Squeeze Kids acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands on which we podcast the Turrbal and Combermeri people.
Squeeze Kids!
It's your daily news fix.
Fun, free, fresh.
Hello and welcome to Squiz Kids Today, your fresh take on what's happening in the world around you.
I'm Christy Kidgerina.
It's Wednesday, May 20.
In Squiz Kids Today.
Huge dinosaur discoveries, an ancient ship beneath a car park, a giant wearable robot revealed and a whale-sized asteroid zooms by.
That's what's making news kids time.
The Lowdown.
Dinosaurs are stomping into the spotlight today with two discoveries that are helping us better understand how these prehistoric beasts lived, moved and ruled the Earth millions of years ago.
First to Spain, where paleontologists have uncovered the best preserved stegosaur skull ever found in Europe.
If you're not in the know, a paleontologist is a scientist who studies fossils to learn about dinosaurs and other ancient plants and animals.
And if you're thinking, big deal, it actually kind of is.
Stegosaurs, those famous dinosaurs with bony plates on their backs and spiky tails, had surprisingly delicate skulls.
Imagine trying to preserve a crunchy taco shell buried underground for 150 million years.
Usually they crumble, squash and disappear altogether.
Because this fossil survived, Scientists can finally study how the stegosaur's head, jaw and brain evolved.
It's even led researchers to suggest a brand new dinosaur family tree group with a very fancy name Neostegosauria, helping rewrite how these plated dinosaurs spread around the world.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, scientists have discovered Southeast Asia's largest dinosaur ever found a giant, long-necked dinosaur nicknamed the Last Titan.
Naga Titan Chia Pumensis would have lived 100 to 120 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous period.
Quick dinosaur timeline check, the Jurassic came first, then the Cretaceous.
So this giant arrived roughly 30 to 50 million years after the spiky dinosaur in Spain.
And it was absolutely colossal.
Scientists reckon it stretched about 27 metres long and weighed about 27 tonne, about the same as nine adult Asian elephants.
One front leg bone alone was as big as a fairly tall human.
Researchers think that this might be one of the last giant dinosaurs to roam the region before rising seas slowly turned much of the land into shallow ocean.
And if becoming a dinosaur scientist sounds fun, researchers say that there are still heaps of fossils waiting to be discovered in Thailand.
So go for it, dino detectives!
Spin the globe.
Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a news story from wherever it stops.
And today we've landed in Spain, where workers digging under a car park have uncovered something very unexpected a 500-year-old shipwreck.
Construction crews in Barcelona were digging foundations for a new car park when they struck giant pieces of wood buried more than five metres underground.
Archaeologists soon realised that it's the remains of a merchant ship from the 1400s or 1500s.
Back then, this part of the city wasn't streets or apartments, it was ocean.
Ships floated nearby where people now park their cars.
Over hundreds of years, storms and shifting sand slowly changed the coastline, burying the old harbour underground.
And here's a really cool bit.
Before reaching the ship, scientists had already uncovered an old war bunker, part of a fortress and an old fish market.
It's basically like a history lasagna.
Amazingly, this isn't the first incredible thing found under a car park.
In 2012 in Leicester England, archaeologists discovered the lost bones of King Richard III beneath one too.
He died way back in 1485.
Turns out car parks are surprisingly good at keeping secrets.
Believe it or not.
You know how Transformers look really cool until you remember they're not actually real?
Well, that might be changing.
Believe it or not, a company in China has unveiled something straight out of science fiction.
A giant wearable robot that a human can actually climb inside and drive.
The machine is called GD-01 and it's what engineers call a mecha, a wearable mechanical robot.
The name became popular in Japanese cartoons, comics and movies featuring humans piloting enormous robot suits to battle monsters, protect cities and generally save the day.
This one stands more than two and a half meters tall, weighs about 500 kilograms and can switch between walking on two legs or four at the press of a button.
In videos released last week, the robot stomps around, changes position and even smashes through a wall, like something from an action movie.
Right now though, owning one would cost about a million Aussie dollars, which may require many years of pocket money.
There's a link to video in the episode notes.
Do you think it's too early to start my Christmas list?
Spaced out.
What's the size of a blue whale zooms through space and gave astronomers a reason to sit up and pay attention yesterday.
An asteroid about the size of a blue whale paid Earth a very close visit yesterday morning, and scientists only spotted it 10 days ago.
The space rock called 2026 JH2 catchy name right was first seen by astronomers in the United States on May 10 and passed first by the Moon before zipping past Earth in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Scientists estimate it measured somewhere between 15 and 35 metres wide, or about the length of a blue whale.
Now, before you panic and start building a backyard bunker, Earth was never in danger.
The asteroid flew past about 90,000 kilometres away.
Close in space terms, but still safely missing us.
Scientists say that it won't swing by again until 2060.
But here's a question.
What would happen if an asteroid the size of a blue whale did actually hit Earth?
Find out in this week's Squiz Kids Science Short, waiting in your podcast feed first thing on Saturday morning.
Time for the quiz.
This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you've been listening.
Question number one.
Which type of dinosaur did the skull discovered in Spain belong to?
MUSIC
Well done, people, if you said Stegosaurus.
Question number two, what is the common name for a robot that humans can climb inside and pilot?
Great work if you said a mecca.
Question number three.
In what year can we expect asteroid 2026 JH2 to make its next flyby of Earth?
It's a little way down the track.
That will be 2016.
Yay!
Shout outs.
It's Wednesday, May 20, World Bee Day.
And before you think oh, just bees, hear me out, because bees might actually be the most important animal on the planet.
Bees pollinate around three quarters of the world's food crops.
That means every time a bee lands on a flower and gets a little bit of pollen stuck to its fuzzy little body.
It's basically doing the job that keeps us all fed.
Here's a crazy bit.
A single bee will only make about 1 12th of a teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime, and to make just one kilogram of honey, a hive has to visit around 1 million flowers mind blown.
It's also a special day for these squeeze kids celebrating a birthday today Michaela from Albany Creek, Emma from Innerloo, Joven from Yarrawonga, Ava from Griffith and Elliot from Tanunda.
Classroom shoutouts today go to Class 6A with Mrs McIvor at Kalanga State School.
Class 456 Magpies with Mrs Murphy at Albury North Public School.
And lastly but definitely not leastly, Class 5A at Livingston Christian College in Ormo, and a very happy birthday to their teacher, Ms Sentamu.
Don't forget, if you've got a birthday coming up and you want a shout out, or if you're after a classroom shout out, drop us a line at squizkidsatthesquizcomau or you can fill out the form on our website.
Well, that's all we have time for.
Thanks for listening to Swizz Kids today.
We'll be back again tomorrow.
In the meantime, get out there and have a most excellent day.
Over and out.
Thank you.
