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ABC Listen. Hello there, my friends.
My name is Ruby, and you're listening to News Time.
Hi, Ruby. Hello. Today's episode of News Time is a particularly tasty one.
We're going to hear about some delicious veggies being grown beyond our atmosphere, and we'll make some cheesy treats with some kind community members too.
What do you think? Are you ready?
Let's do it. Soy number five.
Here's a question for you.
What are the things that plants need to grow?
It depends on the type of plant.
Um, put lots of water and sunlight on it.
Good soil. Ah, all right.
You're all over that one.
But how about this?
How about growing plants on the moon?
What do you think that would take?
They would need oxygen.
They would need sunlight, um, probably moon rock.
They would need moon dust.
And they would need natural sunlight.
For example, I think they would need a little dome where you dig out a bunch of the moon stuff and also get rid of the moon dust and instead put some oil there and you'd have to carry a container of water that's tightly sealed.
Very good. Maybe you could get a job on the Australian Lunar Experiment promoting horticulture, or ALEF for short.
The ALEF project is planning to grow plants on the moon next year.
Then the moon would be more beautifully.
It could be like, so the moon is not just like a circle.
It could be, like, more plants like Earth.
Yep, plants and seeds will be flown hundreds of thousands of kilometres to the moon's surface.
These plants will be carefully looked after and, if everything goes well, astronauts visiting the moon will have some fresh fruit and veggies to eat.
It could be so that you could go to the moon and live there.
This long journey has a lot of risks for the plants.
They need to survive being stored at the launch site for a long time.
Then they need to survive hurtling through space at super speed and they'll need to survive the high temperatures that come with space travel.
If they make it through all of that, then we'll be able to see just how tricky it is to grow plants somewhere other than planet Earth.
It would be pretty cool to eat.
It could taste different, like, moon -ish flavour maybe.
And moon -flavored plants.
Hmm, imagine that. Eventually, the team wants to grow plants on the planet Mars, but that's a lot further away.
Doing number four. There's something very special about the simplicity and deliciousness of a plain cheese sandwich.
I love cheese sandwiches.
I only like them when they're toasted.
A group of volunteers in Wollongong in New South Wales met up to spread the love and spread some margarine.
The Eat Up charity gets food to people who need it.
Every week, members of the Illawarra Multicultural Service work together to make hundreds of cheese sandwiches for students at 20 local schools.
And one TAFE. And that is a lot of bread.
Amazing and they're very helpful and they should start paying them to do it.
Good for the people that don't have lunches.
About a year ago, the group was making 500 sandwiches at a time.
Now they make 750. That's because more people are asking for sandwiches to be delivered.
Maybe because there are more hungry students while food is expensive at the supermarket.
It could be because word is spreading about this awesome initiative.
I think it's a good idea.
Lots of the members of the group are new to Australia so they're learning English as a second or even a third language.
Meeting up to make sandwiches, that's been a great way to make new friends and socialise and practice speaking English with other people.
I think that's healthy for their body.
And they're not just gaining language skills.
The other skills the volunteers learn, like food safety and hygiene, that can help them find another job in the community like working at a cafe or a restaurant.
The eat up scheme is a win -win situation.
The volunteers get friendship, fun and a good chat and hungry school kids get a good feed.
It's totally free. There's a kind of rat called an African pouch rat and it's a bit bigger than your average run -of -the -mill rodent.
The African pouch rat can grow to be almost a metre long.
That's including their tail.
They don't have very good eyesight, but these rats are splendid sniffers.
He's so cute. They're like little airport dogs that, like, sniff out people's bags.
Like mini dogs. They have such good noses that a group of 11 African pouch rats have been trained to do just what you suggested.
Work like sniffer dogs at the airport.
To check if they have any meat.
Yes. Sometimes people try to bring things into Australia that they shouldn't.
The sniffer dogs can pick up the scent of things even when they're buried under piles of dirty clothing in a suitcase.
It was quite a process to train these clever rats.
First, they were introduced to something called a target smell.
That's the thing that trainers want the rats to be on the lookout for.
Once they knew what the target smell was, the trainers introduced lots of other strong smells, trying to distract the rats.
Things like the smell of coffee or the smell of washing up powder.
11 rats started the intense training program, but only eight successfully sniffed their way through.
I'm amazed if they just find something straight away.
The African pouch rats have been taught to keep a nose out for animal products that shouldn't come into Australia.
Things like elephant ivory or rhinoceros horns.
The rats have been chosen for two main reasons.
Number one, their super strong sense of smell, but also they can live for about 11 years, and that's a pretty long time for a rat.
The fact that they are super cute, well, that's just a bonus.
That rat has very good skills.
You said it's adorable.
Good luck, you fantastic finders.
Story number two. Olivia Anderson is 24 years old and absolutely loves flying.
She is a helicopter pilot, which is a pretty good one too.
You have to learn how to do it and learn the controls.
You have to learn, like, how to press buttons quick.
Olivia lives in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Every morning she's up before the sun rises and ready for a big day of mustering cattle.
Olivia buckles up in a pilot's seat of the helicopter and ushers cows along from up above, guiding them to where she'd like them to go.
Some farmers use sheepdogs when they're moving livestock, but in a place as big as the Kimberley region, mustering cattle using a helicopter is a good way to do things.
It means Olivia can cover a lot of ground more easily.
She can spot the cows hiding in nooks and crannies and help them get to where they need to be.
That is very helpful and I appreciate it.
I think she felt proud of her cows.
Olivia loves her job.
She feels at peace when she's on the land, working with the cattle and talented stockmen and stockwomen.
The patient pilot has been recognised for her awesome efforts too.
Olivia is the recipient of this year's Roger Connellan Award, which is given to Outback Australia's best young pilots.
As well as being recognised for being an awesome pilot, the award also comes with some extras.
Olivia gets to work on all different kinds of helicopter projects in the Northern Territory.
She's going to learn about bringing water to remote communities and she'll learn to fight fire from the sky too.
Great job and I wish I could meet you in real life.
Congrats, Olivia. Getting recognised for your work must have felt pretty good.
And now, my friends, it's time for...
Wow, all the week. This story made me go well because it's a complete scam.
An artwork by an artist named Ada was recently sold at an auction.
It's very creative and I think there's skulls on it.
I like the colour in the background.
It's a very, very sad artwork.
It's a pretty strange -looking artwork.
It's big, much taller than an average person.
It uses dull and dark colours, like grey and cream and brown, and it shows a man's face from three different angles with his eyes and ears all muddled up and moved all over the place.
You'd have to be a pretty creative person to come up with something like this.
Oh, would you? It kind of looks like a computer.
It does look kind of AI -generated.
Oh, you are spot on.
This artwork was actually made by AI.
That stands for Artificial Intelligence.
The painting is called AI God and it's a painting of a famous scientist called Alan Turing.
AI is, like, they know how to do stuff on computers and they can do it very fast.
Artificial Intelligence.
The artist Ada is actually a robot and programmed by a team of people who work at universities.
They wanted to see whether robots and computers could work together to make art.
Not only can they make stuff that looks like art, people will actually buy that art too.
The painting AI God could be the first artwork sold by a humanoid robot artist.
How much would you pay for an artwork made by a robot?
I think about $3 ,010.
$2 ,500. Hmm, well, you wouldn't have won at this auction.
AI God sold for more than $1 .6 million.
I am stupefied. It's a complete scam for $1 million.
Because they just bought artwork that was made, like, not from a real artist.
It's complicated. It's basically like...
It looks good, but it's literally the computer, so you should not buy it.
Complicated is right.
Some people say that paintings made by robots aren't real art, but other people think it is.
I don't really have an answer for you on this one.
What do you think? And that is it, my friends.
We are officially at the end of our countdown.
Thanks so much for all your help.
There's nothing artificial about your intelligence.
Thank you, Ruby. Thank you, Ruby.
You're very welcome.
And, hey, while you wait for next week's episode, try out the news time quiz.
The questions and answers are in the show notes or on the news time page of the Kids Listen website.
See you later. Bye, Ruby.
See you later. Or, as they say in Souto, ussa le hankle.
