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Foreign. Hey there, smarty pants. Trusty narrator here. Back with another episode of Smarty Q where I answer the awesome questions asked by you, the smarty pants. And today we've got some great ones, including a special holiday. Mythical creatures, video games, and soap. Lots of questions. So let's get smarting. Our first question comes from Vishal VP who asks, how did Juneteenth originate? Great question, VP Juneteenth is a holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. Here's how it happened. During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued something called the emancipation proclamation. On January 1, 1863, it declared that enslaved people in the Confederate states were free. But there was a problem. News traveled slowly back then, and the Civil War was still going on in many places. Enslaved people were not immediately told they were free. More than two years later, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced that slavery had ended and that all enslaved people were free. That date, June 19, became known as Juneteenth, combining the words June and 19th. For generations, Black communities celebrated Juneteenth with gatherings, music, food, parades, and remembrance. In 2021, Juneteenth became an official federal holiday in the United States. Today, Juneteenth is both a celebration of freedom and an opportunity to to learn about an important chapter in American history. Okay, our next question comes from Simran, also in Fremont, California. Who asks, what are mermaids and unicorns and how did people start to believe in them? Huh? Great question. As you may know or heard about in our who's Smarted Episodes, both mermaids and unicorns are mythical creatures, meaning they come from stories, legends, and imagination rather than real life. Mermaids are usually described as having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish. Long ago, sailors who spent months at sea sometimes reported seeing strange creatures in the water. Some scientists think they may have actually seen animals like manatees or dugongs and mistaken them for mermaids. Unicorns are horse like animals with a single horn on their head. Stories about unicorns go back thousands of years and appear in many, many different cultures. Some historians think these stories may have been inspired by real animals like rhinos or types of antelope. Before modern science, people didn't always have clear explanations for what they saw, so imagination and storytelling filled in the gaps. Besides, who doesn't like mermaids and unicorns? Our next question comes from Charlotte and her mom Sandra in Milwaukee, who want to know how does soap get made? Great question. Soap is made through a process called saponification That's a big fancy word to describe a process where fats or oils are mixed with a strong base, usually something called lye. When these ingredients combine, they go through a chemical reaction that creates soap and glycerin. After that, the mixture is poured into molds, left to harden, and then cut into bars. Soap works because it has a special molecular structure. One end grabs onto water and the other grabs onto oils and dirts. That's what allows it to wash things away when you rinse. Okay, three questions down and three more coming up, including one about a popular Roblox game. We'll get to that right after this quick ad break and a word from our sponsors. Hey smarty pants. Quick question. Would it be cool to slice flying fruit out of the air like a ninja? I'm hearing a lot of yeses. Well, last week I was actually doing it in my living room, just me chopping watermelons and pineapples out of mid air while my dinner was bubbling on the stove. How NEX Playground NEX Playground is a kid focused game system where your body is the controller. No joystick, no buttons. The playground sees your moves and you're in the game. I've been crushing Fruit Ninja and there's also Bluey and Ninja Turtles games and an Avatar Earth Rumble tournament where I got to bend rocks. Dance games, sports games. Over 50 games. Once you add play pass smarty parents, here's the part for you. Playground is built kid safe. No ads, no in app purchases, no mature content, no online chat with strangers. Just your smarty pants moving their body, having a blast playing games that you can actually feel good about. It's the screen time solution that's also exercise, which means everyone wins. Check out next playground@nexplayground.com that's that's nexplayground.com Trust me, your living room is about to get a lot more interesting. Hey smarty. Family picture. Seventh grade trustee at the kitchen table staring at a page of math homework that might as well have been written in Dragonese. I just didn't get it. My parents could afford a few sessions with a tutor and they went at my pace, but they could only help when they were there. Boy do I wish IXL learning had existed back then. IXL is like a friendly tutor working at your pace and adjusting to your needs. IXL has pretty much every subject your kid studies with friendly explanations when they get stuck and fun celebrations when they get it right. Homeschool parents, this is especially for you. I know summer schedules are all over the place and 10 minutes here and there with IXL lets you keep the homeschool learning momentum going in a fun way all summer long. Over 15 million students use it, and it's backed by real research Who's Smarted Listeners get an exclusive 20% off when you sign up today@ixl.com smarted so sign up today and give your smarty pants the experience I wish I'd had access to. That's ixl.com smarted for your exclusive 20% off. Hey smarty families, is this your family in the morning? Backpacks by the door. Everybody knows where they're going. Calm and organized? No, it wasn't mine either. But then I kept hearing about this Skylight digital calendar all over social media, people saying it changed their family's lives. So I tried it for a month and this thing is a game changer. Skylight is a sleek digital display that mounts on the wall or sits on the counter, and it lets us track tasks, recipes and plans in one place. That doesn't seem like that big a deal until you realize it absolutely is. It even syncs with your existing calendars like Google, Apple, Outlook, and more. And if in four months you are not 100% thrilled with your purchase, Skylight lets you return it for a full refund, no questions asked. Yes, four months. So you literally have nothing to lose. Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15 inch calendars by going to myskylight.com smarted go to myskylight.com smartED for $30 off your 15 inch calendar. That is my S K-Y-L-I G-H-T.com smarted and now back to SmartYQ. Our next question comes from Levi and Emmy on Spotify, who asks, is The Roblox game 99 Nights in the Forest based on a true story? Hmm, what do you think? The answer is? True. Ish. 99 Nights in the Forest is a Roblox horror game inspired by the 2023Amazon plane crash in Colombia, where four children survived for 40 days. While the game features horror elements like a deer monster, it is rooted in the true story of siblings who used indigenous knowledge to endure the jungle, just not the supernatural elements that are featured in the game. Okay, our next question comes from super smarty fan Zelda on Spotify, who asks, why are baby chicks yellow? Aw, what an adorable question. Baby chicks are often yellow because of the pigments in their feathers, especially something called carotenoids. These are natural pigments found in plants like corn and other grains which chickens eat. The pigments get passed along and can affect the color of the chick's fluffy down feathers. Also, many domesticated chickens have been bred over time to have that classic soft yellow look which people associate with baby chicks and peeps. But not all chicks are yellow. Some are brown, some are black, some are even striped, depending on the breed. Okay, smarty pants, we're down to our last question, and it's all about predicting the weather. See if you can predict what the question is while we take a quick ad break for a word from our sponsors. Now back to SmartYQ. Our final question comes from Rosie in Toronto, who asks, how do weather forecasters know what the weather will be? Do they just look up at the sky? Are they guessing? Nope. Despite the fact that they're sometimes wrong, weather forecasters, also called meteorologists, don't just look at the sky and guess. They use a lot of science and technology. For one thing, they collect data from satellites, weather balloons, radar systems, and ground stations all around the world. These tools measure things like temperature, air pressure, wind speed, and humidity. Then powerful computers use that data to run models, which are like giant simulations that predict how the atmosphere will change over time. Meteorologists study these models and use their knowledge to make forecasts. Of course, weather isn't perfectly predictable. The atmosphere is very complex, so forecasts aren't always 100% correct, but they're based on real data and science, not just guessing. And if you want to know more, check out our who Smarted? Episode on predicting the weather. Anyway, that brings us to the end of yet another awesome episode of SmartEQ. If you've got a question that you'd like me to answer, simply have a grown up help you, email me @whosmarted@whosmarted.com Add it to my list. Until next time. Keep on smarting, smarty pants. Who smarted.