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Is it curtains for Camembert? A recent report seemed to suggest that a type of gooey, pungent cheese called Camembert could be headed for extinction. But what does that even mean?

To understand what’s going on, let’s start with fungus. Fungus is a part of many cheeses, such as the soft, stinky ones. Along with bacteria, fungi break down the molecules in ripening cheese, giving it a strong flavor and creamy texture.

The problem with Camembert, Brie, and some other kinds of cheese is that they’re made with a type of fungus called Penicillium camemberti. P. camemberti gives Camembert the white rind that helps make it recognizable to buyers. Scientists say this fungus doesn’t reproduce well, a situation that could lead to problems down the road.

P. camemberti wasn’t always used in the production of Camembert. Until about 1900, cheesemakers in France, the birthplace of Camembert, would place newly made Camembert in caves, where it would grow fungus naturally. But it takes a while for fungus to grow. To speed up production, cheesemakers began adding P. camemberti instead.

But P. camemberti can reproduce only through cloning—making exact copies. And over time, this has caused it to lose its genetic diversity. Now the fungus needs to be cloned, which makes its long-term survival less certain.

Many people responded to this news with a possible solution. Why not add a different type of fungus to Camembert—one that can reproduce? So far, that hasn’t happened.

But scientists say it will be a while before Camembert is in any real danger of disappearing.

“We always make it clear to journalists that there is no short-term danger to Camembert production,” researcher Tatiana Giraud told CNN. “What our articles say is that there is a great homogenization of [fungi] and that this reduces their ability to adapt, nothing more.”

Many students across the United States ride to school in yellow buses, most of which run on diesel fuel. But a growing number of school districts have adopted a cleaner way to transport their students. They’re investing in electric school buses.

California was the first state to begin purchasing school buses that run on electricity, about 10 years ago. Three of the state’s school districts made the switch, citing numerous benefits. Unlike traditional diesel buses, electric vehicles don’t produce a high volume of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. They also produce fewer toxic fumes, which can cause health problems. Studies show that the switch to cleaner technology can even improve students’ academic performance.

The transition to electric has been slow to spread across the country, partly because electric vehicles are costly to buy. And, while they don’t require traditional fuel, their batteries do need to be charged, which means charging stations must be installed where they don’t already exist. That costs money, too.

But a 2021 U.S. law called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included $5 billion to be distributed to school districts so they can replace their diesel buses with electric ones. Districts in 49 states have received funding, which is being distributed between 2022 and 2026. (Wyoming returned the money due to concerns about how well the buses would perform in the state’s cold climate.) Several states have passed laws requiring that their school districts increase the number of clean school buses they use.

So far, electric school buses make up a very small percentage of the nation’s total school bus fleet. But slowly, as more funding becomes available, changes are being set in motion.

Is Wendy’s raising its prices? Not exactly, but customers may soon see some changes on the fast-food chain’s menu.

In February, Wendy’s caused an uproar when it announced that it would be testing digital menus at its drive-throughs, as well as “dynamic pricing,” or “surge pricing.” Dynamic pricing is the practice of raising the price on goods and services during times when demand is highest. It’s already used at places like concert venues, bowling alleys, and movie theaters. Hotels, airlines, and ride-sharing apps like Uber use dynamic pricing as well. When Wendy’s used the term in its announcement, people took that to mean that hungry customers would soon see higher prices if they drove up to a Wendy’s at the wrong time.

But Wendy’s has since said that its announcement was misunderstood. The company says it has no plans to raise prices when demand is highest. Instead, it plans to lower prices when demand is low.

“We said these [digital] menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items,” a Wendy’s spokesperson told NBC News. “Digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.”

Wendy’s claims that the plan would benefit its customers. Robert Shumsky, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, told National Public Radio (NPR) that this might be true.

“[Wendy’s] talked about, for example, getting more breakfast customers in,” Shumsky said. “They might actually reduce breakfast prices at certain times in order to encourage people to come during what they currently have as relatively low-demand periods.”

If Wendy’s goes ahead with the plan, there wouldn’t be any changes until 2025 or later.

The story of the first Black woman in Congress is coming to Netflix on March 22. Shirley (rated PG-13), starring Regina King in the title role, traces the life and career of trailblazing lawmaker Shirley Chisholm.

“What she did was so pioneering,” King, who is also a producer on the movie, told Harper’s Bazaar. “She was a true maverick and, you know, we use this term all the time, but she was a true first.”

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1924, Chisholm started her career as a nursery school teacher, eventually earning a master’s degree in early childhood education from Columbia University. Chisholm’s desire to tackle race and gender inequality led her to become more and more politically active. She belonged to the Brooklyn chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Urban League. 

In 1964, Chisholm won a seat in the New York state legislature, representing her Brooklyn district. Four years later, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where no Black woman had ever held a seat.

Chisholm’s dedication to the causes she believed in earned her the nickname “Fighting Shirley.” She introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation, spoke out for racial and gender equality, opposed the Vietnam War, and championed increased funding to fight poverty.

A U.S. company believes it has located the wreckage of famed aviator Amelia Earhart’s plane, more than 86 years after it disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Is one of history’s biggest mysteries about to be solved?

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were last heard from on July 2, 1937, when they sent several radio transmissions while trying to land on Howland Island in the Pacific. They planned to refuel on Howland and then continue Earhart’s attempt to become the first woman to fly solo around the world. Since the pair disappeared, many individuals and organizations have searched the area. So far, no one has been able to find any surefire evidence that can be traced to Earhart’s flight.

When Mychal Threets makes a video for his hundreds of thousands of social media followers, he usually talks about the place he loves the most: the library. Threets, a librarian himself, hopes to spread what he calls “library joy” by sharing uplifting stories and letting his followers know that the library is for everyone.

Threets was most recently the supervising librarian at the Fairfield Civic Center Library in Solano County, California, but his library journey started long ago. Beginning at age 3, he found magic among the books at his local library. When he got older, it made sense to carve out a career in public libraries. He got a job shelving books and then earned a master’s degree in library science. Today, he loves to see young people find the same library joy he did—children he refers to as “library kids.”

In one Instagram video, Threets tells his followers about a library kid who asked for chapter books about superheroes. Threets asked the kid if they were interested in graphic novels in addition to chapter books. The kid had never heard of graphic novels and was thrilled to find out there was even more to read about Black Panther and Thanos. They ended up borrowing two books and planned to return for more.

Threets is happy to see anyone return to the library—and hopes more people will make regular visits to their local public library. In addition to books, people at the Fairfield Civic Center Library can borrow musical instruments, baking equipment, and video games. There are audiobooks and resources in Spanish. There’s homework help, too. And in the bigger picture, the library is a place where everyone in the community can gather.

“The biggest resource is the library itself,” Threets told the Marin Independent Journal. “There is something for everybody.”

On February 23, Threets announced in an Instagram video that he would be leaving his job at the Fairfield Civic Center Library on March 1. Threets said he had made the decision in order to take care of his mental health, something he has always encouraged his followers to do. But Threets will keep a commitment to work with PBS as its resident librarian, a role he took earlier in February. Using social media, he’ll suggest books to read and continue to spread library joy.

When a teacher on New York state’s Long Island asked his science class to write messages and cast them into the Atlantic Ocean, he had no idea that one of the messages would help bring his students together more than 30 years later.

The bottle was found in early 2023 by Adam Travis, who spotted it in some marsh grass along Shinnecock Bay on Long Island. Inside, he found a piece of paper in perfect condition. It was dated 1992.

“Dear Finder,” the message read. “As part of an Earth Science project for 9th grade, this bottle was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean near Long Island. Please fill in the information below and return the bottle 2 us. Merci, Gracias, Danke, Thank You, Shawn and Ben.” 

The message was addressed from Mattituck High School on Long Island, so Travis went to the school’s alumni Facebook account and made a post about it. Pretty soon, comments were popping up.

The authors of the message were students in Richard E. Brooks’s Earth science class. The message in a bottle project was one of Brooks’s favorites. Brooks taught at Mattituck High School for 40 years. Based on the comments on the Facebook page, he was a favorite at his school. Many of his former students shared fond memories of their teacher.

“That shows that the things you do do matter, a lot, significantly,” Shawn Petretti, superintendent of the Mattituck-Cutchogue School District, told CBS News. “He had a significant impact.”

Brooks had passed away just a few months before, at age 83. The love he received on Facebook meant a lot to his son, John Brooks.

“My dad was never one to seek recognition, and it’s so fitting that he is now getting it,” John Brooks told CNN.

Over the years, people would stumble upon the bottles from Richard Brooks’s class in places as far away as Ireland and the Azores islands in Portugal, according to his son. Most bottles were found within four years. That makes the timing of this recent discovery—and its location close to home—very special.

“This development is just such a shot in the arm of positivity and heartwarming energy,” John Brooks said. He told CBS he planned to throw a message of his own into the ocean. He’ll write it about his dad.

“Maybe 32 years later, someone else will pick this up and have a smile on their face,” he said.

Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and SZA may have dominated the 2024 Grammy Awards, but not all the winners were recording artists. The 2024 Music Educator Grammy Award went to Annie Ray, a music teacher who started a program for students with disabilities.

Ray, who is orchestra director and head of the performing arts department at Annandale High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, started the Crescendo Orchestra to give all students the opportunity to learn about music. The students in the program have developmental and intellectual disabilities, and many are not verbal. But music is a language everyone shares, says Ray, who comes from a musical family and has played the harp since she was 5 years old.  

That belief helped spark the idea for the orchestra back in 2021. Ray teamed up with special education teachers to design the program. Students start by learning about rhythm, first with scarves and then with egg shakers. Eventually, they practice on a cardboard version of an orchestra instrument, learning how to care for it and store it properly. Finally, they receive the real thing. Ray also started a parent program that gives the students’ caregivers the opportunity to learn the same instruments as their children.

If you’re interested in making videos simply by typing a text prompt, Google may soon have just the tool for you. It’s called Google Lumiere.

Lumiere uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate videos based on a written description. A promotional video shows a text prompt reading, “Astronaut on the planet Mars making a detour around his base.” The resulting video shows a person in a space suit walking around the Red Planet. A prompt asking for a dog in sunglasses driving a car leads to a video showing a dog in sunglasses driving a car. These aren’t existing videos that Google found. They’re generated by AI, so the possibilities are endless.

Google isn’t the first company to develop this sort of technology. Many other companies have text-to-image creators, and a few have developed text-to-video generators like Lumiere. But many people who have watched Lumiere video clips report that, while Google’s product isn’t perfect, it creates the most realistic AI videos yet.

Stone Age teens weren’t familiar with bubble gum, but they did chew another type of gum. Remnants of that sticky stuff are revealing a lot about their diet and oral health.

The “gum” in question is pitch, a sticky substance that comes from trees. Scientists found bits of prehistoric pitch at a site in Sweden in the 1990s. The pitch contained human saliva as well as teeth marks, indicating that it had been chewed. Further study revealed that the pitch was chewed between 9,890 and 9,540 years ago by male and female teens, as well as kids as young as 5 years old.