Today’s Kid Scoop features a look at Cinco de Mayo and all of the traditions surrounding the holiday that celebrates Mexican culture.

To fit into your local Cinco de Mayo celebration try on a sombrero, the traditional Mexican hat.

Here in America, Cinco De Mayo celebrations usually include people in traditional Mexican dress and Mariachi music. Those people usually wear a sombreros, wide-brimmed hats meant to keep the wearer cool.

Though the sombrero isn’t worn much in modern culture, in the 1800s it was widely used is essentially the Mexican version of the cowboy hat.

Unlike cowboy hats, sombreros can be purchased with a wide variety of designs on them, and those designs can be extremely intricate and beautiful.

For a quick guide on the holiday, watch this video: http://youtu.be/4nde7NGWNKU

Want to know how to fill up your pinata? Here are some tips: http://youtu.be/xHAcUXb3UYU Well, not so much tips, but some girls acting goofy.

Learn about Mexico’s geography and how it has shaped the country’s history. http://youtu.be/lbmo9aO27L0

What is Kid Scoop? It’s a special page that appears every Monday in The York Dispatch and other local newspapers. Aside from its main feature and the Writing Corner, it includes games, puzzles and jokes.

Get your copy of Kid Scoop in today’s edition of The York Dispatch, and be sure to assemble your own Write On! entry and submit it to NIE@ync.com. We’ll run every entry here!

Of course, you can submit those entries, and anything else you want, for publication here on the Junior Dispatch. Send your JD items to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com. Learn about what you can submit here.

The Junior Dispatch, in conjunction with the York Libraries’ summer reading program and the York Emporium, is proud to announce a creative writing contest, as detailed in the flier above.

This contest is asking for original stories by kids up to age 18. The topic is an important one: We want you to write a story about aliens from outer space.

The details are all in the flyer above, but we want you to pay close attention to these points:

• There are three age categories. (7 and under. 8 to 12. 13 to 18)
• The word limit is 1,500 words. That just means that the longest your story can be is 1,500 words.  Entries in the “7 and under” category certainly don’t need to be that long.  A 50 word story, for example, is fine.
• Aside from the top prizes, every entrant gets a free book from the York Emporium
• We accept typed and printed out entries only. We will retype them here at JD HQ and then post them on the website as we get them.
• The deadline for your story is Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012. You’ve got plenty of time, but don’t wait until the last minute either!
• Make sure your name, age and phone number is on EVERY page of the entry.
• Only one entry per person.

If you would like to print out black and white copies of the flier,  click here. For a color version, click here. Parents, teachers and caregivers: Please print as many as you want and post them!

Now get writing! Tell us a story about some aliens!

If you have any questions about the rules, email John Simcoe at jsimcoe@yorkdispatch.com

There’s a price to fame.

Ninth-grader Lance Chantiles-Wertz of Spring Garden Township plays a young Larry, left, in the new "Three Stooges" movie starring alongside Skylar Gisondo, center, and Robert Capron, right. (20th Century Fox)

For ninth-grader Lance Chantiles-Wertz, fame cost him his head.

Or at least the blond curls on top of it.

The Spring Garden Township native landed a role as the younger version of Larry in “Three Stooges,” which opened April 13,

Although Lance is no stranger to the entertainment business — he’s been on everything from Broadway to Nickelodeon — it was his first feature film role.
And to play the childhood version of the iconic knucklehead, Lance had to get the horseshoe-shaped bald spot on his head.

Lance had no problem with it.

“If you asked my mother, she probably would have a different answer,” Lance said.
He’s right.

“I pretty much did freak out,” Sharon Chantiles said with a laugh about her son’s hair situation.

Temporary comedic baldness seemed like a small price, though, when it comes to getting time on the big screen.

“It was great. It was a lot of fun,” Lance said of filming the comedy in Atlanta.
He got to spend face-to-face and screen time with celebrities such as Jennifer Hudson, Larry David and Sean Hayes of “Will and Grace” fame.

Hayes played the adult Larry, although he got away with wearing a bald wig, Sharon said. Lance’s screen time is when Larry, Curly and Moe are shown as children.

Lance even shared a ride to the set with Emmy winner Jane Lynch.

“They were really great people,” Lance said of his co-stars.

Childhood full of acting: The role follows up voice-over and on-camera work on “Pan Am,” “A Gifted Man,” “Dora the Explorer” and “Go Diego Go,” among other shows. Lance has also performed with the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where he makes his second home.

The original Larry was played by Louis Feinberg. He was born in Philadelphia in 1902 and died in 1975. He started his showbiz career as a violinist.

It’s been a lifetime of work in acting, although Lance said he’s interested in math and science long-term.

For now, he said he’s just soaking it all in, like how he got to do a red carpet premiere for “Stooges” in Hollywood and then got to go to Frank Theatres back in York with his friends and family.

“I’d gone to the movies when I was a kid, and now seeing myself up there, it’s a different experience,” he said.

Lance was able to get in “Stooges” partly because of some good timing. He was in the green room for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” as a guest of his movie star friend Abigail Breslin of “Little Miss Sunshine” fame. The pair had been performing together in Broadway’s “The Miracle Worker.”

Breslin’s agent stopped by the green room. She had seen Lance perform in “The Miracle Worker,” Sharon said, and thought he’d be perfect for playing the young Stooge.

“It’s serendipity,” Sharon said.

Reported by Andrew Shaw of the York Dispatch from YORK, Pa.

Here’s one of Junior Dispatch’s favorite classic “Three Stooges” clip: http://youtu.be/pP3VAtGLQms

A group of high-tech tycoons wants to dig holes in nearby asteroids, hoping to turn science fiction into money.

The mega-million dollar plan is to use robotic spaceships to squeeze rocket fuel and valuable minerals like platinum and gold out of the lifeless rocks that routinely whiz by Earth. One of the company founders predicts they could have their version of a space-based gas station up and running by 2020.

You can color a spaceship and asteroid in this exclusive Junior Dispatch coloring page. Download it here: http://ydtalk.com/jdispatch/2010/07/20/astronauts-at-work/

The first step, coming in the next 18 to 24 months, would be launching the first in a series of orbiting telescopes that would search for asteroid targets rich in gold, platinum and water.

Several scientists not involved in the project said they were simultaneously thrilled and skeptical, calling the plan daring, difficult—and highly expensive. They struggle to see how it could be cost-effective, even with platinum and gold worth nearly $1,600 an ounce. An upcoming NASA mission to return just 2 ounces of an asteroid to Earth will cost about $1 billion.

Robots only: The mining, fuel processing and later refueling would all be done without humans, Anderson said.

“It is the stuff of science fiction, but like in so many other areas of science fiction, it’s possible to begin the process of making them reality,” said former astronaut Thomas Jones, an adviser to the company.

The target-hunting telescopes would be tubes only a couple of feet long, weighing only a few dozen pounds and small enough to be held in your hand. They should cost less than $10 million, company officials said.

The idea that asteroids could be mined for resources has been around for years. Asteroids are the leftovers of a failed attempt to form a planet billions of years ago. Most of the remnants became the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but some pieces were pushed out to roam the solar system.

Here's a close-up look at a real asteroid, as photographed by NASA. The rock is named Eros was first spotted in 1898.

Floating rocks: Asteroids are made mostly of rock and metal and range from a couple of dozen feet wide to nearly 10 miles long. The new venture targets the free-flying asteroids, seeking to extract from them the rare Earth platinum metals that are used in batteries, electronics and medical devices, Diamandis said.

Water can be broken down in space to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel. Water is very expensive to get off the ground so the plan is to take it from an asteroid to a spot in space where it can be converted into fuel. From there, it can easily and cheaply be shipped to Earth orbit for refueling commercial satellites or spaceships from NASA and other countries.

In the past couple of years, NASA and other space agencies have shifted their attention from the moon and other planets toward asteroids. Because asteroids don’t have any substantial gravity, targeting them costs less fuel and money than going to the moon, Anderson said in a phone interview.

There are probably 1,500 asteroids that pass near Earth that would be good initial targets. They are at least 160 feet (50 meters) wide, and Anderson figures 10 percent of them have water and other valuable minerals.

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Online:

Planetary Resources Inc.: http://www.planetaryresources.com/

NASA’s 2016 asteroid sampling mission: http://osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu/

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Today Kid Scoop turns its focus to chickens. Well, not exactly chickens — it talks about how a micro loan helped create a chicken business in Africa.

Did you know there's more chickens on Earth than there are people?

That tidbit was just enough for Junior Dispatch to ask, “Hey, where did chickens come from?” No, this isn’t a chicken-or-the-egg question, but rather we wondered where the first chickens lived. What were they like in the wild?

According to the always helpful Wikipedia, the domestic chicken is a subspecies of he Red Junglefowl, and originally came from India. There are also more chickens on the earth (24 billion) than there are people (7 billion).

When left to their natural habits, female chickens will lay about 12 eggs and wait for them to hatch. During this time, they fiercely defend their nest, eggs and hatchlings.

The term “pecking order” comes from the study of chickens, where it was observed that the strongest chicken of the bunch kept the rest of his or her flock “in line” by poking them with his beak.

And now for the videos!

Chickens do techno! http://youtu.be/p_2_EJogf2A

Raising chickens in the city. http://youtu.be/gLVXWyMRLes

A look at how chickens behave and what they do. http://youtu.be/bOizKdscvck

What is Kid Scoop? It’s a special page that appears every Monday in The York Dispatch and other local newspapers. Aside from its main feature and the Writing Corner, it includes games, puzzles and jokes.

Get your copy of Kid Scoop in today’s edition of The York Dispatch, and be sure to assemble your own Write On! entry and submit it to NIE@ync.com. We’ll run every entry here!

Of course, you can submit those entries, and anything else you want, for publication here on the Junior Dispatch. Send your JD items to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com. Learn about what you can submit here.

Like small children, the cows had to check out everything.

As they were herded to the new milking parlor at Perrydell Farm to be milked Thursday, nearly every one stopped to smell a new wooden post and metal fences. One discovered a water trough and lapped up water.

“They are very curious,” said Donna Perry, whose husband, Tom, is one of three Perry brothers who own the farm.

After five months of not being out to pasture the Perrydell Farm cows jump and frolic in the field after returning home on Thursday. (John A. Pavoncello)

The afternoon milking session was the first at the York Township farm since a fire destroyed the milking parlor in November.

Thursday was also the day the cows came home.

“It’s great to see them back,” said neighbor Sarah Tateosian, who, along with her husband, Lou, stopped by the farm to see the cows.

Fire: The fire, which was ruled accidental, started near a vacuum pump and severely damaged the milking parlor.

With no place to milk the cows, they were evacuated the night of the blaze by CART, which stands for the County Animal Response Team, and farmers from across the area, to a disused milking parlor at a Windsor Township farm. Donna Perry said she was amazed by and grateful for the support the farm received from the community.

The cows remained at the Windsor Township farm for just over five months.

New parlor: An all new milking parlor was completed at the end of March and in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Perrys and area farmers began the process of bringing the cows back home.

It took them a little under four hours to transport 111 cows back to Perrydell.

At first, the cows stood in the pasture for about half an hour checking it out, and then one kicked up its hind legs and took off running. The rest quickly followed, Donna Perry said.

“It was so fun to see them running and kicking up their heels,” she said. “It’s such a good feeling.”

The new parlor boasts a different layout and can milk more cows at once. Twelve cows were milked at one time at the old parlor, built 40 years ago, and the new one can milk 16 at a time. That should cut milking time by about an hour.

- Reported by GREG GROSS of the York Dispatch.

Erin Perry, 15, watches as cows leap off a trailer into the pasture at Perrydell Farm,Thursday April 19, 2012. The Perry family, with the help of several friends, moved 111 cows back to the farm, five months after a fire destroyed their milking parlor and part of the barn. (John A. Pavoncello)

Ryan von Linden, left, photographs hibernating bats in an abandoned mine, while Dennis Wischman, center, and Lisa Masi take notes in Rosendale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)

Researchers say bats in New York appear to be coming back from white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection that killed millions of the flying mammals in North America.

In a report from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, the number of little brown bats are on the rise in some of the hibernation caves where scientists first noticed the disease.

There are hopes this is an early sign that bats can adapt to a disease that has spread to 19 states and Canada. But scientists caution it’s far too early to tell if it is the start of a trend or a statistical blip.

White-nose, named for the sugary smudges found on affected bats’ snouts, prompts bats to wake from their winter hibernation and die when they fly into the winter landscape in a futile search for food. First detected in 2006, the fungal infection has killed more than 5.7 million bats as it spread from the Northeast. In recent weeks, the disease has shown up in Alabama and Missouri, marking its advance west of the Mississippi River.

A brown bat with white nose fungus in New York. (AP Photo/New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Ryan von Linden, File)

Scientists fear the disease could push some species to extinction and dramatically reduce the population of an animal farmers depend on for natural pest control.

The survey found that New York’s losses of little browns, the most common bat species in the state before white-nose, remain at about 90 percent.

New York state bat biologist Carl Herzog said that while counts were up in the three caves west of Albany for little browns, bat-counters could have missed some in previous surveys and new bats coming to hibernate in the caves are a contributing factor.

But the possibility that bat populations could adapt to the fungus has long been the hope of scientists.

“That’s what the perfect scenario would be—that the area that was first hit would be the first to recover because they would have had more time to adapt to the pathogen,” said Beth Buckles, an anatomic pathologist at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

Catching bats: In an effort to track the long-term effect of white-nose, Herzog and a team of researchers caught bats outside one early-hit hibernation cave on a recent moonlit night. Bats that flew out for an insect snack hit filament lines and fell into a bag where they were snatched up to be swabbed and examined.

As bats chirped in protest, their wings were stretched flat on an ultraviolet light table about twice the size of a smartphone screen. When the purple light shined through the translucent wing, infected spots that can’t be seen with the naked eye became fluorescent orange.

Traveled from Europe: The infection patterns were photographed and will be compared with those of bats that succumbed to the disease years ago and with newly infected bats in Pennsylvania. They will also be compared with bats in the Czech Republic. Scientists recently confirmed that white-nose fungus hitchhiked from Europe, possibly on the boots or clothes of a well-traveled caver.

Based on observations so far, Herzog said bats from the long-exposed cave are dealing with the disease better.

But he said despite some good news from early-hit caves, there are still more questions than answers.

“This is not a widespread phenomenon,” Herzog said. “Hopefully it will be.”

Reported by MICHAEL HILL of the Associated Press from VOORHEESVILLE, N.Y.

Scott Crocoll holds a dead Indiana bat in an abandoned mine in Rosendale, N.Y. There are more bats in caves first struck by white-nose syndrome, giving researchers a glimmer of hope in the scourge that has killed millions of bats in North America. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)

Gabriella Lujan, has her hair colored with soft pastel chalk applied by neighborhood mom Orly Telisman in Chicago. Everyone from hipsters to children to Hollywood celebrities is embracing the runway fad for brightly colored hair, using soft pastel chalk. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

First there were feathers, then the “Hunger Games” braid took over. Now there’s a new hair trend just as easy to embrace — coloring strands with craft-store chalk. No stylist, no complicated instructions, no great expense.

Everyone from hipsters to children to Hollywood celebrities is embracing the runway fad for brightly colored hair, using soft pastel chalk.

“Hair stylists and colorists, they’re artists at their core, so they’re always fooling around with things from the arts-and-crafts store,” said Kristin Perrotta, Allure magazine’s executive editor. “Somewhere along the line a few of them realized there were soft pastels you could use to leave color on your hair.”

The advantage? The chalks wash out in the shower, allowing for temporary rocker style.

“There’s no commitment,” Perrotta said. “This is your opportunity to go crazy for whatever time you want. Even if you’re a super-preppy woman who works in a library, on the weekend you can have purple stripes in your hair.”

Orly Telisman, of Chicago, prepares to color eight-year-old Gabriella Lujan's hair with soft pastel chalk. Everyone from hipsters to children to Hollywood celebrities is embracing the runway fad for brightly colored hair, using soft pastel chalk.(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Conrad’s hairstylist, Kristin Ess, said beauty professionals have used the chalks to color hair for a while. She credits the proliferation of online beauty blogs for turning the tool into a trend.

“Usually it was secret, so top secret,” said Ess, who cofounded The Beauty Department with Conrad. “But now the way that things are, it’s so easy to get it out there.”

The steps aren’t complicated: Take a piece of chalk, run it along the strand of hair until it’s colored and if necessary pull the hair through a curling iron. If you have darker hair the chalk may stick easier if you dampen the strand first. It’s important to use soft pastel chalks — the kind artists use, not oil-based chalks or sidewalk chalks.

To remove, shake or brush your hair to dust out the chalk before getting into the shower. Then wash your hair. The chalk can get messy, so wear plastic gloves.

Kandee Johnson, a celebrity makeup artist and beauty and style blogger, posted a hair chalking how-to video on YouTube in February. So far it’s gotten more than 630,000 hits.  (See below!)

“People were sending me pictures from websites,” she said. “I didn’t think people were going to be that excited over it. I did not think it was going to be that popular at all.”

Johnson thinks the attraction comes because chalking is temporary and affordable — a whole set of chalks can cost between $6 and $8.

“It’s a fun idea if you have kids or you have a corporate job,” she said. “It will be really fun for summer because you can have fun ponytails.”

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HAIR CHALKING TIPS

• Use art soft pastel chalk. Oil-based chalk will stain your hair. Sidewalk chalk or chalkboard chalk won’t stick to your hair.
• No matter what color your hair, apply the chalk to dry hair first. If you have darker hair and the chalk isn’t showing up then dampen the hair before applying.
• Using a curling or flat iron after chalking can help seal your hair if needed.
• Blondes may have to shampoo a few times before the color fully rinses out.
• Shake or brush the chalk out of your hair before you wash it. Getting chalked hair wet could stain your hair.
• Protect your clothes and hands. Wear gloves and smock or towel to keep chalk from getting on you while you’re applying it. Chalk can flake off while it’s in your hair, so it’s a good idea not to wear light clothes.

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Online: Kandee Johnson’s “How to do the Hair Chalk Trend” video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ly4GhDia4k

The Beauty Department’s Hair Chalking post: http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/01/chalk-it-up/

Maddie Parizek, Sadie Moussa, and Gabriella Lujan, left to right, show off their hairstyles created with soft pastel chalk applied by neighborhood mom Orly Telisman in Chicago. Everyone from hipsters to children to Hollywood celebrities is embracing the runway fad for brightly colored hair, using soft pastel chalk. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

The chalking video: http://youtu.be/5ly4GhDia4k

Jamaica's Usain Bolt celebrating after winning the men's 4x100 relay final, and setting a world record, in 2011 at the World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea. Bolt was one of the stars of the Beijing Olympics.

The 2012 Summer Olympics are now 100 days away, and Junior Dispatch plans on offering a full slate of stories and videos from the games in London.

Noting that the opening ceremony events are just a few months away, the Associated Press spoke with Sebastian Coe, the man in charge of the 2012 event and a former Olympian himself.

“One hundred days — it sort of means something to people,” Coe said, with the Olympic Stadium in clear view from his 23rd floor offices. “When you’re talking about seven years, six years, five years, four years, that’s one thing, but actually you’re talking about days.

More than 10,500 athletes from 204 countries will start moving into the Olympic village two weeks before the opening ceremony, and thousands of media will begin working at the press and broadcast center.

Coe believes Olympic fever will take off in Britain once the Olympic flame arrives in Land’s End on the westernmost tip of England on May 19, heralding the start of a 70-day, 8,000-mile torch relay across the U.K.

Sebastian Coe talks about the 100 days left before the opening of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

While the 80,000-seat main stadium, velodrome, aquatics center and other Olympic Park venues are built and ready for the games, Coe pointed out that temporary venues still need to be prepared. That includes the central locations of Horse Guards Parade and the Mall where beach volleyball, the marathon, race walk and road cycling will take place.

“We’ve got a lot of work still to do,” Coe said. “We’re in really good shape. Through all that, we’ve not remotely taken our eye off some of the smaller things that … make the difference between a good games and a great games.

156 countries are expected to send athletes to this year’s Olympic games.

According to Wikipedia, the following events will take place at the Olympics. Track and Field sports, which include running, jumping, javelin, discus and shotput, are listed under “athletics”:

Dan the baboon sits in front of a computer screen. The letters BRRU pop up. With a quick and almost dismissive tap, the monkey signals it’s not a word. Correct. Next comes, ITCS. Again, not a word.

Finally KITE comes up.

Dora the baboon studies a screen close up during a reading experiment in France. (AP Photo/Joel Fagot)

He pauses and hits a green button to show it’s a word. In the space of just a few seconds, Dan has demonstrated a form of pre-reading and walks away rewarded with a treat of dried wheat.

Dan the baboon is part of new research that shows he and his kind are able to pick up the first step in reading — seeing patterns and understanding which four-letter combinations are words and which are just “gobbledygook.”

The study shows that reading’s early steps are far more instinctive than scientists first thought and it also suggests that non-human primates may be smarter than we give them credit for.

“They’ve got the hang of this thing,” said Jonathan Grainger, a French scientist and lead author of the research.

Baboons and other monkeys are good pattern finders and what they are doing may be what we first do in recognizing words.

It’s still a far cry from real reading, so no a monkey can’t read better than you. They don’t know what these words mean, and are just breaking them down into parts, said Grainger.

In 300,000 tests, the six baboons distinguished between real and fake words about three-out-of-four times, according to the study published in Thursday’s journal Science.

The 4-year-old Dan, the star of the bunch and about the equivalent age of a human teenager, got 80 percent of the words right and learned 308 four-letter words.

The baboons are rewarded with food when they press the right spot on the screen: A blue plus sign for bogus combos or a green oval for real words.

Even though the experiments were done in France, the researchers used English words because it is the language of science, Grainger said.

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Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

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Reported by SETH BORENSTEIN of the Associated Press from WASHINGTON, D.C. He can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears