A new bike park is opening in Louisville, Kentucky, and it really is different. The bike park, with 45 trails, is located ten stories below the ground in a limestone cavern. Louisville Mega Cavern is the first such underground facility in the country. It is the largest indoor park in the United States as well as the world's largest indoor bike park.The park has a constant temperature of 60 degrees and there is never a concern of bad weather effecting the conditions of the park. And, without wind, riders don't have to worry about resistance while attempting their trick jumps in the cavern with 90 ft. ceilings. Different trails for different levels of BMX, mountain bike ,electric bike or your own bike riders, are available at the indoor park, which has found a very unique use of an old limestone mine!

Photograph from Odditycentral.com

There's a new planet that is doing RINGS around the planet,Saturn. Nicknamed the Super Saturn, astronomers say that J1408, an orange dwarf star, first discovered in 2012, has an amazing ring system. About 116 light years away from Earth,J1407 is larger than Saturn or Jupiter. It's rings, 30 of them, are 200 times larger that those of the planet Saturn, stretching for 112 million miles! Astronomers say that gaps in the rings suggest exomoons(satellites) may have been formed from the ring material and are now orbiting the planet. If the rings of J1407 were placed around the planet, Saturn, they are so large that we could actually see the rings in the evening sky!

Illustration from news.discovery.com

Drones are finding their way into our daily activities. For the first time ESPN will utilize drones in their coverage of the Winter X Games,to be held this week, in Aspen, Colorado. ESPN has gotten permission, from the Federal Aviation Administration, to fly tiny drones over the athletes. The drones,with cameras, will hover above, aside and behind the racers during their the snowmobiling and snowboard events. In other uses, drones are being used to video some football teams' practices and CNN is hoping to soon use drone technology during live news event. Amazon would also like to have the ability to use drones to deliver packages right to your home. Thoughts:How might such drone usage be helpful in our lives? Can you think of negative aspects about drone use? Can you think of why drone use is being carefully monitored by the Federal Aviation Administration?

Scientists plan to study two identical twins in an out of this world experiment. Astronaut Scott Kelly, will leave on a space mission lasting one year at the International Space Station. His brother, Mark, who is also an astronaut, will remain on earth. Both will be involved in the same experiments to see the effects that long periods in space may have on the body. They are the only identical twin American astronauts(of the 2.25 million sets of American twins).For future long distance space missions such as Mars,which will take an estimated three years for the round trip, scientists want to study the effect of lack of gravity on human bones, the heart and other organs. Scott will travel to the ISS on March 28th, with another Russian astronaut(called cosmonaut in Russia) named Mikhail Kornienko. It will be the longest space time of any American astronaut. Thoughts: Despite the experiments, you would have some "free" time. What would you do for a year in space? What would be three things you'd pack along to bring with you? Other than family and friends, what would be some things you'd miss about being away from Earth?

Have you ever tried the Japanese art of origami paper folding? Perhaps, you made a paper boat. Well, engineers in Great Britain made a life-sized origami paper boat. The paper boat, measuring 12 ft. long, 6 ft. wide and weighing 220 pounds of heavy-duty paper, was pretty impressive. But, what's a boat if it isn't "seaworthy"? Students from a local school helped place the boat into the SouthWark Boating Lake in London and, ...it floated. To help secure the boat's ability to stay afloat, two gallons of glue and 392 ft. of sticky tape were used(something not done with true Japanese paper folding). And, although a bit soggy, the boat was operated by a person and stayed in the water for two hours. The project wanted to show kids that engineering methods can turn even paper into more than it is usually capable of being. And, the engineers wanted to show kids that engineering can be lots of fun.

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