In the 12th and 13th Centuries, monks were tracking the looks of the moon, including lunar eclipses. Modern-day researchers took another look to see if some of those eclipses were actually volcanic eruptions.
Today in 1972, astronauts John Young and Charles Duke stepped on the Moon during the Apollo 16 mission. Along the way, one of the moonwalkers revealed to the world, without meaning to, that orange juice had made him gassy.
Apollo 14 may be best known today for the moment when astronaut Alan Shepard hit golf balls on the surface of the moon, but the mission also gave us the “moon trees.”
Today in 1923, the birthday of Alan Shepard. He was the first American in space, and the first person to ever play golf on the Moon.
Today is International Chess Day, so here are a few of the stories about how which pieces were on the board changed over the centuries.
50 years ago today, a man named Donald Gorske ate a McDonald’s Big Mac. It was the first of over 30,000, and yes, he holds the world record for most Big Macs eaten by a single person.
Today in 1837, the birthday of Mary Patten. She became a celebrity when she came along on a shipping trip led by her husband and ended up in charge of the ship. Plus: photographer Andrew McCarthy has put together a timelapse of the moon’s phases that shows its lunar libration, or sway, in all its glory.
Dance clubs can get hot when things are in full swing. So why not turn that extra heat into green energy? A nightclub in Glasgow is teaming up with a geothermal power company to use the energy dancers put out to heat and cool the place. Plus: when Apollo 12 reached the moon, astronaut Pete Conrad said some stirring words... that helped him win a bet.
If you listen to our show, your ears are doing the work, unless you’re a certain type of roundworm that researchers have just shown can react to sound even though they don't have any ear-like organs. Plus: a crater on the moon has a new name in honor of the great Black explorer Matthew Henson.
Apollo 8 brought the first human astronauts to lunar orbit in late 1968, but a few months beforehand, the Soviet Zond 5 mission sent two tortoises (and a few other living things) for a trip around the moon. Here's what happened. Plus: today in 1890, Mexican singing and songwriting great Maria Grever was born. Whether or not you know her songs, you know a phrase that comes from one.
