Researchers in Botswana have found a new solution to deterring elephants -- something very much like disco lights. Three separate countries are sending new robots to Mars -- but the clock's ticking, and if they don't launch soon, they'll have to wait until 2022. An Australian report claims that the Chinese government is using forced labor in numerous factories -- and that gigantic corporations are benefitting from the practice. 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 Bolin
and this is the Strange News Daily. Our first story today.
(00:45):
Disco is making a comeback in Botswana, well sort of.
You see. Lines of flashing multicolored lights have been set
up around farmers fields in the wildlife rich Chobe Enclave,
and these have been shown to be highly effective at
scaring off elephants. Elephants, who are fond of all sorts
(01:08):
of grains, have a bit of a controversial reputation here
in the enclave due to their tendency to steal crops.
This district, CHOBEI, is close to the Chobe National Park,
and that National Park is home to around seven thousand,
five hundred elephants. It's also the site of a floodplain
(01:31):
where nutrient rich soils are a huge draw to farmers.
But these farmers fields are frequently destroyed by elephants who
are on their way to the floodplain to graze and
to drink. For two agricultural seasons between ten, researchers led
by an Australian scientist named Tempe Adams, set up multicolored
(01:56):
lights at four different villages. Have of the eighteen study sites,
the control fields were left unlit. These lights, which were
a lot like disco balls, were found to be pretty
effective at repelling elephants in sevent of a hundred and
four recorded elephant incursions. You can read the researchers full
(02:20):
study was published earlier this month in the journal or X.
And of course you have to love the way the
Internet is describing this story in various pieces of media.
Our favorite headlines so far, of course, panic at the Disco.
The study says the likelihood of an elephant entering a
(02:40):
crop field was significantly lower when lights were present compared
to control fields. At These lights do resemble disco balls.
They're set up at ten meter intervals on polls that
are up to one point seven ms high. They constantly
flash a different color red, green, blue, amber, white or yellow,
(03:02):
and the color pattern was changed weekly to prevent elephants
from getting used to it. Tempe Adams the research coordinator
for the in Geo Elephants Without Borders, which is based
in Botswana, said her team hit upon this idea of
testing strobe light barriers after talking with farmers who had
reportedly been scaring off elephants at night for a while
(03:25):
just clicking flashlights on and off. Our second story today,
this time next year, if everything goes perfectly, Mars will
(03:46):
be home to a new crop of human made robots.
That's right, Three different countries are sending spacecraft to Mars
this month. In the final weeks of July. The US, China,
and the United Arab Emirates all planned to send rovers
or satellite orbiters into space. This isn't anything new for NASA,
(04:12):
of course, DASA has sent five rovers to Mars already. However,
it will be the first attempts by the UAE and China,
and the clock is ticking there in a bit of
an act now situation. But first, let's learn more about
the robots. They're expected to make the first global map
(04:33):
of the Martian climate. They'll drill into the surface of
the planet. They'll search for long dead microbes that may
have once thrived in Martian valleys and riverbeds. In fact,
these missions could be the first endeavors to find footprints
of life on another planet. The reason these launches are
(04:54):
all scheduled for later this month is so that they
can catch Mars as it passes closer to Earth, and
if they missed this chance, they won't have another opportunity
to launch for several years. In short, if the robots
don't make it by July, they have to wait until
twenty two. There's already been a little bit of attrition here,
(05:18):
you see. Both the European Space Agency and the country
of Russia had planned to send rovers to Mars this year,
but they had to back out after the pandemic caused
insurmountable delays. They're already planning to try again in two years.
Here's what we need to know about those three rovers
that are hopefully beginning their journey to Mars in the
(05:40):
next few weeks. The US has contribution is the Perseverance,
which was built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
It was originally called the Mars Rover, but that was
a placeholder. It was a working name. Eventually, NASA shows
person Vearrance as the winner of a naming competition. The
(06:04):
idea came from Alexander Matha, a seventh grader based in Virginia.
NASA has already run into some setbacks. The original launch
date was pushed back twice, and currently that launch date
is going to be July. This leaves the agency a
little bit of a margin of error because the launch
(06:24):
window will close on August. If everything goes according to plan,
Perseverance will land on Mars on February one. The mission
will cost about three billion dollars from soup to nuts.
It's going to drill into the Martian surface and then
stash soil samples at a collection point for a future
(06:46):
mission to bring back to Earth. One really cool note,
after it lands, the rover is going to drop a
small helicopter drone out of its belly. This helicopter is
called Ingenuity. It's more of a proof of concept demonstration
of technology, but if it's successful, it will conduct the
(07:09):
first ever powered flight on another world. NASA Associate Administrator
Thomas Zerbuchen says that we're making history right now. It
will be the first leg of the first round trip
of humanity to Mars, bringing back these samples that tell
us secrets about life itself. The United Arab Emmeriates is
(07:31):
poised to launch their spacecraft from Japan on Wednesday at
local time. The u E spacecraft is named Hope and
the Hope orbiter is about the size of an suv.
This will be the first mission to another planet from
any country in the Arab world. The probes going to
(07:51):
join six other spacecraft that currently orbit Mars. An important
difference between the Perseverance and the Hope is that Hope
won't land on the surface. Instead, it will study the
Martian atmosphere from orbit, monitoring how it interacts with solar
wind and tracking the loss of hydrogen and oxygen. The
(08:12):
u a ES goal here is to create a global
map of the planet's climate across an entire Martian year.
This would be the first such picture of Mars atmosphere
that humanity has ever achieved. Sarah al Amari, the science
lead for the mission and the ua ES Minister for
Advanced Sciences, told the journal Nature that will be able
(08:35):
to cover all of Mars through all times of day
through an entire Martian year. China's rover will search for
underground water that could also harbor life. China has had
some recent success sending a rover to the far side
of the Moon, and so their National Space Administration is
(08:56):
taking its space robots to the next planet on the list.
The mission is called tian Win one, which means Quest
for Heavenly Truth. If this mission is successful, it will
be the first Mars mission to drop a landing platform,
deploy a rover, and send a spacecraft into the planet's
orbit all at once. The rover will also be able
(09:20):
to detect underground pockets of water through the use of
an onboard radar system. This will help China prepare for
its own mission to return a sample from Mars to
Earth sometime in the China has not announced a specific
launch date yet, but like NASA, it's planning for late July.
(09:41):
So congratulations and good luck to the many people responsible
for this the next step in our species race to
the stars, and to any Martian robots tuning in, don't worry,
We'll hold down the fort our third story. Today, and
(10:11):
Australian think tank has claimed that the Chinese government is
forcing thousands of weaker Muslim citizens to work as forced
labor in hundreds of factories across Chinese cities. This report,
which was released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, is
titled Weaker's for Sale, states that big, very well known
(10:35):
companies and everything from clothing to tech and automotive sectors
are provably using forced labor in Chinese factories. How big
are these names? Here's a short list. Abercrombie and Fitch, Amazon, Gap,
H and M, Nike, Jack and Jones, Sharp, Siemens, Sketchers, Apple, Sam,
(11:00):
I'm Sung, BMW, Sony, Puma, Victoria's Secret and many more.
According to the report, the weaker population, which is a
minority in China, has been forced to work in these
factories under a revived government led labor transfer scheme. The
(11:20):
Muslim weaker population is based largely in the Xinjiang province,
and the factories they are forced to work in our
largely outside of the province. The report says that it
has identified twenty seven factories and nine Chinese provinces that
are using weaker labor transferred from sin Chang since seen.
(11:41):
The factories claimed to be part of the supply chain
of eighty three well known global brands between TV and
The report continues, we estimate that at least eighty thousand
weakers were transferred out of sin Jong and assigned to
factories through labor transfer programs under a central government policy
noted as Shinjiang Aid. The factories where these people are
(12:05):
forced to work form a huge chunk of supply chain
for these brands. In January, around six hundred ethnic minority
workers from Shinjong were employed at something called ching Dao
Tai Kwang Shoes Corporation Limited. This makes shoes directly for
the American company Nike. The workforce in this factory they're
(12:28):
mostly weaker women from Hotan and Kashka, which are towns
in China in remote parts of southern shin Yang that
the Chinese government has in the past described as backward
and disturbed by religious extremism. This supply chain pattern also
implicates companies like Adidas or Puma or Apple. The Australian
(12:52):
researchers were able to get their hands on a local
government document from September nineteen that said five hundred and
sixties Shinshan laborers were transferred to work in factories and
the Henan Province, including at fox Con Technologies Hung Shu factory.
Fox Con is a Taiwanese company. It's the largest contract
(13:13):
electronics manufacturer in the world. It makes devices that maybe
in your home right now, components for Apple, del Sony,
and many more. In short, this is a big problem
and it's state sponsored. The Australian report claims that the
weakers have no choice in this matter. They have to
(13:34):
continue with their given assignment and there's no particularly easy
way out. The description and the report says the workers
in these factories are brought and kept in dormitories after
they finished their re education in China's notorious shin Jong
re education camps. In their workplace, they lead a harsh,
(13:55):
segregated life. They're forbidden to practice their religion. They're required
to take Mandarin lessons. Local governments and private brokers are
paid a price per head by the provincial government to
organize these labor assignments. The workers families back home are
under surveillance by the authorities and they're in a way
(14:18):
held hostage. If the factory workers try to flee or
if their misbehaving, their families could bear the consequences. The
United Nations estimates that currently more than one million Muslim
Weakers have been detained in camps of shens young over
the years. For indoctrination and as a way to induct
(14:40):
them into the CCPs approved style of living. All of
this comes in the name of providing vocational training and
removing terrorism. This is not simply a problem in Chinese
supply lines. Corporations across the world have been implicated in
knowingly or unknowingly using forced labor at some point in
(15:05):
the production of their respective products. That's all for now.
We've been asking you to chime in with suggestions for
stories you think your fellow listeners might enjoy. To hit
us with your best or worst jokes, as well as
your personal experience with COVID nineteen, the ongoing protests, or
anything else that's happening in your neck of the global woods.
(15:26):
Let us know. Tag hashtag Strange daily on Twitter, or
reach out to me directly. I'm at Ben bullin HSW
on Twitter or at Ben Bullen on Instagram. Thanks as
always to our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research associate
Sam T. Garden, and most importantly, thanks to you. I'm
Ben Bullen. 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 Bolin
and this is the Strange News Daily. Our first story today.
(00:45):
Disco is making a comeback in Botswana, well sort of.
You see. Lines of flashing multicolored lights have been set
up around farmers fields in the wildlife rich Chobe Enclave,
and these have been shown to be highly effective at
scaring off elephants. Elephants, who are fond of all sorts
(01:08):
of grains, have a bit of a controversial reputation here
in the enclave due to their tendency to steal crops.
This district, CHOBEI, is close to the Chobe National Park,
and that National Park is home to around seven thousand,
five hundred elephants. It's also the site of a floodplain
(01:31):
where nutrient rich soils are a huge draw to farmers.
But these farmers fields are frequently destroyed by elephants who
are on their way to the floodplain to graze and
to drink. For two agricultural seasons between ten, researchers led
by an Australian scientist named Tempe Adams, set up multicolored
(01:56):
lights at four different villages. Have of the eighteen study sites,
the control fields were left unlit. These lights, which were
a lot like disco balls, were found to be pretty
effective at repelling elephants in sevent of a hundred and
four recorded elephant incursions. You can read the researchers full
(02:20):
study was published earlier this month in the journal or X.
And of course you have to love the way the
Internet is describing this story in various pieces of media.
Our favorite headlines so far, of course, panic at the Disco.
The study says the likelihood of an elephant entering a
(02:40):
crop field was significantly lower when lights were present compared
to control fields. At These lights do resemble disco balls.
They're set up at ten meter intervals on polls that
are up to one point seven ms high. They constantly
flash a different color red, green, blue, amber, white or yellow,
(03:02):
and the color pattern was changed weekly to prevent elephants
from getting used to it. Tempe Adams the research coordinator
for the in Geo Elephants Without Borders, which is based
in Botswana, said her team hit upon this idea of
testing strobe light barriers after talking with farmers who had
reportedly been scaring off elephants at night for a while
(03:25):
just clicking flashlights on and off. Our second story today,
this time next year, if everything goes perfectly, Mars will
(03:46):
be home to a new crop of human made robots.
That's right, Three different countries are sending spacecraft to Mars
this month. In the final weeks of July. The US, China,
and the United Arab Emirates all planned to send rovers
or satellite orbiters into space. This isn't anything new for NASA,
(04:12):
of course, DASA has sent five rovers to Mars already. However,
it will be the first attempts by the UAE and China,
and the clock is ticking there in a bit of
an act now situation. But first, let's learn more about
the robots. They're expected to make the first global map
(04:33):
of the Martian climate. They'll drill into the surface of
the planet. They'll search for long dead microbes that may
have once thrived in Martian valleys and riverbeds. In fact,
these missions could be the first endeavors to find footprints
of life on another planet. The reason these launches are
(04:54):
all scheduled for later this month is so that they
can catch Mars as it passes closer to Earth, and
if they missed this chance, they won't have another opportunity
to launch for several years. In short, if the robots
don't make it by July, they have to wait until
twenty two. There's already been a little bit of attrition here,
(05:18):
you see. Both the European Space Agency and the country
of Russia had planned to send rovers to Mars this year,
but they had to back out after the pandemic caused
insurmountable delays. They're already planning to try again in two years.
Here's what we need to know about those three rovers
that are hopefully beginning their journey to Mars in the
(05:40):
next few weeks. The US has contribution is the Perseverance,
which was built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
It was originally called the Mars Rover, but that was
a placeholder. It was a working name. Eventually, NASA shows
person Vearrance as the winner of a naming competition. The
(06:04):
idea came from Alexander Matha, a seventh grader based in Virginia.
NASA has already run into some setbacks. The original launch
date was pushed back twice, and currently that launch date
is going to be July. This leaves the agency a
little bit of a margin of error because the launch
(06:24):
window will close on August. If everything goes according to plan,
Perseverance will land on Mars on February one. The mission
will cost about three billion dollars from soup to nuts.
It's going to drill into the Martian surface and then
stash soil samples at a collection point for a future
(06:46):
mission to bring back to Earth. One really cool note,
after it lands, the rover is going to drop a
small helicopter drone out of its belly. This helicopter is
called Ingenuity. It's more of a proof of concept demonstration
of technology, but if it's successful, it will conduct the
(07:09):
first ever powered flight on another world. NASA Associate Administrator
Thomas Zerbuchen says that we're making history right now. It
will be the first leg of the first round trip
of humanity to Mars, bringing back these samples that tell
us secrets about life itself. The United Arab Emmeriates is
(07:31):
poised to launch their spacecraft from Japan on Wednesday at
local time. The u E spacecraft is named Hope and
the Hope orbiter is about the size of an suv.
This will be the first mission to another planet from
any country in the Arab world. The probes going to
(07:51):
join six other spacecraft that currently orbit Mars. An important
difference between the Perseverance and the Hope is that Hope
won't land on the surface. Instead, it will study the
Martian atmosphere from orbit, monitoring how it interacts with solar
wind and tracking the loss of hydrogen and oxygen. The
(08:12):
u a ES goal here is to create a global
map of the planet's climate across an entire Martian year.
This would be the first such picture of Mars atmosphere
that humanity has ever achieved. Sarah al Amari, the science
lead for the mission and the ua ES Minister for
Advanced Sciences, told the journal Nature that will be able
(08:35):
to cover all of Mars through all times of day
through an entire Martian year. China's rover will search for
underground water that could also harbor life. China has had
some recent success sending a rover to the far side
of the Moon, and so their National Space Administration is
(08:56):
taking its space robots to the next planet on the list.
The mission is called tian Win one, which means Quest
for Heavenly Truth. If this mission is successful, it will
be the first Mars mission to drop a landing platform,
deploy a rover, and send a spacecraft into the planet's
orbit all at once. The rover will also be able
(09:20):
to detect underground pockets of water through the use of
an onboard radar system. This will help China prepare for
its own mission to return a sample from Mars to
Earth sometime in the China has not announced a specific
launch date yet, but like NASA, it's planning for late July.
(09:41):
So congratulations and good luck to the many people responsible
for this the next step in our species race to
the stars, and to any Martian robots tuning in, don't worry,
We'll hold down the fort our third story. Today, and
(10:11):
Australian think tank has claimed that the Chinese government is
forcing thousands of weaker Muslim citizens to work as forced
labor in hundreds of factories across Chinese cities. This report,
which was released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, is
titled Weaker's for Sale, states that big, very well known
(10:35):
companies and everything from clothing to tech and automotive sectors
are provably using forced labor in Chinese factories. How big
are these names? Here's a short list. Abercrombie and Fitch, Amazon, Gap,
H and M, Nike, Jack and Jones, Sharp, Siemens, Sketchers, Apple, Sam,
(11:00):
I'm Sung, BMW, Sony, Puma, Victoria's Secret and many more.
According to the report, the weaker population, which is a
minority in China, has been forced to work in these
factories under a revived government led labor transfer scheme. The
(11:20):
Muslim weaker population is based largely in the Xinjiang province,
and the factories they are forced to work in our
largely outside of the province. The report says that it
has identified twenty seven factories and nine Chinese provinces that
are using weaker labor transferred from sin Chang since seen.
(11:41):
The factories claimed to be part of the supply chain
of eighty three well known global brands between TV and
The report continues, we estimate that at least eighty thousand
weakers were transferred out of sin Jong and assigned to
factories through labor transfer programs under a central government policy
noted as Shinjiang Aid. The factories where these people are
(12:05):
forced to work form a huge chunk of supply chain
for these brands. In January, around six hundred ethnic minority
workers from Shinjong were employed at something called ching Dao
Tai Kwang Shoes Corporation Limited. This makes shoes directly for
the American company Nike. The workforce in this factory they're
(12:28):
mostly weaker women from Hotan and Kashka, which are towns
in China in remote parts of southern shin Yang that
the Chinese government has in the past described as backward
and disturbed by religious extremism. This supply chain pattern also
implicates companies like Adidas or Puma or Apple. The Australian
(12:52):
researchers were able to get their hands on a local
government document from September nineteen that said five hundred and
sixties Shinshan laborers were transferred to work in factories and
the Henan Province, including at fox Con Technologies Hung Shu factory.
Fox Con is a Taiwanese company. It's the largest contract
(13:13):
electronics manufacturer in the world. It makes devices that maybe
in your home right now, components for Apple, del Sony,
and many more. In short, this is a big problem
and it's state sponsored. The Australian report claims that the
weakers have no choice in this matter. They have to
(13:34):
continue with their given assignment and there's no particularly easy
way out. The description and the report says the workers
in these factories are brought and kept in dormitories after
they finished their re education in China's notorious shin Jong
re education camps. In their workplace, they lead a harsh,
(13:55):
segregated life. They're forbidden to practice their religion. They're required
to take Mandarin lessons. Local governments and private brokers are
paid a price per head by the provincial government to
organize these labor assignments. The workers families back home are
under surveillance by the authorities and they're in a way
(14:18):
held hostage. If the factory workers try to flee or
if their misbehaving, their families could bear the consequences. The
United Nations estimates that currently more than one million Muslim
Weakers have been detained in camps of shens young over
the years. For indoctrination and as a way to induct
(14:40):
them into the CCPs approved style of living. All of
this comes in the name of providing vocational training and
removing terrorism. This is not simply a problem in Chinese
supply lines. Corporations across the world have been implicated in
knowingly or unknowingly using forced labor at some point in
(15:05):
the production of their respective products. That's all for now.
We've been asking you to chime in with suggestions for
stories you think your fellow listeners might enjoy. To hit
us with your best or worst jokes, as well as
your personal experience with COVID nineteen, the ongoing protests, or
anything else that's happening in your neck of the global woods.
(15:26):
Let us know. Tag hashtag Strange daily on Twitter, or
reach out to me directly. I'm at Ben bullin HSW
on Twitter or at Ben Bullen on Instagram. Thanks as
always to our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research associate
Sam T. Garden, and most importantly, thanks to you. I'm
Ben Bullen. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, stay Strange.
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