Squiz Kids acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands on which we podcast the Turrbal and Kombamarri people.
Squiz 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 Bryce Corbett. It's Thursday, April 10!
In Squiz kids today, dire wolves back from the dead, Or not?
Perth Girl breaks running record, election fake news on the rise and an epic new theme park.
That's what's making news kids style.
The Lowdown Brought back from extinction, or just a little bit of tricky science.
That was the question swirling around the scientific community yesterday, following news that scientists had brought an extinct wolf species back from the dead.
You've all heard of or seen the movie Jurassic Park, right?
Where scientists find ancient dinosaur DNA and bring the big old reptiles back to life.
Well, there's a bunch of scientists keen to do it in real life.
You might remember we talked a couple of weeks back about a woolly mammoth mouse being created by these same scientists where they spliced woolly mammoth DNA with mouse DNA.
Well, they've gone and done it again by taking the DNA from an old tooth fossil belonging to a long dead dire wolf and spliced it with the DNA of a common grey wolf to create an animal that looks very much like a dire wolf which went extinct over 12 ,000 years ago.
So what's a dire wolf?
Think of a wolf, but bigger and whiter.
They're especially big in the TV series Game of Thrones.
The only problem is, some scientists are now disputing whether it's really a case of bringing a species back from extinction, given that it's simply splicing DNA from an extinct species with that of a living one.
The company behind the dire wolf de -extinction is not perturbed and says that it now has plans to bring back the dodo and even the Tasmanian tiger.
Watch this space. Spin the globe!
Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a new story from wherever it stops, and because it's almost the last day of term one, we're landing in Orlando, in the United States where a new theme park has opened up, called Epic Universe.
And if the videos coming out of there are any indication, it most certainly is epic.
It's believed to be the largest theme park in the world, and just as well, because it has to squeeze in a lot.
There's Super Nintendo World, with Donkey Kong and Bowser.
A whole section of the park given over to the How to Train Your Dragon movie series, complete with a life -size toothless.
There's a whole section dedicated to the Fantastic Beasts movies, plus a new series of Harry Potter -themed interactive rides and a brand new Monsters attraction featuring Frankenstein and Werewolves.
The park is believed to have cost more than $8 billion to create and opens to the public in May.
Packing my bags as we speak.
Sport Time! What is going on in Australian junior athletics.
Every time I read the news it seems like a new record has fallen.
Last month we had Gout Gout and Lockie Kennedy breaking all sorts of speed records and yesterday it was the turn of Leah O 'Brien, a 17 -year -old from Perth who broke a 57 year old record in the 100 metre sprint.
Running the 100 metres in a lightning fast 11 .14 seconds, Leah set a new Australian record for under -18 girls.
The Australian Athletics Championships kick -off in Perth today where more records could fall.
The Championships are where our best runners, high -jumpers, long -jumpers, pole -vaulters, discus throwers, javelin chuckles and tunnel ballers will compete, all with an eye on the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.
OK, maybe not tunnel ballers.
I might have made that bit up.
Actually, I was quite a good tunnel baller back in my day.
Every Thursday Squizzy the news hound sticks his snout into Squiz kid's HQ to report back on fishy things he's sniffed out on the internet.
And this week, his nose is sniffing all over the place as social media gets flooded with mis and disinformation ahead of the Australian Federal Election.
Fake news and deep fake videos and flat out lies tend to spike whenever there's an election, as people try to influence the way we all vote.
And so, with the May 3 poll only weeks away, clever Squiz kids should be telling their parents to not believe everything they see online.
Just because something is posted to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube doesn't mean it's real.
Even if it's a piece of information or a piece of content that we wildly agree with or hope to be true, we should always do as Squizzy tells us.
And that is to stop, think and check before believing everything we see online.
And that, my friends, is especially important when it comes to deciding who to vote for.
Just a quick message before we let you all off on holidays.
With only three weeks to go before the election, we only have a small window to convince our political leaders that learning how to think critically about the flood of information we're all exposed to online is a vital skill and one that's being taught very well by Squeezy the news hand.
If you haven't yet done it, join the ten and a half thousand other Aussies who have signed our petition, calling on the Australian government to fund digital literacy education in our schools.
The link is in the episode notes or you can find it on the Squiz Kids website.
squizkids .com .au and we really appreciate your support.
This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you've been listening.
Question Number 1. What is the name of the long extinct wolf species that scientists claim to have brought back from the dead?
It's called the Dire Wolf.
Well done if you got that one.
Question two. Super fast girl Leah O 'Brien broke the under 18 girls sprinting record yesterday, across a distance of how many metres?
Yep, that's right she was running in the one hundred metres.
Question three. Name the how to train your dragon, Dragon, that's friends with Hiccup and is now one of the star attractions of a new theme park in the US.
Of course, I'm talking about the adorable Toothless...
It's Thursday, April 10 – today is Hug Your Dog Day – look out Louie, I'm coming for you.
Today is also a special day for these squiz kids celebrating a birthday today.
Josie and Michaela from Harcourt, Edmund from Belmont, Vivienne from Gordon, Maddie from Meadow Springs, and Rayl from Bronte.
And a belated birthday shoutout goes to Harshini from Canberra.
And classroom shoutouts today go to year 3S with Mrs Stanson at McArthur Anglican School in Cockati.
Rooms 12 and 13 with Mr Bell and Miss L at Edwardston Primary School.
Years 4, 5 and 6 with Mrs Currie at Da Noone Public School and Class F7 with Mr Salvere at Hammond Park Primary School.
And a reminder, if you celebrate a birthday over the coming school holiday break send us your birthday shout -out by tomorrow and we'll make sure to include you in the weekly quizzes that will be going out each Friday of the school holidays.
Otherwise, if you've got a birthday coming up and want a shout -out, or if you're after a classroom shout -out, drop us a line at squizzkids at thesquiz .com .au, or fill out the form on our website.
Well, that's all we have time for.
Thanks for listening to Squiz Kids today.
We'll be back again tomorrow with the last daily podcast for the term.
We're taking a two -week break, but don't fret, we have a whole host of excellent Easter content planned for you during the break including our famous Easter joke -a -thon, our renowned bumper school holiday quizzes and a whole lot more.
Just make sure you subscribe to Squiz Kids and your favourite podcasting app and all of the content will magically appear.
In the meantime get out there and have a most excellent day.
Over and out.
