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At beaches along the coast of New York state, unpiloted flying vehicles called drones sweep over the shoreline. Officials are using cameras on the drones to capture footage of what’s under the water. Specifically, they’re looking for sharks.

Sharks have always come close to shorelines, but in the summer of 2023, there’s been a higher-than-average number of human-shark encounters. Climate change has warmed the North Atlantic Ocean, making it more hospitable to sharks. And, in New York, state laws now protect bunker fish, a staple of the shark diet, making them more plentiful.

Did you know that the temperature of a building is affected by the color of its roof? Lighter colors reflect much of the Sun’s heat, while darker colors absorb it. With that in mind, a scientist at Purdue University in Indiana has invented a new white paint that’s designed to keep a building cooler, just by coating its roof.

White roofs aren’t a new idea. In fact, they’re widely used in many cities that experience hot temperatures because they’re known to decrease the need for air-conditioning. But most white paint reflects about 80 to 90 percent of the Sun’s rays. The rest of those rays are absorbed into the building.

A few years ago, Xiulin Ruan, a professor at Purdue University, set out to make a more reflective white paint. “We wanted to help with climate change, and now it’s more of a crisis, and getting worse,” Ruan told the New York Times. “We wanted to see if it was possible to help save energy while cooling down the Earth.”

It’s a welcome development at a time when record-breaking heat waves in North America, Europe, and Asia have made headlines.

The paint that Ruan and a team of scientists developed reflects more than 98 percent of the Sun’s rays. At midday, a surface that’s been covered with the paint remains up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) cooler than the air that surrounds it. At night, it’s up to 19°F (10°C) cooler. According to Ruan, the paint can decrease the need for air-conditioning by up to 40 percent.

The Purdue scientists achieved this level of reflectiveness by making the paint from a very reflective compound called barium sulfate. One downside is that barium sulfate must be mined, which is bad for the environment. But Ruan pointed out that most paint is made with titanium dioxide, which also has to be mined.

On the plus side, the new paint could help address some of the effects of climate change, provided it’s used widely enough, by reflecting those warming solar rays back into space. Ruan and his team have since developed a thinner form of the paint that can be used on airplanes, cars, and other vehicles to reduce the need for air-conditioning, even if they’re sitting on a hot tarmac or in a sizzling parking lot.

So, when can people go out and buy the ultra-reflective white paint? Ruan says he hopes it will be available as soon as 2024.

Workers excavating the ancient city of Pompeii, in Italy, recently unearthed a fresco (a wall painting) showing a tray of food that includes a round, flat bread covered in toppings. The discovery has anthropologists, historians, and foodies alike wondering: Is that a pizza?

Today, pizza is among the world’s most popular foods. It’s not surprising to see it on a restaurant menu or at a party. But the fresco was painted about 2,000 years ago—long before modern-day pizza was thought to be invented. 

People who have studied the “pizza” say its true identity lies in the details. It appears to be a focaccia, which is a type of flat bread that originated in Italy, probably thousands of years ago. It’s topped with spices as well as a pomegranate and possibly a date. But something is missing. 

The pizza in the painting doesn’t have tomatoes or mozzarella cheese. Historians say people in Pompeii wouldn’t have known either of those ingredients. Mozzarella wouldn’t have been invented yet. As for tomatoes, they originated in the Americas and weren’t brought to Europe until about 400 years ago. Europeans avoided eating tomatoes for a long time after that, possibly because they believed tomatoes were poisonous!

Without tomatoes and mozzarella, does the food in the fresco qualify as pizza? Not according to a statement from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

“Whilst it looks like a pizza, this image from a Pompeian painting from 2,000 years ago obviously can’t be, since some of the most characteristic ingredients are missing, namely tomatoes and mozzarella,” the statement said.

But Gino Sorbillo, who owns one of the oldest pizza restaurants in Naples, which is near Pompeii, says it’s definitely a pizza. He says that, even today, people use all sorts of toppings on pizza and still call their creations pizza. 

“It was an ancient form of pizza,” Sorbillo told the Guardian. “[Today] you can use fruit, for example figs, or strawberries, if it’s a sweet pizza.”

When the world’s best women’s soccer players face off this summer at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Haiti will be there. The Haitian women’s soccer team defeated Chile in the qualifying rounds in February, securing its spot in the world’s biggest women’s soccer event.  

Nineteen-year-old Melchie “Corventina” Dumornay scored twice in the 2–1 victory against Chile, proving to the world that Haiti, which ranks 53rd out of 188 countries in women’s soccer, is a force to be reckoned with. The players say their biggest strength is teamwork.

“We trust in ourselves,” team captain Nérilia Mondésir told Reuters. “We do everything together. Even when we lose, we fight for every blade of grass.” 

Athletes in Haiti face challenges that go beyond the soccer field. While many other teams have sponsors—companies or government agencies that help pay for their training and travel—the Haitian team does not. Poverty is widespread in Haiti, and it has been made worse by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Because of an increase in crime, the nation’s professional soccer players play home games in neighboring country the Dominican Republic. 

But it would take a lot to dim Haiti’s enthusiasm for soccer. When the Haitian women’s team qualified for the World Cup, fans were elated. The fact that the women’s team had never qualified for the World Cup made it even more special. (The men’s team last qualified in 1974.) Though the event will take place in Australia and New Zealand, Haitian fans will be following all the action.

“Maybe they’ll reach the quarterfinals,” 13-year-old fan Noah Yann Hilarie told the Associated Press. “That would be huge, amazing. I hope that happens.”

In Haiti’s first game, on July 22, the team will face off against England, which is ranked fourth in the world. It’ll be a tough match-up, but the players will give it their all, knowing they’ve already made history.

“We’re battlers. That’s probably our best quality,” said Mondésir. “We battle to the end, even when our opponents are stronger than us on paper.”

About one-third of the food produced around the world—more than one billion tons—is lost or wasted every year. When the food ends up in landfills, it produces methane, a harmful gas that contributes to climate change. But South Korea is no longer part of the problem. Instead of throwing uneaten food in the regular garbage, South Korean residents recycle it.

Food recycling has been required by law in South Korea since 2013. No one is allowed to dump food waste into landfills. Instead, residents can compost their own food or place it in a certain type of bag and put it in a bin for curbside pickup. Every day except Saturday, trucks retrieve the bags and take them to processing plants. The food scraps are removed from the bags and turned into fertilizer, animal feed, and an environmentally friendly energy source called biogas.

Two vending machines in Japan are designed to automatically unlock and allow people to access food and drinks for free in the event of a powerful earthquake.

The machines were installed recently in Ako, a city that experts say is vulnerable to a strong earthquake in the near future. Each contains about 300 soft drinks and 150 food items and nutritional supplements. The machines also have lockers containing emergency supplies such as portable toilets.

Most of the time, the machines sell their products like any other vending machines. They will unlock if an evacuation order is issued in response to an earthquake or another disaster.

The machines were installed by a company called Earth Corp. through an agreement with the Ako city government. They are the first of their kind—but possibly not the last. Located in a region called the Ring of Fire, Japan is prone to earthquakes and has taken many precautions to shore up public safety.

“We’d like to spread [the machines] throughout the country,” a representative of Earth Corp. told Japanese news outlet The Mainichi.

A city official told The Mainichi, “We expect that the stockpile will lead to the safety and security of our citizens.”

A new type of airplane seat could make it a lot easier for wheelchair users to travel by allowing them to remain in their wheelchairs for an entire flight.

The airline seat was developed by Delta Flight Products (DFP), a company that’s owned by Delta Airlines. It can function as a traditional airplane seat. The seat can also fold up so that a wheelchair can be backed into the spot. In this configuration (or form), the headrest, center console, and tray table can still be used.

Rick Salanitri, president of DFP, says it will make travel easier for people who use wheelchairs.

“This patented design offers new possibilities for customers with disabilities to enjoy a travel experience they truly deserve,” Salanitri said. 

Many disability advocates have cheered the invention. Cory Lee is an avid traveler who has been to 43 countries so far. But he says air travel can be difficult because of the need to move from his wheelchair to an airline seat. Lee told CNN that he’s “unbelievably excited” about the new seat. 

Currently the seat is only a prototype—a test model. It will need to be tested and certified according to U.S. and European safety standards. If all goes well, the seat could become available for airlines to install on planes by late 2024.

Maayan Ziv, founder of AccessNow, a mobile app that helps people with disabilities find helpful resources, is excited that Delta Airlines is involved with this innovation. Ziv, who uses a wheelchair, points out that it could win Delta some new customers.

“The disability community spends over $58 billion on travel annually,” she told CBS News. “I know what airline I’ll be flying with when these prototypes hit production.”

The Scripps National Spelling Bee has been the most famous competition of its kind in the United States since its debut in 1925. But America’s first national spelling champion, a Black teenager named Marie C. Bolden, was crowned long before the Scripps event existed.

Bolden was a 13-year-old 8th grader in 1908, when her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, hosted the competition and invited teens from cities around the U.S. to participate. At a time when many schools, especially in the South, were racially segregated, all the students in the spelling bee were white except for Bolden. Not everyone was pleased that a Black student was included. In fact, some competitors threatened to drop out of the event in protest. 

This made Bolden more determined to do well.

“I just kind of gritted my teeth and made up my mind that I wouldn’t miss a word,” she told a reporter after the spelling bee. In fact, Bolden spelled 500 words correctly—100 on a written test and 400 on stage.

Bolden never talked about her victory in what’s now recognized as the first national spelling bee ever held in the U.S. In fact, her family didn’t learn about the spelling bee until after her death in 1981, when they unearthed a newspaper article about it. Today, Bolden’s grandson Mark Brown says he and his two daughters are extremely proud of what Bolden accomplished despite the racism she faced.

“I think there’s a great sense of pride in the fact that our family history is based on sacrifice and people being adventurous, and taking on a new life, and not letting things hold them back,” Brown told National Public Radio.

An invasive species called the spotted lanternfly is back in parts of the United States, putting certain crops and plants at risk. Experts say the public needs to help keep the insects under control. 

Experts believe that spotted lanternflies were first brought into the U.S. on a shipping crate from China, their native country. First seen in Pennsylvania in 2014, they have since spread to 13 other states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. Humans are accidentally helping spotted lanternflies by giving them rides to new locations.

“I hate to say it, but it is human-assisted,” invasive species expert Brian Eshenaur told CBS News. “So they are traveling on our vehicles and in trains, apparently, and on the outside.”

The spotted lanternfly is harmless to humans, but it feeds on more than 70 types of plants, including grape vines and many fruit trees. This can damage crop production.

Before Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, there was Tina Turner. Turner’s raw, husky voice and energetic dancing made her a worldwide superstar and inspired countless other performers. Turner died on May 24, 2023, at age 83. 

Turner’s talent was clear from the time she was a teenager. In the 1950s, she got up on stage during a performance by musician Ike Turner, who she had never met, and began to sing. Her bold moves and powerful stage presence earned her a spot in the band. Ike and Tina eventually got married, and the couple formed a group called the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. In 1971, with Tina as the lead singer, the group scored a Grammy Award for a song called “Proud Mary.” 

But Tina’s fame wouldn’t reach its true peak until much later. In 1976, Tina struck out on her own after years of abuse from Ike. At first, she struggled to launch a solo career—but her gifts were undeniable. Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the rock band the Rolling Stones, called her “an enormously talented performer and singer.” Another well-known singer, David Bowie, told friends that Turner was his favorite singer. In 1984, Turner released her first solo album, Private Dancer. The album won four Grammy Awards, and its most popular song, “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” made Turner a superstar. She would go on to release more hits, including “I Don’t Wanna Fight No More,” “The Best,” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero.” Her first greatest hits album was titled Simply the Best.

Over the years, Turner became a pop icon. Her life inspired a movie called What’s Love Got to Do with It after her biggest hit, and her music inspired a Broadway musical called Tina. 

After Turner’s death, Lizzo paid tribute by performing “Proud Mary” at her concert. “As a Black girl in a rock band, I would not exist if it was not for the Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll,” Lizzo told the audience, according to CNN.

Actor Angela Bassett, who played Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It, posted a tribute on Instagram. “While we mourn the loss of this iconic voice and presence, she gave us more than we could have ever asked,” Bassett wrote. “She gave us her whole self. And Tina Turner is a gift that will always be ‘simply the best.’”

You can read more about Tina Turner at Britannica School.