A Ten News Deep Dive: Episode 703
Tracy is back in the co-host chair with Pam, and this week’s Ten is WILD!
A mystery marmot is loose in San Francisco, scientists found 84 weird things in space, a giant mastodon tooth turned up in a creek, and baby wild horses are making history.
Plus, The Legend of Zelda turns 40, Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off, and we’re heading to the Galápagos to see how scientists are helping animals prepare for El Niño.
Stick around for Ten News Trivia — and whatever you do, don’t tell Midnight the studio cat there’s a giant ground squirrel in town.
Get Connected
🫶 Help fund The Ten News by donating today!
✔️ Subscribe to our Ten News-letter!
📱 Follow the show on Instagram: @thetennews
📧 Email us at hello@thetennews.com if you have any questions or want to submit audio!
🖱️ Visit thetennews.com for additional resources, our online store, the Ten'ers Club, and more!
Transcript:
INT. TEN NEWS STUDIO
<SFX: Music>
PAM: Tracy, this week's news is taking us all over the place.
TRACY: How all over the place?
PAM: We're going back thousands of years, way out into space, and across a few different continents.
TRACY: Okay, that's a pretty big week. And with Ryan still away, I'm back in the co-host chair.
PAM: Then let's get into it.
TRACY: It’s Thursday, September 17th, and I’m Tracy Kaplan filling in for Ryan Willard.
PAM: And I’m Pamela Kirkland and this is The Ten News, and here are the Ten Things You Need to Know!
<SFX: SHOFAR BLAST>
PAM: Okay, Tracy. I know you know this one. What was that sound?
TRACY: That's a shofar — a ram's horn traditionally blown during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah was last weekend, marking the start of the Jewish year 5787.
PAM: And New Year's looks a little different on the Jewish calendar.
TRACY: Definitely. Many families go to synagogue, hear the shofar and eat apples dipped in honey to wish for a sweet year ahead. Rosh Hashanah is also about reflection. It's a time to think about the year that's passed: what you're proud of, what you wish you'd done differently and whether there are people you need to make things right with.
PAM: And Rosh Hashanah is just the beginning, right?
TRACY: Right. It starts the Ten Days of Repentance, the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur, starts sundown on Sunday the 20th and ends on sundown on the 21st and is the the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. To all our Ten’ers celebrating, Shana Tova, which means Happy New Year!
<SFX: Fun horn>
<SFX: CREEK / SPLASH>
PAM: Now imagine you're walking through a creek and you find a tooth. A very big tooth. That's basically what happened to a scientist working in California's San Mateo County. It was a nine inch tooth that belonged to an ancient Pacific mastodon. Mastodons were enormous elephant-like animals that once roamed North America and disappeared thousands of years ago. And this tooth is incredibly well preserved. Scientists can still see the crown, the root and even the root canal. The discovery happened during a habitat project for the threatened California red-legged frog. The fossil has now gone to Stanford University, where scientists plan to study its age and make 3-D replicas for education.
TRACY: Hope they have good dental insurance.
<SFX: SPACE MUSIC>
TRACY: Pam, this may be my favorite kind of science story. It’s a mystery where even the scientists are saying, "We don't totally know what this is." Scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered 84 mysterious objects scattered across six galaxies. They give off an unusual mix of low-energy X-rays and lots of ultraviolet radiation. Scientists have temporarily named them “hypersoft X-ray sources.”
PAM: Very science-fiction sounding.
TRACY: Researchers think these objects could help them understand more about how stars evolve and what happens when stars interact with super-dense objects called white dwarfs.
But right now, scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what they are.
<SFX: Space noise>
<SFX: PHONE NOTIFICATION>
PAM: Next up: some news that's actually about you, Ten’ers.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a group of new laws aimed at making social media and artificial-intelligence chatbots safer for young people. One new law puts restrictions on features designed to keep users under 16 scrolling, including certain autoplay and algorithmic feeds. And there's a new focus on AI too. Companies that make AI companion chatbots for young people will have to add stronger safety protections, including parental controls, safety audits and procedures for responding when a user may be in crisis. Supporters say technology has changed so quickly that the rules protecting kids need to catch up.
TRACY: And some tech companies worry that rules could also limit useful features for teens. Which raises a pretty good question for Ten’ers: What rules do you think social media and AI companies should have for kids? Tell us what you think by sending us an email at hello@thetennews.com or leaving us a voicemail at 1-877-TEN-NEWS
<SFX: CELEBRATORY MUSIC>
PAM: Tracy, here's a calendar question for you. Why does Hispanic Heritage Month start on September 15 instead of September 1?
TRACY: Oh, I know this one. September 15 is Independence Day for five Central American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Then Mexico celebrates its independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18. So one week includes a whole lot of important anniversaries.
PAM: Exactly. Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 through October 15 and celebrates the histories, cultures and contributions of Americans whose families have roots in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America. It first began as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, and twenty years later it was expanded into the month-long celebration we know today.
TRACY: And that means over the next month, we'll be seeing celebrations of Hispanic and Latino history, music, art, food and culture all around the country. I’m going to spend some time this month reading more about icons like Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Justice on the Supreme Court, Roberto Clemente, the Puerto Rican baseball legend, and of course listening to some Bad Bunny. Let’s take a quick break!
TRACY: Hey, parents — Tracy here. If The Ten News is part of your family’s routine, you already know how important it is to give kids news that is smart, age-appropriate and actually made for them. Every episode takes a team of writers, reporters, producers and editors working to help kids understand what’s happening in the world and we can only keep doing that with support from families like yours. We’ve kicked off our annual fundraising with a goal to bring you a full season of the show. You can support us at the link in the episode description and every gift counts. Thank you for helping us keep kids cool, kind and informed.
PAM: Animal lovers, we have some very good news. Two Przewalski's horse foals have been born in Kazakhstan. And conservationists say they're the first wild horses born there in more than 200 years.
TRACY: These are the horses that actually went extinct in the wild for a while, right?
PAM: Yes, Przewalski's horses once lived across Central Asia, but hunting, habitat loss and competition with domesticated animals caused their population to collapse. Zoos and conservation groups kept the species alive through breeding programs and eventually began returning them to the wild. Over the last few years, 22 of the horses have been brought back to Kazakhstan. And now, two baby boys have arrived. One was born to a mare named Tessa, and the other to Umbra.
TRACY: And neither one has a name yet.
PAM: Oh, I know where you're going with this.
TRACY: Of course! Ten’ers, send us your best baby horse names.
PAM: Just maybe not Horsey McHorseface.
<SFX: HORSE WHINNY>
<SFX: FOOTBALL CROWD>
TRACY: The NFL officially went Down Under last week. The San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams traveled to Melbourne for the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Australia. They played in front of a huge crowd, more than 100,000 fans packed the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The 49ers won 27 to 7, with quarterback Brock Purdy throwing three touchdown passes. The Australia game is part of a much bigger international season for the NFL. There are nine international games scheduled across seven countries and four continents. That's a lot of very large football players doing a lot of very long flights.
<SFX: Something funny here>
<SFX: VIDEO GAME MUSIC>
PAM: Well gamers, Ryan isn’t here so I get the honor of giving you the latest Nintendo news. The company held a Nintendo Direct showing off upcoming games for the Switch and Switch 2. There was a new Kirby adventure, a new Metroid game, more Pikmin, a new Mega Man game and updates for Mario Kart World.
TRACY: And, one announcement that definitely caught our attention.
PAM: The Legend of Zelda is turning 40.
TRACY: Forty years of Zelda. A time of no iphones, no YouTube, just me and my older brother playing Zelda over and over again.
<SFX: video game restart>
<SFX: OCEAN WAVES>
TRACY: Scientists are keeping a close eye on one of the most famous wildlife habitats on Earth: the Galápagos Islands. As we’ve talked about, a stronger-than-normal El Niño is developing in the Pacific Ocean, and unusually warm water could cause problems for animals that live there. The Galápagos penguins, the marine iguanas, sea-lions, and everyone’s favorite, the blue-footed boobies could all be in trouble. When ocean temperatures rise, plankton and small fish can become harder to find. And when those tiny creatures disappear, animals higher up the food chain can struggle to find enough to eat.
PAM: They're closely tracking animals like penguins, marine iguanas and sea lions to see whether they're losing weight, struggling to find food or having fewer babies. And all that monitoring helps scientists figure out which animals are being hit hardest and where conservation efforts can make the biggest difference.
TRACY: The scientists can't stop El Niño from happening, but they can give these animals a better chance of making it through.
PAM: And for the last thing you need to know, let’s go to our Trivia Master, Owen.
OWEN: Thanks, Pam. A very unexpected animal showed up in San Francisco’s Mission District this week. Which animal was it?
A marmot
A penguin
A llama OR
A porcupine
OWEN: Alright Ten’ers, did you guess it? The answer is A, a marmot! A yellow-bellied marmot, basically a big, chunky squirrel, was found wandering around San Francisco, even though marmots normally live high in the mountains. Wildlife rescuers think the marmot may have been a secret stowaway, possibly crawling into or underneath someone’s car near Lake Tahoe and accidentally getting a ride all the way to the city. Rescuers are now trying to figure out exactly where it came from so they can return it to the right habitat. As a San Franciscan, I have just one question, did it confuse our hills with its home?
PAM: There you have it, Ten’ers, Ten Things You Need to Know.
TRACY: A New Year, A Heritage Month, and an unexpected Marmot. This was a fun one. Before we get to Ten News Snaps. Here’s a quick note for the grown ups.
<AD BREAK>
PAM: Time for Ten News Snaps!
TRACY: Ten’er G fgchtf gave us 4 stars on Apple Podcasts and said I love this pod. 4 stars, always room for improvement. I agree, let us know what else you’d like to see on the show.
PAM: And Ten’er the podcast pony lover 123 said best podcast ever. I love it so much. If you listen to it, you will like it. Thank you podcast pony lover 123.
TRACY: Ok, Pam, I raided Ryan’s snacks. Let’s get go play some Zelda.
PAM: Let’s go!
<SFX: Video game noise>
PAM: “The Ten News” is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts, and part of the Airwave Podcast Network.
TRACY: The Ten News creative team includes Tracey Not a Crooks, Adam the Great Bambino Bernard, Brian Not Ryan Douglas, the Duke of Earl Davis and Carson Not So Harry Potter. Big thanks to Owen, Not Slowin Down for Anybody.
PAM: Our Production Director is Jeremiah Tittle, and our Executive Producers are Donald Albright, Albright, Albright! and show creator Tracy Takes the Leeds Kaplan. I’m Pamela Kirkland.
TRACY: And I’m Tracy Leeds Kaplan, filling in for Ryan Willard, thanks for listening to the Ten News
