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Fast Moving U.S. Political News; The Workings of the U.N.; Red Haze on An Asian Island; Research Into What Dogs Are Thinking
Aired September 25, 2019 - 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: Hi, I`m Carl Azuz and you`re watching CNN 10. Ten minutes of news explained. There are a lot of fast moving political
headlines from the United States right now. On Wednesday the White House is expected to release the transcript of a phone call. A conversation
between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine. The circumstances surrounding that call and something allegedly discussed on it were the
reasons why on Tuesday Democrats from the U.S. House of Representatives announced they were moving forward on an impeachment inquiry, an
investigation into whether U.S. President Donald Trump committed a crime. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says he did, calling the president`s actions a
quote "betrayal of his oath of office".
The president called the announcement quote "more breaking news, witch hunt garbage". There`s a lot of info to explain here from the forthcoming
transcript of the president`s phone call with Ukraine`s leader to accusations from Democratic leaders about what the president`s actions were
after the call. More details were coming in as we put this show together and we`ll have a down the middle report on all of it tomorrow on CNN 10.
While all of that was going on, the White House says the president was working hard on behalf of the U.S. in New York City. That`s where he
addressed the United Nations General Assembly yesterday. It`s a gathering of representatives from all 193 countries that are members of the U.N.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s the United Nations, meeting place for most of the world`s countries from the most powerful such as the United States, China
and Russia to the smallest and most vulnerable. For 68 years the U.N. has been involved in everything from assisting refugees to negotiating peace
among nations. Of all the languages in the world the U.N. uses six to communicate, Al Arabia (ph), Chon When (ph), English, Francais, Ruski (ph)
and Espanol. In some combination of those six , the U.N. deliberates on global issues.
For judicial matters they look to the International Court of Justice. The Economic and Social Counsel, otherwise known as ECOSOC deals with, you
guessed it, the world`s economic social and environmental issues. The Trusteeship Counsel helps countries become self governed and independent
why the Secretariat (ph), another part of the U.N. family tackles day to day issues that include keeping the press informed. Where I`m standing is
one of the more recognizable places in the U.N., the Security Counsel. It determines threats to international peace and works to solve those problems
right here in this chamber, a gift from Norway in 1952.
And on top of that, this counsel selects the Secretary General who is then formally appointed by the General Assembly the main representative body of
the U.N. The GA, as it`s called, meets from September through December every year but the worlds problems don`t exactly follow the calendar. The
U.N. has to operate year around and one of the ways they`re staying current is through social media and you can follow the organization in any of its
official languages.
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AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. Which of these countries shares part of the island of Borneo with Malaysia? Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines,
or Thailand. Borneo is divided between three countries, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
It is truly a surreal looking landscape with everything washed in red. Even though this looks like this video might have been recorded on Mars,
it`s from part of Indonesia not Borneo but an Indonesian province across the Java Sea from it where haze from forest fires is turning this landscape
red. The nation`s government says this can happen when tiny particles of pollution scatter the sunlight during the day and it`s not a good idea to
be outside in it as air quality monitors say it can cause serious health problems. One of the people who recorded this video says it stung the eyes
and the throat. The smog has spread to nearby Malaysia and Singapore. Indonesian police say most of the fires that triggered this are set by
people who are using the slash and burn methods of clearing farmland in the dry summer months. It`s been going on for decades though it`s officially
illegal.
Here`s a change of pace. If you`ve ever looked at your dog and asked, what are you thinking? There`s a team of scientists at a private university in
Georgia who are using magnetic resonance imaging, MRI technology, to try to discover just that. Of course, that involves putting the animals into an
MRI machine and that requires a bit of training.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible) I work with dogs to train them to go into an MRI scanner and try to figure out what makes them tick and what they`re
thinking. My name is Gregory Burns (ph). I`m a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I`ve grown up with dogs and I`ve lived
with dogs pretty much my whole life. One of my favorite dogs had passed away and in the back of my mind I started wondering, did that dog love me
in the way that I loved him and that was really the beginning of it.
All of these basic things that we`ve begun to sort out in humans, at least in human brains, we want to do with dogs. If dogs can be trained to go
into an MRI machine then maybe we could figure out what they`re actually thinking. So we have a dog in the scanner. That`s Katie and she is a
veteran of the project. This is probably about the 15th time she`s done this. Just having the idea of, OK, well let`s train dogs to go in the
scanner. It wasn`t immediately apparent how you would go about doing that and - - and MRI scanners are not the most pleasant environments.
Callie (ph) is the little black terrier who was the first dog to train for the dog project. I built a simulator of an MRI so this is the simulator
that I built here in my basement and we started adding in recordings of the scanner noise which is actually quite loud. We just started working with,
you know, treats and positive reinforcement to see if we could get her to go in to this thing. That actually proved to be pretty easy and then so
what we did we kind of put out word of mouth. You want to join this project? You want to train your dogs for an MRI and, you know, maybe
figure out what they`re thinking. The purpose of this is to go through a number of exercise including basic obedience as well as how they react to
the obstacles.
When we hold the tryouts it lets us weed out the dogs that we don`t think would enjoy doing this. One of the benefits then of having more
participants as it gives you statistical power. You can start to average dogs brains together and get a better sense for what`s happening. I
started wondering very seriously if we could really finally answer this question do dogs essentially like us just for the social bond not about the
food. And what we found was at looking at the rewards system that almost all the dogs had equal responses both to food as well as praise. Even a
few dogs liked the praise more.
The things that we were finding about the dog`s brain in many ways confirm, I think, what people know in their hearts about how dogs behave and why
they behave. The way I think about dogs is in many ways they are the ambassadors to the animal world. They`re not that different from many of
the other mammals out there and so I suspect that a lot of what we find in dogs probably holds true for pretty much any mammal.
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AZUZ: The Ebay description alone is a 10 out of 10. Fifteen ton, two story tall, gasoline powered, car smashing, piloted giant battle robot,
it`s used and has dents and dings from robot combat. It costs $2.5 million to build and was listed for only $1 though bidding was at more than $50,000
last night. Now the down sides, it will probably cost $2,500 in gas, repairs and maintenance every time you use it. It needs new treads.
Shipping ain`t free and the company that made it is bankrupt so no returns.
You`ll need a "machine works" to make sure the machine works. You`ll need some "megabucks" to buy the "megabot" but for robot fans it`s a sight for
sore "mechaneyes". It puts the fun in "functional". Can yield "tons" of it, powering up a "hydralyicing" time at least until you have to "repair to
shop" because if you "robreak" it, you "robought" it. And service will be limited when it needs it. I`m Carl Azuz and that is CNN 10.
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