The 2020 Summer Olympic torch relay across Japan began on March 25, 2021 (Credit: Olympic.org)
The 2020 Summer Olympics torch relay is finally underway. The Olympic flame, which was kindled in Olympia, Greece, on March 12, 2020, and transported to Japan on March 20, 2020, spent a year at the Olympic Museum in Tokyo after the Games were postponed due to the coronavirus. It began its 121-day journey from Fukushima to Tokyo s National Stadium the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies on March 26, 2021. Inspired by the Olympic values of peace and solidarity, the Olympic Torch Relay will carry Tokyo 2020’s message, hope lights our way, across Japan and the world, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said. It will also acknowledge the challenges faced by society since last year, highlighting the importance of unity and solidarity within humankind, showing that we can only become stronger - together.
Mount Etna has been erupting spectacularly since February 16, 2021 (Credit: FishnewsYouTube screen capture)
Mount Etna, Europe s most active volcano, has been erupting regularly since 2011. However, the latest series of explosions, which began on February 16, 2021, has been particularly noteworthy. Emanating from the youngest of the volcano s four craters the Southeast Crater they have spewed spectacular fountains of lava as high as 0.9 miles (1.5 kilometers). To put it in perspective, that is about three times the height of One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the United States.
“The most recent novelty is that the last six eruptive paroxysms were among the most violent in the Southeast Crater s young history,” says Marco Neri, a volcanologist with Italy s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).
An illustration of the ancient lineage of steppe mammoths, which led to the wooly mammoths that roamed the Arctic (Credit: Beth Zaiken/Center For Palaeogenetics)
A team of Swedish scientists has successfully extracted and reconstructed the world s oldest DNA from the tooth of a Siberian mammoth, which roamed Earth over a million years ago. Also known as deoxyribonucleic acid, the all-important molecule which contains the genetic instructions for the development and function of living things. provides new insights into the evolution of the ancient Ice Age giants. Prior to this, the oldest DNA sequenced came from the bone of a horse that trotted around Canada about 700,000 years ago.
Seville s streets are lined with gorgeous orange trees (Credit: Simon & Vick/CC-BY-NC 2.0/Flickr)
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.
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.