CNN Student News - October 28, 2016

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: We are CNN STUDENT NEWS and Fridays are awesome! I`m Carl Azuz. Thank you for watching.

The World Wildlife Fund, an international conservation group, says more than two-thirds of the world`s wildlife could be gone by the year 2020. 

The organization says there`s already been a 58 percent decrease in the number of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles since 1970. The number of elephants as we`ve reported has dropped drastically, in part because of poaching. And the WWF says overfishing could make a third of the planet`s sharks extinct.

Looking at wildlife as a whole, one major reason for all this is habitat loss. A WWF conservation scientist says it`s because people are using so much of the planet and destroying so much of the animals` habitat. His organization suggests more government laws protecting the environment and 
that people look for more sustainable products and renewable energy. 

But not all scientists totally agree with the WWF report. A conservation ecology professor at Duke University says it`s true that wildlife is declining, but he called some of the WWF`s numbers sketchy and said its research is flawed, in part because most of it focuses on Western Europe. 

As history books defined it, the Cold War started after World War II. It involved the U.S. and its allies versus the Soviet Union and its allies. 

The rivalry was political, economic, ideologic, but it stopped short of an outright military conflict.

Now, though, there`s a military buildup in Eastern Europe that`s the largest since the Cold War. The United Kingdom is planning to send fighter jets to Romania. The U.S. is set to send troops and tanks to Poland. Russia recently sailed warships close to British waters on their way to Syria.

It all has international officials asking, is this the beginning of a new Cold War?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, not since the end of the Cold War have tensions between Russia and the West been this high. 

SUBTITLE: The new Cold War?

CHANCE: The big flashpoint is, of course, Syria. Russia`s bombing in support of its ally, the Syrian president, has drawn condemnation from the United States and Europe. Russia has responded by bolstering its military in Syria, deploying even more state of the art anti-aircraft missiles, and by upping its rhetoric.

Of course, the Syria conflict is only one of the flashpoints between Russia and the West. Another is Ukraine, where Russia is under Western sanctions for fueling of bloody rebellion in the east of the country after annexing Crimea in 2014. 

There`s also the issue of hacking, with Russia accused by U.S. officials of breaking into computer systems of political institutions. The Kremlin denies it, but there is a growing sense that Russian and the West are locked in a collusion course over a whole range of issues. But it`s argued that Russia`s president, Vladimir Putin, is just an autocrat bent on subverting the international order to which Russia was invited to be a part. 

But I think many Russians see it differently. They see a world that after the end of the Cold War was almost totally dominated by the West and by United States in particular.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: It`s our duty to speak in this place of freedom.

CHANCE: Russian interests and concerns, they believe, have been trampled on with NATO expansion and the toppling of former Russian allies in the Balkans and in the Middle East. And what many Russians like about Putin is that he is saying enough is enough and standing up to U.S. dominance.

PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA (translated): We need to strengthen the security and defense capability of our country, to assert its position on the international stage. 

CHANCE: So, what Syria and Ukraine and hacking are really about is this: like it or not, that relationship between Russia and the West, after the Cold War, the post-Cold War settlements, as it`s sometimes called, is now being renegotiated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Ray of Light, Hope, Echo -- these are the names of some of Japan`s Shinkansen, the network of bullet trains that quickly connects different parts of the country. There are hundreds of them in Japan. 

And the next generation of maglev or magnetic levitation trains promises to be significantly faster. 

Will Ripley climbs aboard for a trip through the past and the future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It`s one of the most sophisticated transportation networks in the world. The arteries of Japan pumping millions of passengers across the country and the trains are almost always on time. 

Walking into Tokyo station, you`re surrounded of more 3,000 trains and half a million people passing through this one station every day. But trains are much more than transportation here in Japan, it tells a story of this country`s character and changing relationship with the world. 

(on camera): Was this your seat right here?

FUMIHIRO ARAKI, DEPUTY DIRECTOR AT THE RAILWAY MUSEUM: Yes.

RIPLEY: So, does being in here bring back memories for you?

ARAKI: Yes, of course.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Fumihiro Araki is leaving history. He was a conductor of the zero series Shinkansen, Japan`s first high speed rail.

(on camera): Tell me what it was like when the bullet train first was unveiled in Japan.

ARAKI (translated): I was driving the world`s fastest train for the first time, so I was really excited.

RIPLEY (voice-over): We`re standing onboard the original train unveiled in 1964. At the time, it topped 210 kilometers an hour, which was unheard of. 

The fastest trains in Europe pushed 160. The Shinkansen was a show of force.

ARAKI: The Tokyo Olympics was held in 1964. So they tried to build the Shinkansen at the same time to show how Japan had recovered after the war and been able to develop this technology 

RIPLEY: Now, Japan is upping the ante again.

(on camera): Wow, look at that. It`s incredible. How fast is that going?

TOMOAKI SEKI, MANAGER OF THE MAGLEV SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT DIVISION: Yes, so far, 311 miles per hour.

RIPLEY: Three hundred and eleven miles an hour.

(voice-over): The SCMaglev recently clocking in at speeds of 600 kilometers per hour. Testing is underway at a track outside of Tokyo, hidden in the mountains of a sleepy town called Yamanashi.

How does it go so fast?

SEKI: The SCMaglev train is levitating using magnetic force. 

RIPLEY (on camera): So, literally, the train isn`t touching the surface. It`s just floating just about.

SEKI: That`s right.

RIPLEY (voice-over): But mass travel on the maglev isn`t going to happen overnight.

SEKI: We already gained a speed of 550 kilometers per hour in the 1997. However, we need to make the system and take (INAUDIBLE) to a practical level, and that`s going to take time.

RIPLEY: This new technology requires all new tracks, 85 percent of which will be underground, to compensate for the fact that Japan is incredibly mountainous and also to avoid purchasing the land the train tracks go through. Even then, this first line is estimated to cost $55 billion. 

(on camera): Walking onboard the fastest train in the world, almost feels like you`re getting on an airplane, and the maglev can travel nearly as fast.

(voice-over): The ride is surprisingly smooth, although your ears pop after you go a certain speed, a journey many in Japan can`t wait to be a part of.

(on camera): It doesn`t get over me. It`s so cool.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Most penguins have special feathers to help insulate their bodies from extreme cold. But they can occasionally lose them as a penguin at SeaWorld Orlando recently did. So, check it, y`all. 

Penguin wet suit. It was tailored by SeaWorld`s wardrobe department just for this penguin. It helps her regulate her own body temperature, and she doesn`t seem to mind out-dressing the others. This has been done before successfully at another captive penguin habitat.

So, you can say it suits them, that it fits the bill, that birds of a feather dress together, that they have a vested interest in suiting. Now, I don`t mean to be flippant, but we`re about to show this show on the wing, and while we don`t have to penguin again, we hope your weekend is a penguinner.

I`m Carl Azuz.

CNN Student News - October 27 2016

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Thank you for taking 10 minutes for CNN STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz. It`s great to see you as always.

The United Nations refugee agency says this year has been the worst ever for migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. 

Despite the fact that far fewer migrants are trying to cross than the number who did in 2015, many more had died this year -- at least 3,800 people so far or one in every 88 trying to make the crossing. Compare that with one death for every 269 people last year.

The journey is even more dangerous for those migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya. The North African country is in chaos. It has no central government, but it does have a number of smuggling networks and many of them use flimsy rafts or boats that aren`t really seaworthy. 

They`re often overcrowded with refugees and migrants and sent over the central Mediterranean, facing strong currents, bad weather and odds increasingly stuck against a safe journey.

Next today, new research suggests space travel can be a real pain in the back. Since missions got longer in the late 1980s, more than half of the U.S. astronauts who`d spent time in space had complained of back pain. And it didn`t get better when they got back to earth. 

A new study funded by NASA says the problem is a major weakening of the muscles of the lower back. Researchers say in space, astronauts aren`t bending forward or using their lower backs to move. That led to a 19 percent decrease in muscle tone during a trip to the International Space Station. 

And even after six weeks of training when they came back home, the muscles still hadn`t fully recovered. Doctors say yoga and core training could help. They`re concerned because the muscle loss they saw was on astronauts who`d been in space for four to seven months. It could take nine months to go to Mars. And that planet`s gravity is weaker than Earth`s is. 

Health problems in space go beyond back pain.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REPORTER: The space station has multiple science labs where astronauts spend most of their time. Without gravity, endless new research possibilities are opened up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every part of your day, you`re jumping from one experiment to the other. We were doing flame research almost every day and then a lot of fluid research to see what`s going on with fluid dynamics up in zero g.

REPORTER: And this weightless environment is the perfect place to examine how the human body reacts to space, bringing NASA closer to their chief objective of sending people to Mars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another huge chunk is what`s going on with our bodies while we`re up there? So, you take away gravity. Right now, we`re standing here, we`re leaning (ph) up our hips. We`re leaning up our leg muscles. And when you get up to that zero gravity situation, all of that 
goes away. 

The first thing your body wants to do, you`re not using those muscles, let`s get rid of them. You don`t need that bone to be that strong, let`s get rid of that, and start weakening it down. Astronauts have vision changes when they`re up in space. So, the fluid shifts and it`s actually pressing on the back of your eyes. So, every two to three weeks, we`re doing in-depth look at our eyes.

There was really no part of the human body that was not studied in depth the whole time you`re up there.

If we`re ever going to spend 500 days going off to Mars, we need to know exactly what`s going on with the human body.

REPORTER: In order to counteract some of the health risks, astronauts spend an average of two and a half hours a day exercising on station. 

Being in space is certainly no vacation. But up there, nothing is mundane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Another new study today, it`s detected changes in the brains of young football players and not necessarily from concussions. It was published in the Medical Journal Radiology. It looked at the brains of 25 football players between ages 8 and 13 over a single season. None had been diagnosed with concussions.

But the study found an association between increased head impacts and an unusual way in which water moved in parts of the players` brains. The unusual water movement has been linked to concussive symptoms like headaches and dizziness. The authors don`t know if the impact is permanent and critics are skeptical because not enough kids were studied. But the researchers who did the study say they`re hoping to examine the issue more closely to make the sport of football safer.

Now, $8,400,000,000. That`s what Americans are expected to spend this year on Halloween stuff. It`s the most ever in the annual survey of the 

National Retail Federation. And if you think that most of that money would be spent on costumes -- well, you`d be right. $3.1 billion on dressing up, $2.5 billion on the candy, $2.4 billion on decorations, $390 million on greeting cards.

The survey says that 69 percent of Americans are planning to celebrate Halloween and of those who are, about a fifth said they were going to visit a haunted house. We`re now taking you inside one that`s using technology not only to frighten, but also to teach.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN BRANDT, CUNY, PROFESSOR OF PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: When we decided to do the haunted house, it wasn`t about we wanted to do an event to scare people. We wanted to pick one kind of event that we could network everything we teach into one event. And each year, we add more content and more complexity. So, inside the attraction, we have hidden 16 sensors. 

So, the audience members walk in the front door, there`s actually a sensor there. And the door shuts. It triggers that sensor off and then they have an experience going down the stairwell of lighting and sound and effects. When they get down to the bottom of the stairs, the first place they visit is the skullies wall (ph), they set off a sensor.

And so, all the way through the attraction, audience members are slowing setting off these sensors and having a lighting sound or video experience. 

EDLINE JOSEPH MONTIMAIRE, CUNY, ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY STUDENT: Haunted hotel gives us an opportunity to experiment a lot of different technologies as time goes by. A lot of students come to find that when they do go out work in the field, nothing is shocking to us, because we`re doing it here. 

When you get into the technology that`s behind the haunted hotel, and when you go out into the field, it`s the same technology.

BRANDT: The technology used in the haunted hotel is similar to the technology used in theme parks such as Disneyland, Universal Studios, 

Hollywood and others.

It`s great for our students because now they know the current version of software and equipment and they`re able to take that experience right into the work environment.

One of the many functions of the haunted hotel is that it`s a recruitment opportunity for us to invite local high schools and junior highs so that they can learn about careers in the entertainment industry. Sometimes, we`ll actually shut down the attraction while it`s running when the schools request and they can meet current college students and talk to them about what it`s like to go to school, what it was like to work on the attraction, how they can obtain that goal as well. 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: How would you define hero? As far as CNN Heroes is concerned, it`s an every day person making an extraordinary impact in the lives of others. 

You`ll recognize several of these people from our character study segments and one of them will become the CNN Hero of the Year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I`m Anderson Cooper. This year marks the 10th anniversary of CNN Heroes. For a decade now, we`ve been introducing you to some truly remarkable individuals changing the world. And this year is no different.

It`s time to announce the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2016. Here they are:

In Colombia, Jeison Aristizabal hasn`t let cerebral palsy stop him from giving thousands of young people with disabilities a brighter future.

Brad Ludden is a former professional kayaker who brings life-changing outdoor adventures to young adults with cancer.

Since 2007, San Francisco`s Sherri Franklin has rescued nearly 4,000 senior dogs and found them forever homes.

Umra Omar travels by boat, road and air, bringing free medical care to thousands of people living near the Kenya-Somalia border. 

Luma Mufleh is a Jordanian immigrant helping young survivors of war adopt to their new home in the United States, through education and soccer.

In Chicago, Sheldon Smith is breaking the cycle of absentee fathers by helping young dads become positive role models.

Becca Stevens, she`s dedicated her life to helping women escape addiction and trafficking.

In Los Angeles, Georgie Smith turns makeshift spaces into dream homes for young people who`ve aged out of the foster care system.

At 86 years old, Harry Swimmer is using his horse farm to give special needs kids a leg up.

And in Richmond, Virginia, cycling coach Craig Dodson mentors the most at- risk youth living in Richmond public housing.

Congratulations to the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2016. 

Now, it`s time for you to decide who`ll be named CNN Hero of the Year and receive $100,000 to continue their work. Just to go to CNNHeroes.com to learn how to vote for the CNN Hero who inspired you the most, and be sure to tune in to the 10th Annual CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tributes celebrating all of this year`s honorees live from New York Sunday, December 11th.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: It wouldn`t be right to diminish any of that with puns. So, we`ll put those on hold until tomorrow and hope you`ll join us again Friday -- awesome -- for CNN STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz.

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