A Harvard study finds that the thousands of dams humans have built over the last couple centuries have locked up so much water it's actually affected Earth's poles! We'll try to explain. Plus: starting today in Michigan City, Indiana, it’s the Singing Sands Sand Sculpting Festival.

Water storage in dams has caused minute shifts in Earth’s poles (Harvard's Advancing Earth and Space Sciences)

The Singing Sands Sand Sculpting Festival

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Today in 1972, a break-in at the Watergate hotel that kicked off a huge political scandal... and also, somehow, gave a gelatin dessert the name "Watergate salad." Plus: in 2022, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington hosted an exhibit called “Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue.”

Jell-O Journalism: Investigating the Origins of Watergate Salad (Mental Floss)

Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue (National Portrait Gallery)

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There's a new musical work that is, maybe, kind of, sort of from a composer who’s been gone three years. Plus: rice farmers in Gyoda, Japan turn their paddies into large-scale works of art.

Musical Composer’s Brain Matter Is Still Making Music Three Years After His Death (My Modern Met)

Tanjiro Emerges in the Fields as Gyoda Unveils 2025 Rice Paddy Art (Spoon + Tamago)

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