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Hello there.
My name's emily and you're listening to news time.
Hello, emily.
Hey emily, and hello to news time listener legend gracie.
I'm gracie from albany, western australia.
My sister and i love listening to news time.
From our Home in beautiful King Darling, we tell our chickens about all the interesting things we learn.
You must have some very clever chooks.
Thanks, Gracie.
Well, rev your engines, news sleuths, because on today's episode we'll take a ride in a classic car fixed by hundreds of hardworking students.
Plus, we'll hear about a colossal coral colony.
That was hard to say.
Before we meet a scientist pulling something very useful out of thin air for our wow of the week.
What do you say?
Take it away, Emily.
A citizen scientist isn't a professional scientist.
They're everyday people interested in the world around them, who explore and investigate and report back to the professionals.
Anyone can be a citizen scientist and a group of them have made an amazing discovery.
They found what might be the largest coral colony ever seen on the Great Barrier Reef.
Why is Coruscant important?
That's a great question, so I'll ask it right back.
Why do you think coral is so important?
There's heaps of, like, creatures, like sea life in it.
It's like this stuff that's evolved in the past.
These type of fish, called rockfish, hide in it.
Coral reefs are home to thousands of species of fish and sea life.
They protect the coastline from storms and from erosion.
That's when bits of land wash away into the ocean.
Coral reefs are a really important ingredient for a healthy ocean.
That's good to know.
Coral might look like a beautiful sculpture, but get this.
Coral is actually a living thing.
So we need to make sure it stays alive for it to be able to do all this amazing stuff.
I knew it was an animal.
It can't survive out of the sea.
Jan Pope has been exploring the waters in Cairns, Queensland, near the Great Barrier Reef.
That's the world's largest coral reef system, and it's right here in Australia.
But the sad news is the reef is under threat.
Some of the coral is dying.
While Jan was exploring, she saw a strange pattern in the water.
And it turns out Jan had stumbled across a patch of coral no one had ever spotted before.
It was a Pavona clavis coral, a stony-looking coral made of lots of lumpy bumps.
The coral colony is 111 metres long and covers as much ground as about half a football field.
Excited that they found one of the biggest,
They might have thought, wow, this is amazing.
I think they would have felt overwhelmed because it was so much.
Imagine being right in the middle of it all, surrounded by coral and fish.
Finding this healthy coral colony is great news.
It means scientists can possibly use it to help save other coral colonies in other parts of the reef that might be struggling.
A team of young First Nations basketballers are about to make history.
Do you know much about basketball?
It's where you, like, bounce a ball and then you shoot it in a hoop.
It's a team sport.
It's where you have to bounce the ball and then you have to try and score.
You sound like a bunch of expert ballers.
Well, at the end of the month, 10 Indigenous teenagers from across New South Wales will pack their bags and hop on a plane to the United States of America to play basketball against some of the best young players in the world.
It's part of a brand-new sporting pathways program called Indigenous All-Stars, and it's designed to develop the talents of young First Nations ballers and maybe even inspire them to play the sport at a professional level.
I think they'll be really good players.
They could have slam-dunked, like, 30 players.
Players from Awabagool Biripi, Darug and Wiradjuri lands will come together to form the first ever Indigenous All-Stars team to represent their communities overseas.
The players will head to states all over the US, including Nevada, California and Utah, and they'll watch professional NBA games and meet the athletes for a healthy dose of inspiration.
It might have felt really good to be in an Indigenous basketball team.
I reckon they feel excited.
Darug player Cody Smith is 16 and he said that being in the Indigenous All-Stars means a lot to him because it represents pride, connection and growth.
He says it's a way to celebrate his culture and inspire the next generation of sports stars.
They might have felt quite proud of themselves.
If you ask me, this program sounds like a slam dunk.
Story number three.
Fifteen years ago, an old car was donated to Wollongbar TAFE on the New South Wales north coast.
It was a blue Holden Commodore and it was pretty beat up.
The car didn't work very well, which actually made it the perfect gift for the TAFE.
Automotive students there to study cars had a life-size project to work on to help them understand how cars work and to fix them when they break.
I think he might have donated it so then other kids can maybe learn how to build a car.
To let the kids learn how to be mechanics.
It looks like it's broken to pieces.
It looks very old.
Since the generous donation, about 700 automotive students have studied and spent time working on the communal Commodore.
The car was completely dismantled, cleaned up, tuned, re-sprayed and then put back together.
One of the students Brodie, says that the hands-on experience working on the car was really important and it helped him feel ready for a job working as a mechanic.
After 15 years and hundreds of hours of hard work, the classic car is working again, and it's looking pretty schmick too.
Went from really old and dirty to shiny and new.
How did they do that?
Driving around like it's a hot rod.
The car is going to be auctioned off and the money raised will go towards funding a helicopter that could be used for rescues in an emergency.
I think that's really good because then the helicopters could save people's lives.
It's a pretty special thing.
A simple donation by a family 15 years ago led to hundreds of students getting great experience, and now the sale of the car will help fund a rescue helicopter.
Oh, what a lucky community.
Story number two.
Horses can be noisy animals.
Apart from the clip-clop of galloping hooves, they also make a range of sounds with their mouths.
No!
Nay.
Yeah, just like that.
Horses make low sounds called knickers.
They make high sounds called squeals.
And they also make a sound called a whinny.
You might be most familiar with a whinny, but they're actually the oddest sound of them all, because they're a mix of both a low and a high sound at once.
It went... So it started at a low note and then it went higher.
It sounds like squeaky, like when I rub pancakes on oil.
Scientists weren't sure how horses could make a low and a high sound at the same time.
Well...
Until now.
Probably because their vocal cords just do it.
Maybe because it's a bit wider so they can do two sounds at the same time.
Well, it turns out a whinny is a horse singing and whistling at the same time.
Being able to make two sounds at once is called biphonation, and horses can do it because they vibrate their vocal cords and then blow air out of a little hole in their larynx.
Cool.
What scientists are wondering now is why do they do it?
Researchers have some ideas.
Some think that the different sounds are to talk to other horses that are different distances away.
Or maybe the horses are able to show their emotions through the pitch of the sounds they make.
So the singing part of a whinny might be telling us how intense a feeling is, and the whistling part of the whinny might describe whether it's a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling.
That's very smart.
Okay, okay, let me give it a try.
No!
Oh dear, if I keep that up, I'll be horse in the throat.
And now it's time for...
This story made me go wow because I don't understand how you get water out of air.
Professor Omar Yagi grew up in a refugee community in the country Jordan.
He didn't have a safe home or access to clean drinking water all the time.
But now he's a scientist working to solve some of the world's biggest problems, and he's made an amazing discovery.
Professor Omar invented a machine that can suck clean water out of thin air without needing electricity.
His invention even works in deserts and environments that don't have a lot of rain.
I didn't know there was invisible water in the air.
It's funny to think about.
Hey, there's water in the air pretty much all of the time, but it's so light that air molecules can hold it up and you can't even feel it.
Professor Omar's invention is about the size of a small truck and it uses thermal energy.
That's heat from the environment rather than electricity from a power point.
Then it sucks little molecules of moisture from the air and collects them up to make liquid water you can drink.
The machines can make up to 1,000 litres of water every single day.
It kind of makes me feel happy that they have water It can really help people.
There are lots of communities around the world that don't always have access to safe drinking water.
About two billion people.
Professor Omar's invention is one part of the puzzle that could help to solve this problem and bring clean water to more communities.
It makes me feel a little sad and a little happy.
Professor Omar won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for his work.
He says that the technology we need to help people dealing with climate change is already here.
His awesome invention is an example of that.
What we need, Professor Omar says, is courage.
He says we need to be brave enough to make changes that will help the next generation.
And it's quiz time.
Let's see how much you remember.
MUSIC
Question number one.
True or false?
Coral is a living thing.
Hmm.
It's true.
Question two.
What sport are the Indigenous All Stars heading to the US to play?
Basketball.
Question three.
After they sell the car, what will the community use the money for?
Um... To fund a rescue helicopter.
Question four.
A whinny is a combination of two sounds, singing and what?
Whistling.
Question five.
Omar the scientist says the technology to save the environment is already here.
What does he say we need next?
Well, that's us done and dusted.
If you'd like to be a Newstime listener legend, ask your grown-ups to head to the Newstime page on the ABC Kids Listen website for details on how to apply.
Thank you.
Thanks, Emily.
You're very welcome.
All this news talk is making me thirsty.
I'm off to see if I can squeeze any water out of this thin air.
See ya!
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