Page Type: Middle

On October 4, 1918, near the end of World War I, an unlikely hero saved the lives of a battalion of U.S. soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. A homing pigeon, named Cher Ami, managed to fly 25 miles while badly wounded and partially blinded by bullets to deliver an important message from the battalion so that they could be rescued. His determination to fly home against all odds earned Cher Ami a medal for bravery from the French government. 

Cher Ami was able to deliver his life-saving message—even while injured and blinded—due to a remarkable ability to always find his way home from any location and in any weather. This navigational sixth sense is common among homing pigeons. It’s the reason these pigeons were often used to deliver messages before telephones or radios existed. Many people have wondered how these birds can navigate with what appears to be little more than a gut instinct. 

“The magnetic sense has been this mystery for almost 100 years,” Martin Wikelski, an animal behavior researcher, told the Associated Press. Now Wikelski and his colleagues have the answer—the magnetic sense is in the pigeon’s liver.

Two teen weather watchers have created ways to keep their communities safe when disaster strikes. American Elise Raurell has created a hurricane preparedness program for fellow teenagers, and Canadian Aaron Rutley has outfitted a mobile tornado siren for his rural hometown. Both teens saw a safety gap in their communities and used their passion for weather and safety to fix it.

Living in South Florida, 16-year-old Raurell is no stranger to hurricanes, but it was the effects of Hurricane Irma that motivated her to make a difference. 

“I was scared about the destruction on my street, and the trees that had fallen down. I want to make sure that every student is prepared for that, and they know what to expect,” Raurell told CBS News.

So Raurell created Storm Smart, a program that teaches students how to gather emergency kits, prepare their homes for a storm, and stay safe when a hurricane strikes. But Storm Smart goes a step further than any other safety module—it’s for teens and taught by teens. Raurell said encouraging student leadership and teaching skills are an important part of the program, which has already reached nearly 500 students in the area. 

Some people grow apple or cherry orchards, but one couple has created a tree grove with a twist. They are growing chairs. 

In Derbyshire, England, Alice and Gavin Munro shape pieces of furniture out of living trees for their company Full Grown. The Munros grow and mold willow, oak, and ash trees for years before they can harvest the chairs. The result is beautiful and functional art unlike any other.

The work begins when the trees are very small. Each young tree is carefully shaped around a custom frame of recycled plastic. As the tree grows, it starts to take shape around the frame. Other branches may be grafted on, a technique that allows two different trees to grow together so that the branches can grow as one solid piece of furniture. The effort is painstakingly slow; each chair takes six to nine years to grow.

Gavin, a furniture designer, got the idea for growing furniture when, as a child, he noticed an interesting tree happening to grow into the shape of a chair. Gavin says he also learned patience from several childhood spinal operations. After surgery, he had to wear a stiff frame to hold his spine in place while his bones healed.

A new roller coaster set to hurtle onto the amusement park scene is breaking records as the world’s first giga dive coaster! The ride will open at Six Flags Over Texas, an amusement park in Arlington, Texas.

The thrillingly named Tormenta Rampaging Run will be “the tallest, fastest, longest, first-and-only giga dive coaster in the world,” says the amusement park website. 

A giga coaster is a type of roller coaster that reaches above 300 feet (91 meters) in height. Designed for speed, these extreme roller coasters are rare, with fewer than 10 in operation worldwide. Rarer still are the strata coasters, which reach more than 400 feet (122 meters) high.

Scientists have discovered an enormous whale graveyard where the remains of hundreds of whales have settled on the floor of the Indian Ocean. Among the remains are ancient whale species that swam in the ocean millions of years ago. This underwater graveyard not only holds secrets of the ocean’s ancient past but also could be home to living organisms that scientists have never seen before. For ocean enthusiasts, it’s a treasure trove unlike any other. 

When a whale dies in the ocean, the body will sink to the ocean floor. This is called a whale fall. Some previous whale falls have been found at depths of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers). This new whale fall discovery is the deepest yet, at more than 4.5 miles (7 kilometers) deep. At this depth, there is very little oxygen and a lot of ocean pressure, creating excellent conditions for preserving bones and carcasses.

Have you ever heard the phrase “it’s hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk?” In Oatman, Arizona, this isn’t just a figure of speech; it’s an annual challenge! The Oatman Sidewalk Egg Fry takes place each year on July 4, drawing people from near and far to try cooking an egg using just the heat from the Sun. This local tradition is part science experiment, part cooking competition, and a whole lot of fun!

Each year at the end of May, about 5,000 people gather to watch an event that’s about as dangerous as it is silly: the Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling race. This fascinating spectacle has people running, rolling, and bumping down a steep hill in pursuit of a runaway wheel of cheese. The first person to cross the line at the bottom of the hill wins the race, glory, and the cheese. 

The Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling race has been a local event in Gloucestershire, England, for at least 200 years but now has a devoted global following. The racers hurl themselves down a 50 percent grade slope for about 650 feet (200 meters), trying to catch a 7-pound (3-kilogram) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. Strategies to win the race include sideways rolling or running until an eventual fall. Falls and injuries are nearly a guarantee for this event.

The Tony Awards are theater’s biggest night of the year. It’s the awards show that honors the best stage performers, directors, playwrights, costume designers, and anyone else who works to make live performances magical. This year, one of those magic-makers was middle school theater teacher Freddie Hendricks.

Hendricks has dedicated his life to helping middle school students learn leadership and creativity through performance. He teaches acting, movement, and storytelling at the Utopian Academy for the Arts in Ellenwood, Georgia. Some of his pupils have gone on to perform on the world’s biggest stages. 

“I’ve always had a passion for theater. I’m an actor myself, and when I got into teaching years and years and years and years ago, it became my passion,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Paris Fashion Week is a time when established and rising fashion designers showcase their annual collections. Along with style giants like Dior and Chanel, something—or someone—new and exciting hit the runway this year. That someone was 10-year-old Max Alexander, the youngest-ever designer to show a collection at Paris Fashion Week. 

For his debut, Max showed 15 of his designs. His dresses are mainly made with recycled materials, including a military parachute, a vintage sari, and jewelry duster bags. Aiming to make fashion more sustainable and keep textiles out of landfills, Max looks for deadstock (leftover textiles that clothing makers don’t use) and recycled or biodegradable fabrics for his designs.

“I want to show the world how beautiful recycled and natural materials can be in fashion,” he said in an interview with Elle India.

Max has been called a dressmaking prodigy. He began sewing and designing clothes at 4 years old and holds the Guinness World Record for the youngest person to design a runway show, at age 7 years and 266 days. Now he can add showing his designs in the capital of fashion to his growing accomplishments.

Though Max has accomplished a lot at a young age, in many ways he’s living the regular life of a fourth grader. He still spends most of his days going to school, doing after-school sports, and playing with family and friends. For now, he sews and designs in the evenings or on weekends. 

“I come home and do my homework, have a bath, eat dinner, and then I can work in my studio for a little bit before bed,” he explained. “On Saturdays I either see my sewing teacher or I sew at home.”

Max hopes his collection will attract others who appreciate sustainable fashion. “I am happy I got to show the world my designs,” he said in an interview with People magazine after the show. “And maybe encourage people to think about reuse and not buying so much fast fashion.”

Click through the slideshow to check out Max’s designs!

When a devastating hurricane hit the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in 2017, thousands of homes were destroyed and even more had no electricity to cook food. Immediately after the storm, Chef José Andrés arrived with other volunteers to cook and deliver food to anyone who needed it. Andrés’s nonprofit organization, called World Central Kitchen, provided almost four million meals to people affected by the hurricane. 

Andrés, an award-winning chef and an immigrant to the United States, is now dedicating his life to feeding people when disaster strikes. June is National Immigrant Heritage Month in the United States. It’s a time to celebrate the heritage of immigrants in America and honor their contributions. Immigrant stories like Andrés’s show how much one person can affect a country, and the world.

“My story is like the story of one more immigrant,” said Andrés in a 2020 interview with the Tufts University podcast Tell Me More. “To a degree, I believe we are all immigrants in more ways than we think.”

Andrés learned to cook as a young man in Spain before moving to the United States in 1991 with only $50 in his pocket. After working in several restaurants, he helped open some of his own in the city of Washington, D.C. These largely Spanish- and Latin-inspired eateries made him famous as a chef and earned him several top awards.