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Marvel has a new superhero, and she has the power to change the world.

Kahhori (pronounced KAH-HORI), a young Mohawk woman, was introduced in the animated Marvel TV show What If…?, which explores what would happen if certain events had never taken place. Kahhori is living in what’s now New York state in the 1500s when Europeans arrive in the area and attempt to enslave the Indigenous people. By that time, the Mohawk nation had long been part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of five Indigenous nations.

In real life, Europeans eventually colonized large areas of what’s now the United States and took the land where Indigenous people had been living for thousands of years. In the show, however, Kahhori discovers that she has incredible powers that enable her to help the Haudenosaunee fight back and negotiate a peace agreement. The Europeans leave the area without colonizing it, and the Haudenosaunee remain on their land.

“‘What if?’ That’s what I was thinking of,” Agnes “Sweets” Jacobs told North Country Public Radio, after watching a screening of the episode. Jacobs is a sub-chief of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. “What if we didn’t welcome [the Europeans]?…What if we still lived in peace and harmony and took care of the earth the way we’re supposed to?” 

The episode is notable because Marvel Studios created it in consultation with Mohawk people. Almost all the dialog is in the Mohawk language and voiced by Mohawk actors. Details such as what Kahhori would have worn are accurate.

“[The people at Marvel] were faithful and they were steady and they were completely committed to treating us with the greatest respect,” Doug George-Kanentiio, who is Mohawk and who served as a historical consultant on the show, told North Country Public Radio.

What If…? is available to watch on Disney Plus.

Tetris is one of those video games that’s always been impossible to beat—until now. Thirteen-year-old Willis Gibson recently became the first person to reach what’s basically the end of a game of Tetris.

There’s no actual end to Tetris. The game involves manipulating shapes created from seven different configurations of four blocks so that they complete rows in a grid on screen. Each row disappears when it’s completed. If a player doesn’t complete enough rows, the blocks reach the top of the screen, and the game is over. The blocks fall faster and faster until the player can’t keep up. When developers designed Tetris, they figured it would beat everyone. The game isn’t made to be defeated.

A house in Selma, Alabama, where Martin Luther King, Jr., planned a famous civil rights march is being relocated and will soon be open to the public. The house will be moved to Dearborn, Michigan, to be part of a history museum called Greenfield Village.

Jawana Jackson, who grew up in the house, sold it to the Henry Ford Foundation so it could be recognized for its part in the civil rights movement. Jackson was 4 years old in 1965, when King and other civil rights leaders arrived at the house to plan marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in support of voting rights for Black Americans. The march was one of many that King and other leaders organized to protest racist laws and policies. While at the house, King had telephone conversations with U.S. president Lyndon Johnson. He urged President Johnson to support legislation expanding voting rights and protections to Black Americans. That same year, the U.S. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Jackson’s parents offered King, an old friend who lived in Montgomery, the use of their home because they knew his work would be important to Jawana’s future.

“[Jawana] and children in this country and all around the world … deserve a better, a more even, a more just society. Whatever we can do to support you, we’re here,” Sullivan Jackson told King, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

“It became increasingly clearer to me that the house belonged to the world, and quite frankly, The Henry Ford [Foundation] was the place that I always felt in my heart that it needed to be,” Jawana Jackson told the Associated Press.

The foundation runs Greenfield Village, a history museum in Michigan that contains more than 80 historic structures. Soon, the Jackson home will be one of them. Officials are dismantling the home so it can be transported to Dearborn, where it will be rebuilt. Once open to the public, the home will contain some of King’s neckties and pants, as well as furnishings dating back to 1965.

The home is expected to open in the next three years.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have finally solved a problem that vexed them for months: they’ve located two missing tomatoes.

The dwarf tomatoes were grown aboard the space station as part of ongoing research to see how well plants grow in space. But in March, shortly after U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio harvested the fruit, he lost it—which may be understandable, given that anything on the station that’s not tied down will float away.

“I put it in a little bag, and one of my crewmates was doing a [remote] event with some schoolkids, and I thought it’d be kind of cool to show the kids—‘Hey guys, this is [a] tomato harvested in space’,” Rubio said in October. “I was pretty confident that I Velcroed it where I was supposed to Velcro it … and then I came back and it was gone.”

Rubio spent hours searching unsuccessfully for the tiny tomatoes. Meanwhile, other astronauts jokingly accused him of eating them. Then, in September, it was time for him to return to Earth. Because the ISS is a low-humidity environment, Rubio predicted the fruit would quickly shrivel and become unrecognizable.

Then, in December, the good news came. The two tomatoes had turned up.

“Our good friend Frank Rubio, who headed home [already], has been blamed for quite a while for eating the tomato,” NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli said during a December 6 livestreamed event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the ISS. “But we can exonerate him. We found the tomato.”

Mystery solved!

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a new math professor with an unusual background: He used to play in the National Football League (NFL). Former Baltimore Ravens guard John Urschel began teaching at MIT in the fall of 2023.

Urschel discovered his love for math as a kid, when he happily tackled the math and puzzle workbooks his mom gave him and, as an 8th grader, took a college math class. By the time he got to college, he was a talented football player but possibly even more gifted in math. After the NFL drafted him, in 2014, he decided to apply to MIT to get a high-level degree called a Ph.D. MIT admits very few applicants, but Urschel got in.

What do you do when you play for the NFL in Maryland and you’re admitted to school in Massachusetts? If you’re John Urschel, you find a way to make it work. For one year, Urschel continued to play pro football full time while taking his MIT classes online. And while he juggled both responsibilities, he was happiest when he was studying math. In 2017, at age 26, Urschel decided to retire from the NFL so that he could devote his time to what he loved the most. He earned his Ph.D. in 2021.

“[MIT] is my favorite place in the world,” Urschel told Sports Illustrated in 2017. “I love being here. I love every day I’m here. The happiest I’ve ever been in my life is when I’m at MIT. Ever in my life. EVER in my life! Happiest ever.”

Now an assistant professor, Urschel says he hopes to inspire young people to study math, science, and engineering. Sometimes he gives talks to kids and teens—and he knows he can serve as an example of what’s possible.

“I know I wouldn’t be where I am today as a mathematician if it wasn’t for a lot of specific people, a lot of different mathematicians deciding that I was worth their time,” Urschel told ESPN in 2020.

A commercial jetliner completed a flight from London, England, to New York City powered only by sustainable jet fuel. Instead of fossil fuels, the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787 plane ran on a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) consisting mostly of cooking oil, animal fat, and synthetic kerosene made from corn. Other planes have crossed the Atlantic Ocean without fossil fuels, but this was the first time a commercial jet made the journey. 

“The world will always assume something can’t be done, until you do it,” Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, wrote on his Facebook page. Branson was on board the flight, dubbed “Flight100,” along with scientists, engineers, and journalists. There were no paying passengers.

It’s one of the most talked-about issues: Human-made pollution is changing Earth’s atmosphere and leading to rapid climate change. But how did the atmosphere change before humans began producing pollution, and what can that tell us about the future of the atmosphere? Scientists believe the key to finding out may be the study of ancient ice.

The Ice Core Archive in Copenhagen, Denmark, is a massive freezer full of ice that originated mostly in Greenland. The ice, which is compressed snow rather than frozen water, dates back as far as 120,000 years ago. It’s a snapshot of a time when the atmosphere was unaffected by human activity.

Air temperatures in Greenland were actually warmer 120,000 years ago than they are today—not because of human activity but because of natural atmospheric conditions. The ice cores can help scientists figure out what the atmosphere was like at that time and how it affected sea levels. Using this information, they hope to be able to figure out how much sea levels will rise due to today’s human activity, according to University of Copenhagen glaciology professor Jorgen Peder Steffensen, who manages the Ice Core Archive.

“With ice cores, we have mapped out how greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane vary over time,” Steffensen told Agence Presse-France. “And we can also see the impact of the burning of fossil fuels in modern times.”

A company in France has developed a houseplant that it claims can remove 30 times more pollution from indoor air than a typical houseplant. Called the Neo P1, the plant is genetically engineered to turn toxins into plant fuel.

Indoor air can be full of toxins from many sources, including paint, household cleaners, and insulation. Some of these toxins, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), can’t be removed by air purifiers—and it’s not always possible to open a window to allow natural airflow to clean the environment. Experts say houseplants can remove VOCs by absorbing them into their roots and leaves. But studies show that having a few houseplants around won’t significantly improve air quality.

In developing the Neo P1, French company Neoplants took a type of plant called a golden pothos and made two key changes. First, they engineered it to ensure it absorbs more VOCs than regular houseplants. Second, they designed the plant to convert the VOCs it absorbs into substances like sugar and carbon dioxide, both of which help the plant to grow.

Neoplant sent their creation to air quality experts at Ecole Mines-Télécom at Lille University, who did tests comparing the Neo P1 with regular golden pothos plants. They found that the genetically engineered plant was about 30 times more effective at removing VOCs than the regular ones.

The plant costs about $179, which is about 10 times the cost of a regular golden pothos plant.

On November 8, officials at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., loaded their three giant pandas—Tian Tian, Mei Xiang, and their youngest offspring, Xiao Qi Ji—into crates and sent them to an airport, where they boarded a plane bound for China. Now, for the first time in 50 years, there are no pandas at the zoo.

China had lent male panda Tian Tian and female panda Mei Xiang to the zoo in 2000 as part of a panda breeding program. The pair of pandas were supposed to stay for a decade, but the agreement was extended to the end of 2023. The agreement also stated that any cubs the two pandas produced had to be returned to China by the age of 4. The zoo has already sent three of the pair’s cubs to China.

China, which is home to the world’s only wild giant pandas, started sending the black and white bears to the United States in 1972. Later, it sent additional pandas to other U.S. zoos. The program was called “panda diplomacy” because it wasn’t just about pandas. It was about strengthening ties between China and the United States, which have had a rocky relationship because of their political differences. At the peak of the program, there were 15 pandas in U.S. zoos. Now, there are only four—at Zoo Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia. Zoo Atlanta’s agreement with China expires in 2024. China continues to lend pandas to nations other than the United States.

Experts say the decline in the number of pandas lent to the U.S. coincides with growing problems between the United States and China. There are no solid plans to bring more pandas to the U.S., but zoo officials say they’re optimistic.

“We’re hopeful for the future, so we have submitted an application that’s being reviewed,” Bob Lee, director of animal care at the National Zoo, told CNN.

For more of the panda trio, check out the slideshow below.

In September 2023, Tigist Assefa, a runner from Ethiopia, broke a world running time record in the Berlin Marathon. Could the secret to her speed have been what she wore on her feet? Adidas, the company that made Assefa’s Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 running shoes, claims the footwear had something to do with it.

After the marathon, Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden posted a photo of himself and Assefa, holding one of the shoes.

“Tigist Assefa…we are so proud of you!” he wrote.

The new Adidas “supershoes” are designed for experienced long-distance runners like Assefa. The shoes contain foam and other materials that add up to a lighter weight, which usually translates to faster running speeds. Adidas made the shoes to compete with those made by other shoe companies, especially Nike. Nike’s Vaporfly shoes are also lightweight and designed to improve running times. Nike, which charges $250 for a pair of Vaporfly shoes, tested the Vaporfly for years and concluded that it helps improve running times by about 4 percent compared to regular running shoes.