Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Kim. Today is Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. And we begin with

crew 11 astronauts now just hours from undocking at the International Space Station for an

unprecedented early return. As we reported earlier this week, one of the four space flyers has an

issue that can't be properly diagnosed or treated on the floating lab, one of the four space flyers has an issue that can't be properly diagnosed

or treated on the floating lab, which means the team has to end its mission a month

sooner than expected and jettison back to Earth. Barring any weather or technical issues,

their 11-hour journey will begin this afternoon at 5 p.m. East Coast time with splash down in the Pacific

Ocean before dawn tomorrow morning. On Monday night, the outgoing astronauts took care of protocol,

which meant handing over control of the lab to a Russian crewmate, gifting him a symbolic

golden key to the station, and sharing a group hug. Commander Mike Finkie called the moment

Bitter Sweet. For privacy reasons, neither the astronauts' name nor his or her condition is

being publicly released. But space travel isn't easy on the body, and apparently isn't easy on the

brain either. A new study has

found that the brains of astronauts not only change shape while they're living amongst the stars,

but also moved to a different position in the skull. The longer the time in space, the bigger the

change. With the impacts most felt in regions linked to motion sickness, disorientation, and loss of balance.

The research into space's impact is considered critical as NASA plans to build a base on the moon and send astronauts deeper into the solar system.

We all know the pandemic changed life as we know it, but it may also have changed the animal kingdom in some pretty remarkable ways.

Case in point, the dark-eyed junko songbird, which has been serenading students at UCLA in Los Angeles for decades.

These city-loving sparrows have beaks that are shorter and stubbier than their forest-dwelling

relatives, most likely, researchers say, to help them eat the junk that college kids drop.

But when COVID hit and the kids went home, the junkos' UCLA food source changed from

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