Mark an Anniversary With Corn, Moon Pies
-- Of all the ways to celebrate Monday's 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, this is one of the most unusual. In a town called York in the northern part of England, a corn maze has been carved in the likeness of an astronaut. The York Maze is one of the largest corn mazes in the world -- it's made of 1.5 million corn plants and is more than 1,000 feet long!
NASA also came up with its own unusual way to mark the moon-landing date: by making a giant "moon pie." These treats are usually just a few inches across, made of gooey marshmallow between two graham cracker crusts and covered in chocolate. NASA's special version was 40 inches wide and weighed 55 pounds!
Still One Small Step
-- There's no word when NASA astronauts may get to send another mission to the moon; the huge expense of such an effort is a big hurdle.
But did you know that the footprints the astronauts left in the lunar sand 40 years ago are still there today? Because there is no wind on the moon, there is nothing to wipe them away.
Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Conjugate
-- Researchers at Harvard University have discovered that some animals can not only understand simple language but can also identify differences in grammar. The study looked at whether the cotton-top tamarin, a small monkey, could learn the difference between a regular word and one that had "ed" on the end to make it past tense, such as "kick" and "kicked."
It turned out the monkeys could tell the difference, which suggests that animals have a greater ability to learn language than previously thought.
