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Shining A Spotlight On Extraordinary Change-Makers For International Women`s Day; An Implant In His Brain Lets Him Do Incredible Tasks With His Thoughts. Astronomers Discover Oldest "Dead" Galaxy In The Distant Universe. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired March 08, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: What`s up, lovely people. Happy Friday, Friyay. And Happy International Women`s Day. We`ll start this March 8th by putting
the spotlight on two difference-making women whose lives and actions shine bright to this day.
First up, civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin at the age of 15 in the year 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in
Montgomery, Alabama. That was nine months before Rosa Parks famously did the same.
For her act of protest, Claudette was arrested and accused of violating the city`s segregation rules and assaulting a police officer. She later
petitioned to clear her record, and 66 years later, her request was granted in 2021.
Claudette, who`s now 84 years old, remained an unsung hero of the racial justice movement until the book about her life by Philip Hoose won the
National Book Awards for Young People`s Literature in 2009.
Next, we honor the life of Kate Sheppard, an activist who helped New Zealand become the first country in the world to allow women to vote back
in 1893. Originally born in Liverpool, England, she immigrated to New Zealand in her early 20s and became an activist as a member of the Women`s
Christian Temperance Union, which advocated for women`s suffrage as a way to fight for liquor prohibition.
Kate, however, took her activism way beyond that, become a leader in New Zealand`s suffrage movement, fighting for issues ranging from
representation in Parliament to freedom from wearing the corset. Her activism work in New Zealand and abroad inspired women`s rights movements
around the world, rise up.
Next up, we examine cutting-edge technology behind a human brain chip that can translate neural activity into commands on a computer. You may remember
Elon Musk announced about five weeks ago that a person received an implant from his company Neuralink for the first time, but there are other
companies like Synchron who have been implanting people in its clinical trial in the U.S. for years. CNN`s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay
Gupta, goes behind the scenes with the folks at Synchron to learn how this groundbreaking technology aims at changing lives for the better.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Up, down left, right -- everything you are watching happen on this screen right now
is being controlled only with Mark`s thoughts.
(On camera): So that just sent out a health notification.
MARK, STENTRODE PATIENT: Uh-huh.
GUPTA (voice-over): He describes it as contracting and then relaxing his brain.
MARK: It takes concentration. It`s a pretty involve process. Its one I don`t take lightly.
GUPTA: This has all been pretty sudden for Mark. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2021. Mark has since lost control of his hands and arms. He would likely
lose his voice.
Mark didn`t hesitate to sign up for a clinical trial to have this placed in his brain. It`s called a stentrode.
MARK: To me, it gives me the opportunity to be able to continue to do things that I`m able to do now, just by thinking about it.
GUPTA: In the world of brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, it is still early days. In fact, up until recently, it`s mostly led to monkeys being
able to play pong. But Synchron was one of the first companies in the world to get FDA approval for human trials. And Mark is one of those first
humans.
It`s all the brainchild of this man, Dr. Tom Oxley.
DR. TOM OXLEY, CEO, SYNCHRON: For people who have got paralysis or motor impairment, but they have that part of the brains still working, then if
you can put a device in, get the information, get it out of the brain then you can turn what previously was a signal controlling your body into a
single that controls the digital devices.
GUPTA: The stentrode is the device that Oxley and his team at Synchron created. It`s a cage of thin wire mesh with electrode sensors that can
detect the electrical brain activity translate that activity, and then transmitted to devices such as a phone or a computer.
MARK: It`s amazing. It`s all I can say.
GUPTA: And just like a stent, it doesn`t require open brain surgery. Instead, it`s able to travel through the body`s natural network of veins
and sit in a major vein, right in the middle of the brain.
Our brains have billions of neurons firing electrical impulses that control our movements, everything from shaking hands to taking a step. Each and
every one of those actions is associated with a specific electrical signature. The stentrode, which again sits right here around that area of
the brain responsible for movement, learns to recognize those specific electrical patterns and essentially creates your own personalized
dictionary of movement.
It`s a hope for patients of the future and a chance for Mark to continue living a full life now.
GUPTA: The brain control interface, pong tournament.
MARK: Exactly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Pop quiz, hot shot. Which president was the first to call his annual speech to Congress a "State of the Union" address?
Martin Van Buren, George Washington, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
FDR doesn`t just stand for factually definitely right. It also stands for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The first president to refer to the annual address
to Congress as the State of the Union. It became official in 1947, though, under President Harry Truman.
President Joe Biden delivered his State of The Union speech last night, a high-stakes moment as he`s preparing to face former President Donald Trump
in a likely rematch in the general elections in November.
Trump and Biden dominated their respective Super Tuesday races this week while two of their respective party rivals former U.N. ambassador Nikki
Haley on the Republican side and Representative Dean Phillips on the Democrats side both ended their campaigns.
We`ll show you some key points from President Biden`s address and break down how both sides of the political aisle are responding to the State of
The Union on Monday`s show, but there`s some other political news worth touching on today.
The U.S. Congress avoiding a partial government shutdown this week agreeing to continue funding the government on a temporary basis until they can vote
on individual spending deals, also known as appropriations bills.
Top Democrats and Republicans have already agreed to six funding bills for various government agencies and are now working towards agreements for six
others before a new March 22nd deadline. This is the first time since 2018 that Congress has not funded the government by tying all appropriations
bill into a single deal.
Next up the oldest dead galaxy ever observed. It was spotted with the James Webb Space Telescope and astronomers and researchers say that this galaxy
existed when the universe was only about 700 million years into its current age of about 13.8 billion years.
So what is a dead galaxy? It`s essentially a galaxy that no longer has the ability to form new stars because there isn`t enough gas that`s needed to
create them. Some factors that can cause the gas to disappear or dissipate are a supermassive black hole, stars violently interacting, and new stars
consuming all the remaining gas when they`re born.
The astronomers and researchers observing this newly discovered dead galaxy have been left puzzled and they are still trying to uncover the reason the
stars there lived fast and died young more than 13 billion years ago.
Today`s story getting a 10 out of 10, a clash of competitors creating cardboard crafts that can coast across a snowpack track without crash. Our
Jeremy Roth has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY ROTH, CNN REPORTER: On a snowy Pennsylvania mountain where teams took to the powder in a kooky contraption crafting competition cleverly
coined, the "Cardboard Classic." The creative competition is simple. Craft an elaborate sled from cardboard and try to make it to the bottom of the
mountain.
Easier said than done. But the designs did not disappoint. There was even a giant cardboard Johnny 5.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m alive, Stephanie.
ROTH: You see, kids "short-circuit" was an `80s sci-fi comedy about a killer robot named Johnny 5 that gets hit by lightning so naturally it
comes alive, learns to read, finds love and hangs out with Steve Guttenberg. It makes sense, right? It`s science.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: All right lovely people, remember this Sunday starts daylight saving time so get your minds right we`ll be losing an hour of sleep, got to rally
up and do what we got to do.
Now, what I have to do is show some love today to all the brave in the bold at Paragould High School, all the Rams in Paragould, Arkansas. We see you.
And this shout out goes to the Blue Streaks closing out their week. Shout out to Warren Hills Regional High School in Washington, New Jersey. Rise
up. Shine bright this weekend, y`all. You never know who, you never knew when or how, but you can be the light that someone needs.
I`m Coy Wire. This is CNN 10. It`s been a blessing to spend this week with you.
END
