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Race Issues in College Admissions At Harvard; Pipe in Pacific Ocean To Clean -Up Sea; Live Expectancy, "ikigai" in Japan; Viking Coffin Found in Norway
Aired October 17, 2018 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Considering race in college admissions. That`s our first subject today on CNN 10. I`m Carl Azuz. It`s good to see you
this Wednesday. A trial has begun in a U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts and the case is expected to eventually make it to the U.S.
Supreme Court. It concerns Asian-American college applicants and the admission`s practices at Harvard University, one of America`s most famous
and prestigious colleges. A group called "Students For Fair Admissions" is suing Harvard. It says the university discriminates against Asian-American
applicants and unfairly favors African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans.
How? Well when it comes to recruiting letters, Harvard sends them out to black, Hispanic and Native American students who have high grades and a
score of at least 1,100 on the SAT. Asian-American men are sent recruitment letters only if their combined SAT score is at least 1,380 and
Asian-American women a score of at least 1.350. Lawyers for the "Students For Fair Admissions" say this is discrimination. Harvard`s Admissions Dean
says it is not. That the process used is to give students who normally wouldn`t to think about applying to Harvard to do it. Asian-Americans make
up about 22 percent of Harvard`s current Freshman class. They make up 6 percent of the U.S. population as a whole.
In the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that race can be considered as one factor in college admissions. This is part of something called
Affirmative Action which aims to encourage businesses and colleges to have more members of minority groups. The group that brought the lawsuit
against Harvard was founded by people who oppose Affirmative Action. It says that in addition to Harvard`s recruiting letter practices, the
university manipulates student`s personal ratings to benefit black and Hispanic applicants but to disadvantage Asian-Americans, and that the
practice is illegal because it amounts to racial balancing.
Harvard says it considers race only to help certain applicants not to count against them and it needs to do this in order to reach it`s educational
goals which include a diverse campus. The case is significant because it could influence how schools recruit and admit students in the future. The
trial is expected to take three weeks.
10 Second Trivia. What is located between San Francisco and Hawaii? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the South Equatorial Current, the Spratly
Islands or the Bering Sea. This location is where you`ll find the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A floating trash pile that`s twice the size of
Texas.
A giant U shaped pipe is now floating through the Pacific Ocean with a mission that`s even bigger than it is, to clean up the sea. This is part
of a project by a group called "The Ocean Clean-Up Team". It`s raised more than $30 million for this effort since 2013. It`s hoping this pipe helps
collect 50 tons of trash by next April and most of the garbage in the ocean in the decades ahead. Critics say despite the pipe`s 2,000 foot long size
and the nearly 10 foot depth of it`s net, it`s still too small to make a significant difference. And if it malfunctions or gets damaged in a storm,
it could create even more garbage in the ocean. But if it works as planned - -
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we see here are actually the - - the stomach contents of a single sea turtle that was found dead two years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is what`s all in one sea turtle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One sea turtle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at all that plastic.
Our oceans are already teaming with plastic. But an audacious plan to clean them up is just getting started. There are approximately 150 million
tons of plastic in the world`s oceans and a recent U.K. report predicts that that number will triple in the next decade. Pieces of plastic in the
ocean can kill sea life, threaten industries like fishing or tourism and negatively effect our health when they end up in our food.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plastic is still going to be there in one year. It`s still going to be there in 10 years. Probably going to still be there
in 100 years. Only if we go out there and clean it up, this amount of plastic is going to go down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One young Dutch inventor and his team have their sights set on solving the plastic problem. How? Meet Wilson, aka "System
One". It`s an almost 2,000 foot long floating pipe with a net hanging below. No motors. No anchors. No crew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you look around the world there`s plastics washing up on beaches. Basically we design an artificial coast line here as a
method of taking plastics out of the water over there. The wind is like propelling the system through the area such that the - - the open end of
the U, so to speak, is going forward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So it`s kind of like a catcher`s mitt for ocean plastic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Exactly. And every couple of months there is a boat coming that`s like a garbage truck in the ocean and that takes the
plastics out there on the boat and brings it back to shore.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a seemingly simple solution to a complicated problem. But critics have worried about the system`s effect on marine
life.
Are these the tubes that we see out there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. So we have the floater at the top that really keeps it afloat but also prevents plastic from going over it. While we
have the screen underneath it that prevents plastic from going under it. So we don`t have anything that can entangle marine life. And what happens
is that the current flows underneath it while the plastic that floats will remain in this zone in front of the (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You obviously have a ton of support for your project but there`s also of critics out there who are saying, you know, you guys
are just skimming the surface of this problem. And you`re not dealing with micro plastics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 92 percent of the plastic isn`t micro plastic but are larger objects.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re not micro plastics yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. So it`s kind of a ticking time bomb. The sooner we get that out the better.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On September 8th the Ocean Clean-Up Project towed the system out of the San Francisco Bay. They billed it as the largest clean-
up in history. That`s because they`re starting with the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", a floating mass of trash more than twice the size of Texas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People actually do really care. They do want this problem to be solved which makes me hopeful that if we get this first
system working that then we can actually get this to scale.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says the first of haul of plastic is expected to come back in the next few months. The group plans to make consumer
products out of recycled plastic from the patch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This pair of sunglasses, we already made this from plastic coming out of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the ultimate goal, to clean up 90 percent of ocean plastic by the year 2040.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back in the day, people said there`s no way to clean this up. The best thing we can do is not make it worse but to me that`s a
very uninspiring message. That everyone wants the future to be better than the present and that`s what we hope to achieve with this clean-up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARL AZUZ: In Denmark, where the average life expectancy is 79 and 1/2 years there`s a word called huga. In France, who`s life expectancy is
almost 82 years the term is raison detre. And in Japan, which has the world`s second highest life expectancy of over 85 years, the word is
ikigai. There are similarity between the terms. Today we`re explaining what that means in Japan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ikigai is one of my favorite words. It`s a Japanese word and it really means your sense of purpose. If you go to Japan and you
look at some of these cultures in Japan that are particularly long lived and ask them, why do you live this long? Often times they`ll say ikigai,
your reason for being. Some people spend their entire lives looking for their ikigai. Think about the things that you love. The things that you
care about and also think about what the world needs. One way to really try and find your ikigai is to say, look if money were no object.
If I was no longer doing things in pursuit of any kind of material things like money. What would I regret not having done with my life? It can help
with your sleep. It can lower some of the rates of chronic disease and it can help you just feel better overall, more engaged with life. You`ll know
it because you`ll feel it. It`s that flow like state. It`s ikigai that can help you live to 100.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: Back in Medieval times, long ships carried Vikings around the world. Some really prominent Vikings were even buried in them. That`s what this
is thought to be, a sort of Viking coffin. Recently discovered in Southern Norway, the ship measures almost 66 feet long. Finding like this is rare,
only three other well preserved long ships have ever been found in Norway. There are no plans to dig it up right away but scientists hope to run some
tests on it in the months ahead to find out what kind of condition it`s in.
The ship`s been buried for centuries. Does it "harbor" treasure? A buried "Viking or queen". Does it something "piratical" or is there just "Norway"
to find out. This is the first time it`s made "waves" since it went underground. Who knows what kind of "sails" it will tell? I`m "Carrrl"
Azuz and that`s CNN.
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