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ABC Listen. Hello there, my name's Jack and you're listening to News Time.
Hello Jack. Hello Jack.
I'm filling in for Ruby this week, counting down five stories from around Australia and the world.
On Newstime today, we're heading deep into the pyramids of Egypt to hang out with some marvellous mummies.
Plus, hear about tiny turtles and people paddling in the ponds.
How does that sound?
Take it away, Jack.
Phew, have you noticed it's been particularly steamy lately?
That's because we're coming to the end of summer, the hottest time of the year.
It'd be the sun would be as bright as possible.
Most people are sweating.
You stare down at the ground and you see these wavy things.
That's a heatwave. Crickets chirping.
Australian summers can get really sweltering, but depending on where you live, you might feel the effects of the sun a little more.
People who live in cities with lots of concrete and not a lot of trees have hotter days than people in the same area who live near the coast.
Black attracts light and then light attracts heat.
Yeah, that's right.
The dark colours in cities hold on to more heat.
It's called the urban heat island effect.
Students at high schools in Western Sydney have been learning more about this because it affects them.
They're finding out why the suburbs around their school get so much hotter than the coast and coming up with solutions to help cool things down.
Paint the road white.
Yeah, that's one idea.
With the help of their teachers, students at schools across the region will come up with heaps more.
The students will share their solutions to combat the effects of climate change at a big event later in the year, in front of scientists and people who work in the government who might be able to make changes.
I think it's a great idea and I think the teachers will be proud of them.
They sure would. As cities get hotter and hotter, bright ideas like the ones these kids are coming up with 650 life will be an important tool to help people live happily and comfortably in cities.
In the meantime, do you have any other tips to keep cool?
The zoopa -doop it seems to cool down my head.
Pool! Then dry off, then pool again.
Beach! Sounds like a perfect day.
You might have a playground or a local park near your place, but have you ever heard of a national park?
It's a place that's very special.
National parks have a giant area of land while normal parks only have a little bit.
National parks are parcels of land owned by the government.
They're places where plants can grow and animals can safely live because their habitats are protected.
So more animals, more bushland can all have another home for less animals to go and stink.
Recently, the New South Wales Government bought a place called Broughton Vale Station on Buckingie Country.
This station was a grazing property where farm animals would roam around and feed.
It's also home to a sacred Aboriginal birthing site.
Now that the government has bought the land, they're going to turn it into a national park, which means that the sacred Aboriginal site will be protected, just like the plants and animals that live in the area.
And the traditional owners can visit this important site whenever they like.
They know it's not going to be destroyed.
Well, this place is now more safe for us.
Just a bit for them and for the animals too.
Dodd Stevens is a Barkinji elder.
She says that she's excited about bringing her nieces and nephews to the area, allowing the boys to visit the sacred men's site and the girls to visit the birthing cave.
She says that connecting all Aboriginal people back to country would be great.
And they could just go out there and have a look.
Farmers in the area say that it's important that the government doesn't turn too many farms into national parks.
But this specific sacred site sounds particularly special.
The pyramids of ancient Egypt are full of secrets.
Even though people have been exploring and studying them for years, it seems there's still more to learn.
Thousands of years ago, the ancient Egyptians would mummify pharaohs and other important people.
That means after they died, they'd be preserved and wrapped in cloth, then placed in a decorated coffin called a sarcophagus and buried in a pyramid.
The wrapped person is called a mummy because they've been mummified.
Oh, I know so much stuff.
Along with, like, the pharaoh, well, they also mummified and married their pet cats because they had a lot of pet cats.
Mummies used to be mummies to somebody else.
Hmm, I never thought about it like that before.
The latest question about ancient Egypt that scientists hope to answer is, what do these preserved mummies smell like today?
It will probably smell like rotten flesh and salt mixed.
together. My dad's sweaty t -shirt after a 5k run.
Those were some good guesses.
To find out the answers, scientists used specialised scientific tools, as well as their noses.
Little bits of air were carefully sucked out of the sarcophagi and captured for scientists to sniff.
They went around sniffing mummies, keeping note of what sort of scents they could pick up on.
They would look weird.
Imagine just some family going into the mummified section and then they just see some random scientists going...
It turns out most of the mummies actually smelled quite nice.
Sure, some of them did smell stale and mouldy, but others smelled earthy, like wood, a little spicy and a little sweet.
They put a sand in their sarcophagus and it made it smell good.
Sniffing the mummies gives scientists a good understanding of how well -preserved they are and what's going on under all those bandages without having to disturb or unwrap the mummy.
It seems their nose knows best.
Emma McKeon is one of Australia's best -ever Olympians.
The super speedy swimmer is an eight -time world record holder, including three that still stand today, She has 14 medals from all the different Olympic Games she went to.
That's more medals than any other Aussie Olympian ever.
Wow! Recently, Emma retired from swimming and competitions.
After winning 14 Olympic medals, it must have been time for a break.
But even though she isn't competing, Emma hasn't stayed away from swimming pools.
She can still be found by the water all the time.
It's fun! Going under the wave is fun and going over the wave is fun.
It's just the fun of the swim.
Playing in the water is a lot of fun.
Emma knows that better than most.
That's why she's spending some of her time travelling around the world to other countries that don't have the same sort of swimming lessons that we do in Australia.
What are some swim safety tips that you know?
Don't run near the pool.
And if you're not confident swimming in deep water, don't swim in deep water.
Just swim in shallow water when you can touch the bottom.
Or you go into starfish.
Spot on. Emma is sharing some of that knowledge with young swimmers in the country Bangladesh.
She travelled to Bangladesh with an organisation called UNICEF to bring swimming lessons to kids at their local ponds.
At the end of the fun lesson with Emma, some of the kids were gifted goggles to keep.
Kids in Bangladesh don't have a lot of opportunities to learn water safety, so Emma's visit was a big deal.
It means more kids will be able to splash and play safely.
She could have been a good teacher.
It's common sense because she was a man Olympic medalist.
Emma's work in Bangladesh isn't done.
She wants to raise money so that more kids can get swim safety lessons to splash, learn and play.
And now it's time for...
Wow of the Week This story made me go, wow, because there's so many turtles One of the sea turtles that can be found off the Australian coast is the loggerhead turtle Loggerhead turtles are a yellowy brown colour with a shell that's reddish brown An adult loggerhead weighs about 135 kilograms.
That's about the same as a big refrigerator.
They spend most of their lives living in salty oceans.
But female loggerheads will come to shore to lay their eggs on a beach and then head back to the water, swimming wherever they please.
The baby turtles, when they hatch, they have to try and get their way back to the water.
Most of them get eaten by predators.
Around one in a thousand make it through.
You're right. A baby turtle is very vulnerable to predators.
Once the turtles hatch on the beach, they quickly scurry to the water's edge, hoping they don't get swooped or pecked at on the way over.
Not all the baby turtles make it to the water, and that's just part of nature.
Loggerhead turtles are an endangered species.
That means there aren't very many left of them in the wild, so it's always good news when we see more of them.
Take more care of it and, like, give it a better habitat.
On Mon Repo beach in Queensland, more than 500 female loggerhead turtles have made their way to the beach to lay their eggs.
That's one of the biggest groups of female turtles at this beach ever.
And among them, they've managed to lay more than 250 ,000 turtle eggs.
Huh, imagine keeping track of all those babies.
I think they'd have lots of hard words.
I think naming them would be extremely hard.
I think after a while the mum would just be like, OK, your name is Z.
Your name is A. Your name is Clopslop.
Your name is Bob. Your name is Jeff.
Hmm, what about Jack as a turtle name?
People have been visiting the beach to see them.
but keeping a safe distance away from the baby turtles as they scamper to the water's edge.
The tiny turtles are an awesome sight and pretty cute too.
So cute. One of the coolest things about loggerhead turtles is that they like to have babies at the same place they were born.
So in 15 years, when these babies are all grown up and ready to have baby turtles of their own, they'll swim back to Monrepo Beach in Queensland to start the process all over again.
We're slowing down to a turtle's pace now.
It's the end of the countdown.
Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Jack.
You're very welcome.
I'll catch you again next week with five fantastic stories.
Bye. Bye. Goodbye, or as they say in Albanian, miripufsham.
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