Friday, 4 November, 2022
Covid and floods still with us; life-saving with daylight saving; crunch time for our T20 team; and Avatar amazes the internet.
LINKS
Jillaroos dominate: https://www.nrl.com/news/2022/11/03/bremner-scores-four-as-jillaroos-down-cook-islands/
Avatar: The Way of Water trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9MyW72ELq0
Newshounds
Get started on our free media literacy resource for classrooms: www.squizkids.com.au/newshounds
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
THE LOWDOWN
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Hands up if you’ve had COVID!
According to a new study, up to 90 per cent of you should have your hands in the air. Scientists have examined the blood of more than 2000 kids and teenagers, and found that up to nine out of every ten show evidence of a past COVID infection. Even when they looked at kids who said they had NOT had COVID, they found that four out of ten actually had… and were among the lucky ducks who didn’t get any symptoms.
The study was released yesterday—the same day that New South Wales’ chief health officer warned that a new wave of COVID infections was on its way. Victoria’s chief health officer gave the same warning last week, when a new variant of the nasty virus showed up in Australia. Oh goodie. Health authorities are reminding people to go and get their boosters, wash hands frequently, and stay at home if they don’t feel well. Now why do I feel like I’ve heard that before?
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Speaking of having heard something before, let’s talk about floods. The nightmare continues for hundreds of people in inland NSW, who have been told to evacuate their homes because of riding floodwaters. The biggest worry for today is the town of Forbes, next to the Lachlan River, which is expecting its worst flooding in 70 years. Parts of Wagga Wagga could be cut off for days; and evacuation orders are in force for 20 others areas in the state. Stay safe out there, folks.
SPIN THE GLOBE
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Each day, we give the world globe a spin, and find a news story wherever it stops. And today we’ve landed in America … where researchers have found that 37,000 deer’s lives would be saved—as well as dozens of humans—if the country were to permanently stay on daylight saving time.
Say what?
Well, daylight saving time is when many parts of the world set clocks ahead by one hour during the summer, to shift sunlight later in the day. If American clocks were to stay ahead in winter, too, there would be much less rush hour traffic happening in the dark—which the researchers say would prevent 33 deaths, 2,000 injuries, and save $1.9 billion dollars in crash costs. But it’s not just human lives that would be saved by saving daylight. Apparently, if you drive in America after dark, you’re 14 times more likely to hit a deer—so a switch to permanent daylight savings would also save 37,000 deer lives. Bambi would be on board.
SPORT TIME
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It’s going to be a big day of cricket today at the T20 world cup, with the Aussie team battling to get into the semi finals when they play Afghanistan tonight. Not only will the green and gold have to win, they’ll have to score plenty of runs to finish ahead of four other teams playing in their group. The home side’s problems all started when New Zealand thrashed them by 89 runs at the start of the tournament. Now, with just one game in the group play to go, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, and the Aussies have all won two games each—but the Kiwis and the Brits have scored more runs than us. Only the top two teams go through, So let’s hope those bats are flashing tonight!
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Things are looking much better for the Jillaroos, our women’s rugby league team, who started off the campaign for their World Cup with a 74-to-nothing drubbing of the Cook Islands. Co-captain Sam Bremner scored four tries in her first test for Australia since having her two kids… how cool to have a Mum like that? I’ve put some clips from the game into your episode notes.
POP CULTURE CORNER
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An extended trailer for the sequel to the blockbuster movie Avatar was released yesterday, and the internet was impressed. I’ve put a link in your episode notes, so you can see for yourself, but the last time I checked, it had 13 million views in less than 24 hours.
The first Avatar movie was released in 2009, and it remains the highest grossing movie of all time. “Grossing” means the amount of money a movie brings in … but doesn’t take away how much the movie cost to make, which in the case of Avatar was $372 million Aussie dollars. It was shot in 3D with a lot of special effects. The sequel, which director James Cameron started filming way back in 2017, is also BIG budget. His team has developed a new film-making technology to capture scenes underwater… which makes sense, since the movie is called Avatar: The Way of Water.
It will be released in Australia on December 15… I have a feeling there are plans for it to be a Christmas blockbuster.
THE SQUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- A study found that 37,000 deer would be saved in America each year if they had permanent what?
- Australia’s men’s T20 cricket team needs to win by a wide margin against which country tonight?
- What is the highest grossing film of all time?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s November 4 … National Candy Day! Did you know that candy—or to use the more Aussie word, lollies—was originally made by covering nuts, fruits, and flowers with honey? It was considered a medicine, used to soothe a sore throat or calm a rumbly tummy. How do you think you’d go, telling your parents that you desperately need some old fashioned medicine tonight??
It’s also a Friday – and you know what that means .. lots of birthday shout outs for today and the coming weekend … for which we’re going to need the ol’ birthday reggae tune … hit it …
It’s a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today…
Elise from Belmont, Sarah from Bombala, Huxley from New Farm, Shrushti from Forest Lake, Angus from Exeter, Wiley from Maroubra, Josie from Belrose, Mark from Lane Cove, Bella from Bradbury, Adam from Branxton and Lola from Sydney.
And a belated birthday shout outs goes to…Yash from Tasmania.
Not forgetting the Squiz Kids who are celebrating a birthday over the coming weekend …Elishia from Warrawee, Oscar from O’Conner, Logan from Altona Meadows, Luke from Byron Bay, Henry from Forest Lake, Torin from Woongarrah, Claudia from Sydney, Riley, Georgia and Gabby from Yass, Yoyo from Maroubra, Lucy from Floraville, Cooper from Broken Hill, Camilla from St Ives, Everleigh from Cronulla, Lucas travelling around Australia and Jack, Mia and Charlotte listening in Singapore. Lastly to Annabelle listening over in Peapack, New Jersey.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Daylight saving
- Afghanistan
- Avatar