Vladimir Putin may change the Russian Constitution, allowing himself to run for an additional two more terms as President, potentially granting him another 12 years in office. You can help NASA's Mars rover drive across the treacherous landscape of our famous planetary neighbor. NASA is also renaming its D.C. office after Mary W. Jackson, the first Black female engineer. Join Ben Bowlin for more Strange News Daily, and share your stories on Twitter: #strangedaily.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Strange News Daily. It's a production of I heart Media.
In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
(00:22):
news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan,
and this is the Strange News Daily. Our first story. Today,
(00:45):
Russia is voting on whether Vladimir Putin can extend his
term for a potential twelve more years. Polls in Russia
open today for a week long vote on constitutional changes,
one of which would allow President Vladimir Putin to stay
in power until twenty thirty six. This vote is part
(01:06):
of a larger vote on a cavalcade of constitutional amendments.
These were proposed by Putin back in January of this year.
The vote was originally scheduled for April twenty second, but
was postponed as the coronavirus swept the world. The vote
was later rescheduled for July one, with pulling stations planning
(01:28):
to open a week earlier and then stay open for
seven days, mainly to prevent crowds on the main voting day.
The proposed amendments include several wildly unrelated things. One of
the ones getting the most international attention is a change
in the Russian constitution that would allow Putin, who is
(01:48):
sixty seven years old and has ruled Russia for over
twenty years, to run for two more six year terms
after his current one expires in twenty twenty four. If
this change passes and Putin successfully runs for two more
six year terms, he will have ruled Russia well into
(02:08):
his eighties. There are other proposed changes on the ballot,
including talk about improving social benefits, defining marriage as specifically
a union of quote a man and a woman, and
moved to redistribute executive powers within the government in a
way that would strengthen the presidency. These amendments have already
(02:30):
been approved by both houses of parliament and by the
country's Constitutional Court. They've been signed into law by Vladimir
Putin himself. However, Putin insisted that these changes be put
to a vote, even though it was not legally required.
This is a move that many of Putin's critics see
as an effort to put a veneer of democracy on
(02:51):
the controversial changes. Holding this vote in the midst of
the pandemic has understandably caused a lot of public health concern.
Russia is still reporting somewhere over seven thousand new confirmed
coronavirus cases every day, and it has the world's third
highest confirmed case load, with six hundred and thirteen thousand
(03:14):
confirmed cases in all. Russia has repeatedly dismissed these safety concerns,
arguing that the government was able to slow its outbreak
and assuring people that additional voting days, along with outdoor
polling stations and other social distancing measures are in place
to protect voters. However, critics say they fear these new
(03:36):
procedures will hinder independent monitoring of the vote and create
opportunities for manipulation and fraud. After the polls opened on Thursday,
opposition politician Alexei Nlvigny retweeted a video of what appeared
to be a polling station set up inside the trunk
of a car. His team also posted photos of other
(03:57):
makeshift polling stations, some in tents, a few even on
street benches. In a tweet featuring a video of a
tent with two poll workers standing beside a small plastic
ballot box, this opposition politician said, as you could see
control is tight, rigging as impossible, your vote maybe of
critical importance. This is generally thought to be a sarcastic
(04:22):
statement on Naveli's part. Other media reports pointed out that
in Moscow, where people can vote online, people who use
the online voting method were also able to vote in
person at polling stations. One journalist, Pavel Lobkov, said that
he was able to cast a ballot both in person
(04:44):
and online. Election authorities responded saying that one of his
ballots would be invalidated, though it was unclear how they
could identify his votes. Ella pem Filova, the Central Election
Commission chairwoman, rejected any criticism of these new procedures, saying
in his statement, no one is voting on benches or
(05:05):
trunks of cars. No one is voting intense. She implied
that reporting these incidents of double voting was meant to
be a provocation. Let's give the last word of this
story to Vladimir Putin himself. Today he said that the
most important task is ensuring quote, the results of the
nationwide vote are absolutely voracious. Legitimate voters should not be
(05:30):
coerced and turnout should not be artificially inflated so that
afterwards no one can cast doubt on the position that
the people will express. As you can imagine, Putent's critics,
both domestic and abroad, are skeptical and hesitant to take
him at his word. Our second story to a do you,
(06:01):
like billions of other people, dream of one day helping
humanity reach the stars and create a permanent foothold on
another planet. If so, today, maybe your chance you specifically,
you could help the Martian rover Curiosity navigate our red
planet by flipping through photos of its rocky landscape and
(06:23):
labeling what you see. Essentially, you will be helping the
Curiosity rover drive. The US Space Agency NASA is asking
volunteers to help sort through and label thousands of photos
that the rovers already taken. These labels are gathered through
something called the AI for Mars program that's four as
in the number four, and they're going to help the
(06:46):
rover pick a path to reach its next scientific target.
The labels will contribute to a machine learning project to
help the rover's path planners pick smooth roots. And this
is important. Years of sharp terrain of worn down the
rover's treads As of Tuesday, AI for Mars volunteers had
already completed about a d two of their goal, so
(07:10):
remember to act fast. This program has a lot in
common with the AI intelligence behind self driving cars on Earth.
These programs are trained to recognize their surroundings, also based
on photos, but there's an important difference over on Mars.
There are no roads, no street signs or traffic lights
(07:31):
to help guide this rover. Curiosity only has its software,
along with the scientists and engineers at NASA, and of course,
its own small six wheels to trek around the surface
of the red planet. Mars is, as you might imagine,
a dangerous place to be a small car sized roving robot.
(07:53):
Another rover that landed on Mars in early two thousand
and four, Spirit got stuck in soft soil and May
of two thousand and nine, and in May of two
thousand eleven its mission was officially declared over. The Spirit
rover had a twin, a rover named Opportunity, which also
landed in two thousand and four. Opportunities stayed live and
(08:14):
in communication until eighteen, when a dust storm blanketed its location.
NASA tried to contact this rover over one thousand times,
but ended its mission on February thirteenth of last year.
Curiosity landed on the Red planet in twenty In theory,
(08:35):
if we can choose the right clear, smooth paths, then
we could extend curiosities active time on Mars. But by
seventeen there was already significant damage on the rover's treads
and this threatened their ability to carry its mass. Uh.
It's it's not a light load either. This rover weighs
about four tons, and this damage occurred after driving a
(08:59):
disc of only say fourteen miles through its total mission.
According to a NASSETS statement, it can take four to
five hours for a team of rover planners to figure
out where Curiosity should drive and what route it should
take to get there. Rover planner Stephanie Oysh, who is
involved in this AI for Mars program, said it's our
(09:22):
job to figure out how to safely get the mission. Science.
Automatically generating terrain labels would save us time and help
us be more productive. Normally, it takes thousands of images
to train a machine learning algorithm to recognize features, but again,
there just aren't that many features of Martian terrain available
(09:43):
for this team to use. The rover planning team uses
a program called Soil Property and Object Classification or wait
for it, SPOCK, but they hope that by working with
human volunteers again, possibly human volunteers like you, to rain
SPOT on more of their photographs of Mars, it may
(10:03):
work better and faster than it does now. These improvements
don't just apply to Curiosity. They could set precedence, especially
for the next Mars rover, Perseverance, when it itself arrives
on the planet's surface. Hero On No, an artificial intelligence
expert at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had this to say.
(10:24):
In the future, we hope this algorithm can become accurate
enough to do other useful tasks, like predicting how likely
a rover's wheels are to slip on different surfaces. If
SPOT can better identify safe terrain, it would help researchers
conduct more research and Curiosity's primary mission finding any proof
(10:44):
that Mars may have once been habitable. Our third story
to day. Have you heard of the engineer Mary Jackson?
(11:05):
If not, you're about to learn much more in the
coming days. Mary W. Jackson was once considered a hidden
figure at NASA, but now her name will Grace the
agency's office in Washington, d C. NASA announced on Wednesday
that it's Washington, d C headquarters will be renamed in
honor of Mary W. Jackson, the agency's first black female engineer.
(11:29):
Jackson spent decades juggling incredibly complex research while also pushing
for more diversity in scientific fields. NASA Administrator Jim Bradenstein said,
NASA facilities across the country are named after people who
dedicated their lives to push the frontier of the aerospace industry.
The nation is beginning to awaken to the greater need
(11:50):
to honor the full diversity of people who helped pioneer
our great nation. Mary W. Jackson was a Hampton, Virginia native.
She earned a degree in math and physical science in
nineteen forty two. She worked as a teacher and Army
secretary before she joined NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee
(12:11):
for Aeronautics, in nineteen fifty one. She worked on multiple
engineering projects, including ones that involved the supersonic pressure tunnel,
and her supervisor suggested she enter a training program to
be promoted to an engineer. In nineteen seventy nine, she
worked at Langley's Federal Women's Program, advocating for more women
(12:32):
and minorities to be hired in STEM fields, math and science.
Mary W. Jackson retired in ninety five and passed away
about twenty years later. Caroline Lewis, Jackson's daughter, had this
to say of her mother. She was a scientist, humanitarian, wife, mother,
and trailblazer who paved the way for thousands of others
(12:54):
to succeed, not only at NASA but throughout this nation. Last,
dear Jackson and her other colleagues, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan,
and Christine Darden were awarded Congressional Gold Medals, and Congress
voted to rename the streets outside NASA's DC headquarters Hidden
Figures Way. That's all for now. We've been asking you
(13:19):
to chime in with suggestions for stories you think your
fellow listeners should know more about, to hit us with
your best or worst puns and dad jokes, and to
let us know what's going on in your neck of
the Global woods. Reach out to us tag hashtag Strange
daily on Twitter, or hit me up directly. I'm at
Ben bullin HSW on Twitter or at Ben Bullen on Instagram. Thanks,
(13:40):
as always to our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research
associate Sam T. Garden. Most importantly, thanks to you. I'm
Ben Bullin. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange.
Strange News Daily. It's a production of I heart Media.
In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
(00:22):
news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan,
and this is the Strange News Daily. Our first story. Today,
(00:45):
Russia is voting on whether Vladimir Putin can extend his
term for a potential twelve more years. Polls in Russia
open today for a week long vote on constitutional changes,
one of which would allow President Vladimir Putin to stay
in power until twenty thirty six. This vote is part
(01:06):
of a larger vote on a cavalcade of constitutional amendments.
These were proposed by Putin back in January of this year.
The vote was originally scheduled for April twenty second, but
was postponed as the coronavirus swept the world. The vote
was later rescheduled for July one, with pulling stations planning
(01:28):
to open a week earlier and then stay open for
seven days, mainly to prevent crowds on the main voting day.
The proposed amendments include several wildly unrelated things. One of
the ones getting the most international attention is a change
in the Russian constitution that would allow Putin, who is
(01:48):
sixty seven years old and has ruled Russia for over
twenty years, to run for two more six year terms
after his current one expires in twenty twenty four. If
this change passes and Putin successfully runs for two more
six year terms, he will have ruled Russia well into
(02:08):
his eighties. There are other proposed changes on the ballot,
including talk about improving social benefits, defining marriage as specifically
a union of quote a man and a woman, and
moved to redistribute executive powers within the government in a
way that would strengthen the presidency. These amendments have already
(02:30):
been approved by both houses of parliament and by the
country's Constitutional Court. They've been signed into law by Vladimir
Putin himself. However, Putin insisted that these changes be put
to a vote, even though it was not legally required.
This is a move that many of Putin's critics see
as an effort to put a veneer of democracy on
(02:51):
the controversial changes. Holding this vote in the midst of
the pandemic has understandably caused a lot of public health concern.
Russia is still reporting somewhere over seven thousand new confirmed
coronavirus cases every day, and it has the world's third
highest confirmed case load, with six hundred and thirteen thousand
(03:14):
confirmed cases in all. Russia has repeatedly dismissed these safety concerns,
arguing that the government was able to slow its outbreak
and assuring people that additional voting days, along with outdoor
polling stations and other social distancing measures are in place
to protect voters. However, critics say they fear these new
(03:36):
procedures will hinder independent monitoring of the vote and create
opportunities for manipulation and fraud. After the polls opened on Thursday,
opposition politician Alexei Nlvigny retweeted a video of what appeared
to be a polling station set up inside the trunk
of a car. His team also posted photos of other
(03:57):
makeshift polling stations, some in tents, a few even on
street benches. In a tweet featuring a video of a
tent with two poll workers standing beside a small plastic
ballot box, this opposition politician said, as you could see
control is tight, rigging as impossible, your vote maybe of
critical importance. This is generally thought to be a sarcastic
(04:22):
statement on Naveli's part. Other media reports pointed out that
in Moscow, where people can vote online, people who use
the online voting method were also able to vote in
person at polling stations. One journalist, Pavel Lobkov, said that
he was able to cast a ballot both in person
(04:44):
and online. Election authorities responded saying that one of his
ballots would be invalidated, though it was unclear how they
could identify his votes. Ella pem Filova, the Central Election
Commission chairwoman, rejected any criticism of these new procedures, saying
in his statement, no one is voting on benches or
(05:05):
trunks of cars. No one is voting intense. She implied
that reporting these incidents of double voting was meant to
be a provocation. Let's give the last word of this
story to Vladimir Putin himself. Today he said that the
most important task is ensuring quote, the results of the
nationwide vote are absolutely voracious. Legitimate voters should not be
(05:30):
coerced and turnout should not be artificially inflated so that
afterwards no one can cast doubt on the position that
the people will express. As you can imagine, Putent's critics,
both domestic and abroad, are skeptical and hesitant to take
him at his word. Our second story to a do you,
(06:01):
like billions of other people, dream of one day helping
humanity reach the stars and create a permanent foothold on
another planet. If so, today, maybe your chance you specifically,
you could help the Martian rover Curiosity navigate our red
planet by flipping through photos of its rocky landscape and
(06:23):
labeling what you see. Essentially, you will be helping the
Curiosity rover drive. The US Space Agency NASA is asking
volunteers to help sort through and label thousands of photos
that the rovers already taken. These labels are gathered through
something called the AI for Mars program that's four as
in the number four, and they're going to help the
(06:46):
rover pick a path to reach its next scientific target.
The labels will contribute to a machine learning project to
help the rover's path planners pick smooth roots. And this
is important. Years of sharp terrain of worn down the
rover's treads As of Tuesday, AI for Mars volunteers had
already completed about a d two of their goal, so
(07:10):
remember to act fast. This program has a lot in
common with the AI intelligence behind self driving cars on Earth.
These programs are trained to recognize their surroundings, also based
on photos, but there's an important difference over on Mars.
There are no roads, no street signs or traffic lights
(07:31):
to help guide this rover. Curiosity only has its software,
along with the scientists and engineers at NASA, and of course,
its own small six wheels to trek around the surface
of the red planet. Mars is, as you might imagine,
a dangerous place to be a small car sized roving robot.
(07:53):
Another rover that landed on Mars in early two thousand
and four, Spirit got stuck in soft soil and May
of two thousand and nine, and in May of two
thousand eleven its mission was officially declared over. The Spirit
rover had a twin, a rover named Opportunity, which also
landed in two thousand and four. Opportunities stayed live and
(08:14):
in communication until eighteen, when a dust storm blanketed its location.
NASA tried to contact this rover over one thousand times,
but ended its mission on February thirteenth of last year.
Curiosity landed on the Red planet in twenty In theory,
(08:35):
if we can choose the right clear, smooth paths, then
we could extend curiosities active time on Mars. But by
seventeen there was already significant damage on the rover's treads
and this threatened their ability to carry its mass. Uh.
It's it's not a light load either. This rover weighs
about four tons, and this damage occurred after driving a
(08:59):
disc of only say fourteen miles through its total mission.
According to a NASSETS statement, it can take four to
five hours for a team of rover planners to figure
out where Curiosity should drive and what route it should
take to get there. Rover planner Stephanie Oysh, who is
involved in this AI for Mars program, said it's our
(09:22):
job to figure out how to safely get the mission. Science.
Automatically generating terrain labels would save us time and help
us be more productive. Normally, it takes thousands of images
to train a machine learning algorithm to recognize features, but again,
there just aren't that many features of Martian terrain available
(09:43):
for this team to use. The rover planning team uses
a program called Soil Property and Object Classification or wait
for it, SPOCK, but they hope that by working with
human volunteers again, possibly human volunteers like you, to rain
SPOT on more of their photographs of Mars, it may
(10:03):
work better and faster than it does now. These improvements
don't just apply to Curiosity. They could set precedence, especially
for the next Mars rover, Perseverance, when it itself arrives
on the planet's surface. Hero On No, an artificial intelligence
expert at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had this to say.
(10:24):
In the future, we hope this algorithm can become accurate
enough to do other useful tasks, like predicting how likely
a rover's wheels are to slip on different surfaces. If
SPOT can better identify safe terrain, it would help researchers
conduct more research and Curiosity's primary mission finding any proof
(10:44):
that Mars may have once been habitable. Our third story
to day. Have you heard of the engineer Mary Jackson?
(11:05):
If not, you're about to learn much more in the
coming days. Mary W. Jackson was once considered a hidden
figure at NASA, but now her name will Grace the
agency's office in Washington, d C. NASA announced on Wednesday
that it's Washington, d C headquarters will be renamed in
honor of Mary W. Jackson, the agency's first black female engineer.
(11:29):
Jackson spent decades juggling incredibly complex research while also pushing
for more diversity in scientific fields. NASA Administrator Jim Bradenstein said,
NASA facilities across the country are named after people who
dedicated their lives to push the frontier of the aerospace industry.
The nation is beginning to awaken to the greater need
(11:50):
to honor the full diversity of people who helped pioneer
our great nation. Mary W. Jackson was a Hampton, Virginia native.
She earned a degree in math and physical science in
nineteen forty two. She worked as a teacher and Army
secretary before she joined NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee
(12:11):
for Aeronautics, in nineteen fifty one. She worked on multiple
engineering projects, including ones that involved the supersonic pressure tunnel,
and her supervisor suggested she enter a training program to
be promoted to an engineer. In nineteen seventy nine, she
worked at Langley's Federal Women's Program, advocating for more women
(12:32):
and minorities to be hired in STEM fields, math and science.
Mary W. Jackson retired in ninety five and passed away
about twenty years later. Caroline Lewis, Jackson's daughter, had this
to say of her mother. She was a scientist, humanitarian, wife, mother,
and trailblazer who paved the way for thousands of others
(12:54):
to succeed, not only at NASA but throughout this nation. Last,
dear Jackson and her other colleagues, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan,
and Christine Darden were awarded Congressional Gold Medals, and Congress
voted to rename the streets outside NASA's DC headquarters Hidden
Figures Way. That's all for now. We've been asking you
(13:19):
to chime in with suggestions for stories you think your
fellow listeners should know more about, to hit us with
your best or worst puns and dad jokes, and to
let us know what's going on in your neck of
the Global woods. Reach out to us tag hashtag Strange
daily on Twitter, or hit me up directly. I'm at
Ben bullin HSW on Twitter or at Ben Bullen on Instagram. Thanks,
(13:40):
as always to our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research
associate Sam T. Garden. Most importantly, thanks to you. I'm
Ben Bullin. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange.
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