ABC Listen. Hello there, my friends.
It's Ruby here and you are listening to an episode of News Time.
Hi Ruby. Hi Ruby. Every week on News Time, we count down five of the best news stories from here in Australia and right around the world.
Today we're going to blast off into space to see what astronauts are growing for food.
We're going to hear a bit about a tiny little insect with a great big appetite, and we'll float across the ocean for our Wow of the Week.
What do you think? Are you ready to dive in?
Let's go! Do it, number five, yay!
In a town called Port Lincoln in South Australia, every weekend, a women's AFL team called the Boston Tigers plays hard and gets very dirty.
In between marking and hand balls, and hopefully a few goals too, the team's black and gold uniforms, they get pretty muddy and sweaty and stinky.
They get smelly. Your dirty clothes go in the wash.
Then you can use them again.
That's exactly right.
Lucky for the Boston Tigers, they've got one very keen fan who loves doing laundry, Linda Robinson, who's non -verbal and has difficulty walking, well, she simply loves washing clothes.
So, when the football club heard about her passion, they decided to pay Linda to wash their dirty uniforms after every game.
Because she likes them, she doesn't want them to lose, and that she's washing off all of the bad luck.
The team is so thankful for Linda's support and they recently organised a special surprise for her.
Her very own uniform!
That's very, very cool!
The women's AFL season finished up recently, but Linda still has plenty of work to do.
She'll still be busy washing uniforms because the men's AFL season is getting under way.
Good work, Linda. You have really made your mark.
Jo Linda. Garbusting tigers.
Jo, number four! In Far North Queensland, in a place called the Hopevale Indigenous Community, lives Ngunnawurra artist and great -grandmother, Wanda Gibson.
Recently, she wrote and illustrated a children's book, sharing her memories of growing up in the Hopevale Indigenous Community.
The book is called Three Dresses.
What do you think it's about?
Maybe they have three dresses and then they get more dresses.
They get three dresses and they're dirty and then they get more dresses.
But the three dresses were the most beautiful.
You're on the right track.
When Wanda was a kid, she would get three second -hand dresses for Christmas every year.
When it was time to go on holidays, Wanda's mother told her to pack them so she had one to wash, one to wear, and one spare.
Her book tells the story of what her holidays were like, going camping at the beach and cooking fish on the fire for dinner.
I think you have to take lots of days to be a good author and if you take about one day, you won't be that good.
Wanda worked hard on her book and recently it won two major awards with a total of $125 ,000 in prize money.
It's even the first -ever children's book to win the Victorian Prize for Literature.
Great job, Onda, for making the free dresses and great job for winning the prize.
I hope you get a good thing to use the money on.
I would buy a dream house so I can swim and play.
it'll be my best dream ever.
Good job and you could buy a few houses with that money.
Wanda says she'll probably spend the money on her kids.
Lucky them! Nice work, Wanda.
Door number three! If you've ever gazed up at the dark night sky, there's a good chance you've wondered exactly what's up there.
We know there are stars and planets and satellites and space stations, but what's up there that astronauts might be able to eat?
Tiny, tiny, itty -witty microscopic peas that you can't even see.
Strawberries and mango and pineapple.
Lollipop tree. OK, I think it's probably pretty safe to say Obviously, there are no sugary sweets growing in space, but there could soon be mushrooms. I just have one thing to say.
What?! The FRAN2 mission blasted off recently, and the four astronauts onboard are trying to grow mushrooms in space for the very first time.
Because I think that they're actually trying to learn how to farm in space and seeing what they can actually farm in space.
No! I don't like mushrooms because they're disgusting.
They taste like rotten potatoes.
OK, so mushrooms might not be to everyone's taste, but because they grow quickly and they are quite nutritious, scientists believe they could be an ideal space crop.
On this mission, the astronauts have packed a small box containing substrate.
That's the material used to grow mushrooms, as well as mycelium, which are the root -like structures of fungus.
I'm pretty sure they'll have special planter box that keeps the dirt from going everywhere and they can put the mushrooms inside and maybe it has, like, a self -watering system so that the water doesn't go everywhere.
After a few days in space, the astronauts will check the box to see whether oyster mushrooms have grown 450km above the Earth.
If the experiment's a success, scientists will test the mushrooms to see whether they've grown differently to how they grow here on Earth.
I would definitely eat them because they could actually taste very sweet and nice.
Next time you're chowing down on a pizza with mushrooms on top, take a look at those little fungi's and think of them as a future space snack.
Story number two. In the Sunshine State we know as Queensland, there's a little bug causing some big problems. It is a brown, bumpy caterpillar on a leaf.
Looks like caterpillar swagged because it's weird. This bug is called a full armyworm and it's been marching, or squirming, across the globe, munching away on corn, wheat, sugarcane and vegetable crops.
It's become a big problem for more than 600 million people around the world who need these crops for food.
This worm arrived in Australia five years ago, and it can wipe out entire crops in the space of just a few days.
Because it can go in every single direction, I think they should just make a scare army worm, like the scarecrow.
We should make this machine that plucks every single thing off but doesn't even hurt it.
Creative ideas, my friends.
Scientists have also tried spraying chemicals, but the insect spreads so quickly, it's hard to keep up.
Thankfully, some clever Australian scientists have discovered a way to battle the full armyworm and stop them destroying crops.
They're releasing native fungi and bacteria.
I think the fungi are just, like...
HE GROWLS You might be right.
You see, scientists still aren't sure how the fungus fights the Fall army worm, but what they do know is that these native weapons can defeat them in less than 24 hours.
It's giving lots of farmers hope that this battle with the pesky insect might soon be over...
And the army ones won't destroy all of the food on earth.
Then we won't have to starve and hunger.
You pit poor April from this.
Yay! And now it is time for...
..Wow! World of the Week.
The story made me go wow because maybe they can actually survive without eating.
The story made me go wow because I loved it.
I was so good. Let's go on a journey over the Pacific Ocean to the islands of Fiji.
Fiji is home to some lizards called iguanas.
It looks like a chameleon.
It's not a chameleon because it's not changing colour on the hand.
These scaly locals are quite mysterious because most iguanas live 8 ,000 kilometres away in Central and South America, and there's a big ocean in between.
So, for a very long time, people have wondered, how did iguanas get to Fiji?
Maybe they actually swam.
I think that people brought them on boats.
But maybe they can actually fly.
Scientists think they've finally cracked this case.
They say, millions of years ago, iguanas from North America found themselves on a natural raft made of fallen trees and plants, which floated right across the ocean all the way to Fiji.
I think they crawl around slowly so predators can't hear them.
It would have taken these iguanas a few months to make this journey over the ocean.
They wouldn't have been short of food, though, because they were floating on a giant snacking plate.
And iguanas can survive without fresh water for a long time, so no water, no worries.
Scientists say this journey might've been a record for a land -dwelling vertebrate, so if you ever find yourself in Fiji, keep an eye out for these scaly sailors.
And now it's time to disembark the news time raft. We've floated to the finish line of another countdown.
Thanks, Ruby. Thank you.
You are so very welcome.
Bye, Ruby. See you later.
Or, as they say in Fiji, Morefay!
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