The over 48,000 orange trees that permeate all corners of Seville, Spain, not only fill the city's air with the pleasant smell of azhar, or orange blossoms, in spring; they also yield over 16,500 tons of fruit every winter. Though that gives the capital of southern Spain’s Andalusia region the bragging rights of being Europe's top orange-producing city, the fruit is too tart to be consumed fresh. While some of the produce is used to make marmalade and orange liqueur, most of it ends up in Seville's landfills. However, that may change soon thanks to an ingenious idea to use the oranges to produce clean energy.
In 2011, conservationists moved eight Rothschild's giraffes to Longicharo Island, a rocky peninsula on Lake Baringo in Western Kenya. The scientists hoped the isolated area would save the endangered animals from poachers and allow their numbers to multiply. However, intense rainfall in August 2020 caused the lake water levels to rise substantially, cutting the area off from the mainland and reducing the once lush, 100-acre habitat to about eight acres.
The 1984 discovery of the Whydah Galley — the only fully verified and authenticated pirate shipwreck of the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1720) ever found — has yielded an enormous treasure trove of artifacts. However, any evidence of its legendary captain Samuel, or "Black Sam," Bellamy has proved elusive. That may change soon thanks to the recent discovery of six skeletons found embedded in the ancient wreck's compacted masses of matter.
On March 21, 2021, Earth will have its closest encounter with 2001 FO32 — the largest and fastest-known asteroid scheduled to fly past our planet this year. The space rock, estimated to be between 2,526 feet ( 0.47 miles) and 5,577 feet (1.05 miles) in diameter, will zip past Earth at a staggering speed of 76,980 miles per hour (123,887 km/h). To put it in perspective, that is about 100 times faster than the speed of sound!
Trash Panda, the Fulton County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency's (ESDA) feline mascot, often featured in the organization's memes to spread safety information, has openly declared his love for Fruity Pebbles. So the cereal's manufacturer, Post Consumer Brands, decided to surprise the two-year-old rescue cat with an honor usually reserved for star athletes like Michael Jordan and Simone Biles — its face featured on a cereal box.
The deadly winter storm, which swept across 22 states — from Texas to Maine — the week of February 14, 2021, delivered large amounts of snow and ice, and established numerous low-temperature records. While over 140 million Americans were impacted, Texas was particularly hard hit. The Arctic chill caused about 60 percent of the state's energy sources to go offline and water pipes to freeze and burst, leaving millions without electricity and water.
When RM Sotheby's was commissioned to sell a Ferrari 330 P2 Junior, they expected it to fetch between $6,000 and $12,000 (5,000 to 10,000 euros). As it turned out, the experts had significantly underestimated the vehicle's value. On February 13, 2021, an enthusiastic bidder paid a record $145,445 (120,000 euros) — including the auctioneer's 20 percent commission — for the pristinely-preserved replica of one of Ferrari's finest 1960s sports-racing cars.
If you have been paying any attention to the news over the past few weeks, you may have heard of the exponential rise and the equally dramatic drop in the share price of video game retailer GameStop (GME) and other "meme" stocks — those favored by millennials — like AMC Theaters. The two-week frenzy, which pitted individual amateur investors against seasoned professionals — and resulted in a Congressional inquiry— began rather innocently in an online community on Reddit.
