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In 1980, when Bernice King was 17, she gave a speech to the United Nations. Addressing representatives from countries around the world, King called for an end to apartheid, a system of racial segregation that was the law in South Africa until 1994. Today, Bernice King continues to promote equality, justice, and peace—all values that were important to her famous father, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bernice King was a small child in 1968, when her father was killed. But both of her parents passed down their principles to Bernice and her sister and brothers. Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in using nonviolent methods, such as education and peaceful demonstrations, to address racism and poverty. His wife, Coretta Scott King, was also a passionate fighter for equality. 

In 1968, Coretta Scott King founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, also called the King Center, to continue her husband’s work. Today, Bernice King is the head of the King Center, as well as a lawyer and a public speaker. Her aim is to provide people with tools they can use to bring about social change, peacefully.

Like her father, Bernice King believes that education is one key. Love is another. In 2022, she co-authored a children’s book called It Starts With Me. The book’s message is that each person can make the choice to be loving and compassionate to others. 

Bernice King believes that love isn’t just about caring for the people you know. It’s about having compassion for all of humanity.

“Now more than ever, I believe that my father would encourage humanity to join together in love,” King wrote in The Atlantic in 2021. “Love…is a powerful, moral force on the side of justice.” 

In December 2022, scientists reported that they had achieved a breakthrough in the quest for clean, unlimited energy. They were able to get more energy out of a nuclear fusion reaction than they put in.

Nuclear fusion is a process by which the nuclei of two light atoms, such as hydrogen atoms, are heated and combined to make one heavier atom. The process results in a burst of energy. 

Scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California used a powerful laser to heat hydrogen to more than 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit), which is hotter than the center of the Sun. The reaction produced more energy than the laser had put in.

Scientists have been doing nuclear fusion experiments for decades. But they hadn’t been able to achieve an energy gain until now. Since nuclear fusion produces no harmful greenhouse gases, the success at the LLNL suggests humans will someday have a way to produce clean, sustainable energy. 

Many experts caution that we shouldn’t count on nuclear fusion to end the climate crisis. It will be decades before scientists figure out how to reliably produce this energy in a way that can power our homes and vehicles. 

Still, this is a milestone for science.

“This is a historic achievement… over the past 60 years thousands of people have contributed to this endeavor, and it took real vision to get us here,” LLNL director Dr. Kim Budil told the BBC.

Cecilia Blomdahl has more than two million followers on TikTok—not because of what she does or who she knows, but because of where she lives. The place Blomdahl calls home is Longyearbyen, Norway, the world’s northernmost town. Longyearbyen is so close to the North Pole that, for two and a half months each year, it’s totally dark—even during the day. 

Longyearbyen’s days begin to get extremely short in October. On October 1, 2022, the Sun rose in Longyearbyen at 7:32 a.m. and set at 5:38 p.m. But on October 26, the sun rose at 12:09 p.m. and set at 1:11 p.m. Then, for about a month, the town experienced only “civil twilight,” in which the Sun didn’t rise over the horizon, making the sky look like it was in a constant state of sunset.

Some of the products sold on Amazon aren’t what they seem, and the company is taking action. Amazon is filing lawsuits and taking other steps to stop people from selling phony products on its website.

Third-party retailers are responsible for more than half of what is sold on Amazon’s website. Third-party sellers don’t work for Amazon—they just sell their products on its site. For years, Amazon has heard complaints that some third-party retailers are selling counterfeit items. These items—everything from perfumes to electronics—are made to look just like the real thing, and customers think that’s what they’re getting. 

The problem got worse at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were doing a lot of online shopping.

“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen increased attempts by bad actors to commit fraud and offer counterfeit products,” Amazon vice president Dharmesh Mehta wrote in 2021.

In the past few years, Amazon has started making efforts to stop these counterfeiters. In November 2022, the company announced that law enforcement officials had seized millions of counterfeit goods from warehouses in England, the U.S., and China. The goods were being sold on the Amazon platform. Amazon has also teamed up with companies that have seen fake versions of their products on the Amazon platform, including 3M, Cartier, and GE, to file lawsuits against counterfeiters. And Amazon says that, in 2020 alone, it blocked billions of listings of fake products.

But experts caution that the problem has grown so large that Amazon may not be able to get it under control. According to Anand Nair, a researcher who studies economics, nearly two trillion dollars’ worth of counterfeit products are made each year. They’re not all fancy products, either. Fake versions of soap and baby formula have been sold on Amazon too. These goods are often made with cheaper ingredients than the genuine products, and they’re less likely to have been tested for safety.

Experts say it’s a good idea for buyers to beware—not only on Amazon, but all over the Internet.

Leanne Fan won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge for inventing headphones that can detect and treat ear infections.

Leanne Fan, a 9th grader at Westview High School in San Diego, California, is America’s Top Young Scientist. Fan earned the title, along with a $25,000 prize, for winning the 2022 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Fan invented headphones that can detect and treat ear infections. 

Fan’s headphones detect ear infections using machine learning, which means they’re programmed to “learn” as they gather data, or information. After sending a sound into the wearer’s ear canal, the headphones can detect an infection based on the echo of the sound. The headphones then treat the infection using blue light, which is known to kill bacteria. Finally, the headphones can transmit music as they treat an infection, so it’s pleasant to wear them. Fan named her invention Finsen Headphones, after Niels Finsen, a scientist who in 1895 invented phototherapy, which is the use of light to treat certain diseases.

This photo of the Heart of the Phantom Galaxy was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Christopher Slayton recreated galaxies and much more.

An 18-year-old used the video game Minecraft to recreate the entire universe—or, at least, what’s known of it.

Christopher Slayton studied black holes, Saturn’s rings, and other parts of the universe for months in order to build his virtual universe. He started with Earth, using a globe to make sure the continents were in proportion with one another. Then, he worked his way out, building our solar system, our galaxy, and on and on. As he tackled the project, Slayton shared his progress on his YouTube channel, where he already had a record of some pretty bold Minecraft builds. 

Minecraft, which was developed in 2009, is a game that’s designed to let players build their own worlds—or universes, in Slayton’s case. Using building blocks made from different virtual materials, players can create just about anything they want. Some builds are inspired by fictional worlds from books and movies, while others, like Slayton’s, aim to be as realistic as possible. B. Reeja Jayan, a mechanical engineer, says Minecraft has few rules—and that’s a good thing.

“One of the advantages of using a game like Minecraft is it’s so flexible,” Jayan told the New York Times. “It’s so easy for a small child to learn to play the game, but at the same time it’s been adapted for teaching advanced scientific concepts.”

Slayton has been playing Minecraft for nine years, and he has no plans to stop. Next, he wants to explore other dimensions!

A museum in Massachusetts has returned some of the objects in its collection to their rightful owners—members of the Lakota Sioux. The objects were taken from the Lakota Sioux more than 100 years ago. 

On November 5, officials at the Founders Museum held a repatriation (return) ceremony with members of the Lakota Sioux who had traveled to Massachusetts to receive the artifacts. Some of the artifacts are connected to the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, in which the U.S. military killed between 250 and 300 members of the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota. 

Some of the objects that were returned to the Lakota Sioux are thought to have been stolen at the site of the massacre. Shortly after, a man named Frank Root, who ran a traveling show, made money showing the objects to the public. Root later donated the objects to the Founders Museum, which has had them ever since. 

Many of the people who attended the ceremony said their ancestors had passed the memories of Wounded Knee down to them. Knowing that museums were displaying objects stolen from their ancestors only added to their pain. That’s why return of the objects was extremely important.

Wendell Yellow Bull, a member of the Oglala Lakota, grew up hearing stories about his ancestor, Joseph Horn Cloud, who was at Wounded Knee. Yellow Bull told the Boston Globe that the return was “the beginning of healing.”

More U.S. schools are banning students from using cell phones at school. And while some people agree that phones and classrooms don’t mix, others say kids should be allowed access to their phones. 

School officials who have limited or banned cell phone use say phones distract students. Many schools have reported that students use their phones not only in hallways and lunchrooms but also in classrooms. And their concerns have only grown in recent years. School officials who are banning phones point out that students lost a lot of time in the classroom because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, more than ever, officials say, it’s important to focus and aim to get back on track. And many parents agree with them.

Among the parents who support a ban on cell phones in classrooms is Julia Wilburn, of Nashville, Tennessee. Wilburn is the mom of a seventh grader whose school doesn’t let him carry his phone during school hours. “I definitely feel like that’s taking the right approach,” Wilburn said.

But other parents say they want their kids to be able to reach them if necessary. And that means carrying a cell phone all day. 

“We used to get in touch with our kids when we wanted to,” Louise Boll told the Associated Press. Boll is president of the parent-teacher association at Forest Meadow Junior High in Dallas, Texas. Forest Meadow requires students to put their phones away during the day.

At the Brush School District in Colorado, parents spoke out against a ban on taking cell phones to school. After a community meeting, a compromise was reached. Now, students can take their phones to school, but the phones must be turned off and not in sight. 

“There’s not an intention to say cell phones are evil,” Bill Wilson, the district superintendent, told the Associated Press. “It’s a reset to say, ‘How do we manage this in a way that makes sense for everybody?’”

Bella Rasmussen has loved football since she was 3 years old. And for nearly as long, the senior at Laguna Beach High School in Laguna Beach, California, has dreamed of scoring a touchdown. On October 14, Rasmussen made her dream come true—twice. 

That night, Rasmussen became the first female high school football player in the state of California to score two touchdowns in a varsity game. Her touchdowns contributed to a 48–0 victory against the Godinez Grizzlies of Santa Ana, California.

“I’m looking at coach, I’m like, Nah, man, I got it. I can do it,” Rasmussen said in an interview with Today. “I’m saying this to myself over and over and over again. [Then] I’m in the end zone [where a player runs to score a touchdown]. And I remember I just stood up and I was like, “Did anybody see? This actually happened?”

That was the first touchdown. To be able to score a second one—in the same game—was unexpected, she said.

“I was in disbelief. [I thought] there’s no way that just happened,” Rasmussen told the Los Angeles Times. 

Rasmussen has been playing football at her high school for four years as a running back and defensive end. At 5 feet, 9 inches (175.3 centimeters) tall and 135 pounds (61.2 kilograms), she’s smaller than most of her teammates, who are all boys. Her opponents are bigger than she is, too. But she said her teammates had been encouraging her before the game, telling her they were sure she’d score a touchdown.

They knew she could reach the end zone, and so did she.

“To be able to do it was something I had been dreaming about since I was 6 years old,” Rasmussen told the Los Angeles Times. “I ran to my mom [and said], ‘I did it.’”

Every night at 7 p.m., a siren goes off in a village in India. The siren signals the start of the village’s nightly “digital detox,” a 90-minute period when residents are strongly encouraged to turn off their phones and TVs. 

Officials in the village of Mohityanche Vadgaon say they decided on the digital detox initiative because of concerns that people were too attached to their screens. Like almost everywhere, people in the village spend a lot of time watching TV and looking at their phones. During the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, the problem got worse among kids and teens. No longer able to attend school, students started attending classes online and spending more time on their phones. Adults got worried. 

“Surfing on the Internet—that is, multi-tasking—deprives students of their ability to concentrate for longer periods when they need to study,” Dr. J.R. Ram, a clinical psychiatrist, told Voice of America. “They get used to scrolling on social media, watching videos, and exchanging text messages during classes. Such a situation can have negative consequences on one’s cognition or thinking ability.”

Sure enough, teachers noticed that all that screen time was affecting students’ ability to concentrate. They took their concerns to Vijay Mohite, the sarpanch, or head of the village government. Mohite came up with the idea for the nightly digital detox period. 

It’s not only kids who are encouraged to stay off their phones for 90 minutes a night. Adults are supposed to follow the rules as well. Residents are encouraged to read, study, or just talk to each other, instead of scrolling. The period lasts until 8:30 p.m., when another siren signals that phones and TVs can be used again.

The idea has gone over so well that five other villages in India are taking similar steps.