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Guinness Releases 2015 Records By Tobias Estrella

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Guinness Releases 2015 Records By Tobias Estrella

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The Guinness Book of Records has over 40,000 records. People will do anything to be in the book such as making the biggest hot dog stand, having the having the worlds fastest tortoise, or having the most BMX time machine Each year the book will have 4,000 more records, but that is only 20% or the total entries. 80% of records are new and some are old records that were overtaken. If you want to set a record yourself, it has to be "provable, quantifiable and breakable".

When I was in elementary school my mom bought me Ripley's Believe it or Not! books and I was so fascinated by them. I wondered why so many people would make life long commitments just to be in the book. I was surprised by how crazy some of the stunts were. And now I am excited to see some of that same stuff again the the new Guinness book.

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Bella Bailey - Big clock fixed with a few pennies

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Bella Bailey - Big clock fixed with a few pennies

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A famous bell named Big Ben stopped working correctly and everyone was shocked. So, BBC Radio found one of Parliament's three clocksmiths to fix it. The only way he could fix it was by placing pennies on the pendulum which are used to fine-tune its speed. It is only 2 seconds behind as of now, they will keep placing pennies to get it right.

My connection is that once i used two pennies to balance an old table while our new table was shipping.

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Austin Carter:The Republican Debate Take Two

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Austin Carter:The Republican Debate Take Two

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On Wednesday night, there was another republican debate. This took place at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. There were nearly an estimated 23 million viewers, along with 800 journalists at the library. There were 11 candidates participating at the debate, each one of them try to convince each other that they are the best.

Connection: This reminds me of the last debate that I saw on the news because there were many of the same candidates and they were trying to imply that they were the best.

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Jaydyn Escamilla: Guinness Releases 2015 Records

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Jaydyn Escamilla: Guinness Releases 2015 Records

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I can't believe there's a book where over 40,000 people say they're a record holder for weird, crazy, silly things.  Records like, making the longest burrito, being the fastest tortoise at 0.6mph, and having the most people in a line dance. The 1st book came out in 1955 and almost 100 million copies have been sold since. You have to be really special to make the book though because only 4,000 people make the cut.

Connection: Since were talking about records, Colorado just had one. September 2015 just became the hottest September on record at an average of 69.4 degrees beating the previous record set in September 1948 of 68.3 degrees.

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Sydney Butkovich: Who was boss before the dinosaur?

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Sydney Butkovich: Who was boss before the dinosaur?

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Scientists recently discovered in the terrassic time period the dinosaurs weren't the only one in power.in fact there was also a crocodile like carnavor also in charge. Something big happened 200 million years ago which wiped out about half the earths population. What happened made the whole species become extinct. Certain rhino species are about to become extinct now from hunters like the crocodile is now extinct because of what happened.

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Austin Carter: Republican Debate Take two

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Austin Carter: Republican Debate Take two

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Scientists have found that dinosaurs aren't the eldest reptiles. During the Turassic period certain reptiles emerged. They were once dominate, but something happened that caused them and half of the world's population of animals to go extinct. Scientists are still trying to figure out what caused this to happen but believe it had something to do with the older species.

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Madison Miller / "Who was boss before the dinosaurs?"

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Madison Miller / "Who was boss before the dinosaurs?"

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Autumn Holder: Guinness RELEASES 2015 Records

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Autumn Holder: Guinness RELEASES 2015 Records

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Guinness releases 2015 world record book on September 11. This year they recorded 40,000 but only used 4,000. It includes Jesison Hernadez with a 26 shoe size.

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Jaydyn Escamilla:Guinness release 2015 records

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Jaydyn Escamilla:Guinness release 2015 records

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I can't believe that Bertie was so fast it only took

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Bella Bailey - Guinness Releases 2015 Records

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Bella Bailey - Guinness Releases 2015 Records

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Sydney Butkovich: Who was boss before the dinosaurs?

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Sydney Butkovich: Who was boss before the dinosaurs?

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Scientists recently discovered during the tarrassic time period dinosaurs weren't the only bosses around. There were crocodile like carnavors that were also in charge.

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Guinness Releases 2015 Records By Tobias Estrella

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Guinness Releases 2015 Records By Tobias Estrella

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The Guinness Book of Records has over 40,000 records.People will do anything to be in the book, like making the biggest hotdog stand or having the having the worlds fastest tortoise. Each year the book will have 4,000 more records, but that is only 20

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Kyle Brott:Guinness releases 2015 records

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Kyle Brott:Guinness releases 2015 records

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The Guinness book of world records just released their 2016 copy of their book and people will do anything to set a record. There are 4,ooo records tracked and more added in each year, there is always something new. The book came out in 1955, since then nearly 100 million copies has been sold and updated annually. From longest burrito to the fastest turtle nearly 80 percent of the records are new each year.

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Ian Fretheim:What's up with Saturn's Rings

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Ian Fretheim:What's up with Saturn's Rings

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Saturn's rings were formed billions of years ago while it and the rest of the solar system was being formed. Though they look solid they are really made up of billions of particles of ice, rock, and grit. Some of these range in size from a speck of dust to a snowball. Saturn's rings are in a constant state of creation and thanks to satellites we've discovered a 17 billion mile long ring.

I chose this article because during the recent blood super moon I remembered the other planets in orbit around the sun.(A yellow dwarf star)

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Arielle Arneson: pictures of Pluto poring in 

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Arielle Arneson: pictures of Pluto poring in 

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NASA's New Horizon spacecraft has been sending pictures of Pluto up close. This is the first spacecraft that has been to Pluto before. The newest snapshots reveal landscape that science imagined.

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Scientists have found that dinosaurs aren't the eldest reptiles. During the turassic period certain reptiles emerged

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Samantha McDaniel: The Iran Deal Explained 

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Samantha McDaniel: The Iran Deal Explained 

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In 2002 Iran started to create nuclear weapons. A lot of people didn't like that and nether did the U.S. The U.S., Iran, and other countries have been talking about this deal for many years. We all finally agreed on a deal that will make Iran have to cut back 98% of nuclear materials they have already made, and they also can not crate any more nuclear materials. This reminds me of the Republican Debate, becuse they talked about they talked about this topic alot.

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Korbin pfannenstiel Whats up with Saturn

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Korbin pfannenstiel Whats up with Saturn

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Saturns ring are made up of particles of and then ice forms around the particles. Saturns rings can be seen without a telescope. The first time the rings were discovered was in 1610. There are 7 rings all around Saturn The rings are 175,000 miles wide.

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Amanda Atchey: The President Visits Africa

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Amanda Atchey: The President Visits Africa

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President Obama is making history by visiting Africa for a 4 day trip. He is now the first president to visit Kenya and Ethiopia. He will become the first American president to address the African Union. He has been speaking out about human rights, trade, and politics and has been meeting so many African leaders.

Connection: A connection to President Obama visiting Africa is when just recently the pope visited many important cities in the United States.

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Austin Carter: The Republican Debate Take Two

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Austin Carter: The Republican Debate Take Two

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On Wednesday night, there was another republican debate for republicans. There were nearly 23 million viewers, along with 800 journalists at the scene. There were 11 candidates at the debate, all competing

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Iran started making nuclear weapons and many countries did not like it. Iran than made a deal that they would stop getting uranium and allow people to be more visible on what they are doing. In exchange the U.S. Has to lift the harsh economic sanctions they put on Iran. The U.S. Decided to go through with this deal. The connection I made is between the U.S. And Iran because we don't know if we can trust them

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Bryce Hawken:Pluto pictures are pouring in

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Bryce Hawken:Pluto pictures are pouring in

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New horizons is taking a lot of pictures of Pluto.Some pictures have montains others craters some even have plains! The pictures ask many questions like are there dunes on pluto. This reminds me of when they found liquid water on Mars

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Sela Martinez: Big Clock Fixed With a Few Pennies

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Sela Martinez: Big Clock Fixed With a Few Pennies

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Big Ben in London has been running 24 hours 365 days for 156 years. Lately it has been slowed by 6 seconds. Parliamentary officials have been placing pennies on the pendulum to fine-tune the clock's speed. It is now only 2 second behind the right time and people will keep putting pennies or taking them away.

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Elizabeth Proietti Garbage Collector Creates Library Out of Rescued Books

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Elizabeth Proietti Garbage Collector Creates Library Out of Rescued Books

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Columbian man Jose Gutierrez is a garbage collector who noticed that many wealthier neighbor hoods in his city of bogota were always throwing away books , a treasure for poor neighboorhoods like his. So Jose decided to do something about it, and for twenty years now, he has been collecting books that he find in the trash, and storing them in his home. Jose has over twenty thousand books in his collection now and has made a little library for all of the kids in his neighbor hood who can't afford books. Jose is very proud of his collection, and so are the kids in his neighborhood.

This article remind me of a segment I saw on the news where people had a little book libraries and when you take a book, you leave a book

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Even though you can see Saturn with a naked eye you can't see its rings that go around the planet with a naked eye, only with a telescope. The rings are made up of

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Antonio Caliz:"Who Was The Boss Before Dinosaurs"

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Antonio Caliz:"Who Was The Boss Before Dinosaurs"

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During the Triassic period dinosaurs arose.At that time the population was scarce.What happened then caused half of life on earth to be extinct.

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Garbage collector Jose Gutierrez started collecting books twenty years ago when he was driving around a wealthy neighborhood. His new community library is stacked with books from top to bottom, containing lots of children's books, textbooks, and chapter books. Jose has little education and has come from a poor family. Jose believes all kids should have a library around every corner they turn and a good book all the time.

My connection for this is for all the Imagrants going to Europe. Most of those kids moving are poor, all the kids Jose are giving books too are poor. I think we should give the Imagrants some books too.

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Sophia Krasnesky-"What's up with Saturn's Rings?"

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Sophia Krasnesky-"What's up with Saturn's Rings?"

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Some people asked Smithsonian, "what's up with Saturn's rings?" Saturn can be seen without a telescope, but its rings can't be seen with the naked eye. Galileo first spotted the rings in 1610. Scientists don't know a whole lot about Saturn's rings, but they're discovering new things all the time, thanks to the probes they've sent to Saturn.

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It's crazy what people do and are born with to find there way to fame.There was a man who Unfounturunitly passed away but he will die famous for being 21 and a half inches tall,and i thought i was small.Guinness's motto for a record is that it should be "provable, quantifiable and breakable".What would you be willing to do to get into the great book? I know I would try to not hurt myself to bad.Just like the biggest hot dog stand i know it took blood sweat and tears.

Connection :I've read the book and one of the craziest things i found was a guy from cuba periced himself around 100 thimes he is just crazy!

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Bryce townley what is up with saturns rings?

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Bryce townley what is up with saturns rings?

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Although Saturn you can see on a regular basis. But you can only see its rings with a telescope. The rings are super thin and can be 30 ft tall. Even though saturns rings look like they are one but no they are thousands of particle that are stuck together. But as of now we don't know how the rings formed.

My connection is that this article reminds me of my astronomy merit badge for scouts.

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Anneli Ahlmann: Guinness Releases 2015 Records

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Anneli Ahlmann: Guinness Releases 2015 Records

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Some people are willing to do anything to get into The Guinness Book of World Records, but it' snot as easy as it might seem. If you're wondering how this famous book came to be keep reading. In May of 1951, Sir Huge Beaver got in an argument about which is the fastest game bird. When they discovered that there wasn't a book on it he decided to make one. Eventually the first book was published in 1955. After that they would get thousands of requests for someone to come and see if they can be in the book. Almost 80% of people are turned down. But even if you don't want to be in it, it's a fun book to read. Connection: Text-Text This reminds me of when in my gym class I tried to beat the record for the pacer. I didn't make it just like 80% of people that wanted to be in The Guinness Book of World Records.

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On July 14, many countries including the USA reached an agreement with Iran about its nuclear program. In 2002 the world found out that Iran had plans to build nuclear weapons. After this shocking discovery the US and its European allies began trying to talk Iran out of creating these weapons. The deal involves Iran having to reduce its uranium production and to cut their stockpile down to 98%, in addition to limiting their uranium supply Iran can no longer create plutonium reactors for at least 15 years.

This is related to the Republican Debate because many Republicans have voted against the deal.

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Ryan Geist Who was boss before dinosaurs

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Ryan Geist Who was boss before dinosaurs

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A lot of the time we think dinosaurs were the big bosses, but scientists are finding evidence of better rulers. Before the peak of the Jurassic period, mammal forerunners and crocodile relatives ruled over the dinosaurs. At the peak of the dinosaurs' time something happened. Some thing in the water made the crocs and forerunners extinct (scientists don't know what yet)

This is related to scientists finding the missing link between ape and man because both involve new discoveries on old topics.

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Blake Leffler: The President Visits Africa.

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Blake Leffler: The President Visits Africa.

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Barack Obama went to Africa for four days. He spoke before 4,500 students and government officials and said, "Kenyan's should not have to go through what my grand father had to go through. They shouldn't need to go to a different country to get good education of to serve a master. Kenya now has the potential for you to build your future right here." He was the first president to visit Kenya and Ethiopia. This story reminds me of Syria because when you look at the map, you see how close they are. Why don't the refugees in Syria try to escape to Africa?

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On July 14, seven countries, including the U.S and Iran, reached a historic agreement on Iran's nuclear program.

For a long time now, countries around the world have been concerned that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb. The U.S had been in negotiations with Iran for almost two years, with support from UK, France, China, Russia and Germany.

When the deal was announced in Vienna, Austria, there was jubilation on the streets of Tehran, Iran's capital. However, the deal sparked controversy all across the world. While many called it a 'win-win situation', others such as Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu perceived the deal as a 'historic mistake'.

In the U.S, Republicans vowed to block the deal with a vote. Last Thursday, the U.S Senate delivered a victory to President Obama, allowing the Iran deal to go through.

A Little Background

It was in 2002 that the world learned about Iran's secret plans for developing capability to build nuclear weapons. The matter came to light when a group opposed to the Government, revealed information about Iran's nuclear activity.

The country by that time had already acquired nuclear material and was making substantial progress to enrich uranium. Uranium is the fuel that is used by reactors to generate nuclear power. But it also has the capability to build weapons.

Worried about the safety and security in the region, US and its European allies began pressing Iran to stop enriching uranium. Talks failed to make progress and the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred the matter to the UN Security Council. Sanctions were imposed on Iran on several occasions, each one more severe than the previous one.

What Does The New Deal Involve?

Per the Vienna agreement, Iran has agreed to limit its uranium production and reduce its stockpile by 98%. It will also be required to shut down some of its most important nuclear plants, one of which will be converted for scientific research. In addition, Iran will stop manufacturing weapon-grade plutonium (another radioactive material), and not build any additional plutonium reactors for at least 15 years.

Iran has also agreed to provide greater visibility into its nuclear program. It will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to keep constant surveillance and carry out inspections up to a period of 25 years. In return, the US and other countries will lift the harsh economic sanctions they have currently placed on Iran.

Why Did Iran Agree To The Deal?

The sanctions that had been in place so far were quite severe, and had crippled the country. Iran's ability to export oil was restricted, which in turn had affected the country's economy. Iranian banks could not work with the West, which affected the value of Iran's money. These sanctions had led to rising food and fuel prices which were affecting the common people.

Iran is also worried about the spread of ISIS extremists who have taken over large parts of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. ISIS extremists practice the Sunni form of Islam and could be a potential threat to Shia Iran's existence (Read about Sunni and Shia Islam here). Iran has been engaged in a war with ISIS, and support from the international community is important at this time.

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On July 14, seven countries, including the U.S and Iran, reached a historic agreement on Iran's nuclear program. For a long time now, countries around the world have been concerned that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb. The U.S had been in negotiations with Iran for almost two years, with support from UK, France, China, Russia and Germany.

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When we think of Nepal, the massive earthquake that devastated the country earlier this year comes to mind (read here). But, the country has also been in the midst of a political quake.

Nepal has been transitioning from a kingdom to a republic. The country has not had an official constitution, with the different political groups failing to agree on details. The earthquake in April 2015 was a wake up call. Nepal was ill-equipped to handle the scale of the disaster as 9,000 people died. The lack of a working constitution was blamed for the poor response.

This past week, Nepal's Parliament approved the country's first official constitution. The country has been divided into seven states, each with a legislative body and a Chief Minister (head of state). Nepal has also decided that it would be secular country - in other words, it will not have any official religion. This move has angered the majority Hindus, and led to protests.

A Royal Kingdom

Nepal lies on the crossroads of India and China. It is the starting point for trekkers eager to scale Mt. Everest, the world's highest peak. For centuries, the country has attracted settlers from India, and been a resting stop on trading routes. It is also the birthplace of Gautama Buddha - a royal prince who abandoned his kingdom in pursuit of enlightenment, and founded the religion of Buddhism.

In 1768, Prithvi Narayan Shah, the ruler of a tiny mountain kingdom, unified the country by attacking and conquering neighboring kingdoms. Nepal came under one ruling family - the Shahs. The Shahs, originally from India, practiced Hinduism (the main religion in India today). Hence Nepal became a Hindu kingdom.

For more than two centuries, the Shah dynasty enjoyed complete control. The King was considered an incarnation of God, and ruled by divine right. But all that changed in 2001.

The Dawn Of Democracy

When democratic movements started sweeping across the world in the late 1980's, Nepal was caught in the storm. Opposition groups demanded that the country be handed back to its people, and the King declared a constitutional head (similar to the British monarchy).

King Birendra of Nepal agreed to the will of the people and elections were held. But the King retained the right to dissolve the Parliament and controlled the army. The initial experiments in democracy failed, and the country fell into a long drawn civil war.

The beginning of the end for the Shah kings came in the summer of 2001. King Birendra, along with nine other members of the royal family, was assassinated in the palace by his son - crown prince Dipendra, who was drunk and later killed himself. The King's younger brother, Gyanendra took over the kingdom. Many in Nepal believe that Gyanendra had a hand in the assassination, and that he suspended investigations into the killings too quickly.

Gyanendra tried to change Nepal back into a monarchy and seized absolute power. But he did not succeed and was ousted in 2006 by the rebels. Since then, Nepal has been on a long and rocky road to democracy. The new constitution is certainly a step in the right direction.

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When we think of Nepal, the massive earthquake that devastated the country earlier this year comes to mind (read here). But, the country has also been in the midst of a political quake. Nepal has been transitioning from a kingdom to a republic.

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Talk about record breaking. It seems folks are willing to do anything - weird and wacky, to somehow get their names into the Guinness Book of World Records.

From flipping pancakes, to scaling Mount Everest twice in one year, or doing mass massage or line dancing, there is no dearth of ideas on what one can do to get into the record books! On September 11, the iconic book released its 2016 edition.

With 40,000 records being tracked, and more added each year, there is always something new. For one, the latest edition has an entry for the world's largest feet belonging to Jeison Hernandez of Venezuela - a size 26! It is not just people, but animals have been making their way into the record books too. Bertie is the Usain Bolt of tortoises, capable of reaching speeds of 0.6 miles per hour.

Unfortunately the world's shortest man passed away earlier this month. Chandra Bahadur Dangi of Nepal was 75 years old and measured 21-1/2 inches.

For The Records...

Wondering how the Guinness Book of World Records came to be? In May 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, the owner of a beer brewery in England got into an argument with fellow members of his hunting party over the question - "Which is the fastest game bird in Europe, the golden plover or the grouse?" Realizing that there were no reference books that carried such information and how useful they might be to resolve debates such as his, he came up with the idea of a book of world records.

Well as they say, the rest is history. The first 197-page edition of the Guinness Book of World Records came out in May 1955, and since then, nearly 100 million copies have been sold worldwide and updated annually. From the most tattoos and piercings, to the longest burrito, fastest talker, longest hair and more, there are nearly 40,000 record categories, some of which are not active.

The book however publishes only 4000 records each year and while some are standard fare -- like the tallest and the shortest, nearly eighty percent are new.

Want To Get In?

Well it may no be so easy as you may think. Guinness says it receives requests from tens of thousands of people each year who want to set a record. Guinness's motto for a record is that it should be "provable, quantifiable and breakable".

Once a request is made, Guinness officials take a month to decide whether to accept the request, eighty percent of which are rejected. If the request is accepted, detailed instructions follow. They may send an official to witness the record in public, or it has to be verified by witnesses not known to the individual and accompanied by photographs and video recordings.

Now, even if the record is verified, it may still not make it into the book! But that does not stop people from trying. Lets look at two records.

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Talk about record breaking. It seems folks are willing to do anything - weird and wacky, to somehow get their names into the Guinness Book of World Records. From flipping pancakes, to scaling Mount Everest twice in one year, or doing mass massage or line dancing, there is no dearth of ideas on what one can do to get into the record books!

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(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute via AP)

Pluto pictures are pouring in

The spigot has opened again, and Pluto pictures are pouring in once more from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.

These newest snapshots reveal an even more diverse landscape than scientists imagined. New Horizons swept past Pluto in July. It became the first spacecraft to ever visit the distant dwarf planet.

"If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top. But that's what is actually there," said Alan Stern. He is the New Horizons' principal scientist from Southwest Research Institute. It is in Boulder, Colorado.

In one picture, dark ancient craters border much younger icy plains. Dark ridges also are visible. Some scientists speculate they might be dunes.

One outer solar-system geologist, William McKinnon of Washington University in St. Louis, said if the ridges are, in fact, dunes, that would be "completely wild." That is because of Pluto's thin atmosphere.

"Either Pluto had a thicker atmosphere in the past, or some process we haven't figured out is at work. It's a head-scratcher," McKinnon said in a written statement.

The jumble of mountains, on the other hand, may be huge blocks of ice. They could be floating in a softer, vast deposit of frozen nitrogen.

After several weeks of collecting engineering data from New Horizons, scientists started getting fresh Pluto pictures. The latest images were released Sept. 10.

Besides geologic features, the images show that the atmospheric haze surrounding Pluto has multiple layers. What's more, the haze creates a twilight effect. It enables New Horizons to study places on the night side that scientists never expected to see.

It has been more than two months since New Horizons' close encounter with Pluto. That was on July 14. Its journey began at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight has spanned 3 billion miles and 9 1/2 years. As of Sept. 11, the spacecraft was 44 million miles past Pluto.

So much data was collected during the Pluto flyby that it will take until next fall to retrieve it all on Earth. The spacecraft is operated from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. It is in Laurel, Maryland. The physics lab also designed and built it.

New Horizons' next target is awaiting formal approval by NASA. The plan is for it to reach a much smaller object that orbits 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. It, too, lies in the so-called Kuiper Belt. That is a frigid twilight zone on the outskirts of our solar system. Following a set of maneuvers, New Horizons would reach PT1 - short for Potential Target 1 - in 2019.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

Why did it take so long to get more photos from Pluto?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute via AP) Pluto pictures are pouring in The spigot has opened again, and Pluto pictures are pouring in once more from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. These newest snapshots reveal an even more diverse landscape than scientists imagined. New Horizons swept past Pluto in July.

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Big clock fixed with a few small pennies

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(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) Big clock fixed with a few small pennies Don't set your watch by Big Ben. Officials say the famous clock at Britain's Parliament has recently been slow by as much as six seconds. It has been used by Londoners for decades to check the time.

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Who was boss before the dinosaurs?

The Jurassic witnessed a world populated by dinosaurs. While giant plant-eaters munched their way through ferns and conifer forests, large carnivores chased them down for lunch.

At the height of the Age of Dinosaurs, they were found on every continent. They thrived in the warm environments of the time.

But, dinosaurs were not always so prominent. Fossil evidence shows that they arose about 230 million years ago during the Triassic period. But they remained scarce as other reptiles took center stage. Many mammal forerunners, such as the large plant-eater Placerias, prospered. Huge crocodile-like animals like Smilosuchus were the top predators of the Triassic.

Paleontologists who study the fossil record have discovered that something big happened 200 million years ago. It radically changed life on land and in the sea. And it paved the way for dinosaur diversification and prominence.

What happened was so important that it caused more than half of all life on Earth to go extinct. The large crocodile-like reptiles that had dominated the landscape were eliminated. So were many of the mammal forerunners.

Find out more about the events that opened the door for the Age of Dinosaurs. Join us on Thursday, October 8, 2015, for a "Smithsonian Science How" live webcast on How Fossils Explain the Rise of Dinosaurs. It is airing at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. EDT on the Q?rius website. Paleontologist Dr. Hans Sues from the National Museum of Natural History will appear live to discuss and answer questions. Get teaching resources to support your webcast experience.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

To study dinosaurs, why do scientists rely on fossils instead of photographs?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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Who was boss before the dinosaurs? The Jurassic witnessed a world populated by dinosaurs. While giant plant-eaters munched their way through ferns and conifer forests, large carnivores chased them down for lunch. At the height of the Age of Dinosaurs, they were found on every continent.

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Garbage Collector Creates Library from Rescued Books

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Garbage Collector Creates Library from Rescued Books

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(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Garbage collector creates library from rescued books

A second-grade education has not stopped garbage collector Jose Gutierrez from bringing the gift of reading to thousands of Colombian children.

Gutierrez started rescuing books from the trash almost 20 years ago. He was driving a garbage truck at night through the country's wealthier neighborhoods. The discarded reading material slowly piled up. And now the ground floor of his small house is a makeshift community library. It is stacked from floor to ceiling with some 20,000 books. They range from chemistry textbooks to children's classics.

He says books are luxuries for boys and girls in low-income neighborhoods such as his. New reading material at bookstores is too expensive. There are 19 public libraries in Bogota. It is a city of 8.5 million. But the libraries tend to be located far away from poorer areas.

"This should be in all neighborhoods and on each corner of every neighborhood. In all the towns, in all departments and all the rural areas," says Gutierrez. "Books are our salvation. And that is what Colombia needs."

The 53-year-old Gutierrez has a love of reading that he says comes from his mother. She always read to him even though she was too poor to keep him in school.

"She used to read me stories every night," said Gutierrez. He has traveled to book fairs in Mexico and Chile to share his experience of starting a library with discarded reading material. "To me, books are the greatest invention and the best thing that can happen to a human being."

Gutierrez still sifts through the rubbish for additions to his library. But, his fame as Colombia's "Lord of the Books" has also brought him thousands of donated tomes. He has sent many to other libraries around the country. That is because he does not have room for them all.

Gutierrez is an avid reader of works by authors such as Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo and Mario Vargas Llosa. His favorite books include "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "The General in his Labyrinth" by Colombia's Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

He says he does not reject technology that allows books to be read digitally. But he prefers to read the printed word on paper.

"There is nothing more beautiful than having a book in your pocket, in your bag or inside your car," he says.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

Why does Jose think "books are the greatest invention and the best thing that can happen to a human being?"

Write your answers in the comments section below

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Garbage collector creates library from rescued books

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(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara) Garbage collector creates library from rescued books A second-grade education has not stopped garbage collector Jose Gutierrez from bringing the gift of reading to thousands of Colombian children. Gutierrez started rescuing books from the trash almost 20 years ago. He was driving a garbage truck at night through the country's wealthier neighborhoods.

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What's up with Saturn's rings?

You asked us, "What's up with Saturn's rings?"

Although Saturn can be seen with the naked eye, its rings are invisible without a telescope. Galileo was the first to spot them. That was in 1610.

And there are 7 creatively named rings. They span up to about 175,000 miles wide, roughly 3/4 of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

The gigantic rings are super thin, though, and some are just 30 feet high.

The rings look continuous, but they aren't. They're made of billions of particles, from dust-sized frozen grains to much larger pieces of water ice and rocky particles wrapped in ice. The frozen grains whirl around Saturn in different orbits.

We don't know how the rings formed or when. It could have been as early as when Saturn came to be. Or as late as when dinos roamed the Earth.

But we do know that the rings aren't static - their formation is a continuous process.

Thanks to tech like the probes we've been sending to Saturn since the late 1970s, we're making new discoveries all the time.

We're even identifying new rings like the 7.4-million-mile-wide behemoth that was discovered in 2009.

And that's just one of the many reasons why you've gotta love science.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

How can particles appear as rings?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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What's up with Saturn's rings? You asked us, "What's up with Saturn's rings?" Although Saturn can be seen with the naked eye, its rings are invisible without a telescope. Galileo was the first to spot them. That was in 1610. And there are 7 creatively named rings.

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Teach current events in your elementary classroom, grades 1-6.

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Teach current events in your elementary classroom, grades 1-6.

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More Trouble in Greece: The Country is Facing New Financial Problems

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More Trouble in Greece: The Country is Facing New Financial Problems

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What's Happening in Europe? Here's What You Need to Know

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What's Happening in Europe? Here's What You Need to Know