Episode 9

Suez Canal

Over 12% of all global trade is sent on cargo vessels through the Suez Canal.

Concrete Animals

There are over 1,000 children's playgrounds that are managed by the New York City Parks Department, and of those, several hundred of them have concrete animal statues in the playground. This is because ex-Commissioner Henry Jordan Stern (1983 - 2002) had an obsession with animals in architecture and pushed through a ruling that every playground in New York should have these concrete animals.

Cherry Blossom

Every year, the Cherry Blossom of Kyoto blooms on the same date (March 27) until recently when it began to bloom on March 26. This is the earliest date that it has bloomed in over 1,200 years of recorded history.

Lake Ossa

Lake Ossa is one of Cameroon's largest lakes and home to an abundance of wildlife such as crocodiles, manatees, turtles and a large variety of fish.
But in the last 5 years, a fast-growing weed is spreading and choking the lake, and now covers 40% of the lake.
Scientists' solution to this problem is to import a weevil species from Brazil that feasts on this weed and hopefully clear the lake.

Information

If you want to remember information such as phone numbers on signs, opening times, business card details, etc.
Take a photograph of the details, then you will have a digital record to refer to if you happen to lose or forget the information you wanted to remember.

Blockchain

People seem to dislike the word Blockchain. Recently NBA Top Shot (who sell NFT video clips of favourite basketball moments) decided to remove the word Blockchain from their homepage to see if that had any effect and watched as signups shot up by 400%.

Billionaires

A poll of approximately 1,100 people discovered which billionaires were the most liked (or disliked) by the public.
Bill Gates (Microsoft) topped the poll with 55% of people surveyed giving him positive scores.
Elon Musk (Tesla, Space X) was second with 50%, while Jeff Bezos (Amazon) only had 36% willing to give a positive score.
But worst of all was Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) who only seemed to impress 31% of those surveyed.

Cardboard Animals

Artist Josh Gluckstein creates realistic animals using only recycled cardboard, to celebrate his love of wildlife and nature.

Metaverse Land

Digital real estate in the Metaverse is big money these days. Crypto Voxels has land available to purchase and sell in their Metaverse and prices jumped from an average of $821 for a single parcel of land in 2020, to $3,895 in 2021.
Even on other Metaverses, the average price of a plot of land is over $2,000.

Mars Rover

The small helicopter drone that was sent to Mars and designed to fly in the Martian sky to get a better view of the planet, cost $85 million to create, making it the most expensive helicopter drone, as well as the only one to visit another planet.

Music Rights

A lot of musicians, especially older artists who are nearing the end of their careers are selling the rights to their entire music catalogue to producers willing to buy them, and business is booming because it is catching on with some of the biggest stars in the world.
5 years ago, the asking price for the rights to an artist's entire music collection used to be approximately 9 times whatever the royalties generated over the course of a year. But in the last couple of years, the asking price has crept up to 20 times the royalties.

Underwater Cameras

The United Kingdom is installing underwater cameras on carbon poles, all around the islands of Anguilla, Saint Helena and The Cayman Islands. The $3 million project is to monitor and log data on fish patterns where it would normally be too difficult to track due to the remote, underwater location.

NASA Prepares For Aliens

In a first for the space agency, NASA has hired a team of theologians to help prepare humans for the possibility of alien contact. The team, which includes experts from a variety of religious backgrounds, will be tasked with studying how different cultures and religions might react to the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
The decision to hire theologians comes as NASA ramps up its efforts to search for life beyond Earth. In recent years, the agency has launched a number of missions to explore Mars and other planets, and it is currently developing a new telescope that could be capable of detecting signs of life on exoplanets.
While the possibility of alien contact may seem far-fetched, NASA believes it is important to be prepared for all eventualities. The agency has said that it wants to ensure that humanity is able to respond to the discovery of extraterrestrial life in a responsible and thoughtful way.