Shark Encounters and Weird Water 🌊

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Episode 118 Description

🏊‍♀️ In this episode of The Ten News Summer Survival Guide, we are talking sharks and water! 🦈 Why are scientists asking to change our language from "shark attacks" to "shark encounters?" Nature Nerds' Laine Farber gives us the scoop.🚰 Water can be wacky, weird, and wonderful. 🌎 Hear our favorite facts about water around the world. 📰 From the headlines: Historic wins and SpongeBob? ✅ And test your river knowledge in today’s Trivia on the Ten! 🧐

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TRANSCRIPT:

Various Voices 0:00

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Bethany Van Delft 0:06

I'm Bethany Van Delft. And this is The Ten News where we get the lowdown on what's up in the world. It's Thursday, August 5th. The Olympic Games are in their last week and the schedule is full of surfing, sailing, diving, and a bunch of other water sports. So today, we're getting wet and exploring what lies beneath the surface. Let's dive in.

Bethany Van Delft 0:35

Water is weird and wonderful. So let's kick off our watery adventure with a sprinkle of facts. Check out these five fascinating facts about our watery world. Number 1, 71% of Earth is covered in water. Seems like there should be a cool sip at your fingertips anytime you're thirsty, right? The thing is only 3% of that number is freshwater. The rest is saltwater in our seas, and billions of people around the world live without clean fresh water. And climate change is making it worse. With droughts and pollution damaging freshwater supplies. We have to do something. Number two, there is a name for the smell of rain when it hits the ground. It's called Petrichor. What does that mean? It's an earthy smell that's partially caused by a bacteria that releases a chemical called geosmin. So next time it rains breathe in the bacteria smell. It's different when you think of it like that. Number three, there's water in space. Last week, the Hubble telescope found evidence of water around Jupiter's moon Ganymede is also a huge water vapor cloud 12 billion light-years away that's floating around a black hole. Whoa. The cloud has 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans. Number four, the largest waterfall on earth is actually under the ocean. While the tallest waterfall on land is Angel Falls in Venezuela. The Denmark Street cataract under the sea between Greenland and Iceland is three times taller. Wow. It's a spot where warm and cold water currents mix, resulting in the colder, denser water-dropping nearly two miles down beneath the waves. And number five, there's a lake in Australia that's bubblegum pink. Lake Hillier's water will make your eyes pop. Scientists think its bright pink color comes from a species of algae and a pink color bacteria that live there. And this lake isn't the only one on Earth. There's another Pink Lake in Senegal on the continent of Africa. That's incredible. We're sure is wild. Do you have any fun facts to share? Leave us a voicemail at 877-Ten-News. That's 877 t e n n e w s. Tell me when you take a dip in the ocean. Are you on high alert for sharks? While it's super rare to see a shark at the beach every summer the media reports on Shark sightings. Our correspondent Laine Farber is here to tell us more about why shark encounters happen. And how you can stay safe if you ever see one.

Laine Farber 3:48

Bud-um, Bud-um, Bud-um, Bud-um, Bud-um, Bud-um, Bud-um, buddum, buddum, buddum

Laine Farber 3:53

A heart-stopping minor melody from the movies that signals the approach of sharp gnashing teeth and the fin of doom. Parents and kids alike know this sound means one thing Shark Attack. Cue the epic battle between evil shark and human heroes. The shark leaps out of the water and onto the boat to attack the noble fisherman. He's on a mission to destroy. He eats one man whole and tries to gobble up the other but it is stopped by a harpoon to the gills. At last, the beast has been bested. But that's all pretend there are no evil sharks. There's no special music that plays to warn beachgoers and according to some scientists, there are no true shark attacks seriously. That's right. In recent years, some shark scientists and researchers have been making a push to do away with the phrase shark attack because it doesn't paint up. pretty picture. Now movies and TV have a way of painting our friend friends as bloodthirsty beasts looking for a tasty swimmer snack. But guess what? Research shows that most shark encounters are not like the movies. Most people who are bitten by sharks survive. Are you kidding me? Only 16% of shark bites are fatal. And your chances of being eaten by a shark are super low, you're more likely to be struck by lightning, or killed by a wonky firework. Now, don't get me wrong, sharks are strong and fearsome predators, but they don't really like eating people. Most people who do get bitten are mistaken as a seal or large fish by the shark. Some people don't get bitten at all. They just get a scratchy little side hug from the shark's sandpapery skin. And some people don't even realize that they had an encounter with a shark. Because the stealthy fish was just minding its own business, you will not notice anything out of the ordinary. Whatever the encounter might be. researchers and scientists are making a push to rethink the way we classify these interactions. They hope by changing the word from shark attack to shark encounter or human shark interaction. They can teach people that sharks are not super villains and be able to collect more accurate data on what actually happens when man and beast meet. But if you're still wary of getting in the water, then let me help you shake your fear of our finned friends. Follow these tips from the Florida museum to stay shark safe this summer: swim with a partner, stay close to shore, don't swim near schools of fish or where people are fishing, leave the shiny jewelry at home, avoid swimming at sunrise or sunset and keep the splashing to a minimum. And of course, if you ever do encounter a shark out in the water, remember to stay calm and protect yourself if necessary. If they try to give you a chomp, you give them a womp. Striking a shark on the gills’, eyes, or nose is an effective way to get them to swim away.

Bethany Van Delft 7:25

Thanks, Laine. Great tips and a good reminder that we share the water with lots of fins friends. Now let's see what else is up.

Bethany Van Delft 7:44

Did you look up the stars this week, you may have noticed one spot shining a little brighter. The planet Saturn is at its closest point to Earth and in alignment with the sun known as opposition. Don't worry, they're not going to fight. This event causes Saturn to be super shiny in the sky. And while the brightest days were from August 1st to August 4th, the ring’s planet will shine extra bright throughout August. Awesome. It's been a historic week for the US gymnastic Team Sunisa Lee an 18-year-old from Minnesota to come gold for the U.S. in the women's gymnastic all round last week. Lee is the first Hmong American to win a gold medal. The Hmong are a group of indigenous people from a mountainous region that spans the areas of southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. And Simone Biles returned to the competition and won the bronze medal in balance beam. This is her seventh Olympic medal and she's now tied with Olympian Shannon Miller for the most medals won by any American gymnast in history. Excellent. Last week, Alaska experienced an earthquake that was the state's largest in half a century. Experts estimated the earthquake and a magnitude of 8.2. The quake prompted a tsunami warning that was quickly lifted and evacuations in many coastal areas. Yikes. And back to the water. There was a fun site under the Atlantic Ocean this week. A scientist on the research ship, the Okeanos Explorer was surprised to see SpongeBob SquarePants and his best friend Patrick on the video feed of the seafloor. The sea sponge and the pink seastar resembling the animated duo were spotted as part of a month-long expedition to better understand the Atlantic oceans’ deep water areas. To see the picture. Check out our show notes. Coming up next...

Various Voices 9:50

What, what, what's the big idea?

Bethany Van Delft 9:53

Trivia on The Ten. Millions of years ago one of the longest rivers in the world, the Amazon, looked a little different. What was different about it? Was it A) It was home to 1,000's of pink alligators? B) it flowed backwards, or C) it was covered in gold algae.

Bethany Van Delft 10:20

Did you guess it? The answer is B) it flowed backwards. Today, the Amazon flows east, eventually ending in the Atlantic Ocean. But way back when it flowed the opposite direction, and for a time, both east and west at once. Scientists have determined that erosion was the culprit. As the land changed in the Andes Mountains grew, it caused more erosion and that impacted the rivers flow, the moral of the story. You don't have to pick a direction. Try them all.

Bethany Van Delft 11:01

Time's up. Before we go, a quick message for the grown-ups. Thanks for listening to The Ten News. Look out for new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and it's distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News creative team is dreaming of the pool and includes Kate Hale, Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, and Andrew Hall. Laine Farber contributed to this episode. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle and our executive producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I'm Bethany Van Delft and thanks for listening to The 10 News. I finally understand the saying water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Because I was like there's water everywhere. What do you mean there's not a drop to drink? There's an ocean, there's a lake, there's a river, there's a faucet, there's a thing in the fridge. There's just water everywhere.