wickets. Someone from the other team, called a bowler, throws the ball to one batter. If the bowler knocks down a small stick that rests on top of the wicket, the batter is out. If the batter hits the ball, the two batters run to switch places (and their team scores). They keep batting until the other team’s players recover the ball.

Squash

In squash, two players stand on one side of a four-walled indoor court and use rackets to hit a ball against the wall in front of them. Each player tries to keep the other one from getting control of the ball when it bounces back.

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a bit like field hockey. Players use sticks to try to get a ball into the other team’s net, which is guarded by a goalkeeper. But unlike a hockey stick, a lacrosse stick has a basket on the end. A player can scoop up the ball into this basket and use their stick to throw the ball toward the net.

Flag Football

In football, players try to get the ball toward the goal while the other team tries to stop them. In professional American football, players try to stop their opponents by tackling them, or knocking them down. In flag football, players have flags hanging off the waistbands of their uniforms. One player can stop another player from running with the ball by getting that player’s flag.

Once, there were millions of bison (or buffalo) in North America. Bison were important to the cultures of many American Indian groups. But by the 1880s, the bison were almost gone. Today, the bison are back. And American Indians are rebuilding their ties with these animals.

The relationship between American Indians and bison started thousands of years ago. The Yuchi, the Sioux, and other American Indian groups relied on bison. The animals provided food, shelter, and clothing. They are still part of American Indian stories, traditions, and beliefs. But when white people began to settle in the West, they killed so many bison that the animals nearly died out.

During this time, white settlers and the U.S. government also forced many American Indians to leave their homelands. Many parts of American Indian culture were lost.

In the late 1800s, the U.S. government started taking steps to save the bison. There were only a few bison left. Officials rounded them up and put them in national parks so that they would be protected. Since then, the bison population has grown to almost 500,000.

And now, steps are being taken to reconnect bison with the American Indian groups that once relied on them. Little by little, some of the bison that live in America’s parks are being returned to American Indians.

In March 2023, dozens of bison were moved from a park in Colorado to the Yuchi of Oklahoma, as well as other American Indian groups. Richard Grounds of the Yuchi people said the return of the bison is helping to restore Yuchi culture.

“We’ve lost that connection to the buffalo,” Grounds told the Associated Press. “So we’re saying, we Yuchi people are still here and the buffalo are still here, and it’s important to reconnect and restore those relationships with the land, with the animals, and the plants.”

In July 2023, a zoo in South Korea got a double dose of cuteness. A giant panda named Ai Bao gave birth to twin cubs! 

The female cubs were born at Everland Zoo near Seoul, the nation’s capital city. At birth, they were pink and hairless, and they could fit in the palm of an adult’s hand. But by October, the cubs had grown to the size of large teddy bears. Zoo officials said they had started crawling and teething (growing teeth).

The zoo marked the 100th day since the twins’ birth by inviting the public to vote on the cubs’ names. The winning names were Rui Bao (which means “wise treasure”) and Hui Bao (which means “shining treasure”). The twins share the name Bao with their older sister, 3-year-old Fu Bao, their dad, Le Bao, and their mom, Ai Bao.

In the wild, pandas are found only in China. Le Bao and Ai Bao are on loan to Everland Zoo from China, which has loaned pandas out to many zoos around the world. Eventually, Le Bao and Ai Bao will be returned to China, along with their young.

But for now, many South Koreans are looking forward to meeting the twins. Everland Zoo says the cubs will be introduced to zoo visitors in person when they’re about 6 months old.

Almost 2,000 years ago, American Indians in what is now Ohio built structures out of earth that experts call the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks. In September 2023, the earthworks were named a UNESCO World Heritage site.

UNESCO stands for the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It’s made up of representatives from more than 190 countries. UNESCO World Heritage sites are recognized for their historical, cultural, or scientific importance. 

The earthworks, which are in eight locations around southern Ohio, were built by a group of people known as the Hopewell culture. These people came from different American Indian groups but shared similar religious beliefs. As part of their shared culture, they carefully planned, measured, and designed the earthworks. In some locations, they built earth walls in the shape of circles, squares, octagons, and straight lines. In others, they built enclosures, or walls that surround a piece of land. Many of the enclosures contain human-made ponds. 

The earthworks aren’t just beautiful to look at. They show that the Hopewell people had some understanding of astronomy, the science that has to do with objects in space. Many of the earthworks line up with the locations of the Sun and the Moon over the horizon.

Sammie Vance was 8 years old when she heard about buddy benches. She loved the idea.

“If someone is lonely, they can go sit on the bench and others know to go up and ask them to play,” was how she explained it, according to her website. Buddy benches have been placed at schools, in parks, and in other public places. They’re not just for kids. Adults sit on buddy benches sometimes too. 

Sammie wanted to make sure there were plenty of buddy benches because she didn’t want anyone to feel lonely. So, in 2017, she started Sammie’s Buddy Bench Project. Her first goal was to get a buddy bench for her school. Six years later, the project has been a huge success, and it’s still going strong. 

Sammie’s Buddy Bench Project collects plastic lids and bottle caps and sends them to a company to have the plastic recycled and turned into a bench. It takes 400 pounds (180 kilograms) of lids and caps to make each bench. That’s a lot! But Sammie worked hard. She asked her classmates and local businesses to save their caps. She also posted on social media, asking people to send their caps. In two months, Sammie collected 1,200 pounds (540 kilograms) of caps, enough for three benches! And the caps kept coming.

Today, Sammie’s project is responsible for more than 100 buddy benches in the U.S. as well as many other countries!

Jonathan Yacko and his wife, Natalie Gilliard, were tired of mowing the lawn at their home in Vermont. So they decided to replace most of it with something totally different: wildflowers.

The next time the grass needed to be mowed, Yacko and Gilliard ripped part of it out instead. They raked the soil and poured a giant bag of wildflower seeds over it. Then they waited. As the weather warmed up, little green sprouts started to pop up.

“We’d look out the window and be like, ‘They’re coming! The flowers are coming!’” Gilliard told Nina Keck of Vermont Public (www.vermontpublic.org).

First there were tiny white flowers. Then came yellow, orange, red, purple, and blue ones. The flowers attracted bees and butterflies. The couple decided that one field wasn’t enough. They planted a second one on their next-door neighbor’s land, with the neighbor’s permission.

How cute is this? Scientists recently spotted a dumbo octopus in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii! It was a rare, and adorable, sight. 

Scientists on board a research ship sent a vehicle with a camera down into the ocean and waited to see what would swim by. They spotted the dumbo octopus at a depth of about 5,500 feet (1,700 meters), where the water is cold, dark, and not very crowded. 

There are about 300 species of octopus and about 17 species of dumbo octopus. Dumbo octopuses push themselves through the water with their fins, which look like floppy ears. They get their name from Dumbo, the classic Disney movie about an elephant with giant ears. Most dumbo octopuses are less than one foot (30 centimeters) long, which is smaller than many other octopus species. 

Scientists can’t study dumbo octopuses as much as they can study many other animals. Dumbo octopuses live in deeper water than other octopus species—as far as 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) below the surface. Not many animals can survive at this depth, which is so far down that sunlight can’t reach it. Humans can’t dive that deep, either. That’s why dumbo octopuses are a bit of a mystery. 

“I’m so glad we got to see this beautiful creature,” one scientist said. “I’ve never seen one before.”

Check out the video of the octopus!