A new study says that dolphins also have similar personalities to humans. Personality means the way a person behaves, talks and thinks. For example, being shy or being talkative.

Scientists studied the behaviour of 134 male and female bottlenose dolphins from eight places across the world. They found that dolphins can be similar to us, even though they developed in completely different environments.

Human personality has five main traits, which can be seen everywhere in humans. Dolphins seem to share some of these, which includes their sociability and curiosity.

The study helps us understand how certain human personality traits (types) developed too.

What is your personality like?

Watch a video of some super smart dolphins:

Vampire squids are a type of squid found in the deep ocean, where there is little oxygen.

But, don’t worry. Despite their name, they do not drink blood. Their name comes from their dark colour and the skin that connects the arms, which looks like a cape. A cape is a piece of clothing that hangs from your shoulders. For example, Superman also wears a red cape.

Recently, scientists re-discovered a fossil that they thought had been lost in 1956. When it was first discovered, it was believed to be the fossil of an ancient cuttlefish.

But now, they have found that it is the fossil of an ancient vampire squid. It lived during the Oligocene period, 23 million to 34 million years ago.

This fossil helps scientists understand how and when the vampire squid got its ability to live in areas with little oxygen. This deepwater lifestyle could also have helped it survive incidents that killed other creatures, like dinosaurs.

Watch a video of this squid below:

Recently, NASA released the video of the rover’s landing on Mars and it’s all very exciting! NASA also shared the first audio (sound) clip from the rover on Mars.

Landing on Mars is not easy. It is called the “seven minutes of terror” as explained here .

The video shows a whirl of dust and dirt being kicked up as the rover is lowered to the ground by its rocket backpack.

Perseverance has many cameras attached to it. Seven of them were used to record the landing. Overall, the cameras collected over 23,000 images of the landing!

These kinds of videos help scientists to understand how they can improve the technology for future missions.

It is a large house that is (or was) the home of a king or queen. A famous palace is Buckingham Palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. It is the home of Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom.

The word ‘palace’ originated (started) in ancient Rome in Italy. The word comes from the Old French word paleis. This itself came from the Latin word palātium or Palatium.

The Palatium (or Palatine) was one of the seven hills of Rome, which were very famous. The house of the Roman Emperor used to be on this hill.

Here is a video of some of the most beautiful palaces in the world:

While Perseverance is exploring Mars, you can also explore Mars from your living room.

Mission to Mars is an AR (Augmented Reality ) app. AR is a technology that adds animated content onto a live camera feed. This makes the animation look as if it is part of the real world around you. For example, the game Pokémon Go is also an AR game.

In Mission to Mars, you can spin the globe of Mars in front of you. You can also read about different parts of Mars, like its frozen polar caps.

It has a “Portal to Mars” in which a “gate” opens up. This makes it seems as if you are walking into Mars and exploring in reality. You can also “drive” NASA’s Mars rovers with this app.

You can use this app for free, on both Android and Apple phones and tablets.

Watch a video of this amazing new app:

Every year, World Pangolin Day is celebrated on the third Saturday of February. This year, that day falls on 20 February.

Pangolins are found in parts of Africa and Asia. They eat ants, helping to control insect populations.

Today, pangolins are highly endangered. This means they are very few in number. They are often taken from the jungle and sold secretly, which is wrong.

We celebrate this day to let people know about the importance of the pangolin. This is also a day to encourage everyone to help fight to save the animal.

Watch a video of pangolins:

They are areas with very few lights. They usual surround a park or observatory (place to observe stars). This makes the area dark enough for the stars to be seen clearly at night.

There are 18 Dark Sky Reserves in the world today. They include South Downs National Park and Exmoor National Park in England. Every year, Dark Skies Festivals are held in these parks.

During these festivals, people learn about the stars and enjoy watching them at night. They also have activities like cycling, walking, running, all to enjoy the nature and scenery.

However, this year, due to COVID-19, Dark Skies Festivals are being held online too. Here, people can see video and photos of the beautiful night sky.

Would you also like to attend Dark Skies Festivals?

Watch a video taken of the night sky in Aoraki Dark Sky Reserve in New Zealand:

Some famous volcanoes are Mauna Loa and Kilauea in Hawaii, and Mount Fuji in Japan.

But have you ever heard of an “ice volcano”?

One such volcano has popped up in southeastern Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a country in Central Asia.

It is not actually a real volcano but it looks like one. This “volcano” formed because below the ground is a hot spring. Here, hot water sprays out of the ground. But the area is so cold that when the water comes out, it gets frozen. So, that formed an “ice volcano”.

This ice volcano is 45 feet tall. That’s about as tall as a telephone pole!

See the video of this “ice volcano” below:

Cloning is the process of creating individuals with identical (same) DNA, either naturally or artificially.

Ferrets are animals that belong to the weasel family. They are related to badgers, otters and minks. The black-footed ferret is found only in North America but it is very few in number.

The cloned ferret has been named Elizabeth Ann. She was cloned from the DNA of an animal named Willa. Elizabeth Ann will not live in the wild but with scientists who will study her.

Scientists say the clone will help increase the population of the ferret. As many animals are dying out today, scientists are trying to clone them to save them.

Last year, an endangered Mongolian wild horse was also cloned using the same process.

In July 2017, astronomers captured the amazing photo above from the Gemini Observatory. This photo was released recently as the “image of the week”.

It shows a stormy Hawaiian sky with streaks of red and blue lightning which seem to meet above a bed of white light.

These colourful lightning events are known as red sprites and blue jets. They’re extremely hard to capture on camera. The lightning flashes last less than a second and are hard to see from the ground.

These rare colourful lightning events usually start in different places in the sky and move toward space. Red sprites can also be Jelly- Fish Shaped

Watch a video on red sprites and blue jets below:

While its main focus is the Sun, Earth’s neighbour Venus also plays an important role in the mission. The Parker Solar Probe uses Venus’ gravity to fly closer and closer to the Sun.

In July 2020, the probe captured striking images of Venus’ nightside from about 12380 km away. The images were taken by the probe’s camera called Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR.

NASA recently released the photos. They show a bright rim of light or night glow around the planet. It also shows Venus’ biggest highland region, a spot called Aphrodite Terra. In the image above, it’s the dark section in the middle.

The Parker Solar Probe is the fastest human-made object and closest object to the Sun we’ve ever constructed.

Here is a video about the discoveries made by the probe:

Morn Mosley is a young man living in the city of Denver in Colorado, US. Right now, it is very cold in Denver and snowing a lot.

So, Morn and his five siblings decided to create something amazing with all the snow. They made a snake measuring around 23 metres long. That is a little longer than a cricket pitch!

They spent ten hours making this amazingly long snake. They also used spray paint to make its body green, blue and orange and the eyes black and blue. It is in the front garden of their mother’s house.

This isn’t the first time that the Mosley family have made such a huge snow creature. In 2019, they also created a huge snow tiger.

What would you like to make out of snow? Tell us.

Watch a video on how a snowflake is formed:

Pokémon is about fictional creatures called “Pokémon”. Humans, known as Pokémon Trainers, catch and train the Pokémons to fight against each other. Some famous Pokémons are Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Charizard and Squirtle.

Pokémon started in 1996 with the video games Pocket Monsters Red and Green (also known as Pokémon Red and Blue). Since then, it has become the second-best-selling video game series (behind Nintendo’s Mario). It also led to an extremely successful cartoon series, the world’s top-selling toy brand, the top-selling trading card game, films, comics and even a theme park!

This year, on 27 February, Pokémon celebrated its 25th anniversary (birthday). In fact, celebrations will be on throughout the year, known as Pokémon25.

There was an online concert on 27 February. It had singer Post Malone performing as an animated version of himself.

Japan’s Nintendo (the maker of Pokémon) also released two games for the anniversary – Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

There will be many more celebrations to come later. Are you looking forward to them?

Watch the concert below:

Friends is an American TV series. It ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. The show is about six friends and their life while living in New York City, US.

Friends is considered to be one of the most popular television shows of all time. It became very popular all over the world and made its six stars very famous. Even today, it remains quite popular.

In India, a lot of young people also love it, You can find t-shirts and mugs of Friends everywhere.

As its popularity has not died down, many people have wanted the Friends stars to come together to film a new episode.

In answer, HBO will air a special episode of Friends called “Friends: The Reunion“, or “The One Where They Get Back Together“.

This special episode will air on 27 May 2021 on HBO and HBO Go in Southeast Asia. However, there are no details about its release in India yet.

A trailer for it was released recently. Watch it below:

Speedy is a cartoon character in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons.

Just like his name says, Speedy can run extremely fast. He speaks English with a very strong “Mexican” accent, and also speaks Spanish.

He usually wears a yellow sombrero (a type of hat in Mexico), a white shirt and trousers. He also wears a red kerchief around his neck.

Sometimes, Speedy lives with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He also runs a pizza shop called “Pizzarriba”.

He has a cousin called Slowpoke Rodriguez, the “slowest Mouse in all Mexico”.

The Lego Colosseum is made up of 9,036 pieces and is the largest Lego set in the world.

In February 2021, a man named Paul Ufema from the US took 13 hours, 37 minutes and 36 seconds to build the Lego Colosseum.

With this, he created a world record for the fastest time to build the Lego Colosseum. This was confirmed by the Guinness World Records.

Paul enjoys building legos. He even has his own YouTube channel called All New Bricks where he builds Legos.

The video below shows Earth’s weather over the whole of 2020, as seen from space. This video is called A Year of Weather 2020. The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat) releases such videos every year.

In the video, you can see the weather pattern change over the year. The storms are also coloured in a range from light yellow to red depending on how strong it was.

The video was created using images from satellites operated by the Eumetsat, the China Meteorological Administration, the Japan Meteorological Agency and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This happened recently to a group of tourists who were going on a tour through Antarctica’s Ross Sea. As they were admiring the landscape, a baby chinstrap penguin jumped into the boat. It stayed on the boat for about 10 minutes and then left.

The tour guide said he was very shocked as this had never happened on a tour before. He felt that the penguin could have been lonely as there were no other penguins around in the area.

The penguin could also have been trying to escape from danger, like this other penguin

Chinstrap penguins are the most common penguins in Antarctica. They have a small black line under their jaws, making them look as if they are wearing a helmet with a strap.

Watch the video of this “lonely penguin”:

Stars are born within the clouds of dust, scattered throughout most galaxies called nebulae (or nebulas). But it is not possible to observe stars being born – the process takes millions and millions of years.

So, in order to study how a star is born, scientists developed a powerful new computer simulation programme called Starforge. A simulation is a computer imitation of something that happens in reality.

This computer model tries to copy how a gas cloud (nebula) works to create stars. While such models have been created before, this one is the first to take into account all the factors that can possibly influence the process.

Running one simulation can take up to 3 months at a time. One of the world’s largest supercomputers (kept in the US) is being used to run it.

Using the programme, they created a 3D animated video that shows how a star is born. Watch it below:

The Yurchenko double pike is a very difficult gymnastic move historically done only by male gymnasts before.

Yurchenko is the name of both a specific vault (gymnastic tool) and a vault family in artistic gymnastics. It was named after Soviet gymnast Natalia Yurchenko in 1982.

24-year-old Biles is a four-time Olympic gold medalist. She has broken other records and is considered to be one of the best gymnasts of all time. She has two moves named after her too.

It features a roundoff onto the springboard and a back handspring onto the horse or vaulting table. Biles performed the move and then added two extra hops. The landing was not perfect but that can be improved.

Watch a video of Biles perform the move:

It is the farthest place from land on Earth. There are no humans living close to Point Nemo. The name “Nemo” itself means “no one” in the Latin language.

Of course, you can’t actually see Point Nemo. That’s because it isn’t land but an invisible spot in the vast ocean.

Point Nemo was formally discovered in 1992 by engineer Hrvoje Lukatela. Instead of launching an expedition (trip) to find it, Lukatela calculated the point’s location using a computer. He said that the point may shift a bit, but only in terms of metres.

The area is familiar to space agencies. It is because it is in the “South Pacific Ocean uninhabited Area”.

The Russian, European, and Japanese space agencies use it as a dumping ground for old satellites. Over 100 wreck spacecraft units currently occupy this “spacecraft cemetery”.

Watch a video of Point Nemo:

What was it? It was a rainbow-coloured ring around the Sun. People from all parts of the city could see this beautiful ‘ring’. It was seen for about one hour, starting from 11 am in the morning.

People were very excited and took many photos. They shared them on Twitter.

This kind of event is called a Sun halo or ’22 degree halo’. It happens when ice crystals meet with light in our air. It can also happen around the Moon.

What you see is an optical illusion. This means the ring doesn’t exist but light plays tricks on you to make it look like it is there. Even rainbows are optical illusions.

Watch this amazing video of a Moon halo:

In the test, a plutonium nuclear bomb named “Gadget” was exploded atop a tall tower. The test was a success. The explosion instantly destroyed the tower. It produced great heat and an enormous blast, which knocked nearby people down.

The explosion also turned the surrounding sand into green glass. The glass was later found to be made of a new mineral (which was named trinitite).

A new study says that the nuclear blast also created extremely unique crystals called “quasicrystals“. They have been found in the bomb-blasted rocks at the Trinity site.

Quasicrystals are extremely rare. Till now, they were believed to only be created under extreme heat and pressure in explosions in space. The only quasicrystals we have found before are from ancient meteorites.

Finding them at the Trinity site proves that such extreme conditions can be created on Earth too.

The quasicrystal found at the side is a five-sided one. It has an atomic structure that has never been seen on Earth before. It is now the oldest human-made quasicrystal on Earth.

Scientists believe that such crystals could also be found at other nuclear sites.

Watch a video of the Trinity test site below:

Recently, scientists from the organisation found that a female bottlenose dolphin has adopted a baby pilot whale! The dolphin treats the whale as if it was her own baby!

The scientists believe that the dolphin adopted the young whale over a month ago.

The whale is a type of whale called a long-finned pilot whale. While it is named a “whale”, it is actually a type of dolphin. But it is much bigger than a bottlenose dolphin.

This means that the baby whale will grow four times bigger than its adopted mom!

This is not the first time bottlenose dolphins have adopted babies of other animals. But size difference is not very common.

Watch a video about bottlenose dolphins below:

Two bees were caught on video un-🤬 (opening) a Fanta bottle!

This video was originally posted on Twitter. It seems it was taken in São Paulo, Brazil by a worker on their lunch break. And the video has gone viral!

Of course, we don’t know if the bottle cap was already a little open or not. But even if that was the case, it’s still an amazing thing.

Many people are amazed that creatures with such small brains can do such amazing things. However, as we read recently, brain size is the only thing that decides intelligence.

Bees are actually known to be quite smart. They can do some math, recognise faces and even use tools.

So, keep your Fanta bottle safe and watch the video below:

This was a total lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse happens when Earth comes in between the Sun and the Moon. During this time, Earth casts a shadow on the Moon.

This type of lunar eclipse is also called the Blood Moon. This is because the Moon turns reddish-orange colour during the eclipse.

It was also a ‘Super’ Blood Moon because it was a supermoon. A supermoon happens when a full Moon comes closest to Earth.

People all over the world took many photos and shared on Twitter and Instagram. Did you also see the Moon last night?

The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world. It shows the portrait of a lady with a curious smile. It is also known as La Gioconda.

It was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century. This painting was bought by King Francis I of France and thereafter owned by the government of France.

The painting initially hanged in the Chateau Fontainebleau near Paris. But it was later moved around. Finally, it was displayed in the Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre) in Paris where it is still hanging today. The Louvre says that about 80% of its visitors are people who come to see the Mona Lisa.

It is a fact that the painting was stolen on 21 August 1911. This led to a huge search for it. At one point, even Pablo Picasso was suspected and questioned. But they found him innocent.

Then, after two long years, they caught the thief. It was an Italian museum worker named Vincenzo Peruggia. He was caught in Italy trying to get rid of the painting. He was sent to jail and the painting was sent back to France.

The Mona Lisa was well known before this incident. But the theft and news around it skyrocketed its popularity and today, we all know about it.

Watch a video of the painting here:

Water gets its spherical shape due to the tendency of water molecules which stick together. Earth’s gravity pulls the liquid downward and surface tension shapes water into spheres.

According to scientists, the water drop and the air bubble inside it form spheres in space. Without gravity to tug it down, the forces on the objects are all the same. Hence, the water drop forms themselves into a shape having a negligible surface area. And that is a sphere and it floats.

There is a scientific reason for this. You know that Earth is a curve in shape. And spaceships and all other things inside it have a tendency to fall towards it. But the spaceship itself is also curving in shape. It is moving in a quick sideways movement in orbit. This movement is such that our planet is continually curved away. As a result, the water floats in space.

On the International space station (ISS) as well, it can feel weightless, even though there is plenty of gravity. So, water on the space station behaves exactly as in a zero-gravity environment.

It occurs once a year in the northern hemisphere. On this day, the Sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, which makes the day bright longer than usual. The Tropic of Cancer is an imaginary line around the Earth, north of the equator.

The summer solstice is also known as Midsummer or June solstice (in the northern hemisphere). It signals the beginning of the summer season in the northern hemisphere. It also indicates the start of winter in the southern hemisphere.

Today, in India, the sunrise to sunset time is almost 14 hours. For example, in the capital New Delhi, sunrise started at 5:23 am and sunset will be at 7:21 pm.

The summer solstice has a special meaning in many cultures. Many ancient peoples especially worshipped the Sun on this day.

The opposite of the summer solstice is the winter solstice. This is the shortest day of the year and it occurs on 21 December in the northern hemisphere.

The diamond weighs 1,098 carats. And it’s about the size of a child’s fist. Carats measure how heavy a diamond weighs. So, experts say that the new diamond is the third-largest high-quality diamond ever found.

The Botswana government partly owns the Debswana company. So, the government said that the sale of this diamond will help national development.

Till now, the largest diamond ever found was the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond. People found it in South Africa in 1905. However, now, they have cut it into smaller pieces.

The second-largest is believed to be the Lesedi La Rona. This was a 1,109-carat stone, also found in Botswana in 2015. A jewellery company bought it for US$53 million in 2017.

It is because they are believed to be rare, especially the high-quality ones. They are also beautiful and people like wearing them in rings, necklaces and earrings. So, people pay a lot of money for them.

Lego has created a new toy that looks like an Adidas shoe but is made of lego bricks. This is a new collection created together by the Adidas clothing company and Toy company Lego.

This new “shoe” looks exactly like one of Adidas’ popular Superstar sneakers. It is white with a black three-stripe mark on the side. The shoes also come with shoelaces and their very own box.

If you build the toy properly, it is 12 centimetres high and 27 cm long. That’s about as big as an adult’s shoe.

On the other hand, if you want real shoes too, then, Adidas is also creating a special sneaker which will have lego colours and designs.

Today, sneakers are very popular and fashionable, especially among young people. Rare sneakers sell for a lot of money and people also have a hobby of collecting them.

A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star after it goes supernova (explodes). It is the densest object in the universe. This means, even if it is small, it is extremely heavy. For instance, a teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh a billion tons! It also spins very fast.

Supernovas are also how black holes are formed. It just depends on the size of the star.

Scientistssts detected the events, named GW200105 and GW200115, in January 2020. However, these incidents happened very long ago.

The incidents generated a lot of light but the process took less than a minute. But they produced intense gravitational waves that took about one billion years to reach Earth.

More than 100 scientists worked on this study. One of them was Dr Shasvath Kapadia from the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) in Bengaluru.

Scientists think there should be many of these events in the universe but they haven’t found one in our galaxy yet.

What is electrolysis?

Electrolysis is the process by which electricity is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

What is an electrolyser?

An electrolyser is a device that makes hydrogen.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide said that they have made clean hydrogen fuel from saltwater.  They did so without first subjecting the saltwater to any pretreatment.

Key facts!

Youtube user “OMV” explains the process of electrolysis to produce hydrogen from water.

Key facts!

Would you like to visit this historic city?

“World Wild Hearts” shares incredible things to do in Istanbul.

The National Book Trust has been given the responsibility of cultivating a culture of reading. This will be accomplished through the publication of content in a variety of regional languages.

According to experts, the budget aspires to ensure that the National Education Policy, 2020 is implemented at the grassroots level.

At the same time, the introduction of some policies would assist in the development of the nation through private school education.

Key highlights – Education!

Re-envision training

Cultivate a culture of reading

State-of-the-art apps and flagship programmes