BtN: Episode 06 Transcript14/03/17
Hi I'm Nathan Bazley and this is BTN!
Coming up today
- South Sudan declared a famine area. We find out what's caused this disaster.
- Why these scientists will be hunting platypuses for the next 3 years.
- And Amelia investigates why we sleep.
Heaps of stuff like that coming up.But first to vaccinations.
Vaccination
Reporter: Amelia Moseley
INTRO: The Prime Minister has announced tough new rules on kids whose parents choose not to vaccinate them. They will be banned from childcare centres and preschools under the proposal in an effort to encourage parents to protect their kids from potentially dangerous illnesses. Here's more on how vaccinations work and why they're important.
It's a sight that makes most people feel a bit uncomfortable, including me!
AMELIA:Is this gonna hurt?
DOCTOR: No it won’t hurt Amelia.
But it's also something most of us have been through before as babies, kids and later as adults.
Vaccinations have been used for decades to stop the spread of many of the world's most dangerous diseases. For instance, way before you were born there was a really bad illness that affected tens of thousands of kids, called polio. It caused a lot of pain, lifelong deformities and sometimes death! But in Australia today, polio doesn't exist thanks to vaccinations. So how does this little jab actually work?
AMELIA:So the vaccine I'm about to have is for three illnesses - it's for Whooping Cough, Diphtheria and Tetanus. So what the needle contains is a teensy little bit of each of the bacterias that cause those illnesses. Now, they've been changed in some way, so they won't actually make me sick.What they will do is help me to fight off those bacterias if I happen to come across them in the future.
DR. WILLIAMS It's all over.
AMELIA:Ok, good. That wasn't too bad!
Not all of those infections would've been dangerous for me if I had got them; Some would've just made me sick for a while. But for babies, getting an illness like Whooping Cough, for example, can be fatal. That's why getting a vaccination isn't just about protecting yourself, it's about protecting others that can't always be vaccinatedlike newborn babies, really old or really sick people, or people with allergies.
These days, nearly every kid in Australia gets vaccinated for a bunch of illnesses, including the ones I was just vaccinated for, and others you might recognise like measles and chickenpox. The government reckons vaccinating kids is so important that it now has a rule called 'no jab, no pay'. It means parents who don't vaccinate their kids don't get welfare payments from the government like child care and family benefits. The government also wants kids to be banned from childcare and pre-school if their parents choose not to vaccinate them.
But not everyone agrees with that. Last week, Senator Pauline Hanson said that even though she vaccinated her kids, she thinks parents should have a choice not to and should do some research.
SENATOR PAULINE HANSON:Parents should take the responsibility to actually investigate the whole situation. People come to me constantly all the time, they're very concerned about it and I've heard it for years.
The problem is that if you look on the internet, it's not hard to find people who disagree with vaccinations. They say it causes side effects and that people have died or been left with disabilities after being vaccinated, but nearly all doctors and scientists say that's just not true!
DR. WILLIAMS:The possibility of a reaction is very minimal and if something happens we're prepared to treat it, but again I must reiterate it is quite rare.
At the moment, only a very small number of Australian parents - about two per cent - refuse to vaccinate their kids, but health care professionals say they're worried others will start listening to the wrong advice. They say vaccinations have been so successful that everyone's forgotten how devastating diseases like polio were. They say it's important to remember how much this little jab is doing to keep you, and others, safe and healthy!
This Week in News
Western Australia has a new Premier! Mark McGowan will lead the state after the Labor party won this weekend's election.
MCGOWAN: I came here 27 year ago in my Corolla across the Nullarbor and today the people of Western Australia have made me Premier. Thankyou.
He'll take over from Liberal Leader Colin Barnett who's been premier since 2008.
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There's been some more bad news about the Great Barrier Reef.Aerial surveys have confirmed it's suffered its second coral bleaching event in 12 months.
Bleaching happens when the water gets too warm and the algae that lives in coral leaves.
And if it goes on too long the coral can die. That's what happened last year. Scientists say 22 percent of the reef's coral was lost in one of the biggest coral die-offs ever recorded.
In better news Scientists say they're close to finding a cure for the facial tumour disease that's been plaguing Tassie Devils.
They've been treating infected animals with live cancer cells which they say can help their bodies fight the disease.
SCIENTIST: We treated this cancer with cancer, which sounds a bit odd but what we did was we use the cancer cells, cultured them in a laboratory and made them express genes which made them become visible to the devil's immune system.
They say the next step is to develop a vaccine.
A scientist in the UK has called for plain packaging on junk food, a bit like the type used on cigarette packets in Australia.
His research has shown that brightly coloured packaging on food causes our brains to release a chemical called dopamine that makes us feel good. He reckons it could help to fight obesity by making unhealthy stuff a little less appetising.
And archaeologists in Egypt have made a massive discovery. This is part of a statue that they found in the ruins of a three-thousand-year-old temple buried under modern-day Cairo.
They think it dates back to Pharaoh Ramses the second who was one of Ancient Egypt's most famous rulers.
Famine
Reporter: Matt Holbrook
INTRO: Now last week we told you about South Sudan which has been officially declared a country in famine. It's the first official famine in the past 6 years. Here's more about why South Sudan is in trouble and what you can do about it.
This is a food drop.
They're helping some of the millions of people in South Sudan suffering from starvation. The UN's recently declared South Sudan the site of the world's first famine in six years, but there have been big problems here for a while.
GEORGE FORMINYEN, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: We have got conflict that has been ongoing in this country since 2013. That conflict has made people move, has made people leave their normal places. They do not grow their food as they would do.They have lost their livestock on which they survive.They don't have money, no markets which are functioning, they cannot find any other way of surviving, and so at the end of the day, they only rely on humanitarian assistance.
That’s George and he works for the UN's World Food Program. He says many people have been forced to flee their homes to escape the fighting in South Sudan, and massive food shortages have been made worse by drought.
That's left more than forty per cent of the population in desperate need of food. Some are really sick, and every day people are dying. But unfortunately, it's not always safe for aid workers to help them.
GEORGE FORMINYEN, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: Because there is fighting, there are impediments to access. What happens is that people drop even further, and they get into situations of catastrophe, and here is why we have famine like or famine conditions.
The UN only declares a famine like this in really serious circumstances, when at least 20 per cent of a population faces extreme food shortages, 30 per cent are badly malnourished, and more than two people per 10,000 die every day. That's double the normal amount. Unfortunately, kids are the ones most at risk during a famine because without proper nutrition, they're more likely to die from preventable diseases like pneumonia or malaria.
While the situation is worst in South Sudan, the UN's also worried famine could soon be declared in Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. It says more than 5 billion dollars is needed by the end of the month to help those at risk.
Tom works with Save the Children. He's working in Somalia, where nearly five million people are going hungry.
TOM ARUP, SAVE THE CHILDREN: Somalia's on the brink of famine. Urgent humanitarian assistance is needed here to prevent that famine. In 2011 there was a famine in Somalia and a quarter of a million people died. We can prevent that this time, but urgent assistance is needed.
Recently, the Australian government announced it was giving 20 million dollars on top of its normal aid spending to support people in South Sudan and Somalia. But aid groups say they need more, they say donations can supply food and medical supplies to kids like these, and prevent many more from getting sick. And with enough support it can go a long way towards turning things around.
Did you know?
Did you know the worst famine of the past 100 years started in China in 1958?
Within four years, between 10 and 30 million people are thought to have died.
Ask a Reporter
Have you got a question about famine? Ask me live on Friday during Ask a Reporter!
Head to our website for all the details.
Platypus Census
Reporter: Carl Smith
INTRO: Next,researchers are trying to track and count one of Australia's most mysterious creatures. They're spending 3 years scouring riverbeds in New South Wales for Platypuses. Here's more.
CARL: An Australian native with soft dense fur. Is that it!?
CARL: Oh, nope. That's just a rat.
CARL: A duck-shaped bill,there's one!
CARL: Ah, nope. That's just a duck.
CARL: Webbed feet! This has to be it.
CARL: Oh! You'd think given the platypus has so many unusual traits they'd be easier to find!
CARL: Hang on, why are you wearing flippers in the middle of a park Matt?
CARL: Well, I guess there's always one way to find a platypus in Australia, no matter where you are. By digging around for some loose change!
Even though it's easy enough to find pictures of this Aussie native, tracking down the real thing in the wild is actually really difficult. But that's exactly what these guys are trying to do. Their goal is to put together the most accurate count of platypuses in the wild ever! Basically, a platypus census!
There could be anywhere between 10-thousand and a 100-thousand platypuses living along the east coast between Tassie and Queensland. But no one really knows exactly how many! That's partly because these cute little critters are nocturnal - meaning they mostly come out at night - and partly because they spend a lot of time underwater or in their burrows.
That combo means these scientists from the University of New South Wales will have to wait very patiently through lots of cold nights for the next three years to try to tally them all up!
PLATYPUS COUNTER: So that's a female, so no spurs.
The platypus is a really, really unusual animal. It belongs to a tiny group of mammals called 'monotremes', which only includes platypuses and echidnas!
While most mammals give birth to live young, monotremes lay eggs! They also have a few other odd traits, like the male platypus's venomous barb!
In dreamtime stories, Indigenous Australians describe the platypus as a cross between a duck and a rat. And because they're so unusual, when the first platypus was sent to scientists in England they thought it was a hoax - believing someone had stitched different animals together!
We've learned a lot about the platypus since then. But figuring out exactly how many are out there has proved tricky. And knowing how many are hiding in the wild is important.
Some are worried things like foxes, riverbank erosion, and even dams are threatening platypuses. So, by tallying up how many are out there, and where they're living, we could figure out better ways to protect them.
CARL: Ah! Eggs! I must be close!
AMELIA: Carl, stop.
CARL: Oh.
Well I guess we'll just leave the platypus count to the experts.
Quiz
If you were paying attention through that story you'll know this one. Which gender of platypuses has poisonous barbs?
- Males
- Females
- Both
Answer: Males
Kind Classrooms
Now, around this time last year we asked you to help us show Australiahow kind kids can be with Kind Classrooms. The whole aim is to get together with your class and plan something nice you can do for someone else in your community.
Just like these kids did in 2016. We'd love to see even more Kind Classrooms get involved this year.
So get thinking, film your work and send it in to BTN before the end of March and you might see your good deeds featured on the show.
For all the details, please head to our website.
Sleep
Reporter: Amelia Moseley
Hi BTN, I'm Mitchell and I'm Troy! I would like to know why we sleep? Hope you can help!
AMELIA: Matt, I was asleep. You know you're supposed to knock?
MATT: What are you doing?
AMELIA: BTN Investigates! I'm the investigator. Mitchell and Troy would like to know why we sleep.
MATT: Where did you get that magnifying glass from?
AMELIA: Nowhere.
MATT: I like that jacket.
AMELIA: I haven't got time for this! I have investigating to do!
MATT: Have we done this before?
Sleeping! We spend about one third of our lives doing it! But besides the odd memory of a dream here or there, most of us are in the dark about what actually happens after we close our eyes. One thing you might already know is that we need sleep like we need food and water.
CARL: Sorry, Amelia, I just can't sleep with you watching me. It's just really weird.
AMELIA:But, Carl if you don’t sleep you might die.
Studies show that animals which are deprived of sleep for a long time can have seizures and can actually die from exhaustion. In theory, the same goes for humans. In fact, sleep is so important that humans and other animals actually risk danger to do it. When we're asleep, we're almost completely unaware of our surroundings. That isn't such a problem now, but a long, long time ago, we could've been attacked by wild animals! Even now, sleeping animals are more likely to be attacked by predators. That's why some animals, like dolphins, have found clever ways to do it. They only sleep with one half of their brain at a time. That means they can still come up for air and swim along using only the half of their brain that's still awake!
But we can't all be dolphins, so I've decided to see if a real sleep investigator can shed some light on the mysteries of human sleep.
AMELIA:So Charlotte, why do we sleep?
CHARLOTTE GUPTA, PHD STUDENT Well, there's not really a clear, simple answer I can give you on that, sorry.
AMELIA:Really? Well, sorry Mitchell and Troy, I guess there are some questions you just can't be answered.
CHARLOTTE GUPTA, PHD STUDENT:Hang on, hang on, there’s some things that we do know about sleep.A lot of people thought that sleep was something where our bodies aren't doing anything, almost like we were unconscious during the night, but now we know that there's a lot that our brain does when we're asleep and it’s really busy working through a lot of things so that we're prepared for the next day.
One idea is that our brain uses a bit of shut eye to recharge parts of it that are constantly working, like this area called the prefrontal cortex. It helps us plan and make decisions. But even when we're super relaxed, it doesn't stop. Like have you ever tried thinking about nothing? You end up thinking about thinking about nothing, right? So some experts reckon sleep is the only time this part can restart. Our brains are also busy cleaning out old stuff, making space for new stuff, and sorting through memories as we sleep.
CHARLOTTE GUPTA, PHD STUDENT:So there's a lot that we take in during the day when we're at school we're learning different things, we're seeing different things so during the night one theory is that our brain is sorting through all of that information and going through and working out what's important and then it stores that information as memories and when we wake up we can remember what we've learnt the day before.