What's new today: Recent Episodes
Sangeetha
‘What’s new today’ is a kids-friendly roundup of news and current events, presented as a conversation with our young listeners, in a fun-filled and lively manner. This show tackles topics - large and small in an unbiased fashion. The trivia and quiz in each episode are quirky and super fun. We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions. Please email us at hello@wsnt.in with a text or audio message. We'll be happy to feature your questions and audio messages in our podcast episodes.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped foot on the moon. 2024 marks 55 years since this achievement. A forgotten astronaut was a part of this mission and we speak about his role and contribution to this mission.
Since the 1970s, there has been a lull in space missions - the kind that sends more people to the moon. However, things have started getting hotter again and NASA is working towards resuming moon-landing missions. We speak about what has prompted this change of heart.
Child co-host: Abhir Ghalke (7th grader, Mumbai)
Recommended listens
a) The story of how India's space missions began
b) Innovations made by Indian school children
c) How Jacky ran 104 marathons in 104 days
Check these out
a) Creative Writing Course for Kids - look up here or drop us a note at hello@wsnt.in
b) Support our show to keep this podcast channel ad-free for children
c) Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for free 'The Lighter Side'
China's taken a giant leap in the world of electric cars, racing far ahead of most countries. More than half of the cars on its roads run on electric batteries, not on petrol or diesel.
US does not want any electric cars from China entering its country. Why?
Cohosts: Primary schoolers Advik (Chennai) and Smyan (USA) try to find the answer to this question.
Recommended listens by Advik and Smyan
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Wheat and Lemon - why are their prices hard to reckon?
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Harry Potter book review
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Queens who ruled India - the story of Keladi Chennamma defying Aurangzeb
More reads on electric cars
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How China leads the world on electric cars
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US imposes high taxes on electric cars from China
Greece leads the parade and the host country is the last to join the parade, every Olympics. In the last two Olympics, a new contingent joined the Olympics' teams. This contingent was the penultimate to join the parade (ahead of the host country). The participants hailed from across the world and were united by a cause and a flag. Who are these participants? What cause unites them? Why do we continue to have this contingent?
Co-hosts: Anindya (9 yrs) and Agastya (11 yrs) figure out who these participants are, and how they come together to represent a common cause.
Recommended listens by Anindya and Agastya
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How search and rescue dogs save people in earthquakes
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Why are orcas / killer whales attacking ships
Source information for this episode
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Trailer of The Swimmers movie on Netflix
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Read: Why the IOC Refugee team was formed
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Watch: Video on this year's team for the Paris Olympics
Writing course for kids
To find details about our writing course for kids to become published authors, please click here
For the first time, a 4-year old dog called Beacon joins the official staff team of the US Gymnastics. He will play an important role in maintaining the health and well-being of the players. Can you guess how?
The co-hosts Anindya (9-yr old) and Agastya (11 yr old) pit their heads and crack this mystery.
To find details about our writing course for kids to become published authors, please click here
To find details about our writing course for kids to become published authors, please click here
SpaceX has won a bid from NASA for one of the most challenging tasks it has ever undertaken. The whole world will be watching the skies in 2031 as SpaceX attempts to destroy and take apart the ISS. Built over more than a decade and a half, the ISS will near the end of its useful life by 2030 and may begin to disintegrate if left in space for longer than that. SpaceX will begin a careful process of bringing the ISS to rest in a deep sea point on earth, without endangering the rest of life.
Cohosts: Darsh (5th grader, Chennai) and Aadya (9th grader, Jammu)
Recommended episodes
a) India'sspace journey and how the Ramayan TV series was telecast
b) NASA's dart mission to change the path of an asteroid
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If you have any comments or suggestions, do write to us at hello@wsnt.in
This month, we reviewed the Harry Potter book series along with a group of primary and middle schoolers. This review is part 6 of a 6 part series. In this episode, we ask our reviewers how different are the movies from the books.
To join our book review club, please click here.
Book review led by Manisha Maheshwari. Young book reviewers who joined us were Prakriti (10 yr), Dhruv (10 yr old), Darsh (10 yr old), Aditi (12 yr old), Viyaa (10 yr old), Rishi (10 yr old), Rusheel (10 yr old), Hrudyaansh (13 yr old), Kiaansh (10 yr old), Pravit (10 yr old), Nayra (10 yr old), Devansh (10 yr old), Smyan (11 yr old)
This month, we reviewed the Harry Potter book series along with a group of primary and middle schoolers. This review is part 5 of a 6 part series. In this episode, we ask our reviewers what would happen if an owl came their way and dropped them an acceptance letter?
To join our book review club, please click here.
Book review led by Manisha Maheshwari. Young book reviewers who joined us were Prakriti (10 yr), Dhruv (10 yr old), Darsh (10 yr old), Aditi (12 yr old), Viyaa (10 yr old), Rishi (10 yr old), Rusheel (10 yr old), Hrudyaansh (13 yr old), Kiaansh (10 yr old), Pravit (10 yr old), Nayra (10 yr old), Devansh (10 yr old), Smyan (11 yr old)
This month, we reviewed the Harry Potter book series along with a group of primary and middle schoolers. This review is part 4 of a 6 part series. In this episode, we ask our reviewers how different is the magical world from the real world we live in.
To join our book review club, please click here.
Book review led by Manisha Maheshwari. Young book reviewers who joined us were Prakriti (10 yr), Dhruv (10 yr old), Darsh (10 yr old), Aditi (12 yr old), Viyaa (10 yr old), Rishi (10 yr old), Rusheel (10 yr old), Hrudyaansh (13 yr old), Kiaansh (10 yr old), Pravit (10 yr old), Nayra (10 yr old), Devansh (10 yr old), Smyan (11 yr old)
This month, we reviewed the Harry Potter book series along with a group of primary and middle schoolers. This review is part 3 of a 6 part series. In this episode, we ask our reviewers who they would rather chat with - Hagrid or Dumbledore?
For the uninitiated, Hagrid is a half-giant and half-human. He is also the Gamekeeper at Hogwarts. He is the one who reveals to Harry that he is a wizard. Dumbledore is the Headmaster at Hogwarts. He is also in many ways - a friend, philosopher and guide to Harry.
To join our book review club, please click here.
Book review led by Manisha Maheshwari. Young book reviewers who joined us were Prakriti (10 yr), Dhruv (10 yr old), Darsh (10 yr old), Aditi (12 yr old), Viyaa (10 yr old), Rishi (10 yr old), Rusheel (10 yr old), Hrudyaansh (13 yr old), Kiaansh (10 yr old), Pravit (10 yr old), Nayra (10 yr old), Devansh (10 yr old), Smyan (11 yr old)
This month, we reviewed the Harry Potter book series along with a group of primary and middle schoolers. This review is part 2 of a 6 part series. In this episode, we ask our reviewers what they would see if they stood in front of the Mirror of Erised.
For the uninitiated, The Mirror of Erised is a a magical mirror that shows the "deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts." The word Erised is nothing but "desire" spelled backwards, as if reflected in the mirror.
To join our book review club, please click here.
Book review led by Manisha Maheswari. Young book reviewers who joined us were Prakriti (10 yr), Dhruv (10 yr old), Darsh (10 yr old), Aditi (12 yr old), Viyaa (10 yr old), Rishi (10 yr old), Rusheel (10 yr old), Hrudyaansh (13 yr old), Kiaansh (10 yr old), Pravit (10 yr old), Nayra (10 yr old), Devansh (10 yr old), Smyan (11 yr old)
This month, we reviewed the Harry Potter book series along with a group of primary and middle schoolers. This review is part 1 of a 6 part series. In this episode, we ask our reviewers which house they would like to be sorted into, at Hogwarts.
For the uninitiated, the Hogwarts School was founded by four brilliant witches and wizards in the 10th century. Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin made up this quartet. Each of them created a house in their names and the students in each house often have similar traits or qualities as the original founders.
To join our book review club, please click here.
Young book reviewers who joined us were Prakriti (10 yr), Dhruv (10 yr old), Darsh (10 yr old), Aditi (12 yr old), Viyaa (10 yr old), Rishi (10 yr old), Rusheel (10 yr old), Hrudyaansh (13 yr old), Kiaansh (10 yr old), Pravit (10 yr old), Nayra (10 yr old), Devansh (10 yr old), Smyan (11 yr old)
Nowhere else in Asia do we have recorded history of a line of Muslim women who governed a kingdom. The four Begums of Bhopal ruled for over 100 years. Their reign was marked by peace, good health and great education facilities. This quartet of queens owe their existence to the charisma and keen intelligence of the very first Begum - Qudsia Begum. On her husband's sudden death, a teenager Qudsia managed to marshal support from all corners, so she could ascend the throne and govern the kingdom. Her path was far from easy - she had to battle both patriarchy and religious sentiments (Islamic women as rulers was unheard of).
Saif Ali Khan is a descendant of this illustrious dynasty. Listen to the full episode for more details.
Co-host: Saatvik Seth (Mumbai)
Reference Material
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Blog with pictures of the four Begums of Bhopal published on Svasa Life Magazine
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Book - Women who ruled India by Archana Garodia Gupta (Amazon affiliate link)
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Book - The Begums of Bhopal by a descendant (Amazon affiliate link)
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Video - Begums of Bhopal on Youtube
Rudramadevi, a warrior queen from South India made an astonishing ascent to the throne, thanks to her royal lineage. Nevertheless she faced much patriarchy and her rule was challenged from all quarters - both from inside and outside. During her rule, the Kakatiya kingdom was attacked from the North, West and the South repeatedly. She managed to thwart all invasion attempts. She strengthened the defense forces by adding to the height and thickness of the Warrangal fort. The Kohinoor diamond was mined in her kingdom and adorned the crown of the reigning deity. Much later, it was plundered by Malik Kafur and carried away to Delhi.
This episode is in the form of a game 'Serious of Joking' played by the host Sangeetha and the co-host (12-yr old Trayee). Through the course of this game, we unravel interesting facets of the queen's rule.
References
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Book - Women who ruled India by Archana Garodia Gupta
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Video - Indian warrior princess from the South
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Video - Visit this fabulous fort of Warrangal - built by the Kakatiya Dynasty
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Book - Rani Rudramadevi, a biography by National Book Trust of India
Tribhuvana Mahadevi was a queen who ruled one of the mightiest empires in ancient India - also called Kalinga. Today, this kingdom spreads across the eastern state of Orissa in India. Her reign featured in books written in 10th century AD in Persia. She was called a Rayini (a queen) whose rule eclipsed the reigns of her contemporary neighbours (kings in India). Her name is hardly found in any history textbooks today, but her fame had spread far and wide across Asia and Europe amongst her contemporaries.
She came to power as a regent (as the heir to the throne was an infant). Her reign of over 20 years was marked by peace (she successfully fended off invasions); prosperity (she built great trade relations with kingdoms as far as Persia in the west and Indonesia in the east); religious tolerance (she donated liberally to the construction of monasteries of temples of many religious sects), and set an example for the subsequent 5 queens who came to throne from the Bhaumakara dynasty.
Co-hosts: Rusheel (5th grader, Mumbai) and Adya (8th grader, Chennai)
References
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Book: The women who ruled India by Archana Garodia Gupta
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Book: Amar Chitra Katha series on Warrior Queens of medieval India
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Read: Wikipedia page on Tribhuvana Mahadevi
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Video: On Youtube - Tribhuvana Mahadevi
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Video: On Youtube - visit the Diamond triangle in Orissa today to see the remnants of the Buddhist monasteries
At its height, the Mughal empire was the richest in the world. Akbar's son Jahangir ascended the throne after his death. Jahangir was addicted to opium and alcohol, amongst other things. His wife Nur Jahan won his confidence. She was a remarkable woman who managed to keep her husband away from many of his vices. Thanks to her courage and intelligence, she won the loyalty of the nobles in the court and thus wielded much power in the kingdom.
She was the only Mughal empress who issued coins in her name, imperial decrees with her signature, presided the court and took part in administration and foreign policy affairs of the state. Her excellent taste in art has left its indelible mark on Mughal architecture. She inspired one of the seven wonders of the world, in its design and use of materials. The tomb she built for her father is also called the Baby Taj, which you can find in Agra.
Co-host in this episode: Isabelle Abraham (11-yr old, Mumbai).
Reference
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BBC video - How Nur Jahan ruled the world
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Blog on Mughal women in maritime trade
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Book: The Women who ruled India by Archana Garodia Gupta
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William Dalrymple's Book Anarchy
The Portugese called her 'Raina de Pimenta' or 'The Pepper Queen'. Born to a commoner, married to a king, she ascended the throne after the untimely death of her husband. She not only defended herself against patriarchy, but also against a barrage of enemy armies.
She is best known for being the only queen who defied Aurangzeb, took over the might of his army and successfully got him to sign a peace treaty.
Child Co-hosts: Kiaansh (6th grader, Mumbai) and Sathwik (7th grader, Kolkata)
Reference material:
(a) Blog on Keladi Chennamma
(b) Swarajya magazine
(c) Video on how she gave Rajaram shelter
(d) Amar Chitra Katha book on Keladi Chennamma
(e) Book on Chennamma by Shantadevi Malwad
(f) Book on Women who Ruled India by Archana Garodia Gupta
Newspaper headlines often make loud claims about fitness, health and diet. How much of this is backed by research? Have the facts been verified? This episode is part of our Fake or Real podcast series, where we take a popular newspaper headline and check if its authenticity has been established,This episode is about a headline that appeared earlier on Hindustan Times - 'Sendha namak aka pink salt is healthier than iodized powdered white salt'. Listen to the episode to find out if this i...
A recent YouGov poll shows that a large share of people believe that younger siblings are funnier than their older counterparts. Is this fake or real? Does this story have a sound scientific basis?
Guests: Shanaya Shah (4th grader) and her parent Arpita Shah from Mumbai
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Recommended podcast episodes
(a) Why are people in Finland the happiest
(b) Interesting innovations from Indian schoolkids
(c) Brain boosts better while writing and NOT while typing
(d) Wildlife stories
To be a part of the Harry Potter book review, join us here.
Source article: Please click here to read the YouGov poll
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This episode has been compiled and presented by three of the participants in a Podcasting Course conducted by Cronica Media,
Story on Wildlife Conservation: How Istanbul has tried to solve the problems of reccycling, garbage cluttering and stray dog starvation. Presented by Smyan Shetty (4th grader from Mumbai)
Story on Art: How Nature has been given a place of prominence by Spotify by designating nature as an artist. Presented by Shriya (5th grader from Bengaluru)
Story on Space: How new research on one of Jupiter's moons has thrown up the astounding possibility of the existence of life. Presented by Rusheel (4th grader from Mumbai)
Recommended articles for reading
a) Vending machines in Istanbul
b) Nature is an artist on Spotify
c) Jupiter's moon (article on Wikipedia)
d) About Europa (article on Brittanica)
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World Athletics has announced something exciting for all athletes participating / competing in the 2024 Olympics edition (to be held in Paris). After many decades of keeping true to the spirit of Olympics as outlined by Pierre de Coubertin (participating is more important than winning), some people on the Olympics committee are concerned if the new move will dilute this spirit.
Listen to the full episode to find out more about this new exciting announcement.
Co-hosts: Smyan (5th grader, Mumbai), Rishi (4th grader, Chennai)
Recommended articles / videos
a) Video of Parisian waiters participating in a race
b) World Athletics announcement on Paris Olympics
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Black Beauty by Anna Sewell is considered a children's classic. Although the author did not write this book intended for a young audience, it has become a go-to read for many primary schoolers and middle schoolers. A group of children (<10 yrs old) read this book, completed some book review worksheets and finally got together to share their views on the book with each other.
Guests: Nayra, Prakriti, Smyan, Rishi, Pravit, Rusheel, Saatvik and Advik
Questions they answer in this episode
A) For what age do they recommend this book?
B) Why do they think the author wrote this story?
C) How do they evaluate the writing style and vocabulary of a book written nearly 150 years ago?
D) How did reading this book change their perspective?
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30 years ago in Nepal, Yagya Kumar Pradhan woke up to the news that two holy masks from the community's temple had been stolen. Yagya filed police complaints, but got no closer to the masks. He gave up all hope of ever seeing the masks again. One of his family members reached out to a group 'Lost Arts of Nepal' who track stolen artifacts with the help of amateur art detectives from around the world, using social media and other sleuthing techniques. As luck would have it, Yagya's masks were traced and returned to the Nepali government a few weeks ago, in a grand repatriation ceremony that was held in Manhattan, New York.
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Reference articles
(a) Our blog post containing photos of the masks
(b) Originally reported in the Himalayan Times.
(c) Interview with Yagya and Erin by NPR
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The UK recently passed a bill - as its way of telling people to not come to its country, especially if they are coming by dangerous boats. The UK doesn't want people from poor countries who are fleeing wars and conflicts to end up inside its boundaries.
What does this bill contain? Why are people in so many countries watching this bill with bated breath? Will this become the norm for other European countries? Will they also turn their backs to illegal migrants?
Co-host: Shambhavi (14-yr old from Delhi)
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A Scandinavian country, deep into the Arctic, is home to one of the happiest peoples in the world. What factors help them stay happier than people in many other developed countries (such as the US / western Europe / Japan)? Why are the children in Finland happier than their peers elsewhere?
Listen to this conversation with a primary, a middle and a high schooler, to unravel the rest of the story.
Co-hosts: Nayra (from Mumbai), Ayan and Dakshta (from Delhi)
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In the most recent earthquake in Taiwan, lives were lost and property destroyed. A group of dogs (called search and rescue dogs) came to the attention of many people through their valiant efforts at rescuing people caught under the rubble. This is a story of one such dog called Roger - who was earlier labelled a failure by the country's sniffing dogs group. How he was able to put to use his abundance of energy coupled with his intelligence forms the rest of his life-story.
Search and rescue dogs are highly trained canines that are often the first to reach a natural disaster spot. For example, following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, these canines were amongst the first to be flown in by many countries to help the rescue efforts.
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A teenager from Gujarat came up with a novel solution to provide access to learning content on devices. Rather than rely on the goodwill of NGOs to provide devices and internet, Karthik Joshi, a 12th grader suggested a way by which students could 'pay' for this, without actually having to pay using money, but resources that are easily available to them. Another teenager from Tamil Nadu (Madhumita) has designed a 2-wheeler that can help the deaf drive on Indian roads, more safely.
These are two of the many innovations that have won India's National Innovation Fund awards over the past few years. To read more about these awards given to school children - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE Awards, click here.
Co-hosts: Pranay and Akmal, middle schoolers from Bosco Public School, Delhi
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This episode captures the history of Bengaluru from over a 1000 years ago. Small settlements created fertile pastures in an otherwise arid region. The ingenuity they used to build a series of lakes and tanks is to be much admired. This is all the more evident in the backdrop of how we squandered centuries of efforts and destroyed all of it in less than 50 years. The story of Bengaluru is narrated in three parts
Part 1: How the settlements were formed from 1000 - 1500 AD
Part 2: Formation of modern Bengaluru by Kempe Gowda ~1500 AD
Part 3: British settlement post 1800 till modern times
Pioneers who are restoring lakes in Bengaluru
a) Anand Malligavad - Click here to reach out to him
b) Harsha Tej - Click here to reach out to him
c) Usha Rajagopalan - Click here to read about her pioneering work
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Ever read - the Elves and the Shoemaker? This story is a lot like that, except, in this case, they aren't making shoes. Someone has been turning up every night in the shed of a 75-year old photographer who lives in the UK. This photographer used to leave his work shed in a state of chaos at the end of each day. But the next morning, he would find them spick and span. The contents strewn around would be collected and neatly kept inside a box. Curious to find out who this friendly elf was, he installed a night camera.
Listen to the full episode to find out who was doing this daily, and more importantly why!
Co-host: Fourth Grader Devansh Bhojnagarwala from Kolkata, India
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The Pench tiger reserve in India has received a special certification. It is the first of its kind for a wildlife park in India to received this, although wildlife parks / national parks in other parts of the world have received this certification. This is related to the skies above Pench. What are we talking about? Listen to the full episode to find out more.
Co-Host: Rishi Chaudhuri, 10-yr old from Mumbai, India
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A group of 8-15 year olds joined us in reviewing the book 'Wonder' by R.J.Palacio. This is a powerfully narrated story about a 10-year old whose face looks nothing like what most people have. The book goes onto narrate the traumatic experiences he has in school, the friends he makes and how many children emerge from this story - stronger and braver. It is a story that resonates with many children as they see discrimination and 'inside jokes' almost on a daily basis in school.
Listen to the full episode to hear the conversation of a great many children who got together to read this book.
For more details on the book 'Wonder', click here.
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There are sailors who boldly sail into the Southern Ocean and brave the winds and the waves. They do it all by themselves. This is part of a race called the Golden Globe Race (GGR), which tests the mettle of the best of sailors. In its most recent edition, Kirsten Neuschafer from South Africa became the first woman to win (or even complete) the race. Closely behind her was Abhilash Tomy (a former naval officer from India). Abhilash was also the first Indian to complete the race. The persistence, resilience and courage displayed by the participants of GGR is quite something!
Unsurprisingly, most participants in this race, drop out of it. Why do they retire? Listen to the full episode to find out the most common reasons, the greatest challenges they face and the most important personality traits they display.
CoHost: 10-yr old Saatvik from Mumbai, India
Recommended listens - click here to listen to the wildlife series
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This is an #EqualPayDay story. Tennis is one of the few major sports where men and women get equal pay. For that, we have nine women tennis players from the 1970s to thank for.
What did Billie Jean King and eight of her friends do, in 1970? This is the story of how they went ahead and set up their own tournament Virginia Slims Circuit in defiance of the Grand Slam (& other big league) organisers. They demanded equal pay. In 1973, the US Open buckled under pressure and gave in. The rest is history.
You can see all the pictures mentioned in the story in this blog
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In a recent article published in the Scientific American, scientists compared the weight of everything that man has made, with the weight of all life on earth. This exercise was repeated many times over from 1900 onwards and a trend emerged.
The opening lines of the article summarises this trend - "The sheer scale of buildings, infrastructure and other anthropogenic objects underscores our impact on the planet". Scientists have also found something rather unnerving about the impact of plastic waste thrown into oceans and how that compares to the weight of all marine creatures. Listen to the episode to find out more.
Co-hosts: 4th graders Pravit Mehta and Smyan Shetty from Mumbai
Recommended episodes by Pravit and Smyan, for other childrenIsrael Palestine conflict - click to listen
India releases a spy - click to listen
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Jacky Hunt Broersma is a cancer survivor. This led to one of her legs being amputated. With a prosthetic leg, she first began to jog a little every day and gradually built up her stamina. Before she knew, she had run her first ever marathon. Over the next few years, she set a world record. Run 104 marathons in 104 consecutive days. This is a short excerpt from a previous recording in Season 1.
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A piece of football (or soccer) artifact is soon to go up for auction. It is a piece that will go down as marking one of the pivotal points in soccer history.
What are we talking point? Listen on to find out more
Co-hosts: Devansh (4th grader) from Kolkata and Arjun (5th grader) from Mumbai
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A group of researchers in Norway observed the brain patterns of students who wrote vs students who typed. The content was the same in both cases. However, their brain patterns displayed many differences. Discover what these differences were by listening to the full episode.
Co-hosts: 9-year old Rusheel and 10-year old Saatvik from Mumbai, India
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For additional reading on this research, please click here.
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Sir C.V.Raman was traveling aboard a ship that was crossing the Atlantic. It was his first trip across the Mediterranean Sea and its colours sparkled in front of him. Standing there he pondered why the sea was blue. The experiments he did to find out the answer to this question led him to discover the 'Raman Effect', which later led to a Nobel Prize.
This is a kids and family podcast episode, so you can safely assume that this episode is 'Science Simplified for Dummies'. It is also a 'Basic explainer into the Raman Effect'. So whether you are 8 or 80, it'll make a lot of sense.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's Space Journey beginning with Dr.Vikram Sarabhai, click here
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Recently, Indian authorities released a spy who had been kept in detention for over 8 months. This spy was suspected to act on behalf of the Chinese. Later, the spy was found to be innocent and was released. Who was this spy? Why was this spy released?
That is what our 2 participants in this episode have to find out. It's an exciting and thrilling story, for adventure lovers!
Co-hosts today: Rusheel (9 yrs old) and Saatvik (10 yrs old) from Mumbai, India
Recommended by our co-host
Saatvik loved this episode on how a black girl stood up against racism. Click here to listen to it
To join us as a co-host, please click here.
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It was a weekend of records in the world of tennis.
Rohan Bopanna was ranked No. 1 in Men's Doubles. This makes him the oldest to have been ranked No. 1. At the grand age of 43, when many others slow down and often retire from the game, Bopanna seems to only get fitter and stronger.
The same weekend, a young Jannik Sinner from Italy won the Australian Open Men's singles title at the age of 22, making him the youngest to win this title. More than 50 years had passed since an Italian had won a Grand Slam. Sinner had become a hero in Italy overnight. Sinner was greeted by an ebullient crowd, when he flew back home.
Listen to the full episode to hear stories about both of them.
Co-host: Arjun Desai, 6th grader from Mumbai, India. Arjun loves football, but also follows tennis.
To watch snippets of the games on Youtube
Click here to watch 43 year old Rohan Bopanna
Click here to watch 22 year old Jannik SinnerTo register to join us as a cohost, click here
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In this episode, which is the second part 2 of our podcast series on the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), we chat with the Project Head of GBBC from Cornel Lab of Ornithology (Becca Rodomsky Bish) and three children - Shravan, Taanvi and Adya.
They chat about (a) what would happen if there were no birds (b) how do you count birds in a flock (c) what bird would they rather be - migratory or static?
The GBBC in 2024 is to be held from 16-19 Feb.
Apps to download to participate in the event
1. Merlin Bird app - https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
2. Ebird - https://ebird.org/home
Reading material about GBBC - https://birdcount.in/event/gbbc/
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The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) doesn't come our way everyday. But birds do. If you love observing birds, or are curious about them, or even just love to paint or draw pictures of birds - here's an event that you can be a part of. An event where the input of each one of us from around the world can help conserve bird species and populations.
One of the three organisations that puts together the GBBC is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This episode was recorded in 2023, when the Project Leader of GBBC - Becca Rodomsky Bish joined us. Also on this episode are 3 curious kids - 9-yr old Shravan from Singapore, 10-yr old Taanvi from the US and 11-yr old Adya from India.
What is GBBC? What can I do as part of this? Listen to the episode in full to find answers to these questions and more. This is part 1 of a 2-part series of podcasts on the GBBC.
Apps to download to participate in the event
1. Merlin Bird app - https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
2. Ebird - https://ebird.org/home
Reading material about GBBC - https://birdcount.in/event/gbbc/
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In a town in Italy, all dog owners have to pay 65 euros to the city corporation. This is to get their dog's DNA tested. Why is this being mandated?
Three children (4th grader Smyan, 4th grader Dhruv and 8th grader Aadya) ask the host Sangeetha questions, to decipher why dogs in this Italian city are being tested.
Loved the show? To support us, please click here
Want to listen to more episodes on this channel? 3 recommended episodes
(a) How video game characters started to feature more female characters
(b) About ISS and what games you could play in space?
(c) Fat Bear Week - story of a bear in Alaska that is about to hibernate
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In one district in Ohio, the public school students have recorded high rates of absenteeism. So the district government has proposed a new policy. What is this policy?
Three children (4th grader Smyan, 4th grader Dhruv and 8th grader Aadya) ask the host Sangeetha questions, to decipher what the new policy is.
Loved the show? To support us, please click here
Want to listen to more episodes on this channel? 3 recommended episodes
(a) How video game characters started to feature more female characters
(b) About ISS and what games you could play in space?
(c) Fat Bear Week - story of a bear in Alaska that is about to hibernate
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The man who designed India's tricolour flag - Pingali Venkaiyya is one of India's forgotten heroes. He joined the army under the British rule. He was a trained geologist. He also taught agriculture at a college. He was a polyglot who could learn and speak many languages with great ease and fluency. This episode has loads of trivia on Pingali Venkaiyya - one of India's greatest freedom fighters. He was a man who understood the importance of a flag as a symbol of a country's identity. He was so enamoured by the idea of an Indian flag that he published a book with 16 flag versions in it.
Co-host: Taksh Solanki, 3rd grader from Aspee Nutan Academy, Mumbai (India)
Recommended listen from TakshPodcast series on India's space journey
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The tricolour Indian flag with the Ashok Chakra has a pride of place in India's Republic Day celebrations. But the Indian flag was not always like this. How different was it during India's freedom struggle? Listen to the full episode to find out more.
Co-host: Taksh Solanki, 3rd grader from Aspee Nutan Academy, Mumbai (India)
To join our book review of next month, please click here
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Man may want to build a settlement on the moon. This is no longer the stuff of science fiction, but already a reality that space agencies are working towards. NASA's Mission Artemis is working towards building a community that can live on the moon. But it requires a lot of planning. One of the many steps includes a lander 'Peregrine' that was to land on the moon, and send important readings back to NASA. But that mission may not be successful. Peregrine is running out of fuel and will not be able to get there as planned. Why is this important? How does it affect NASA's future missions? Listen to the episode to find out more.
Co-host: 10-year old Isabelle from Mumbai, India
To support this show and donate to Team What's new today, please click here (especially if you are having fun listening to our episodes).
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Iceland is famed not just for its ice, but also its fire. It's a land that sees volcanic eruptions once every four-five years. People of the land are hardy and used to these interruptions to daily life. But a fault line that had maintained volcanic silence for over 800 years (the last time it saw this kind of activity was around 1200AD) has made its presence felt. The people of a nearby fishing town (Grindavik) tried building lava barriers to protect themselves. But did this work? Could they save themselves? Listen to find out more.
Co-Host: Kiaansh Sujata Parikh, 10-yr old from Mumbai
To look at the pictures we discussed in this episode, click here
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In the Stone Age, women were fine hunters and men were adept at collecting fruits. The myth that men did all the hunting and women gathered food was recently shattered by new scientific evidence. Archaeology, human studies and simple biology - explains it all! There was nearly 100% gender equality in society during the hunter-gatherer times.
Recommended listen for
6-8 yrs: With parental assistance
9+: Independently
18+: Recommended Listen and Please share with friends & family
Co-host: 10-yr old Smyan Shetty from Mumbai, India
Support our show - click here
Recommended listens
(a) India's space journey - ISRO - click here to listen
(b) Difference between archaeology and paleontology - click here to watch
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For nearly 1400 years, China has had a tradition of gifting panda bears to countries it wants to establish friendly relations with. For example, in the 8th century AD, the Tang dynasty empress Wu Zeitan is credited with having gifted the Japanese emperor two panda bears from forests in China. This was a gesture of goodwill between the nations. While this tradition has continued across centuries, relations between the USA and China broke down soon after the second World War.
How did things change once panda bears went to visit zoos in the USA, UK and other parts of Europe and Asia? Listen to the full episode to find out more about the story of 'panda diplomacy'.
Did you love this episode and would like to support us by buying us a cup of coffee for $3 or INR 249? Please click here to donate to us
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Every year, GCHQ - an intelligence organisation based out of the UK, releases a Christmas puzzle. This is for children aged 11-18 to mull over the hints and crack the secret codes. In this episode, a 12-yr old joins the host and tries solving some of the puzzles released in the past few years. Listen to the episode and try solving the puzzle alongside us.
To access the GCHQ 2023 Christmas puzzle, click here
To access the SOLUTIONS to the GCHQ Christmas 2023 puzzle, click here.
Support us buying us a cup of coffee this week at $3 or INR 249/-
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Who would have thought that two-thirds of Planet earth remains a no-go for a lot of Black people? Zandile took up scuba diving and free diving and her folks asked her 'why do you want to do white people things?'
This episode is a conversation with two primary schoolers - 3rd grader Nayra Maheshwari and 4th grader Smyan Shetty, from India. They explore ideas related to racism and segregation.
To watch the video of Zandile free-diving, click here.
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As part of our Year-end Wrap up of 2023 series, this episode celebrates the life of a 16-year old archer who defied all odds and won medals for India (and continues to do so!). Sheetal Devi was born with a medical condition that did not allow her limbs (in her case, arms) to fully develop. How she overcame these odds and became an armless archer to win two gold medals for India at the recently held Asian Para Games in China, is a story that is bound to melt hearts.
How does someone shoot an arrow without either hands? Listen to the full episode to find answers to this question, and more.
Child co-hosts: 3rd grader Nayra Maheshwari and 4th grader Smyan Shetty from Mumbai, India
Click here to watch Sheetal Devi's story and how she defied all odds to win medals for India
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The world population touched 8 billion. India replaced China as the most populous. Artificial Intelligence made breakthroughs that promised students much relief and writers much pain. The world was wrecked by conflicts - the continuation of the Ukraine war, the cold tensions between the US and China and the Israel Palestine conflict. What do these mean to today's children? What are their views on these events? Listen to the full episode to find out more.
For full details of the History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, here's a story-style narrative of this - S2 E30
Child co-hosts: 15-year old Mitansh from Nagpur, India and an 'almost' 14-year old Shambhavi from Delhi, India
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In March 2022, a young black gymnast in Ireland was not given a medal she deserved thanks to her skin colour. Her parents called for an apology. Nothing happened for a full year. Soon, the video of this act of racism went viral. Her parents also tagged Simon Biles (the 4-time Olympic gold winning Gymnast from the USA) and asked her for help.
Simon was moved by what she saw and called out Gymnastics Ireland (the organisation that had hosted this event) for their racist attitude. She also sent the little girl a personal message encouraging her to keep practising, and that race had no place in any sport.
Millions of viewers from around the world called for an apology, and pressure from social media kept building. A full 18-months later, Gymnastics Ireland sent an apology to the parents for what happened.
Social media has a lot of potential for causing unnecessary harm to the young and the old. This, however, is one instance where social media brought justice to a little girl in a corner of the world.
To watch the original video of the event where the young black gymnast was ignored, click here.
To listen to travel stories on 'Misadventures of a Sneaker' click here.
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The year of 2023 had its bright and shiny moments in space exploration, science discoveries and tech inventions. This episode focuses on two positive stories - the return of the humpback whales (thanks to a ban on commercial whaling) AND the invention of VR goggles as treatment for lazy eye syndrome. A hurrah moment for young infants who can now deal with the treatment with greater ease and lesser pain and anxiety.
Child co-hosts: Agastya (sixth grader from Mumbai) and Kiaansh (fifth grader, also from Mumbai)
Recommended listens - click on the link below
India's space journey - stories from the past till recently
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As the year 2023 draws to a close, we bring to our young listeners a quiz on one of their favourite book series - Thea Stilton and Geronimo Stilton. Also, in this episode three young bookworms join us and share their book recommendations.
Child co-hosts: Prakriti (almost '10' year old) from Mumbai, Isabelle (10-yr old) from Mumbai and Eesha (14-year old) from Chennai.
To read the newsletter on the three books, please click here.
Recommended listen on how to write your own story - Epi 110 (Season 1), please click here
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This is the happy story of how 41 construction workers who were stuck behind the debris of a collapsed tunnel in Himachal Pradesh got freed after a 17-day long ordeal. The army and air-force, a few massive drilling machines, a team of mountain experts and several doctors came to the rescue. But it was the valorous efforts of a few skilled miners who used the rat-hole method that helped in the final leg.
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Saudi Arabia will be hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2034. It has already started hosting F1 car racing tournaments on its roads. It is also hosting one of the world's largest professional golf tournaments - LIV Golf (this will be the largest outside of the US and Europe). Why has the country suddenly gone sports-crazy? Listen to the episode to find out why.
Co-hosts in this episode: 8th graders - Raghav Sharma and Pragya Mishra from Bal Bharati Public School, Dwarka, Delhi, India
Episodes recommended by Raghav and Pragya
(a) Space fans - click to listen to stories of how India launched its satellites and rockets
(b) Marvel fans - click to listen to stories of Young Avengers
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Ever heard of a national leader saying that one of his goals is to plant 15 billion trees. If you have not, meet Kenya's President William Ruto. To meet his immediate goal of planting 100 million trees, he declared a national holiday. In a country of 50 million people, all it takes for a person is to plant 2-4 trees to get to the goal of 100 million trees. The government of Kenya also made available seeds for all these trees, free of cost, in its nurseries. People were free to plant any other trees from seeds they had, as well. Children and adults turned out into the streets of Kenya in full vigour to participate in this national effort. Despite the rains, they had big grins plastered on their faces while planting trees.
Child co-host in this episode: Novizo, a 6th grader from Charis High Academy, Dimapur, Nagaland (India).
Recommended podcast series
(a) Novizo's recommendation - How 'Island effect' works on animals - click here to listen
(b) Podcast series on India's Wildlife Journey - click here to listen
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This is the last and final part of our Wildlife podcast series. There are two happy stories we talk about here -
(A) How rhinos in eastern India have been saved from poachers by the vigilant members of the forest community, and
(B) How one man single-handedly planted an entire forest with his own hands. Jadav Payeng never went to any fashionable academic institution to learn about ecology. He just felt that creating a forest was the right thing to do. Nobody told him that he was stark raving mad. Not that he may have listened to them.
Co-hosts in this episode: 9-year old Smyan from Mumbai and 'an almost' 9-year old Advik from Chennai
To read the blogs, click on their titles
(1) The story of the king who saved our lions
(2) The forest officer who adopted a tigress as his pet
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In the most recent semi-finals between India and New Zealand, Virat Kohli scored his 50th century. He broke the record for the highest number of centuries scored by any cricketeer in ODI (Sachin Tendulkar held the record previously).
This episode is a quiz style podcast, with 5 children participating in a quiz on this cricketing legend 'Virat Kohli' or 'King Kohli' as he is sometimes called. Pit yourself against Aarush Jaiswal (7th grader from Indore), Devansh Bhojnagarwala (4th grader from Kolkata), Naren Vijay (6th grader from Chennai), Saatvik Shet (4th grader from Mumbai) and Tushaar Agrawal (6th grader from Singapore), and see how well you fare :)
If you like wildlife and stories about lions, tigers, rhinos and elephants, listen to the Wildlife podcast series by clicking here
Wildlife Series - recommended listen for children aged 9+
Big shoutout to Vinith Muralidharan for his help in putting together the Quiz Questions on Virat Kohli.
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The British discovered the dense forests of Andaman and the lack of elephants there to pull these logs. How elephants got to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar is a theme we explore in this episode.
Fourth grader Chandrika from Bengaluru, India also explores how man-human conflicts are slowly being reduced as part of Project Elephant.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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Indian skies are full of crows, pigeons and sparrows. But vultures have collapsed in numbers from a few million to a few hundred in under a decade.
Want to find out how? Listen to 8-yr old Advik (who reiterates that he is almost nine) and Smyan Shetty explaining the why and how of this story.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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Forest trackers also called 'pugees' play an inimitable role in conserving India's forests. They can reconstruct whole events inside forests just by looking at the pugmarks. Listen to the full episode to find out how. The pugees play a crucial role in monitoring the health of wildlife and getting medical support as quickly as possible.
This is a continuation of the previous episode (part 5) and our sprightly young co-host Chandrika joins us in this episode as well.
Podcast cover art has been made by Amelia Fleming, a middle schooler from Dubai.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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The Asiatic lions had gone extinct in large parts of Central Asia. The last remnants were to be found in the forests of the princely states of Gujarat, in India. There were only a handful of these lions left (<20). The Nawab of Junagadh played a key role in protecting these lions from going extinct. Listen to this episode to find out how.
Chandrika, a sprightly fourth-grader joins us in this episode, exploring India's success story in reviving the Asiatic lions.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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Project Tiger was launched in 1973 amidst the gloomy news that the tiger numbers had plummeted to a measly 1400 from a high of 40,000 in 1900. An Indian officer called Kailash Sankhala, also called the Tiger Man of India, pushed the case for a special protection plan for tigers. Thus was born Project Tiger.
This was also around the same time when M.K.Ranjitsinh was helping the Indian government draft one of the tightest wildlife protection acts - The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. One of the highlights of this act was that most forms of wildlife were not allowed to be hunted, except under very special circumstances. As part of this act, M.K.Ranjitsinh (a former prince of a royal family in Gujarat) brought many important provisions, based on his observations of how wildlife and villagers co-exist in and around the forests. One of the most important provision related to how tigers need to be protected in the event of their consuming the livestock of a villager.
Listen to a conversation on how tigers hunt and how villagers co-exist with them in forests, and how the Wildlife Act protects them both. Smyan Shetty, a fourth grader from Mumbai, explores these aspects.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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Tigers are either feared or hunted or both. Sometimes when they turn into man-eaters, they turn into the stuff of legends (and eventually give birth to stories such as the Man-eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett). This episode explores a different side of a tiger. The tiger can also be a creature that is careful, caring and considerate. There are instances of tigers being excellent friends of humans and being allowed to roam around freely in their presence.
Saroj Raj Chaudhury was a forest officer in India and his favourite pet was a tigress named Khairi. We explore the caring side of a tigress in this episode through the story of Khairi, along with Smyan Shetty - a fourth grader from Mumbai. In the previous episode, where we heard about the efforts of conservationists such as Kailash Sankhala, Salim Ali and M.K.Ranjitsinh, in this episode you get to hear about one more conservationist. Saroj Raj Chaudhury played an equally great role in keeping India's forests and its tigers safe and secure.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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After the British left India in 1947, Indians were feeling mighty happy. But they also had to figure out how to build the country, grow more food and earn a lot of money. In the middle of all of this, if some poachers were killing tigers for their skins or rhinos for their horns - not many were paying attention to that.
There were a handful of wildlife conservationists at that time, who did all they could - to first bring this to the attention of India's leaders. This episode covers three such dynamic conservationists (a) Tiger Man of India - Kailash Sankhala, (b) Bird Man of India - Salim Ali and (c) The Man who helped make the law to protect wildlife - M.K.Ranjitsinh.
Aarav (Grade 5), Anaya (Grade 6) and Tia (Grade 6) from Bal Bharati Public School, Delhi, join us in this episode to discuss the lives of these three conservationists.
To listen to the entire podcast series on India's wildlife, click here
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We begin our new podcast series on 'India's Wildlife' - tracing stories from before India became independent, right until 2023, when India tries to bring back the cheetah from extinction.
In the first episode, we trace the hunting habits of Indian Maharajahs and the British posted in India. We look at how hunting helped or hurt the wildlife balance inside India's forests.
Shambhavi Nautyal, a ninth-grader from Ahlcon Public School, joins us in this episode, sharing stories about hunting was hardly the work of a brave man! To find out why, listen to the episode.
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For a lot of us, going to school involves a walk around the corner, or a trip by a bus or a car. That is not the case for many children across the world. This is a real life story about a group of children who have to travel between two mountains to get to school and what happens when the cable car ferrying them gets stuck mid-air. This story has a happy ending. So worry not. Go ahead and give it a listen.
An eighth grader - Temjentila, from Dimapur's Charis High school in Nagaland joins us in this episode. She shares stories about how children from many other parts of the world trudge through forests and deserts on a daily basis, to get to school.
Click to listen to recommended episode by Temjentila: Why animals on islands grow bigger or smaller, very different from animals on mainland
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Palestine has an ancient history - going back many thousands of years. In this episode, we trace the stories of this region going back 3000 years, from the times of Moses right until now. The Jews were a dominant race in that region right until the Roman invasion. Soon after the birth of Jesus Christ, Christiantity gained favour and the Jews were a smaller share of the population. After the rule of the Romans and the Byzantine empire, the region is conquered by the Ottomans who then help spread Islam.
By the beginning of the first world war, this is a region largely occupied by peasant and farmers and shepherds, who were predominantly Muslims and pretty much minding their own business.
At the end of the first world war, a few men sitting in the parlours of England are getting ready to share the lands of the losers - including the Ottomans. Interestingly, one of them is a man raised on classic literature - Lord Balfour. He feels that the Jews need a national home for themselves and shoots off a letter to Lord Rothschild affirming his support for this Jewish home. Soon after, British forces march into Palestine and impose their colonial rule.
Jewish refugees who are fleeing persecution in many parts of Europe are trickling into Palestine. The British help them find land and slowly the Arabs who are the natives of the land find themselves evicted. In a short span of of 30 years, the Arabs have lost large tracts of lands and are beginning to revolt against the British and pick fights with the Jews as well. The British pack up their bags and leave the area. The UN steps in and suggests that the Palestinians and the Jews divvy up the land roughly half and half. The Jews are thrilled to find a home for themselves and call this country - Israel. The Arabs reject the proposal. The next 75 years is filled with revolts and conflicts between the Palestinians supported by neighbouring Arab nations, and Israel. In all of this, the Palestinians are left as refugees in their own country, with little to no voices of their own.
Listen to William Dalrymple and Anita Anand on this topic: https://open.spotify.com/episode/67Mz5XslS4pPwGtIfGoyYJ?si=bddf69351c324ca8
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Sharp needle pricks are not anyone's favourite - least of all, when the doctors force them upon us. Worse still is a vaccine injection that may or may not be followed by a bout of fever and illness before recovery comes our way.
Who do we blame / credit for discovering vaccines in recent memory? Listen to the episode to find the story of Edward Jenner and the cowpox in his milkmaid. Also, listen to the episode to see what the Nobel winners of 2023 discovered that fascinates 12-year old Rhea Vaz (who studies at Aspee Nutan Academy, Mumbai).
Recommended listens by Rhea for other children
(a) Story of a dog that saved 3 kids - click here to listen
(b) Stories about India's space journey - click here to listen
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World Food Day is here. A food that is both loved by children and the old is the warm and fluffy 'idli'. Often called a South Indian food, in this episode we explore the question 'Did idli really originate in India?'
There are three competing stories about how South India got its idli. Let us know where you think Idli came from!
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Moose was eight years old, stuck in a shelter in Virginia. A family of five were looking to foster a dog for a weekend. It was going to be their lucky weekend. Moose and his kind face instantly won them over and off they went to their houseboat. What happened there and how Moose saved the three kids and the whole family from an impending disaster is the story of this podcast episode.
If you'd like to see pictures of Moose and the three kids, click here
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Dinosaurs might have been enjoying a good rest when a meteorite came crashing towards them. They may not have had the time to react or say their goodbye to their loved ones. But man is greedy. He would like to avert such disasters as much as he can.
So he sends missions to asteroids to study them and figure out ways to avoid colliding with them. NASA's Osiris-Rex is one such mission. The mission recently brought back dust and pebbles from Bennu the asteroid, and landed recently in the desert sands of Utah.
Why was this mission sent? How will this help us protect ourselves? Listen to this episode with Kavya Swami and Kanwar Joy Singh from Bal Bharti Public School, Delhi.
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A photo released by NASA - is a refreshing course in science. It show an underwater volcano erupting near the Solomon Islands and a group of sharks swimming near these volcanoes. Sharks have always been understood to prefer the cold deep water of the ocean. So this photo of sharks near the Kavachi volcanoes was quite the mystery.
In this conversation with 8-yr old Aniket from Bala Vidya Mandir, Chennai, you'll find why sharks and volcanoes are fascinating to all - young and old!
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Bears love honey, climbing trees, and pouncing on their pound of fish in lakes and rivers. But after a while, as the snow begins to set in, the fun times stop as they quietly lie down. What happens in the weeks before they start to hibernate? They have to eat a LOT!
The Fat Bear Week helps all of us from anywhere in the world see these bears in action just before they hibernate.
If you'd like to read the blog version of this podcast, click here
To vote for this Fat Bear contest, you can click here.
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Whoever would have thought that a faraway continent (one that sees more whales and penguins, than humans) is home to a new English accent. If you are one to enjoy making out the differences between the American, British and the Australian accents, you'll enjoy listening to 13-yr old Meher from Dubai, explaining what she sees as a trend amongst her school-friends.
Also, why is this new accent even important? Think Space and Mars!
Listen to Meher's recommended podcast series on India's space journey & ISRO
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The Chennai airport saw a crowd milling with flowers and sweets, waiting to welcome one of the city's greatest heroes. This was the kind of welcome commonly found for cricketing heroes & heroines or movie superstars. This time though, it was the turn of a chess grandmaster, arriving from his FIDE Chess Championship at Baku.
Listen to this episode to discover the fascinating origin story of Pragnananndha (or Prag) as he is fondly referred to. It's also got an interesting trivia / story about who Prag likes to hang out with, to break off the stress in the middle of the tournament.
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In a cricket-crazy country, a javelin thrower to have the most number of Instagram followers amongst all the athletes in the world is saying something. Neeraj Chopra's recent gold win at the World Athletics Championship has won him hearts, both for his win as well as his gesture towards the silver medal winner from Pakistan - Arshad Nadeem.
Find out what exactly happened in this episode.
Youtube credit for Athletics Championship press coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qCZq-Dlrso&t=3s
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ISRO began its interstellar journey in the 21st century. Lunar mission (Chandrayaan) and Mars Orbiter mission (Mangalyaan) saw the light of the day. The triumphant successes of both these missions brought India to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the space superpowers - the US, Russia and China.
The episode begins with a quick backstory into the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union. 7th grader Adya tells us what she finds inspiring and fascinating about these stories and India's successful space missions.
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What happens during a liftoff? Why is there so much smoke and fire? How do people in nearby towns and villages not go deaf?
How does a satellite enter the orbit of the moon or the Mars?
Anina, a fourth grader from Inventure Academy, Bengaluru attempts to answer these questions. Listen to full episode to find out more.
Click here to read the blog covering the stories in this podcast series.
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Seeing rockets go up in a billowing cloud of smoke from Sriharikota is more often than not, associated with success. It was not so, in the 1980s and 1990s. Scientists at ISRO struggled with many failures and had to face growing criticism from the press for nearly a decade. Unfazed by all this, today, ISRO can proudly stake claim to having built one of the most powerful satellite launch vehicles in the world - this powerhorse is called Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)
Listen on to find what Dr.Kalam and other scientists at ISRO did, to keep the spirits up.
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The 1990s saw an explosion of TV shows, including superheroes like Shaktimaan and detectives like Byomkesh Bakshi. A lot of this was aided by the presence of colour TV sets in many Indian homes.
India's space journey played a huge hand in making these childhood staples for the 90s kids. The story of the satellite - Insat 1a, its launch and subsequent performance forms the basis of this episode.
Sound credits
Ramayan title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjW-umA3QZ8
Asian Games opening ceremony coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtZidbSHLrU
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If you lived in the 1980s and 1990s in India, Sunday mornings were often quiet affairs. Not because the families wanted to dine together, but because the TV brought them all together for wholesome entertainment.
India's space journey had much to do, with TVs becoming a reality in most Indian homes. Listen to this episode (part 4) of our podcast series on how an experiment with NASA in the 1970s helped India what TV shows meant to the average man in villages and towns.
Saatvik (4th grader) and Rhea (8th grader) join us in this episode and share what they think of these times and stories.
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This episode is the third part in our series on the Journey of ISRO. Click here to listen to Parts 1 and Part 2, before you listen to part 3.
Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Homi Bhabha's deaths at the prime of their lives, robbed India of two of its greatest science and technology visionaries.
The baton passed onto a scientist Prof Satish Dhawan, who not only nurtured the infant space mission, but also put together able structures and procedures that helped ISRO reach greater heights.
Middle schoolers Dhruv (from The Deens Academy, Bengaluru) and Pranshi (from Aspee Nutan in Mumbai), react to the story of how India launched its first satellite - the Aryabhatta, in space.
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Dr.Vikram Sarabhai was not a man to stop at sending a few sounding rockets from a beach town in Kerala. He had grander visions. He wanted India to launch its own satellite from its own satellite launch vehicle.
Where would he find his suitable satellite launch pad? Listen to the episode to find stories of the jungles he and his team trudged and reach the ideal island.
11-year old Dhruv and 11-yr old Pranshi share their insights on what they make of the struggles of India's early day space scientists.
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The feverish excitement of watching the launch of Chandrayaan 3 is hard to be matched. On second thoughts, it could be matched by India winning a world cup in cricket (esp. if the finals were against Pakistan).
We delved back 75 years to look into the stories that chronicled India's space journey. These stories brought us goosebumps and left us in awe of the father of India's space program - Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. When the rest of the world was busy fighting wars to send humans and pets into space, Dr. Sarabhai was clear that he wanted India to use space technology to help every single Indian in his daily life.
In the first of a multi-part podcast series, we capture the stories surrounding the early days of India's space program, how the first sounding rocket left the shores of India.
Also sharing their thoughts in this episode are 9-yr old Saatvikfrom Mumbai and 13-yr old Rhea from Bengaluru.
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What colour is the sun?
Should you be placing toilet paper on toilet seats in public bathrooms?
Why are some eggs easy to peel while others are not?
To find answer to these 3 questions, listen to the 12-year old who has 'scientifically researched' these points.
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Every month as part of our happy kidpod, we feature news stories that bring a smile to our faces. In this episode, we share three news stories about the Amazon Rainforests, schools for children in Madagascar and interesting health routines of elephants in the USA. Anmol, Vilaksh and Tamanna from BOSCO Public School, Delhi have curated these positive news stories and share their perspectives in this episode.
Trivia
- If the lion is the king of the jungle in Africa, what is the king of the Amazonian rainforests?
- Which creature is the most flexible?
- Can elephants do handstands?
- How do you build a school classroom in less than 24 hours?
Listen to the episode to find answers to these.
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How many tigers can you find in Africa?
Is the tiger bigger than a lion?
What record has India created in the Guiness Book of World Records with respect to conserving wildlife?
What would a 9 or 10-year old do, if faced with the task of saving tigers that are declining in population?
8-year old Lavysha Saraf from DPS (Hyderabad), identical twins 10-yr old Dhruv Gandhi and Dhyan Gandhi from Children's Academy group of schools, share their thoughts on these questions and more. Project Tiger has been one of India's greatest wildlife conservation success stories. It is 50 years since India launched this project. Today, India hosts the largest tiger population anywhere in the world.
To find out about the Times of India contest for Young Rangers, please click here.
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What are some of the common ways by which children use the internet to bully their peers? What are the simple steps that parents and teachers can take to protect children?
A 12-year old from S.East Asia shares his experiences of how he and his family dealt with cyber-bullying.
Ms.Mildred Lobo (Principal of Bunt Sangha's S.M.Shetty International School, Mumbai) shares how she has dealt with such cyber-bullying instances in her school.
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Gone are the times when many people felt that bullying is a rite of passage of childhood or school years. Bullying, big or small, often leaves indelible marks on the minds of victims and the perpetrator.
In this episode, we talk about bullying from the perspective of a child and understand how they view these experiences. We also hear from an experienced educator (Ms.Mildred Lobo, Principal and Bunt Sangha's S.M.Shetty International School) about how she thinks these situations are best handled.
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Story of this episode: It was a cold morning in July 2020. A crew manning a 46ft boat saw a group of killer whales swimming towards them. They waved towards the friendly orcas, whom they had met many times before. But the orcas were in no mood for a friendly chat. They rammed the boat in full force, chewed pieces of its rudder and pushed the boat around, nearly 180 degrees.
As the crew panicked and radio-ed the Coast Guard for assistance, the Coast Guard were unsure if they heard their cries of 'Orca attack. Help!', correctly. Orcas attacking people, when unprovoked, was unheard of till then. After a while, the orcas lost interest in hitting the boat, and went their way. The boat's crew were unhurt and the boat had to be towed to a nearby port in Spain.
Since then, more than a dozen boats and ships have been attacked by orcas in the same neighbourhood.
Intrigued to find out why? Listen to this episode where 11-year old Adya shares her ideas.
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An online platform where children can meet others, interact and make friends, all while playing a video game - that's Roblox in short.
This is a platform that has more than 43 million daily active users.
What makes this game so popular? Even more popular than Minecraft?
To find out more about this game, I chat with 9-year old Rishaan Das from Bengaluru, to look at this game from the perspective of a child.
Also discussed in this episode are thoughts on what parents can do to make this platform safe for their kids.
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If you are like me, you might catch yourself wondering how to avert a disaster that hurtled the way of dinosaurs (a meteorite crashing into earth). If you are like a scientist at NASA, you'd have found a way to avert that disaster. If you are like any space scientist around the world, you'd be onto greater things - such as finding out how the solar system looked like, a few billion years ago.
NASA's recent mission to the Bennu asteroid combines all of these elements. An answer to the mysteries of our universe and a way to avert humans going extinct. In this episode, high schoolers from Bal Bharti (Kavya Swami, a ninth-grader & Kanwarjoy Singh, an eleventh grader) share what they found most exciting about this topic.
Reference materials: Click here to read all about NASA's mission and if you want more details about the asteroid, here's where you can find it
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A couple of years ago, a group of people in nice long white lab coats (some call them scientists) set about solving a mystery about animals on islands.
They had 2 interesting clues to get on about
(a) a rodent the size of a 2-year old child. It was scurrying around eating up large chunks of your cake in one go.
(b) a hippo similar in size to young children.
A biologist called Foster first suggested this strange and funny phenomenon he noticed in islands, which he called 'an island effect'. These scientists collected a lot of curious facts from many islands from around the world, and discovered that this rule was indeed true.
Listen to (almost) 11-year old Vihaan from Bombay Scottish School, Mumbai, as he explains this really remarkable case.
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Did you know that 'Face with tears of joy' is the most popular emoji of 2023?
Did you know that Gen-Z things pagers are bookmarks?
Join a 10-year old Isabelle Abraham to listen to a scintillating description of the Emoji movie. Isabelle attended What's new today's podcasting workshop and was thrilled to present her views 'based entirely on her original research', as she puts it:)
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Ever wondered what would happen if you took a big black rectangular solar panel from your rooftops, and place them on a lake?
Can the solar panel float? Will the water below damage the panel? Will the solar panel be efficient? generate electricity?
Middle schooler Medhansh and primary schooler Pranshi, both from Aspee Nutan Academy, Mumbai, dig deep into these questions. In this episode, they share stories surrounding these questions and much more.
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The Harry Potter book series took the world by storm. Many a child today owes his / her love for reading from J.K.Rowling's creations. The thick, fat pages of Goblet of Fire or the Deathly Hallows hardly deterred 7 and 8 year olds around the world. For some children, it is hard to believe a world where there were no Harry Potter books.
It was only 25 years ago that the first Harry Potter book - Philosopher's stone (or Sorcerer's stone in the US) was published. Commemorating this, the Royal Mint of the UK recently published 4 coins, with faces of some of our favourite characters.
In Season 2 of this podcast channel. 10-year olds - Isabelle Abraham and Vihaan Arora discuss this news story. This episode holds a place of pride for the 'What's new today' team as the two children put this episode entirely by themselves (after a podcasting workshop attended by the kids).
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Ink and paper was all that we think of, when the printer comes to our mind.
But if we told you that you could order a cheesecake at the printer. Scientists at Columbia University recently introduced a 3D printing machine for children to choose which toppings and what flavours they would like on each cheesecake
With this, we sign off our 120th episode of Season 1. We will be taking a short break this summer and will come back with more stories about the real world around us, in season 2.
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In this podcast episode, we dive into the fascinating world of artificial intelligence, exploring the distinctions between two powerful tools: ChatGPT and Google, and pondering the question of whether ChatGPT is poised to dominate the future.
Drawing from personal experiences, 11-year-old Vidyut and 12-year-old Rohan explore how from using YouTube to expand our understanding of art to leveraging Google Translate for help with Tamil homework, technology has seamlessly integrated into our lives.
Dive into the captivating world of AI in this thrilling episode, where we explore its fascinating potential and address the age-old question: should humans truly fear its rise?
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Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy won the men's doubles finals at Badminton Asia - the first pair from India to have won this in 58 years. We are familiar with Saina Nehwal and P.V.Sindhu - two Indians who made India proud by winning Olympic medals. Now Chirag and Satwiksairaj bring badminton once again into centrestage.
In this episode, 13-year old Eesha Vijay shares her thoughts on -
'how does it feel when you watch professionals playing badminton on TV'
'where did this game originate?'
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Walt Disney used to take his children to neighbourhood parks. He felt disappointed with the kind of experiences these parks had to offer. He had grand ideas of building something more interesting. That's how Disney theme parks came to be about. About this time, he had already started making animation movies. So combining the fairy tale characters he was showing in his movies with the fabulous theme parks he built, we get the logo of Disney - castle plus the words DISNEY.
Every logo has an interesting story to offer. In this episode (which is the second part of our series on Brands and Logos), 10th grader Mitansh Rajkotia and 11th grader Anya Chaturvedi, from Nagpur chat with Vibin Venugopal (co-founder of Headless Hippies, a brand and marketing consultant). They discuss many interesting stories about logos that have changed in recent times, including Nokia, Twitter and Frooti.
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5 rings bring images of sports and victories in the Olympic. 4 rings shift our minds towards cars and the company Audi. A tick mark takes us to shoes and the company Nike. The letter G now represents the all-important Gmail.
Brands and logos are in front of us wherever we go. But why do companies change these, from time to time? Why does the company Pepsi keep changing the way its logo looks?
Listen to two teenagers Mitansh Rajkotia and Anya Chaturvedi and Vibin from Headless Hippies share stories about how these logos have come about.
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Project Re-shark is an initiative to bring more sharks into our oceans. While some people have been busy over-fishing sharks, a few others have taken it upon themselves to grow baby sharks in aquariums and then releasing them back into the wild.
To talk about this interesting real life story, 7-year old Owen from New York (USA) joins us. While sharks are quite the thing that 7-year olds love to talk about, Owen also shares his opinions and ideas on -
a) Are sharks really dangerous to humans?
b) If he had a magic wand, which species would he save from going extinct?
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No longer do you need to worry if your mobile phones are near or far from telecom towers. No longer do you need to think about whether you'll get internet access when you are vacationing in some far off place, away from civilization, or up on a mountain or on a cruise ship far away from land.
In this episode, Syed Ayan, a fourth grader from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, explains how all of this will soon come true. He will also explain the story of OneWeb - the company that has launched satellites into space, to bring us this connectivity.
Also, to help us make sense of how these satellites work, is a curious adult (and a child at heart) Aditya - who spends some part of his time tinkering with things at Texas Instruments and helps them do stuff that makes 4G and 5G work.
Together, Syed and Aditya piece the story of how OneWeb's satellites that were recently launched by the Indian Space Agency ISRO, will help us access faster data speeds.
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If there were a genie that said - name your wish and I'll show you a picture of how your wishes or dreams would look, we seem to have found it.
It goes by the name 'artificial intelligence for art'. In the past few months, many such engines generate art after you give them a prompt. You could go wild with your imagination and even ask for - 'show me a picture of a lion sitting in an office typing out an email, with a unicorn munching a cracker next to it'.
How do these engines create such works of art in a matter of a few seconds?
Will this hurt the livelihoods of artists?
Listen to this incredibly quirky, introspective and quick-paced episode featuring 11-year old Rishit and Vidyut and Ms. Roopa Prabhu, who is a marketeer by the day and an artist by passion. You'll find answers to these questions and more.
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From email IDs to opening youtube accounts, passwords are some of the most common things we type, day in and day out.
In this episode, ninth-graders Shambhavi Nautiyal and Advaith Nair from Ahlcon Public School, Delhi, share their thoughts on how we can make passwords safer.
They also speaking of impending risks to our passwords from quantum computers.
To answer the quiz at the end, the two passwords mentioned are
(a) sharksnearvolcanoes123456$$
(b) coffee45olympics#cardboard#cub
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If the word countryside and summer vacations reminds you of adventures of the Famous Five, children in Japan are being enticed to have just that - a lot of adventures by the village-side all year round!
Japan is facing extreme pressure in its tightly congested cities such as Tokyo. The government is encouraging families to move to smaller towns by the city. They hope that the monetary incentive will prove strong enough a motive for counter-urbanisation.
Will this really help?
Has any other country tried this?
You'll find answers to these and more from Atmaj and Vani - both primary schoolers from Ahlcon Public School, Delhi.
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Roald Dahl used to visit the chocolate factories near his school, as a boy. The multiple machinations and the workers in the factory all appeared to be a part of a magical world. Years later, these experiences would inspire the popular work of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.
In this episode, you can listen to Ms. Geetanjali Shetty Kaul, a professional storyteller who chats with primary schoolers Avni Prasad and Ambika Gupta from Ahlcon Public School, Delhi, about how to write creatively.
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Ever wondered how Mufasa's road appears majestic? or how Rapunzel's hair flows all around? or how Olaf jumps and hops around singing in the snow?
You can find answers to a ton of such questions in this episode. Chatrasal Singh, an animator with Disney Studios at Burbank, California, joins us. 10-year old Shriya from Bengaluru and 12-year old Ananya Harish from Mumbai quiz him on how he helps create Elsa or Mirabel on screen.
To participate in the quiz, please click here
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This is a 3-part podcast series, as Disney celebrates its 100 years of existence in 2023. This episode (which is part 2 of this series) covers the last couple of decades of Disney's existence.
12-year old Ananya Harish from Bunt Sangha's S.M.Shetty International School, Mumbai, India joins as the guest speaker in this episode.
After much reading about Disney characters (esp. Disney princesses), Ananya says she is pleasantly surprised by the personality trait changes in recent years.
'How different are Disney princesses now, from the older ones like Snow White?'
'How has Disney started picking up stories and characters from around the world'
'What is the one Disney princess Ananya would like to see in the next movie?'
To find answers to these and more, listen to the full episode. We guarantee you a laugh, a 'wow' and great stories.
Recommended episodes by Ananya
To listen to the episode on Minecraft, click here
To listen to the episode on Hero Rats and Cyborg Cockroaches, click here
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Disney studio was established in 1923. Rabbits, mice, ducks, cats and many more characters came alive on screen, thanks to Walt Disney and his team. Not happy with just showing his audience fairy tales on screen, Disney also expanded to develop theme parks. Now you could meet some of these characters in person and on rides, in these theme parks. As time went on, Disney studios brought bigger and richer folk tales from across the world (including stories such as Raya, the last Dragon).
In this episode, primary schoolers (Jveet from Children's Academy, Prakriti and Aditi from Bunt Sangha S.M.Shetty International School, Mumbai) chat with a professional illustrator - Abhilash from Headless Hippies. You can hear stories from the early years of Walt Disney and how cartoon illustrations are made,
Recommended listen by the child
Click here to listen to the episode on artificial brains in a petri-dish
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What's flaxseed got to do with Lenovo?
What's peanut shells got to do with food delivery?
What's a pencil got to do with our terrace gardens?
The short answer is - packaging that is sustainable. In this episode, 9-year old Shanaya, 8-year old Dhanush and 9-year old Isabelle from the Children's Academy Group of schools, talk about these stories. While we often talk about moving away from single-use plastics, this episode covers stories about companies that are making an effort to make this easier on us.
Lenovo's laptop covers are made of flaxseed fibers. Many companies sell pencils with seeds in them. Food might be delivered via Swiggy and Dunzo in biodegradable covers soon.
Link to recommended episodes by the children
(a) Click to listen to FIFA football video game
(b) Click here to find out about robotic fishes
(c) Click to hear about a universe on Minecraft
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Superheroes have captivated our imagination for eons. The Marvel Cinematic Universe - Spiderman, Doctor Strange and many more, has been one of the most successful superhero franchises. But a void has now arisen.
With Iron Man and Black Widow dead, Steve Rogers retired and Captain Marvel busy protecting other galaxies, the case for a new band of Young Avengers is high. In this episode, 7-year old Adwitya Goyal and 10-year old Rudransh Das from Children's Academy group of schools, Mumbai, share their ideas on which five Young Avengers would work together best.
'Do you think we can trust young children with superpowers?'
'What superpowers do you think teachers would like to have?'
'Who would make for a good leader for Young Avengers?'
Listen to the full episode to find answers to these questions and more.
If you would like to be alerted via whatsapp on new episodes, join this free link to be a part of a Whatsapp community AND follow us on Instagram to find out about other interesting trivia.
If you like what you're listening to, please do support us by contributing whatever you like, and for some exclusive benefits
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In the story 'Finding Nemo', the journey undertaken by Marlin and Dory kept us all on the edge of our seats. Some of us may have also heaved a sigh of relief when the clownfish Nemo is saved and is back home. What if we told you that a band of humans have come together to save many more creatures of the sea, the ocean floor and much more. Yayy! It's true.
Listen to 8-yr old Tweesha, 9-year old Saatvik and 9-year old Rachita - all of whom go to the Children's Academy Group of Schools in Mumbai, India. The exuberance they feel at the idea of making life for marine creatures better, is abundantly palpable in their voices.
Cover art for this episode was made by a sixth-grader (Vanshika Baid) from Emerald Heights International School, Indore
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In 64 years, for the first time, Dr.Nicola Fox, a British-origin scientist has been appointed to head science projects at NASA.
Her dad loved science and especially space, and some of that seemed to have rubbed off on her. She also went to a girls' school and felt fully at home in science laboratories. There were no boys around, so no one told her that science may be for boys (mainly).
In this episode, discussing lots of stories about her childhood and school years, is a vivacious 11-year old Adya from India. Adya also shares research about some of the science projects that Dr.Fox has been heading and why 11-year olds like her, might find these fascinating.
Why did Dr.Nicola Fox decide to become a physicist?
Why are scientists such a curious bunch?
To find answers to these questions and more, listen to the full episode.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, join this free link to be a part of a Whatsapp community where we post opportunities for children AND follow us on Instagram to find out about other interesting trivia.
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Imagine going on a holiday, where you can get around in only one of three ways - walking, riding a donkey or riding a bicycle. You would also have to carry your suitcases and bags around with no taxi to transport it around.
This would be true if you went to places like the island Hydra in Greece, the city of Ghent in Belgium and many islands in Maldives.
To talk about how interesting or difficult life would be in such islands, we are joined by Renee Agarwal from Emerald Heights International School, Indore and Anjaneya Navin from Bunt Sangha's S M Shetty International School & Junio College, Mumbai.
Special mention: Podcast cover by Asad Khan, Grade 3 (Children's Academy, Malad) is a remarkable depiction of how green life would be with just bicycles :)
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, join this free link to be a part of a Whatsapp community where we post opportunities for children AND follow us on Instagram to find out about other interesting trivia.
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Man will soon begin to build houses on moon. Check.
The James Webb Telescope might soon tell us how the universe began its journey. Check.
Bacteria can help us make new smartphones and laptop. Err...Not sure if we have lost our mind here?
Pinch yourself. This is reality.
In this episode with 10-year old Agastya Deshpande from Nahar International School, Mumbai, you will hear all about scientists who have discovered new uses for bacteria. They have the ability to accelerate the process of extracting metals.
Why do we need bacteria, you ask? The demand for phones and gadgets is only growing. We are in need of many rare earth minerals that are used in our devices. Bacteria will come in handy in extracting these from our old discarded gadgets.
What precious metals do our old phones have? To find out more, listen to epi 21 on how to responsibly discard e-waste
To listen to epi 27 about the Floating city of Busan (the episode recommended by Agastya), please click here
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Our excitement at the prospect of having reached the 100th episode milestone must be palpable - in our voices, the podcast cover and even in our sound tracks :)
In this episode, 8-year old Devansh from Kolkata and 12-year old Eesha from Chennai (who have both appeared in previous episodes on science & wildlife stories) talk about their experiences. We answer questions such as -
'Is there a script for each episode?'
'How do the children prepare for each episode?'
'How does the podcast channel maintain such a diverse set of topics'
You can listen to the banter between the host Sangeetha and Devansh & Eesha, as they try to answer questions from our listeners.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Love solving puzzles? Enjoy listening to mythological stories? You're very likely to enjoy the two book series that our child co-host in this episode recommends.
11-year old Saathvika who goes to New Albany Elementary School from Columbus , Ohio (USA) shares her thoughts on two book series - the Aru Shah series and the Greystone Secrets series. Listen to her to find out what these two book series are about. She also has plenty of reflection questions - both for the host Sangeetha and our listeners -
'Do you really think alternate dimensions exist?'
'Has it ever happened to you that you think you have a good grip on something, but something else actually happens?'
Listen to the full episode to find answers to these and more.
Whether you are a bookworm yourself or an anxious parent trying to get your child to become a good reader, this episode gives you plenty of fodder about the new book series recommended.
To listen to the episode on Tasmanian tigers that Saathvika enjoyed, please click here
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
A world where cameras do not just take pictures, but also tell you when and how to smile - is no longer the stuff of science fiction. For now, artificially intelligent cameras are already helping save the lives (and possibly the smiles) of people and endangered wildlife.
These AI cameras placed in multiple points throughout forests can alert forest rangers if any wild animals stray from their regular paths. Often times, these wild animals enter the habitats of humans, when they change their feeding paths. To prevent human-wildlife conflicts, these cameras are proving to be more than handy.
Listen to 8-year old Nayra and 10-year old Naren discuss how they think these cameras can improve the balance of wildlife inside forests. They also have interesting answers to questions such as -
'What games do tortoises most likely play?'
'What are the horns of rhinos made of?'
The awesome cover art has been made by a 3rd grader -Hansaveni R. Joshi from Children's Academy Mumbai (Thakur Complex). Thank you for this fabulous art-work.
Reading references
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-ai-wildlife-camera.html
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Long long ago, so long ago, that most people do know how long ago (because some people have read history textbooks), Venice was nothing more than a collection of marshlands. A few fishermen eeked their living by selling fish and making salt. In time, this group of islands became a place of refuge and grew into a large town.
10-year old Pragnya and 11-year old Trayee describe the history of Venice in a short story at the beginning of this episode. For those of us, the word Venice conjures images of tourists roaming around in gondolas. Not canals running dry and an unpleasant smell wafting through the air. If you happened to be visiting Venice this week, that's exactly what you would have seen.
Why have these canals run dry?
Would a tourist in Venice have wasted their time this week?
How difficult is life for Venetians when there isn't much water there?
Listen to the full episode to find answers to these and more.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Three days of festivities surround the lives of thousands of the Tibetan diaspora, as they welcome their new year - Losar. About the time when the winter chills dissipate and fresh harvest yields fill their granaries, the Tibetans (much like their Venetian friends) don masks and dance to ring in their new year.
In this episode, Puranjoy Bhattacharya, a student at the Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, shares his first-hand experiences of what it is like for an outsider to witness some of these gorgeous performances.
Puranjoy, who is a native of Assam, shares how different these cultures are, even though he himself has lived within the North Eastern belt all his life.
What do you a call yak who is full of himself?
Why don't you find many Tibetans living in lower altitudes?
Listen to the full episode to find answers to these and more.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
EA sports is parting ways with FIFA. The video game that millions of players are used to calling FIFA, will soon be renamed EA Sports FC. Getting used to that?
In this episode, which is the second part of a review of this video game (one of the highest downloaded games of all times), we are joined by 3 football fans. Archisman Mandal and Aarush Jaiswal - both sixth graders from Emerald Heights International School share their experiences of playing the game.
Vinith Muralidharan who spends part of his time contributing to Britannia's marketing efforts and the rest of his time playing and watching football, shares his thoughts on how the game has evolved. If you are one for football trivia, Vinith won't disappoint you :)
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
What do you do when older kids in your school don't let you play striker and relegate you to defence?
You fight your way in the ground or pick up the FIFA video game and play whichever position you want to your heart's content.
In this episode with Archisman and Aarush from Emerald Heights International school, Indore (both sixth graders), we are joined by Vinith Muralidharan - a child at heart, a diehard football fan who also visits the offices of Britannia to help them with their marketing efforts.
In this Part 1 of 2 part series of their discussion on the video game, you can hear them talk about their favourite clubs, how the video game has evolved and its features on the PC and the mobile phone.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Radio was this device in many homes that held a place of awe and respect for decades. It brought into many households the first pieces of information of what was going on in the real world. It also made entertainment commonplace. Be it classical or popular music, families clustered around the radio, for wholesome entertainment a few decades ago.
Today is the World Radio Day and we trace some interesting stories along the way of radio's evolution.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Did you know that Asian lions lead their pride whereas African lionesses often defend their pride and territory? A recent newspaper headlining 'Capt. Shiva Chauhan is the first women army officer to be posted in the Siachen Glacier' caught the attention of two super enthusiastic children from Delhi, who join us in this episode. They explore the news story, alongside their observations on how this moulds with what we see in the wildlife.
12 yr old Riya Mishra and 14 yr old Madhu Kumari, from SKV Aya Nagar, Delhi (a TFI assisted institution) share their personal experiences and observations. They also tell us what it's like to grow up in a setting which does not allow many girls to set their goals high.
News Story Snapshot: Till recently, women who joined the armed forces in India were allowed short service commissions. A recent change in the Supreme Court's ruling has enabled women to serve for longer, and therefore rise upto important positions and ranks within the Indian army.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Comets come and go about a dozen times in a year without much fanfare. But a green comet that's flashing its pretty smile at us, is causing much celebration around the world. There are excellent reasons why each one of us should look into our night skies to say hello to this comet. To begin with, how often do you get to meet something that's last met Neanderthals roaming the face of this earth.
In this episode with fifth grader Luptha from Ohio and seventh grader Aadya from Kolkata, we explore the story of this comet and its origins.
'Why are people scared of comets?', 'Do comets really grow tails?' and 'Who uses telescopes for the most part?' - you can find answers to these questions and more, in this fun and interesting conversation.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
In part 1 of this series (Epi 89), we discussed what the Great Backyard Bird Count was all about. In this episode, we answer questions on how to participate in it. There are lots of curious questions about birds too, that we have tried to answer in this episode.
One of the three organisations that puts together the GBBC is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The Project Leader of GBBC - Becca Rodomsky Bish joins us in this episode to chat about birds and this event. Also on this episode are 3 curious kids - 9-yr old Shravan from Singapore, 10-yr old Taanvi from the US and 11-yr old Adya from India. We are sure the questions and ideas of these 3 children will both add to your education and entertainment.
Listen to the episode in full to find out more about this event and about how to participate in it.
Podcast covert art credit: We'd love to give a big shoutout and a special thanks to Madhu (Grade 7) of SKV school in Delhi, India.
Apps to download to participate in the event
1. Merlin Bird app - https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
2. Ebird - https://ebird.org/home
Reading material about GBBC - https://birdcount.in/event/gbbc/
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) doesn't come our way everyday. But birds do. If you love observing birds, or are curious about them, or even just love to paint or draw pictures of birds - here's an event that you can be a part of. An event where the input of each one of us from around the world can help conserve bird species and populations.
One of the three organisations that puts together the GBBC is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The Project Leader of GBBC - Becca Rodomsky Bish joins us in this episode to chat about birds and this event. Also on this episode are 3 curious kids - 9-yr old Shravan from Singapore, 10-yr old Taanvi from the US and 11-yr old Adya from India. We are sure the questions and ideas of these 3 children will both add to your education and entertainment.
Listen to the episode in full to find out more about this event and about how to participate in it. This is part 1 of a 2-part series of podcasts on the GBBC.
Podcast covert art credit: We'd love to give a big shoutout and a special thanks to Madhu (Grade 7) of SKV school in Delhi, India.
Apps to download to participate in the event
1. Merlin Bird app - https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
2. Ebird - https://ebird.org/home
Reading material about GBBC - https://birdcount.in/event/gbbc/
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
The UK loses 3 billion litres of water every day through leaks in its underground water pipes. That's a LOT of water. Enough to fill a few hundred Olympic size swimming pools. Imagine all the fun kids can have splashing in these pools? But no, all that water is lost!
But now, the UK plans to use tiny robots to keep crawling through these pipes all year round. These robots will fix leaks faster than any humans can. 11-year Trayee from India tells us a lot more about this news story that she found fascinating.
If you have found the answer to the riddle at the end of this episode, please email it to us at hello@wsnt.in. You might win a chance to feature in one of our upcoming episodes, just like Trayee and several other co-hosts on this channel.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
The world has been abuzz with a secret new weapon that can turn every student's essay into a worthy A+ piece of paper. This weapon can also turn every worst programmer's nightmare into a dream. By generating lines of code with no bugs. It is also a weapon that has turned every teacher's dream into a nightmare. Having to figure out if the essay was really written by their student of this secret weapon.
This is an episode on ChatGPT. The language processing AI tool that has taken the world by storm in the last few months. In this episode, we explore if ChatGPT is really worth its hype. You can get to experience real-time how ChatGPT responds to queries and answer the single most important question in life - can ChatGPT do all my homework?
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
The word Dead sea conjures images of people relaxing in the sea, floating with books in hand or just enjoying the starry images of the sky and the beaches around. But, if you plan on enjoying this anytime, you might need to make it there sooner rather than later.
In this episode, 13-year old Inaaya Ijaz, a climate activist from London, UK, talks about the Dead Sea and why it might be dying. There's also trivia about Cleopatra, Egyptian mummies and ghosts from the Harry Potter books to keep you entertained, in this episode.
Inaaya Ijaz is part of the Kids Against Plastic movement and if you would like to be a part of this, click here.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
It has taken us a short 11 years from 2011 to 2022 to touch 8 billion people on this world. Babies are born all over the world. But if you did take a time machine into the future, you are most likely to see those babies born in Africa and Asia and emptier maternity hospitals in the western countries.
In this episode with 8-year old Jairam from Redwood Montessori School, Chennai, you will be fascinated by what a young curious child thinks of having more kids in his neighbourhood, of how we will have to create more spaces to live, and how happy old people are likely to be.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
What does the grass lying on the bottom of the ocean have to do with the cars we drive? Here's a trivia that will help you make the connection. The seagrass absorbs way more carbon than the tall trees on land. So, weep not, if you have been worried about the Amazon rainforests getting the axe. Help is at hand.
In this episode with 9-year old Ahalya Niranjan from Redwood Montessori School, Chennai, you can listen to the story about how some ingenious scientists use tiger sharks to help us map our ocean beds. Who better to help us locate seagrass than the creatures that spend hours a day scouring for food there. And what a cool way to use nature's resources rather than having to invest in battery-operated submarines and cameras to roam the oceans. Listen to the full episode to find out more.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
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2022 was a year like none other. The FIFA final in 2022 was perhaps the greatest nail-biter in all FIFA finals. A year where Messi fulfilled his life-long dream. Also, a year where a team from Africa reached the semi-finals for the first time (that would be Morocco, if you were wondering).
2022 was another year when India did NOT win the T20 world cup. The sub-continent was less affected by this outcome. Our diaspora was more disappointed at losing an opportunity for an India-Pak match in the final.
Two Tennis GOATs - Serena Williams and Roger Federer retired this year. Serena Williams, one of the greatest inspiration for all women, both for smashing many records and for quitting at a high. Federer is one of the most admired and respected players, both for his skill and his personality.
In this episode, we are joined by 3 of the most curious, fun and lively children we know - who are passionate about sports in ways that only children can be. They are Mitansh (from DPS Nagpur), Tejas Madhusudhanan (from DPS, Bengaluru) and Tejas Sehgal (from VIS10, Delhi). What can we say - we guarantee uninterrupted laughter!
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
If you are feeling jolly good about Christmas, please gift us 2 mins of your time and fill this survey to tell us what more we can do, to make this podcast channel fun and interesting (https://s.surveyplanet.com/d79mitsl)
After a few decades of lull, space exploration saw a lot of action in 2022.
Visiting the moon is back on our plate. Asteroids crashing into earth is no longer a worry. Hold your questions about how earth was really formed, for JWST may have answers to this and more.
In this episode, we drop into a podcasting room where Ms. Manisha Maheshwari, a primary teacher from Children's Academy, Mumbai and 2 children - Devesh and Likhitha, both 5th graders from the same school, chat about these stories - what fascinates them and more.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
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Virtual reality is no more just a fantasy place where gamers like to go. Doctors are beginning to use VR goggles to help people become calm and even forget pain. Electric batteries now don't need to be discarded. Old ones can be used to power smaller autos - as one company Nunam showed us this year. Video game characters are becoming more diverse - no longer do you need to pay for female characters - all thanks to Maddie, a 12 year old in the US, who wrote to video game companies to make their work more fair.
You can find a lot of these stories covered in the most entertaining and lively manner by 3 children - 8-yr Nyra, 8-yr Devansh and 12-yr Aashi. We say no more beyond the fact that you will find this 18 min episode, one of the best conversations you have heard, in 2022.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
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2022 brought interesting science to movies - all dinosaurs had feathers!
2022 also brought a temporary halt to the works of the much beloved BTS - no one is exempted from military service!
The first time ever an Indian won the international booker this year and Barbie dolls are not just pretty faces anymore.
Steven Spielberg did not show dinosaurs with feathers in the first iconic Jurassic Park movie. Not his fault. Few paleontologists knew that all dinosaurs had feathers. But it was not until this year's Jurassic World Dominion did movies incorporate this piece of science.
K-Pop, arguably the most popular form of pop in the world, saw its biggest band BTS take a break. They still loved singing and dancing. But, they also have to hop into a military compound and serve their mandatory 18 months in S.Korea. But they are expected to be back in 2025.
Gitanjali Shree became the first Indian to win an international booker prize for her work in Hindi 'Ret Samadhi' which was translated as 'Tomb of Sand'. Proud moment for an Indian.
Barbie decided to make a point by making dolls who also have a personality. Dolls like famous aviators such as Amelia Earhart, scientists and even fashion icons like Ashley Graham. Girls can now play, dream and live the lives of women who define new careers and purposes for their lives.
In this episode, we are joined by 7-yr Reyaan (from S.M.Shetty school in Mumbai), 9-yr old Utsav (from Ahlcon Public school, Delhi), 10-yr old Anura (Emerald Heights International, Indore), 12-yr old Radhika (SKV, Delhi, a school with Teach for India intervention) to discuss these updates.
You can also listen to Ms.Aiswarya Ahuja - a language teacher cum published author, about the world of literature, in this episode.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
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The year 2022 had a lot of interesting science discoveries, that had many young and curious minds really hooked. No, we are not claiming idly that kids were hooked to these news updates. You'll find this episode where an 8-yr old Dhruv, a 9-yr old Keshav and a 10-yr old Vihaan, delve into the depths of the wildlife discoveries - proof that curious kids and wildlife trivia can hardly be separated.
In this episode, you'll get to catch up on the fun stuff about wildlife science - how scientists plan to bring back extinct species, how environmentalists are trying to re-introduce new animals into old habitats and how marine biologists have found creatures in the most unlikely of places (read: sharks near hot lava of underwater volcanoes).
2022 was a lot of fun for wildlife enthusiasts. This episode is even more fun, for the undiluted entertainment that flows from a conversation between 3 vibrant and young minds.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
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The year 2022 was a mixed bag when it comes to climate change. While news about heatwaves, floods, droughts and melting glaciers brought some angst, innovative ideas by local fishermen in Italy, pro-active efforts by political leaders at COP27 and conservation groups in Australia brought some smiles to our faces.
Meher (Grade 8) from Dubai, Anya (Grade 10) from India and Keshav (Grade 9) from the US join us to share their thoughts and debate their ideas in this episode. Also joining this conversation is an educator cum green activist - Ms. Neetha Shetty, the IGCSE Co-ordinator at Bunt Sangha's S.M.Shetty International School and Junior College, Mumbai.
Listen to this episode to hear stories about how coral reefs are recovering, how some rich countries are loosening their purse strings to help the poor, how walls made of forests in African heartlands are doing their bit, to save Planet Earth.
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In this wrap-up about news from countries and events around the world, 4 curious children join the host Sangeetha, to talk about what they found the most interesting this year. Ananya Mathur from DPS Nagpur, Thejas Reddy from VIS, Delhi and Trayee from AAIS Chennai, discuss stories about Taiwan, Ukraine, the UK, the Yemen conflict and more. Adya, 11 year old from Chennai, also joins in with her poignant observations about some of the funniest news stories that caught her eye.
You can listen to witty quips, honest questions and heart-warming tales through the stories covered in this episode. Through the lens of curious children, we cover stories about how the lives of people across the world have been impacted.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
To listen to episodes on space and video games, click here
Children and adults love making creations - whether it is building sandcastles on the beach, or houses with cardboard boxes, or creating an Iron Man using Lego blocks. One teenager took up an interesting challenge - depicting the entire universe on a video game Minecraft. This was no frivolous pass-time. It involved making complex mathematical calculations and even sky-diving, to envisage how earth would look like, from space.
To discuss this achievement, 10-year old Abhir Ghalke from Bunts Sangha's S.M. Shetty International School & Junior College, Mumbai joins us in this episode. He describes the myriad steps involved in building the solar system, galaxies and even black holes. Abhir, who is a bit of a space geek himself, has many trivia and jokes up his sleeve. Listen to the full episode to find out more.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
If you have pondered ways of testing your smarts against a computer, a game of chess will likely pop into your head. But some scientists decided to make things fun. They decided to use a 1970s video game called Pong, to test some real smarts. Think black and white screen, a paddle moving up and down, and a ball that bounces off the sides of the screen. Sounds odd? I mean, in this day and age, why not use an Xbox right?
Here's the real clincher. The scientists did NOT test a real person's brain, while playing this. But they used a brain that has been grown in a petri dish. Vedanshi, a 10-year old from Bunts Sangha's S.M. Shetty International School & Junior College, Mumbai, explains this piece of science-fiction in simple and easy terms. Listen to the full episode to understand how this brain (a little less smart than that of a cockroach) has mastered the art of playing Pong - all by itself.
Vedanshi does a real cool job of explaining artificial intelligence of an artificial brain.
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The world's richest man wants to let everyone have an equal say in the world. He wants everyone to share their ideas - no matter if they are Thanos or one of the Avengers. Elon Musk went ahead and bought a company Twitter to allow just that - all for all. No half measures.
In this episode, Mitansh from DPS Nagpur discusses the dash of 'spices' that Elon Musk has brought along. Rocked by a lot of loans to be paid off, Musk has begun firing most of the staff. Mitansh describes what he thinks of this maverick entrepreneur and his opinions about whether Twitter will likely survive.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
To listen to episode 75 about animatronic dolphins, please click here
Planet Earth is getting warmer. Some leaders meet every year to talk about what they can do to combat climate change. Few countries go home and do something to reduce their emissions. In the midst of all this rather gloomy news is another interesting twist - although poor countries have hardly emitted any greenhouse gases, they are facing storms and floods. Some island nations could be at the brink of being submerged forever. Take a moment and think about this - these countries caused little or no carbon emissions in the past. But they are facing extreme weather events. Is this fair?
In this episode, 11-year old Zachary from California shares his thoughts about how the developed world owes the developing world. Zach believes rich countries need to help the poor countries rebuild their nations after such extreme climate events. He also walks us through some of the simple things that you and I can do, in terms of identifying the right items to recycle and segregate waste responsibly. Do you have any ideas of your own, on the topic of climate change or waste recycling? We'd love to hear them at hello@wsnt.in
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
The war in Ukraine took several unexpected turns, first with the Ukrainian defence of its capital Kiev and the united support of several Western countries. 13-year old Neil from G.D.Goenka School, Lucknow, who has taken a keen interest in tracking the events of the Ukraine war, walks us through initial attack by Russia. He also explains the kind of support that the US and other countries lent Ukraine to help it fend off the attacks by Russia.
Also joining us in this episode is 11-year old Trayee who speaks about how space-technology has played a much more key role in this war, than it has in any other war in the recent years. She speaks about how initial images captured by military satellites warned Ukraine of the impending attack. She also outlines how commercial satellites owned by Elon Musk helped Ukraine get its information and communication, up and running real quick. You can also find out more about how GPS has played a key role in guiding missiles.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
To listen to episode 45 about Marvel characters, please click here
To listen to episode 55 about cheetahs coming back to India, please click here
Paolo Fanciulli, a fisherman who lives in Italy was always fascinated by shipwrecks and the fish and the algae that grew in them. He noticed also how it was getting harder to get any fish while casting his fishing nets thanks to trawling by large fishing companies. He noticed that nobody really cared about how these trawling nets were destroying the marine ecosystem. Apart from catching fish, they also caught a lot of the posidonia (or seagrass) which helped form nests for lobsters, sea bream and red gurnards to lay their eggs.
In this episode, 10-year old Azlaan from Army Public School, Barackpore, India talks about a creative solution that Paolo Fanciulli came up with. He decided to drop a few concrete blocks into the ocean. Next up, he wondered, after all - I live in Italy, the centre of art. So he got some sculptors to carve beautiful giant pieces and dropped these into the ocean as well. These works of art prevented trawling by ripping the nets apart, if they tried scraping the seafloor near the sculptures.
Azlaan explains how these sculptures not only stop illegal trawling but also help this part of the ocean become a tourist attraction. Tourists could dive and see the beautiful corals and fishes that form on these sculptures and swim around this museum. If given a chance, Azlaan would like to add a spiderman sculpture to this museum. Listen to this episode fully to find out more about the story.
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Listen to a lively episode on Queen Elizabeth and her heir (Epi 63) by clicking here
The island of Taiwan which is 100 miles away from China is key for us to create this podcast and for you to listen to it. In case you are wondering, the host of this podcast does not live there. But our recording equipments, our editing tools and the device on which you are now listening to this podcast - are most likely made with one important part called the semi-conductor chip. Taiwan is the single largest manufacturer of these chips. If Taiwanese decide to take off and go on a long holiday, people around the world would be left staring at their Amazon orders showing a delivery date of 6 months from now.
In this episode, 15-year old Suyanshi from GD Goenka School, Lucknow explains how Taiwan became so important for our lives. She describes the history of the settlers in Taiwan and why China thinks it is simply a breakaway province. She also walks us through why Taiwanese engineers moved back to their island to build one of the most powerful industries in the world.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
To listen to Space related episodes, please click here
To listen to Wildlife related episodes, please click here
If you remember the tales about why dinosaurs went extinct, one of the common stories is that a meteorite crashed into earth. Some scientists in NASA who were thinking about this story were curious to see if we could avoid such a fate, if a meteorite came crashing into earth. And humans might become extinct. In this episode, 10-year Arav from Emerald Heights school, Indore, describes NASA's daring mission into space.
For the first time ever, humans sent a spacecraft to move the path of a celestial body. The celestial body was an asteroid called Dimorphus. The spacecraft was called the DART mission. This spacecraft, which was the size of a giant refrigerator flying into space with two light sabres coming out of it, rammed into the asteroid. And yippee! the mission was a success. The asteroid's path was changed.
Before you ask, this asteroid posed NO threat to earth. This was just a simple experiment to find if spacecrafts could change the orbit of asteroids. So, we can be prepared for an actual collision course reaction.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Listen To Episode 55 about cheetahs being re-introduced in India by clicking here
More than 50 years ago, a young and happy orca whale called Lolita (4 yrs old) was swimming with her mother and 6 siblings in the Pacific Ocean. She was captured and sold to an aquarium in the US. Lolita has been living in a tiny water tank in Miami, where she has been performing stunts and entertaining people. Lolita has not had a chance to meet or greet another orca whale.
In this episode, 10-year Taanvi from Columbus, Ohio, speaks about how Lolita's fate and the fate of hundreds of sea creatures in the world is likely to change soon. Animatronics or robotic creatures (that look and feel like the real ones) will soon be introduced in our aquariums and zoos. They are made to look and feel like the real one and people who swim near them may not even know the difference!
Listen to the full episode where Taanvi discusses why aquarium owners might find this cheaper and safer to use. She also shares her opinions on the challenges Lolita might face, if she were to be returned to the wild after so many years.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
This is Part 2 of the Nobel Prize winners for 2022. If you would like to listen to the super-fun stories in Part 1, please click here to listen to episode 69.
The winners for Chemistry, according to 10-year old Vidyut might open the doors for curing diseases such as cancer. As Vidyut explains, these laureates have discovered something called click chemistry, which is a lot like letting two lego blocks click together.
The winners for Economics, as 11-yr old Adya explains, might keep our money in the banks safer. And also in the event of a big problem, or an economic crisis, the governments would fund the banks to stop the crises from going on and on, or atleast longer than 3-4 years.
The winner for Literature, as 10 yr old Yoshika explains, is an inspiration for anyone to be honest and authentic about their writings. Autobiographical non-fiction genre of writing has received a big boost from this year's winner - Annie Ernaux.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
To listen to episode 38 on Video Game characters, please click here or scroll below on our episode list.
Remote controlled cars and planes are toys we are familiar with. A remote-controlled fish that can not just swim, but also eat the plastic pieces floating in the water is now around. Chinese scientists from Sichuan University have developed this little piece of marvel, in a bid to keep our oceans clean. 10-year Anura from Emerald Heights School, Indore, describes how micro-plastics is a big problem both for our fishes and for land animals.
More than 80% of us have micro-plastics in our blood. Ouch! How did we start eating plastics? Anura discusses some ways of how we get it into our foods and beverages. (a) Drinking tea from a tea bag releases more than a few billion micro-plastics into our tea. Oh! we'll remember to make our tea the old fashioned way - boil some water and let our tea leaves steep in them. (b) Sea-salt can also carry micro-plastics given the large amount of plastics already absorbed by the sea-water.
This robotic fish from China can now start swimming in our oceans and eat up the plastics in the water. If a shark were to swim by and accidentally consume this robot, Anura assures us that the shark won't get a stomach ache, since the robotic fish is made of a material that is eco-friendly.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
If you would like to listen to the entertaining episode (13) on micro-plastics, please click here.
Serena Williams and Roger Federer are synonymous with tennis. Both of them have dominated the sport, with a trail of Grand Slam titles and plenty of tennis records shattered. In this episode, 13-year Amogh from Michigan, a teen fond of playing both tennis and golf, walks us through the careers of these two tennis stars. Serena showed incredible promise as a sportsperson even when she was just a toddler. Her father Richard Williams is credited with coaching her in the early years. Federer, on the other hand, dabbled across a few sports, including tennis and did not become very serious about the sport until he was nearly 12.
When Serena won her first Grand Slam, she was only the second ever African-American woman to win one. When Federer won his first Grand Slam, he was the first ever Swiss male to win one. Both were sources of inspiration to their respective communities.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
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Horses running around freely have brainwaves that are calming in nature, while those that are cooped in their lonely stables are depressed. Or at-least that's what the headset worn by horses show us in an experiment. If this reminds you of our times during the lockdown at home, you are right. Animals like pigs, lobsters, crabs, octopuses and many more have been found sentient (which means, they can feel emotions and can have mental health issues, just like we all do). In this episode, 11-year old Niranjan discusses how laws are changing to recognise these scientific discoveries.
For instance, some countries in Europe are banning caged hens, some others are banning fur farming. Amsterdam will no longer allow customers in restaurants to boil lobsters alive and consume them. All a mark of our recognition that animals feel emotions - including depression, anger, pain or even excitement.
To read more about this on Science News Explores, please click here.
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Eiffel tower is synonymous with its colourful lights at night. But the electricity shortage in Europe has forced the mayor of Paris to announce that lights will be turned off on the Eiffel tower an hour earlier than usual (by 11pm). Many monuments and government buildings across Europe (Germany and Spain included) will be turning off lights at night for the first time in decades. People have been asked to save electricity by not heating their homes beyond 19C. What's worse, many parts of Europe may even have to brace for long power cuts. People are collecting firewood as a backup. Sounds like a throwback to stone age?
14-year old Ananya Mathur from DPS Nagpur (Kamptee Road), conveys her ideas on why these Stone Age images are flashing across our minds. Europe has been heavily dependent on Russia for their energy. Russia has refused to supply natural gas and fossil fuels to Europe, since Europe imposed sanctions on Russia after the Ukraine war. An eye-for-an-eye, you could say. Ananya leaves us with a hard question to ponder - when this should have been an opportunity for countries to double-down on renewable energy, why are the developed countries moving back to cheaper fossil fuels to combat this crisis?
Giveaway prize alert: If you love books and would like to win one, take the quiz at the end of Episode 69 and answer two super-fun questions correctly.
Click here to listen to Epi 68 on Barbie dolls
Click here to listen to Epi 62 on Tasmanian tiger
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Click here to answer the quiz questions (or copy paste this link onto your browser) to win a story book as a prize!
Quiz link: https://s.surveyplanet.com/5d17xb1v
When Alfred Nobel read his obituary (much to his surprise), he was horrified to read its contents. His invention (the dynamite) had caused much destruction in the world. The newspapers wrote unflattering remarks about his achievements. Much affected by what he read about himself, Nobel set upon working towards bequeathing his wealth to achievers in different fields, who have helped mankind make great progress. This year was no exception. A distinguished set of people and organisations won the 6 prestigious Nobel prizes awarded in 2022 (October is when they announce the winners annually).
In this episode, 12-year old Eesha, 10-year old Naren and 11-year old Trayee speaking about the winners in Physics, Medicine and Peace. In Physics, Eesha explains how particles sitting on different ends of the cosmos might still be able to communicate (faster than light?). This quantum entanglement has won the prize in Physics. Naren speaks about how new techniques to sequence the DNA of Neanderthals can help us understand how we (you and I included) have evolved. Trayee speaks about the stellar work that human rights activists in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine have accomplished tirelessly.
For more on these Nobel prize winners and other current events, click here follow us on Instagram.
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Barbie has long held a unique place and symbolised pretty looks. Not anymore. The company Mattel which makes Barbie dolls has pivoted towards showing Barbie dolls with a stronger personality. Barbie dolls are no longer just pretty faces with fancy shoes and bags. They also represent women with a purpose, profession and positive perspective. In this episode, 10th grader Anya Chaturvedi from DPS Nagpur speaks eloquently about Mattel's pivot in its line-up of Barbie dolls.
Mattel, in a survey, found that most mothers were concerned about the lack of positive role models in their children's toys. This was a catalyst for a change in Barbie's new introductions. You can now find a Barbie who looks like Amelia Earhart (the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic), Jane Goodall (a primatologist) and Ashley Graham (a supermodel who is plus-size). Mattel hopes that these Barbie models will inspire girls to pursue sports or science and not merely just grow up with shopping and cooking on their agenda.
If you are a child (aged 6-17) and would like to feature on this show, follow us on Instagram to find out about how you can be a part of this show. Write to us with your thoughts or comments at hello@wsnt.in.
Most of us have played with a remote-controlled car that we like to guide across several surfaces - both inside and outside our homes. It appears that the child in us (who loves such remote controlled cars) never left the minds of some Japanese scientists. Recently, they created a cyborg cockroach. Its movements are controlled remotely by scientists. They guide it to crawl under the debris and rubble of earthquakes. The camera attached to this cockroach can help people identify any humans who are trapped and are in need of urgent rescue.
If this sounds like a piece of science fiction, our 8-year old co-host Nayra assures us that she has read plenty of articles and watched videos showing how this works. In the real world. Nayra also speaks about another creation (or more of an alternate training) to rats. Hero rats have been trained to sniff out landmines, and clean large tracts of lands, thus making them safe for people to use these lands without fear.
If you, like Nayra, would like to come on this show and speak about an interesting news story, please register here. You can also DM us on Instagram here.
A special episode where we do a throwback to our earlier episodes where our co-hosts had us at our wits end and rolling with laughter.
Links to the episodes featured on this podcast are below:
- Episode 53: Why the earth spun super fast and we had the shortest day in 60 years
- Episode 44: How your car will soon get a fitness and medical certificate
- Episode 36: The curious case of sharks near a volcano
- Episode 50: Climate news - How cities, smart or not, might look like in future
- Episode 48: Cars and climate: Super-fast electric cars to help autos make the air cleaner
- Episode 31: Science: How astronomers took photos of the black hole Sagittarius A*
- Episode 51: Space news - How the International Space Station works and why Russia wants to break away
- Episode 49: Tech news - How 'V.R. goggles' can help you be a part of a live video game
- Episode 52: Sports news - How winning medals has made athletics, cricket and football more accessible
Go ahead and listen to the full episode on this channel 'What's new today' - a lively kids and families podcast. We invite children in every episode to co-host the show with Sangeetha (the host), and they chat about current events. These conversations are unscripted, filled with wit and curiosity.
New episodes will be released every Monday and Friday.
Video excerpts and behind the scenes shots of our podcast episodes can be found on Instagram Page. Follow us on our Instagram page to find details about our next set of selections for co-hosts or e-mail us at hello@wsnt.in
Please subscribe, share with friends, leave a comment or review, and most of all, thank you for coming with us on this journey of enriching our world view through the lens of young children.
From faraway in space, if an alien happened to use a pair of binoculars, he might have easily mistaken Pakistan for a large river, or a bunch islands sticking out an inland sea. Certainly not for one of the most fertile lands growing fragrant and aromatic spices and rice.
More than a fifth of Pakistan is underwater and is witness to one of the largest natural catastrophes. Sadly Pakistan maybe paying the price of global warming despite contributing to less than 1% of global greenhouse emissions. 11-year old Pritika Mathur thinks this is unfair. Developed countries have benefited from industrial development and left developing countries to bear the brunt of the impact.
The third pole, as this region of the Himalayas is called, contains the largest collection of glaciers and ice, outside of the North and South Pole. Through a combination of glaciers melting and excess rainfall, the people of rural Pakistan (especially farmers) have lost most of their land, crops and livestock to floods, not seen in centuries.
Do you know the answer to the riddle at the end of this episode? Please send it to hello@wsnt.in or DM us via Instagram here.
Click here to listen to Episode 21 - where Vedant discusses gold, silver and precious metals sitting inside our smartphones and laptops and what to do with them.
Curious children can send us their questions via email at hello@wsnt.in or DM us on Instagram here.
In this episode, we answer questions that kids have sent us earlier via email. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts to those who have sent us their answers and questions so far.
If you have heard of the 'time-machine', you are already familiar with the father of science fiction - H.G.Wells. When he wrote his works of science fiction, little may he have imagined that he was going to inspire generations of authors and children. Marvel and DC characters are richer thanks to the elements of science fiction woven into them - whether it is Iron Man's tech-fired suit or the ability of the Avengers to time travel. The Magic Tree House series of books takes its young protagonists on trips through both space and time. In this episode, a 11-year world bookworm - Vedant from Singapore, explains why he think H.G.Wells wrote some of his bizarre science fiction stories, and about the author's socialist ideals.
Vedant also tries to look into the future and speaks of what he would like to see.
'Would children really have to do their homework by themselves?'
'Does anyone go to school, in Vedant's version of the future'
You can find answers to these questions and more in this episode.
Sep 21 was H.G.Wells' birthday and we look at the works he has created, in this episode.
A science fiction story plot has been given by Vedant in this episode. If you have written your ending of this story creatively, please send it to us at hello@wsnt.in or DM us on Instagram with your story.
Quite recently, NASA launched its next set of missions named 'Artemis' - the Greek Goddess of the moon, to send people once again back to the moon.
The last time we set foot on the moon, astronauts went aboard the space shuttle Apollo, who is the twin of the Greek Goddess Artemis. NASA's current mission to the moon hopes to take off from where Apollo left off.
In this episode, with a vibrant 7-year old Advik from India, we explore how this mission is also expected to bring greater racial and gender diversity to the space missions.
Advik adds colour to why Artemis Mission I has had some technical glitches and when it is expected to take off next. More updates on this space mission will be posted on our Instagram page. Follow us there to get more updates.
Also, if you are keen on coming on this show and speaking about current events, just like Advik did, please follow us on our Instagram page to find details about our next set of selections for co-hosts.
Queen Elizabeth II, the oldest reigning British monarch recently passed away. She had ruled Britain for over 70 years and had many firsts to her name. Including, the first monarch to send an email. If the word 'queen' brings to your mind images of a lady declaring wars and riding her army into the battleground, well, this is not the royal duty she discharged. Kings and queens in the modern world don't have the power they had earlier. In this episode, 11-year old Adya explains how they are really different.
Now that the queen has passed away, and her son King Charles III has ascended the throne (at the age of 73), does that change anything in the world? How does that affect people like you and me? Or does it only change things in Britain? Listen to the episode in full to find answers to this and more.
Children who would like to join us and co-host an episode, please click here.
Jurassic Park is a movie (and book) filled with an equal measure of wonders and horrors. It's a story of a park filled with a group of extinct species - dinosaurs - brought to life. This episode contains a story quite similar - an extinct species of the Tasmanian tiger being brought back to life. The only difference is that this is real. It is not a piece of fiction - it is happening here and now. Ninth-grader Umang from DAV school, Durgapur speaks about the science behind this, and about how he feels about the very idea of an extinct species being brought back.
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is 7 times the size of the Yellowstone National Park and has a rich and diverse ecosystem of animals, birds and marine creatures. Bringing back the tiger (after nearly 100 years of extinction) carries some risks.
'Do we know if the animal can live in the jungles of Tasmania, where the climate is different from what it used to be about in the 1920s ?'
You can find answers to this question and more in this episode.
We post updates, excerpts and trivia related to the stories in our episodes. Follow us on Twitter here and Instagram here to get updates on this show. Drop us an email at hello@wsnt.in if you have any thoughts or comments.
Have you wondered why humans like you and I speak in long steady voices, while gorillas, apes and chimpanzees often bounce about trees and shriek in high-pitched voices?
Have you also wondered what would happen if you spoke in a shrill voice for a long time? Go ahead and try it. Or better, listen to this episode to find out what an 8-yr old boy called Devansh has found about this in a recent Science journal .
A group of scientists studied our vocal chords and compared it with that of primates. Somewhere along the way, humans alone seem to have lost vocal membranes. This loss could have been a key factor in helping us speak in low and steady voices.
This conversation between the host Sangeetha and our remarkably brilliant 8-yr old co-host Devansh, is entertaining and illuminating at the same time. You'd also know why Mary Poppins finds it so simple and easy to say - supercalifragilisticexpialidocious !!
We'd love to hear your answer to the riddle. Please click here to send it to us.
Listen to Epi 53 about why the earth spun super fast recently
Listen to Epi 36 about the curious case of sharks and volcanoes
When NASA sent the Curiosity Rover to Mars in 2012, they expected the rover to last all of one year on the Red Planet. Much to their consternation and the rest of the world's delight, the rover shows no signs of slowing down. Who would have thought we owe much to dust for this? Like our brooms at home, the dust clouds on Mars help keep the solar panels on the rover clean, and keep them running.
The rover was sent to answer an important question 'Could Mars have supported life at any time'? To find out the answer to this question, listen to the full episode with 10-year old Krishnika from DAV Model school, Durgapur. The 17 cameras on the rover, its fancy spectrometer and digger - are features we explore in this episode. If you have found the answer to the riddle at the end, email it to us at hello@wsnt.in.
Listen to Episode 55 on bringing back extinct cheetahs
Listen to Episode 54 on whale sharks becoming the largest omnivores
To watch the video on Curiosity Rover, click here
We love to hear your thoughts and comments. Send them to us through Instagram here or via Twitter here.
Register for the wildlife quiz by clicking here.
The Sahara desert has been spreading southwards, as global warming and deforestation have been on the rise. To prevent its spread, the idea of a great green wall - a wall made of trees, rather than forests, was mooted in 2007. The trees, plants and shrubs are to help the local communities find more jobs, grow their own food and also prevent further migration out of Africa. In this episode, an eighth grader Siddhi, from Ahlcon Public School, Delhi, discusses the impact of this wall on the rest of the world as well.
'What is a vertical green wall'
'Who started the idea of green walls inside buildings and residences'
To find answers to these and more, listen to the full episode.
To find more updates on the Great Green Wall, click here to read
Did you find the Disney movie in the puzzle? Send it to us at hello@wsnt.in
In the Journey to the Atlantis by Geronimo Stilton, a boy who speaks an unknown language and with blue skin lands up in a new place. The mouselings set out to discover ways to help him.
In this episode with the fourth grader Dhruv Agarwal from Kolkata India, we discuss the news story of how California's new law might help people who come to their country, just like Thea Stilton set out to help the boy in blue skin.
Dhruv comes with answers to questions like 'who is a migrant?' and 'what happens if there is a potato famine' and 'why the poor who enter illegally should be helped'.
Did you like this episode? Would you also like to be a part of the show? We would love to hear from you. Drop us a message on Instagram here or email us at hello@wsnt.in
For long we have been hearing news about how our marine ecosystem has been declining. In this episode, we discuss some positive developments in our oceans. The Great Barrier Reef is showing signs of recovering in nearly a third of the area, which had almost been bleached until a few years ago. Many government and not-for-profit organisations have instituted measures that help clean up coral reefs.
An almost 7-year old Ayaansh who joins us to discuss this news story, also discusses the single largest threat to our marine ecosystem - plastics. He speaks of his own personal experiences where he has seen ocean plastic discarded carelessly has floated back to beaches, soiling these pristine environments. Also, we discuss how ghost fishing gear, which are effectively discarded or lost fishing nets continue to threaten the lives of marine creatures. Some may get caught, while some may end up eating or ingesting these plastics. Both actions can be fatal to their lives.
Link to Episode 52 where Tejas discusses the importance of promoting many sports
Link to Episode 28 where Ayaansh discusses how woolly mammoths went extinct
Go ahead and listen to the full episode on this channel 'What's new today' - a lively kids and families podcast. We invite children in every episode to co-host the show with Sangeetha (the host), and they chat about current events. These conversations are unscripted, filled with wit and curiosity.
New episodes will be released every Monday and Friday.
Video excerpts and behind the scenes shots of our podcast episodes can be found on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatsnewtoday_wsnt_podcast/
Please subscribe, share with friends, leave a comment or review, and most of all, thank you for coming with us on this journey of enriching our world view through the lens of young children. If you would like to share your thoughts or questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
Sports that exist for people who are differently abled, but emojis for these are yet to be created - that's paralympics in a nutshell. Some of these inspiring stories of people with fewer limbs swimming or playing table tennis are an inspiration to all of us. As this 13-year old co-host on this episode, who had done his research about Paralympians, describes - the next time he is faced with a difficult Math problem, he'd plod through it and solve it without batting an eyelid.
Paralympians such as Juan Reyes (who swims with one leg and no arms), Bhavina Patel (who plays table tennis seated on a wheelchair), Deepa Malik (who also manages to win medals in short put seated on a wheelchair), Devendra Jhajharia (who manages to throw javelins with one arm only) and Terezinha Guilhermina (who manages to run on an Olympic track while being blind) are all a proof of our minds knowing no limitations.
Listen to this episode with Aditya Thogaru, an eighth grader from Ahlcon Public School, Delhi, discussing why sports is important for all - abled or differently abled.
Go ahead and listen to the full episode on this channel 'What's new today' - a lively kids and families podcast. We invite children in every episode to co-host the show with Sangeetha (the host), and they chat about current events. These conversations are unscripted, filled with wit and curiosity.
New episodes will be released every Monday and Friday.
Video excerpts and behind the scenes shots of our podcast episodes can be found on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatsnewtoday_wsnt_podcast/
Please subscribe, share with friends, leave a comment or review, and most of all, thank you for coming with us on this journey of enriching our world view through the lens of young children. If you would like to share your thoughts or questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
Many people in Africa and Asia have been going without essential food ever since the Ukraine war broke out. While soldiers in Ukraine have been busy fighting the war, the farmers of Ukraine have also been busy sowing, planting and harvesting grains from their fields. Because, Ukraine is a very big supplier of wheat and sunflower oil to the world.
The farmers of Ukraine have also stocked their harvest in their warehouses. But, but, but, the harvest has been sitting there with nowhere to go, since the ships that would have carried this produce to Africa and Middle East Asia are now blocked. Russian naval ships are sitting in the Black Sea, unwilling to permit any Ukrainian ship leaving their ports.
People from lots of countries have requested the United Nations to intervene and request Russia to let food grains reach other parts of the world. Or, we might have a global hunger crises about to brew. Much to the relief, Russia finally consented earlier in August 2022 and has let some ships pass through the Black Sea, and headed to countries like Egypt and Lebanon. Food prices all over the world have already gone up significantly ever since the pandemic started. With the wheat shortage from Ukraine, the poor have been struggling even more. This recent news permitting ships with grains to move out of Ukraine has brought some respite to people from Africa and Asia.
Go ahead and listen to the full episode on this channel 'What's new today' - a lively kids and families podcast. We invite children in every episode to co-host the show with Sangeetha (the host), and they chat about current events. These conversations are unscripted, filled with wit and curiosity.
New episodes will be released every Monday and Friday.
Video excerpts and behind the scenes shots of our podcast episodes can be found on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatsnewtoday_wsnt_podcast/
Please subscribe, share with friends, leave a comment or review, and most of all, thank you for coming with us on this journey of enriching our world view through the lens of young children. If you would like to share your thoughts or questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
Commemorating India's 75 years of independence, the government of India plans to bring African cheetahs from Namibia. In this episode, 12-year old Aadya discusses the reasons for cheetahs going extinct in the past and where these cheetahs stand the best chances of survival. India has had reasonable success in ensuring healthy populations of other animals that were earlier on the brink of extinction (including the lions and rhinos).
Aadya, the daughter of an officer from the Indian army, also speaks at length about how she has moved many towns, cities and schools just during her primary school years. She also speaks about how tough the life of those serving the defence forces is. Listen to this conversation to find out more about who leads a pride of lions amongst Asian lions vs African lions. There's loads of trivia about herd behaviour of elephants and the lone fighting spirit of the cheetahs
We love to hear your thoughts and comments. So send them our way to hello@wsnt.in
The Kodiak bear, which has long held the prized position as the world's largest omnivore has been recently unseated by the whale shark. Marine biologists have long wondered about the diet of many giant creatures of the ocean. Sharks open their mouths wide to consume fish. Alongside these tiny creatures, plenty of algae, zooplankton and other plant varieties also float into their mouths. The fish biologist Mark Meekan, who was swimming in the waters of the Indian Ocean, was able to locate 17 whale sharks that had swum close to the surface of the ocean. A group of enthusiastic biologists jumped into the ocean and found their way around to get samples of the body tissues of these whale sharks. They published their findings that whale sharks not only consumed plants but also ingested the content of plants as well. This makes them the largest omnivore on earth. Bears, move aside.
If you would like to read more about this discovery in detail, click here
Another interesting discovery about one of the tinier omnivores on earth - the rats and mice, has led us to believe that mice are incredibly empathetic and caring. Scientists placed one of two mice inside a closed bottle and the other outside. The mouse outside, not very long after, figured how to open the bottle and help its friend out. Even more interesting is that, the mice preferred freeing their friend first, even if it meant foregoing a platter of chocolate chip cookies. If you thought dogs were the only friendly creatures, think again.
If you would like to read more about this discovery in detail, click here
We love to hear your thoughts and comments. Please send them our way to hello@wsnt.in
If you felt strange on June 29, 2022 - a bit fuzzy or if you were hiccupping continuously, you won't need a doctor. Because you, like many others, may have felt the effect of the earth spinning very fast on that day. It's been the shortest day recorded (in the last 60 years) - short by 1.59 milliseconds.
Vidyut, a 10-year old who joined us on this episode, plunged into a full scale discussion of the causes and impact of this super short day.
If you have questions like 'what do glaciers have to do with the length of a day?' or 'my GPS isn't working properly and is off by 6 miles in a random direction', or, 'does the earth have an ocean called the southern ocean?', listen to this episode. You'll stumble upon answers to these and more. You may also stumble out of your chair, clutching your stomach and laughing real hard.
Vidyut's incomparable imagination lets the listener get a glimpse into the similarities between the earth and one of his favourite foods.
Did anything unusual happen to you on the 29-June-2022? Please send us your answers via email to hello@wsnt.in
Winning medals in weightlifting, judo and javelin throw have brought a variety of sports into the ambit of many children in India. 13-year old Tejas, who plays cricket professionally (and is equally adept at football) speaks about his own experiences.
In this episode, you will also hear stories about sportspeople like Milkha Singh and Dhyan Chand, who have inspired generations.
You can find answers to questions like - Why did India lose its edge in hockey? Why do people from the North East dominate sport wins for India? Who does Tejas expect to become the next big sport-star from India?
There's a riddle at the end of the episode. If you have found the answer, please send it to us at hello@wsnt.in
The ISS is a satellite, as big as a football ground, that you can spot from your own terraces and even send messages on twitter to the astronauts in it. While they spend much of their time doing experiments, they do take a break and play a game of chess (yes, someone from space played against someone on earth over the internet, a few years ago). They are also busy trying to find how living creatures survive in micro-gravity.
ISS may just no longer be ISS - as in, one of the 5 space agencies that helped make it and maintain it, wants to break away. Russia (if you're wondering) is the one who wants to move away.
Listen to this conversation with 8-yr old Keshav, who, apart from knowing the names of the planets in the solar system, also happens to be quite up-to-date on business plans of SpaceX and the networth of the billionaires on earth.
We love to hear your thoughts. If you'd like to come on this show as a guest, drop us an email at hello@wsnt.in.
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If the idea of spending your weekend by holding a cup of hot chocolate and a book (or a kindle, if you insist), and sitting in a park bench appeals to you, the future might be here in many streets of Paris. If you hope that kids will get more open spaces to play in, the future might already be here in Stockholm, which plans to ask cars to make way for children's parks. If you think we need to be more attentive to waste management, the future might be here, in Barcelona, which plans to carefully track its waste disposal.
In this conversation with 9-yr Shriya from India, we explore how cities might look like in another decade. You can also find out about how children view environment and tech changes and what they would like to see in the world they grow up in.
We'd be delighted to hear your thoughts and comments. Please send them our way to hello@wsnt.in. You can follow us onInstagram here and on Twitter here If you love reading more about these sweeping changes, dig away -
Paris: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/paris-approves-plan-to-turn-champs-elysees-into-extraordinary-garden-anne-hidalgo
Stockholm: https://innovationinpolitics.eu/showroom/project/street-moves/#:~:text=Street%20Moves%20was%20created%20by,the%20Swedish%20innovation%20agency%2C%20Vinnova.
Barcelona: https://hub.beesmart.city/city-portraits/smart-city-portrait-barcelona
Who would have thought a pair of 3D glasses (like the ones you use to watch Marvel movies in theatres) can help us jump into a different world, atleast in our minds.
In this episode, a 11-yr old tells us a story about how she fractured a couple of bones in her hand, and how watching LOTR kept her mind off the pain. Doctors are keen on using a similar effect and help our minds forget our immediate environment. Instead they want us to don a pair of goggles and enter a new world and immerse ourselves in this environment. At-least in our minds. This new tech is called VR - virtual reality - where patients with chronic pain are finding soothing solutions for their ailments. Pharmacies may start stocking these goggles instead of painkillers in a couple of years!
Send us your thoughts and comments to hello@wsnt.in
Autorickshaws have funny and interesting names across the world. They go by tuk-tuk, baby taxi and lapa in different countries. While Tesla, BMW, Audi, Ola, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hyundai and many more companies are making electric cars that keep our air cleaner, their gentler autorickshaw cousins haven't made much headway. But that will soon change as they get an e-lift. Nunam, an NGO has tied with Audi to take their used car batteries to power smaller auto-rickshaws. This extends the battery life, and makes traveling by quieter autos a joyous experience, all at the same time.
In this episode, with 12-year old Abhinav, you can listen to a delightful chatter between the host Sangeetha and Abhinav about cars, bikes and what will become of petrol pumps.
Abhinav also has some ideas for Bhavesh Agarwal of Ola and Anand Mahindra of M&M. There's a riddle at the end of the episode. Send us your answer to the riddle via email to hello@wsnt.in
Listen to episode 21 about how Iron Man and phones have precious metals
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The Famous Five go on adventure trips in bicycles and camp in the moors. The Secret Seven go on picnics carrying food and a dog along for adventure in the summer. In current times, we book a pretty villa somewhere in the hills and book a flight to our holiday destination. But, the Mongol Rally is a car adventure trip that might just be more adventurous than any of these. Three Indians have just left from Prague, as part of this rally, across 15 countries in Europe and Asia. There is no fixed route and there are no prizes for coming first. But, there is the challenge of driving through mountains, deserts and across rivers, with your own knowledge of your tiny car and your ability to camp in the outdoors.
In this episode, a 14-yr old describes her idea of a good car holiday and what she would do, if she embarked on the Mongol Rally with her friends and family.
Send in your comments or thoughts for Aashi or Sangeetha, to hello@wsnt.in. We'd be delighted to feature your voice and answer your questions in any of our forthcoming episodes.
Scar in Lion King, Thanos in the Marvel universe, or Zeus the Greek God got very powerful in their kingdoms. The people in their lands were upset with the decisions of the rulers. Simba came back and fought Scar off his Pride Lands. Thanos was defeated by the Avengers. Zeus was put inside a golden cage by the other Gods.
A similar story is unfolding in Sri Lanka. People of the country have been left with little or no money. All thanks to the poor decisions taken by the rulers of their country - called the Rajapaksas. People have entered his palace to protest and have peacefully taken over his estate, swimming in the pool, eating from the kitchen and taking selfies.
In this episode, 11-yr old Trayee narrates many stories from Disney movies and elsewhere that sound like a great parallel to this. She also leaves with you with a very interesting riddle at the end of the episode.
Know the answer to the riddle? Record it via whatsapp audio and email it to us at hello@wsnt.in.
Black Panther, Shang Chi, Miles Morales, Miss Marvel and America Chavez are new age superheroes. They are new age, not because their super powers are starkly different from that of others, but because they don't look, or speak or perhaps even behave like other superheroes. They are not strictly male or white.
Why are superheroes looking more different? What helps the studios create characters who hail from different ethnicities? Why is it important to create superheroes who are diverse?
Listen to this conversation with 10-yr old Naren to find answers to these and more.
If you have questions or comments for Naren or Sangeetha, please email them to hello@wsnt.in
Crash tests for cars sold in India are not common. Many people who buy cars may not even know if the car they are buying gets 0 out of 5 points for its safety features. But now, all that is set to change. Beginning 2023, the government will provide for every car produced and sold in India to be tested within the country. So, if you happen to want to buy a car, you can get a fitness certificate, very soon.
If you know the answer to the riddle at the end of the episode, please email them to hello@wsnt.in
A few curious scientists got together to answer the question whether we might find a giant gorilla like the King Kong, in an island somewhere in the world. The answer to this question was published in a science journal recently, which 12-year old Eesha discusses in this episode. Giants in movies like Mei from Turning Red, or the Hulk from the Avengers have kindled the imagination of many viewers. Scientists attempt to explain, in this news journal, if mammals like pandas or humans or gorillas can ever become that big. They have also tried to explain how dinosaurs like the famed Tyrannosaurs Rex managed to grow to very large sizes, but why elephants like the woolly mammoths remained much smaller.
Eesha also discusses how elephants survive in the hot plains of Africa and Asia and how they have adapted with their special ears.
For trivia lovers, the quirks of cheetahs, the Asiatic bears and the shapes of elephant ears, are also discussed in this episode.
If you have any thoughts or comments, please email them to us at hello@wsnt.in
Source: The science news article for children can be accessed here
Japan, after 2 long years during this pandemic, has finally opened itself to tourists who can now visit the Land of the Rising Sun. In this episode, 9-year old Shravan speaks about his summer vacations in Europe and how this differs from life in Asia. While Japan has announced opening itself to the world, they still remain very careful about how people can move around in their country. For instance, you cannot wake up one morning in a hotel in Tokyo and decide to take a stroll down a market, without being accompanied by a tour guide. The Japanese are still quite careful about mask-wearing and social distancing. So, a tour guide accompanying you everywhere is Japan's way of enforcing these restrictions.
Do you think Japan's islands have more beaches than mountains?
Do you think Japan's manga comic characters are more colourful than Marvel or DC comic characters?
Where can you find more pandas - in Japan or China?
Listen to the full episode to find out answers to these and more.
Riddle alert: Towards the end of this episode, Shravan leaves the listeners with a riddle. If you want to win a chance to co-host an episode with Sangeetha, do solve the riddle and send it via email to hello@wsnt.in
An old old ship is lying in the Red sea, all alone. It hasn't been cleaned, dusted or maintained for many years. 14-year Keshav (who co-hosts this episode) thinks the ship must have gone rusted and mouldy by now. The world would not be too worried about a ship gone mouldy, except that it also contains a whole lot of crude oil. The fishes and the coral reefs have been scared of the oil spilling into the sea and frantically sounding alarm bells (just kidding, it's the whales and the dolphins that sing and sound the alarm bells). The world wants to help this ship quickly. Keshav talks about how he thinks we can save the ship, the oil and the fishes in the Red sea and who should pay for it.
If you are wondering why this ship has been left all alone these years, the story begins with a fight in Yemen. 9-yr old Yoanna shares this story in Episode 19, and you can listen to it here.
If you have any thoughts or comments for Keshav or Sangeetha, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
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The country Turkey got tired of being confused with the names of birds which are also the symbol of a national holiday in the US. Turkey's leaders were also not too keen on the meaning of the word Turkey in English (google says it refers to someone rather silly). Tired of these unflattering associations, the country has decided that the time has come for it to change its name!
In this conversation with an almost 9-year old Abir from Singapore, we discuss answers to questions like 'When do people change their names', and 'Are there any characters in books that we think should have different names', and 'What does a country need to do, to change its name'. Listen to this episode to also find some funny trivia and stories about other countries that have changed their names.
If you have any questions or comments, please email them to us at hello@wsnt.in.
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The new Jurassic world dominion movie makes a departure from the previous movies in how the dinosaurs look. Taking help of paleontologists - Stephen Bassett in this movie and Jack Horner in some of the previous movies, the scenes and sets of each of these movies are getting closer and closer to how the science world thinks. Especially, about how dinosaurs looked like, millions of years ago.
Listen to the full episode, where 8-year old Advik discusses with the host, the world of dinosaurs, fossils and movie-making on dinosaurs. We also discuss how paleontologists sit with movie directors and help them create scientifically accurate dinosaurs.
Click here to listen to Advik's favourite episode on why lemon prices are high
We would love to hear your comments or thoughts! Please leave us a message on twitter here or on Instagram here or email us at hello@wsnt.in.
Kids who love video games should be able to find male and female characters / avatars with equal ease today. This was not so, just a few years ago. In this episode with an 'almost' 11-year old Trayee, we talk about how girl characters have become increasingly common (thanks in part to the efforts of a 12-yr old girl Maddie who wrote about it in 2015)
Listen to this episode to also hear the personal opinions of video game developer Anish George about the changes he has seen.
There's a riddle at the end of this episode. If you have found the answer to this, please write to us at hello@wsnt.in or send us a message on Twitter here, or DM us via Instagram here. If your answer is correct, we'll feature your response in the next episode :)
Recently, the queen of England - Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 70 years of rule as the head of state. A 9-yr old is curious to know why celebrating this milestone is a big deal. Listen to this episode to also get a hang of the what monarchs do, now that many countries are democracies.
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Recently, a volcanic eruption in the Kavachi volcano (in Solomon islands near Australia) was recorded by NASA. The fascinating part about this submarine volcano is the presence of sharks in the warm waters surrounding the hot crater. Since sharks are otherwise associated with the clean and cold waters deep in our oceans, the presence of sharks here has been a source of puzzlement for many scientists.
Listen to this conversation with almost 8-yr old Aniket to hear more about stories about ancient volcanos and whether sharks have any bones at all.
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If you have any thoughts or comments, or would like to co-host with Sangeetha, please shoot out an email to hello@wsnt.in
A 16-yr old, with a rather unpronounceable name Praggnanandhaa recently won against Magnus Carlsen, the reining chess champion. In this episode, 8-yr old Adeep discusses the game, and many stories about computers that play against grandmasters. Listen to this to hear more childhood stories of Praggnanandhaa and his sister Vaishali.
Follow us on Instagram here Follow us on Twitter hereShoot us an email at hello@wsnt.in if you would like to co-host an episode with Sangeetha, or if you have any thoughts or comments!
In this episode, we surveyed a whole bunch of tweens and teens. We asked them about what they'd like to save on planet earth. Some even had ideas on whether they'd like to live in space vs oceans.
Listen to this episode with more than 7 of our young co-hosts - Ayaansh, Reyaan, Yoshika, Vihaan, Vedant, Meher and Shravan, each speaking their minds:)
Listen to the full episode with Vedant on old phones here
Listen to the full episode with Meher on floating cities here
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We'd love to hear from you, so do write to us at hello@wsnt.in
Women soccer players in the US, who were otherwise paid lower than the male players, won a landmark ruling. The court has judged that men and women should get paid at an equal rate for the matches they play within the US. Listen to this conversation with 9-yr old Vihaan to find a lot of interesting trivia about the game of soccer, the players and how to make the world a happier place.
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Geetanjali Shree has the distinction of being the first ever Indian author to win the International Booker for her Hindi work 'Ret Samadhi' which was translated as Tomb of Sand in English. Listen to this 'almost' 10-year old's perspective on what books mean to children, and what books written in non-English languages also mean to them.
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A scientist called Einstein scribbled many notes on papers more than 100 years ago. These included his imaginations and calculations about objects in space. He predicted that there were powerful objects called black holes that could suck everything that came their way, included light. It was in 2019 when astronomers pieced together photos from radio telescopes across the world and released the first ever image of a black hole. More recently, for the second time ever, a direct image of another black hole called the Sagittarius A at the centre of our very own Milky Way Galaxy was released. Listen to this conversation with an enthusiastic 6 yr old* to understand how we may someday even get pictures of unicorns:)
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When Europe was recovering from the after-effects of the second world war, an Italian at the European Broadcasting Union wanted to test if live broadcasting on radio would work seamlessly. He hit upon an idea of launching a song contest across Europe which would be played live on radio. The Eurovision song contest was thus born - an event rivaled only by football in terms of live viewership in Europe. More than 200m people listen to the live performances. In 2022, a band from Ukraine - called the Kalush won the maximum votes (the highest ever). Listen to this conversation with a 11-year old to find out 'Why winning the song contest has meant more for Ukraine than just money and a trophy'.
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Russia is the largest country in the world and has got its neighbours all rattled. If you shared a border with Russia, I guess you'd be thinking of protection more than building schools and roads. In this conversation with a 10-year old, we explore answers to questions such as 'For how long will this spending go on? Or is this like the Jan 1 resolution that adults make when they THINK there is a threat of weight gain and will fizzle away?'
War has also meant we have made many new inventions, as you can read from this interesting article by the National Museums Scotland
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When we think of animals that went extinct, dinosaurs and giant elephants and huge marsupials often come to mind. Meteors crashing the earth and people hunting these creatures for their skin and horns are often cited as reasons. Most recently, researchers at Tel Aviv University, and the University of Naples, examined the mass extinction of large animals. They found that extinct species had, much smaller brains than species that survived. Listen to this conversation with a 6-year old to find answers to questions like 'Why did a woolly mammoth of the same size as an African elephant die'?
For listeners who want to read more about the original study, please click here
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S.Korea, alongwith the UN, has created a plan for a new floating city near Busan. If you are reminded of boats and canals near Venice, you are like million others who think the same! Ancient Venice was built when people fled enemies to live in these swamplands. Today, we are building these floating cities to flee from the risks of flooding near coastal cities and islands. 'How will these cities get electricity? Can children go to schools? Can people go to work? How are these places going to get vehicles?' Listen to this conversation with a 12-year old to find answers to these questions and more.
Question for our listeners: Are there sustainable technologies you have read about? Please share them as an audio recording and send them to us via email at hello@wsnt.in.
If you are less than 18 yrs and would like to co-host this show with Sangeetha, send us a text at hello@wsnt.in. We love listening to your feedback and comments!
What's this floating port in the Red Sea? Click here to read more about this.
Running in parks, on football grounds or trying to catch that elusive ball before it crosses a boundary in cricket - such fun associated with all of them. But for Jacky Hunt Broersma - there was fun in running 104 marathons in 104 days. She did not pack her bags and decide to run from one of the US, where she lives, to another. Instead she stayed right at home, drop her kids off at school, go run a marathon, get to her day job (a coach), come back home, cook dinner and help her kids with their homework! All with just one leg - she lost another to a disease many years ago, and runs with a prosthetic leg.
A huge shout out from the What's new today team to Jacky hunt Broersma and her amazing stamina. If any of our listeners would like to send us a recorded audio message about YOU feel about Jacky's achievements, please share it with us at hello@wsnt.in
Recently the French elected a new President - Emmanuel Macron, for a second term. While elections are more common today than they were in ancient Greece, the French do something that the Brits or the Americans or the Indians do. They elect the person they want to become the President directly. They don't wait around to patiently choose representatives in parliament and hope to God that the representatives would choose their preferred leader. In this conversation with a 12-year old, we explore answers to questions such as 'Why do the French vote on a Sunday while the Americans vote on a Tuesday?' and 'Is voting common only for humans or do animals have democracy too'?
Please feel free to shout out your questions or thoughts in an audio format and send the audio file via email at hello@wsnt.in. Also, if you are under 18 years of age and would like to co-host this show with Sangeetha, please write to us at hello@wsnt.in.
In this second episode of the James Webb telescope series - we look at what infrared light coming from ancient stars is likely to contain. How do we distinguish between light coming from super ancient stars versus relatively new stars? Will the ancient galaxies look like pretty little spirals that we see in our encyclopedias? Listen to this conversation with a 10-year old to find answers to these and more.
Please email us at hello@wsnt.in with your thoughts, comments and questions.
After nearly 3 decades of effort and testing, the James Webb telescope was successfully launched into space in Dec 2021. This telescope has been designed to help us see how the universe looked when the early stars were created. Why do we need a telescope in space, when we already have a Hubble telescope out there? Why did it take someone more than 25 years to develop this one? If this telescope is farther than the moon, how do we fix a problem if it has one?
Listen to this conversation with a 10-year old to find answers to these questions and more.
Please email us at hello@wsnt.in if you have any thoughts or questions.
How many things can we generate electricity from? Solar, wind, coal, nuclear, biogas and a few more, says a 10-year old. Do we use all of these to make electricity from, in India? Why did the rains last year lead to lesser coal this year? I know summer is scorching hot, then why don't we just use solar energy in places that are close to the equator? Listen to this conversation with a 10-year old to find out more about these.
If you have any thoughts or comments, please email them to us at hello@wsnt.in
It is not uncommon to think of dwarves with hammers working in tunnels, and filling baskets with gold bars, when we think of mining. But did you know that you can mine some gold, silver, platinum and rhodium from your own backyard? Or should we say cupboards? Listen to this conversation with a 10-year old, to find out about how we should be disposing our old bulbs, microwaves and computers, to make the world go round and clean.
Please send your thoughts and comments to hello@wsnt.in
When we connect our phones or laptops to the internet, we connect using wi-fi or mobile data. Both of these need big fat wires to be laid all over the land and under oceans. What can people living in faraway places or on mountains do, to get internet connectivity? What are companies like SpaceX and Amazon trying to do, to get more people on earth get connected?
Listen to this conversation with a 9-year old to understand where we might all be headed in future.
Please email your thoughts or comments to hello@wsnt.in
At the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, lies a country called Yemen. Lots of groups of people have been angry at each other and have been fighting a nasty war for over 7 years. Children haven't been able to go to school, people don't have work and food is hard to come by. Finally, last week, a truce (or some quiet time) was announced.
'If so many groups of people want to sit down and negotiate peace, I am not sure if that is easy' - says 9-year old Yoanna, in this episode. Listen to the conversation to understand how all this started and why we should be a little happy for the people of Yemen, atleast for now.
Please email us your comments or questions to hello@wsnt.in.
Food prices all over the world are sky rocketing. Temperatures are soaring high. 'How come a war fought by Russia in a far away country seems to affect us in India, so badly? Why are poor countries like India affected more than rich countries, by food price increases?'
Listen to this conversation with a 9-year old to explore how high food prices are, and what to expect next.
If you have any thoughts or comments, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
Only a thin strip of water near the coastline is governed by countries. The rest of the oceans, called High Seas, is left largely ungoverned. A high seas treaty was to have helped safeguard the lives of marine creatures, reduce pollution of the seas through deep-sea mining and set up a framework by which the rich and poor countries can share genetic resources well.
Listen to this conversation with a 9-year old who says 'if mining for new minerals can help us create clean vehicles but polluted oceans, it's a difficult choice to make' to find answers to these questions.
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Recently, a few thousand workers in a warehouse of Amazon in New York voted to be a part of a union. Why workers need to be part of unions? Won't this give them a lot of power over their bosses? Will more companies in other parts of the world also start unions?
Listen to this conversation with a 9-year old to understand her world view of profit-focused companies vs. unions.
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Recently a few giant stone jars were discovered in North Eastern India (Assam). We are guessing that these jars were used to keep the ashes of the dead. Sometimes, they also contained some pretty beads and ancient bracelets. These stone jars are similar to the jars found in Laos.
"How does someone carry or lift a giant 3m high stone jar? Ancient humans must have been really strong, is it? How do we find if people in Assam migrated to Laos or people from Laos migrated to Assam?"
To find answers to these questions, listen to this conversation between a 10-year old and a curious adult, who try to find answers to these questions together.
If you have any thoughts or comments, please via email at hello@wsnt.in.
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"Russia has attacked Ukraine. So do people avoid the bully? Like not talk to them or sit next to them at lunch? But wait....do we really have a problem with the people of Russia or only the Russian government?"
"Why is Turkey happy to welcome some Russians into their country?"
Listen to this conversation between a 10-year old and a curious adult, who try to find answers to these questions together.
Please share your thoughts or comments by email to hello@wsnt.in
If you are less than 18 years old and have your own thoughts on the story and would like to share an audio recording of your own, please email it to hello@wsnt.in
'Did you know that most of us eat plastic, just like we eat rice or pasta?' None of us willingly orders a plate of plastic at a restaurant. But those little plastic straws and juice containers that we throw into the garbage bins at home can land up in our food plates.
'How does a plastic straw come back with our rice? Doesn't our body just send it all out?' Listen to the podcast to get answers to this question.
What's new today is a family podcast where kids and parents can sit together and listen to one story about the daily current events together.
If you have any questions or thoughts, please record them as an audio file and email it to hello@wsnt.in
"Why can't the Sri Lankans grow enough food for themselves? How do refugees free from an island nation? Why did the people not oppose bad governments many years ago - why wait till now?" - Questions posed by a 10-year old.
Listen to this conversation between a 10-year old and an adult - that unravels how the crisis started in Sri Lanka, and what's going on there now.
Email your queries and comments to hello@wsnt.in
Imagine the drones that you have seen in weddings taking photos? Something similar, only much bigger, is helping Ukraine fight its war against Russia.
What's a drone? How do drones keep enemies at bay, in a war ? Did you know that even farmers use drones? And what is Dominoes planning to use them for?
Listen to the podcast to find out more about this.
If you have any thoughts or queries, please email us at hello@wsnt.in. We read every single text message that comes our way. If you send us your audio recording, we would be delighted to share it in one of our forthcoming podcasts.
A short loud squeal vs a long grunt - one could mean excitement and the other anxiety. Each sound emitted by animals can give us excellent clues to understand their mental state better. If, you like many of us, are not very sure which is which - an app will likely be out shortly. If you listen to a new grunt around you and you upload it on the app, you might find out for yourself if the animal is filled with sorrow or is just plain hungry or thoroughly joyous.
Why is this app important for us? What is the meaning of words like 'sentient' and 'EU'? Why do we need laws to help our animals around us?
Listen to the podcast to find out answers to these and more.
You can write to us at hello@wsnt.in if you have any thoughts or queries. We read every single one of our emails and if you send us a recording of your thoughts, we promise to share it in one of our forthcoming episodes.
Before we understand the word inflation, listen to this story of how our Christmas gifts and everything else we order on our phones and laptops get to our homes.
It begins with a little phone call or an order that our neighbourhood sellers make to our factories. As the pandemic struck us, workers in many factories have had a tough time getting to work and making things. This podcast tracks how a toy seller orders a small game of chess, gets it from his factory in China, manages to get a shipload of it across the globe. But once the ship reaches its port, listen to what happens to the ship's captain and crew and how long they stay out at sea.
All this and more, will help our curious listeners understand what inflation means and why it might be here to stay.
If you would like to share your story or thoughts, please email them to us at hello@wsnt.in
Our story for today begins more than 50 years ago. It was a pleasant night in summer in July 1969. Well past 10 pm EST, people in the US sat up wide awake in front of their TV sets to watch a grainy, black and white video of man landing on the moon for the first time in the history of mankind. Following this stellar achievement, the US sent over 10 missions with many more crew members who set foot on the moon, collected rock samples and came back to earth. This frenzy of sending manned lunar missions lost steam by 1972. The US decided to use the money for a bunch of other challenges facing the country, rather than send more and more people to the moon.
The story cuts to 2021 after seeing no action since 1972. NASA recently announced that it would send a manned crew to the moon by 2024. This would include at least one woman and person of colour. In today's podcast we evaluate how valid the two most common reasons given for the renewed interest to going to the moon. First being that we can collect rare earth metals from the moon's surface (mining these on earth being polluting, and it's perhaps okay to pollute the moon). The second reason often stated is that living on the moon for a month will give us enough ideas on how to send a manned exploration to Mars next. Also, if we can find a way to harness the water on moon, we can use it as a fuel to send rockets off the moon's surface. Listen to today's podcast to understand how valid these reasons are. If you have story snippets of your own on any current event, please share your audio message on hello@wsnt.in
Today's story begins over 30 years ago when a rather large country called the Soviet Union broke off into smaller units. One of them is a unit we call today as Russia. Many Russians were sad that some land parts that were close to their heart were lost to them. One of them was Ukraine. An old Russian civilisation called the Ruriks had set up their rule from Kiev, which is today the capital of Ukraine.
In today's episode, we cover fun facts about Ukraine (did you know that Ukraine is the biggest country in Europe ?) and about what happened to Ukraine as the story progressed over the next few years.
Listen to the episode to understand why Russia took away a small part of Ukraine called Crimea in 2014 and what Russia is trying to do now, by assembling more than 170,000 troops along the Russia - Ukraine border.
Are we about to have another war ? Or is this all a nice little game of bluff ?
If you have an answer to our question that you would like to be played in our next episode, please email your audio message to hello@wsnt.in
China flew over 150 airplanes over the Taiwanese air defense zone in the past week or so. Taiwan retaliated with its aircrafts, alert to defend itself if a threat arose. So far, there hasn't been an open war. But what does this mean for Taiwan's independence and democracy ?
Why does China want to attack Taiwan ?
Taiwan is a tiny island near China. More than 70 years ago, two groups of people competed to win the right to rule China. A group called the Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, won. The other group, called the Nationalist forces, lost and escaped from mainland China to a small island near China, called Taiwan. They set up their own democratic government in Taiwan and called themselves a separate country.
China, in the meanwhile, did not think much of this plan. The Chinese believe that Taiwan is very much a part of mainland China and would like to take that piece of land.
But so far, Taiwan remains independent, with its own government, elected through a democratic process. They have also grown quite rich by becoming one of the largest manufacturers of computer parts. But now, the threat of being taken over by China may have become more real for Taiwan.
What will other countries do?
The US, for one, will likely sell arms and weapons to Taiwan to help it defend itself. The US has so far been keen on supporting democracies, when Communist countries are a threat.
In the podcast, we answer these questions from our young listeners
- What does recognising a country mean ?
- Why should two very large countries fight over a tiny little island ?
The Nobel Prize for Physiology 2021 goes to two scientists who have helped us identify which receptors in our bodies sense heat, touch, temperature and pressure.
In this podcast, we explain what these 4 receptors (TRPV1, TRPM8, PIEZO1, PIEZO2) mean, in simple terms for kids to understand. We also answer questions raised by our young listeners -
a) We always knew that we had sensors for touch and heat that sent information to our brain. What does this research tell us additionally ?
b) Why are these receptors important for us ? What would happen to us, if we did not have these receptors ?
c) All this information sounds interesting to be printed on encyclopedias and science textbooks. But where would we really be using this?
If you have any thoughts or questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
This festive season, grocery stores the world over may find fewer toys, furniture, clothes and other such items. After the pandemic, people started buying more things both on ecommerce portals and in person once the neighbourhood stores opened. As a result, factories in Asia - which is where most of the world gets its stuff, started producing more. But in the meanwhile, another little crisis had been brewing.
This was the shipping crisis - some ports were still closed or had fewer workers to handle the goods due to covid. In some other ports, they were unable to handle large ships or ships with newer designs. As a result of all these problems, there were only a few ports open to handle many ships. This meant, long queues of ships waiting to offload their contents in a few ports.
All this means, that the time it takes for things to go around the world has gone up.
So, this Christmas, Santa might just have a lighter sleigh.
Paleontologists have found that ancient dinosaurs (over 240 million years ago) might have just been cat-sized. A 2-million year long rain spell may have led to the development of bigger sized dinosaurs, that could survive the rains. This long rainy spell was very likely caused by a big, huge, volcanic eruption, that happened over many phases. To find out how scientists understand the relationship of fossil age and the changes in the animals, listen to our podcast.
If you have any thoughts, queries or ideas, please email us at hello@wsnt.in with a text or an audio message.
SpaceX, Amazon and many more internet satellite companies are planning to send over 60,000 satellites into the space over the next few years. While this can serve many under-served parts of the world with faster and cheaper internet connectivity, this can also have a harmful impact, by way of light pollution.
Light pollution is caused by the fact that there can be more visible satellites than there are visible stars. This can impact the ability of astronomers to see the night sky clearly.
Also, this can increase the risk of leaving too much space debris after the satellites stop being functional.
Internet satellite companies and astronomers are working together to figure out the right brightness levels. Until this is still being sorted, we remain at risk of rising light pollution and crazy bright night skies.
In case of thoughts and queries, please reach out to us via text or audio message to hello@wsnt.in
Thousands of Haitians are camping outside the US, near the Mexican border, seeking refuge. These Haitians have spent over a decade living and working outside Haiti, in various countries in S.America, mainly Brazil and Chile. Haiti was impacted by an earthquake over a decade ago, and more recently in August this year. Jobs and food are scarce to come by in Haiti. The US, however, is turning back these refugees and sending them back in planes.
Fossil remains of an Australian eagle have recently surfaced to reveal a large pre-historic bird. This was at the apex of the predator-prey pyramid. It is believed to have small wings, long legs and talons almost 15cm long. They are likely to have feasted on koalas, possums and wombats, amongst other creatures in the enclosed forests of Australia, nearly 25 million years ago.
People in UK face a shortage of fuel in fuel station and groceries in supermarkets, not due to shortage of food or fuel, but due to a shortage of truck drivers who can haul these items across the country. Between Brexit and the pandemic, the UK is faced with a grim winter. For the immediate future, the government plans to issue 10,000 more visas to combat the shortage. But it waits to be seen, how the government will sort this shortage out in the longer term.
NASA's LANDSAT 9 was recently launched into orbit. This tracks and sends us images of every part of the earth, landscape, vegetation, migration of people, animals and birds. It also captures images of the changing scape of oceans, coral reefs and glaciers melting. The first of the LANDSAT series was launched over 50 years ago. Comparing images since then can give us a good sense of human actions impact the climate. If you would like to see these images from the LANDSAT, please click here
China's factories are faced with rising demand but these factories are unable to produce enough as they don't have enough power. China is keen on keeping its carbon emissions under control. So Chinese coal power stations are not allowed to increase power output in keeping with the rising demand. Chinese factories, as a result, are working fewer hours. Global supply chains involving phones, laptops, leather shoes, or textiles are likely to be impacted.
Scientists from Virginia Tech have developed a synthetic tree that uses the same capillary action of plants to pull water from beneath the ground. The UN estimates that over 2.2 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water, across the globe. This synthetic tree could solve some of this problem by helping people pull clean water from aquifers below. For people close to the coasts, or with salty water below, this device comes with a membrane that separates the dissolved salt, and only sends clean drinking water up.
As part of the UN's Climate Week and trillion trees by 2030 target, you can contribute your bit by planting trees. For more information, please click here If you would like to share your thoughts and queries, please send us an email at hello@wsnt.in
Google turned 23 on the 27th of Sep. Happy birthday Google ! As intricate as Google has become a part of our lives, there are many fascinating trivia about Google that we explore about its past. Its first servers were housed in Lego bricks, its lawns are mowed by a team of goats and its motto is 'Don't be evil'. If you want to see the picture of the Lego bricks and the first server of Google, you can access that at http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/0-4-Google.htm
Germany is headed towards a coalition as Angela Merkel, the Chancellor for over 16 years steps down. We discuss the mathematics of the votes and the coalition combinations that are possible, and implications for policy making, in a kid-friendly manner, in this podcast.
If you have any thoughts or queries, please reach out to us at hello@wsnt.in
**Last week, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and a few more billionaires pledged $5 billion towards protecting land and water. This money was to be used to conserve biodiversity - as in, taking care that a wide variety of species of birds, animals, trees and plants thrive well. Some of us might think of managing global warming by riding bicycles instead of cars, it would serve us well to remember that protecting the earth and conserving our trees and birds and animals, are equally important. This fund pledges to involve indigenous communities in its effort to improve biodiversity. An ICCA consortium report finds that the indigenous tribes conserve more than 20% of our forests. Whereas, the government controlled wildlife parts cover about 14% of our forests. They also found that the quality of ecological balance maintained by the indigenous communities through their practices was fairly good, and in some cases, superior to the government controlled forest areas. This is the first time that the contribution by the indigeous communities has been acknowledged on a global platform by philanthropists. Link to the report can be found here https://www.iccaconsortium.org/index.php/2021/08/26/in-pictures-communities-revitalize-indigenous-and-traditional-knowledge-systems-and-lifeways/
In a study by the University of Washington, pups that stayed active when young were found to be mentally strong as they grew older, and avoided dementia. This could have implications for our young ones as well. Staying fit with active physical exercise right from a young age could help us maintain good mental health, in our old age. Link to a report to this can be found here https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/dog-walks-dementia-study-exercise-b1924672.html**
Netflix has bought the rights to all of Roald Dahl's works. Netflix already has a series based on Charlie and the chocolate factory in the works. In addition, the company plans to release animated and live action movies or series on atleast 16 of his works. So, for those of you who love Willy Wonka, Matilda, BFG and more, there is a lot in store !
Evergrande, a Chinese company that builds and sells properties is having trouble paying off its loans. Failure of Evergrande can affect the banks it borrowed money from, the people who paid a deposit to get their homes built - who may get neither home nor their money back. Everyone is waiting and watching if Evergrande will fail, and if so, would the Chinese government step in and bail it out.
In sports news, home teams often are said to have an advantage thanks to the cheering crowds that can egg them on to perform better. A research team in the University of Austria has looked into the data of teams playing in ghost stadiums during the pandemic to test this. They found the claim of home team victory true. But also, disturbingly, they found that it affected the ability of the referees in calling out fouls. Referees may also be biased towards the home teams, in the presence of a cheering crowd.
If you lived in India, you would have known that there was a mad scramble for vaccine shots in April and May this year. A lot of people feared that there would not be enough vaccines going around. So, the government decided to stop exporting or sharing it with other nations. But now, as factories in the country are able to produce a lot more, India has decided to begin exporting again. India is the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines. So, when large manufacturers like India - restart exports, it can make quite a bit of difference in the speed at which places in Africa or even Asia can vaccinate their populations. India expects to manufacture nearly 1 billion vaccines in the next 3 months.
Today, or yesterday in some parts of the world is the autumnal equinox. A day when the daylight hours of both the northern and southern hemispheres are equal. For those living in the northern hemisphere, the hours in your day will shorten from now on. It marks the beginning of fall. Those in the southern hemisphere, days will get longer and it marks the beginning of spring. All planets have equinoxes since all of them are tilted on an axis. Saturn has a very beautiful equinox, when its rings become unusually dark.
In the Guiness world record space - identical twin sisters in Japan - Sumiyama and Kodama - are the world’s oldest identical twins - at 107 years and 300 days! The Japanese have the longest life expectancy, as in the number of years a person in a country is expected to live. About 75 years for the Japanese. They do eat lesser red meat and they eat more fish, seafood, vegetables and and rice. They do drink lots of green tea as well. Maybe their diet has something to do with their long lives.
If you have any thoughts or queries, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
**Price of electricity in Europe is now more than double of what it was in January 2021. Winter has been more prolonged this year, going right upto March. People needed more power to keep their homes heated this year. As more people worked from homes, there was more demand for power from residences, almost up 8% this year. Supply of natural gas from Russia has declined. Food prices in Europe are also going up. It might be a tough year for European consumers this winter.
China video-game sharing company Duoyin limits use by children to 40 minutes a day. After a slew of measures imposed by the government on video games and edtech, the video sharing company decided to come up with its own set of rules.
A recent discovery by a palentologist has found that pterausaurs, or flying dinosaurs, might have been able to fly right after birth.
Research article on link between prolonged winter and global warming published on Science:*https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi9167* To reach out to us with your thoughts and questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in**
Taliban's new rules allow schools to open, but only for boys. Schools are facing shortages of teachers since many of the roles of teachers till recently were filled by women. UN aid agencies are trying to pressure the Taliban to open schools for girls too.
Australia scraps a deal with France to buy submarines. Instead Australia goes ahead and buys nuclear powered submarines from the USA. Threatened by China's growing naval fleet, the US offers to share its nuclear technology with Australia.
An ecologist listening to the songs of a super fairy wren (a bird) noticed that the mother bird sings regularly to its young ones, even when they are still inside the eggs.
If you have any thoughts or questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in
‘What’s new today’ is a kids-oriented roundup of news and current events, presented in a fun-filled and lively manner. This show tackles topics - large and small in an unbiased fashion. The riddles and quizzes in each episode are quirky and super fun and encourage critical thinking. If you would like to share your thoughts or questions, please email us at hello@wsnt.in **Last week on Wednesday, four amateur travelers went into space on a SpaceX craft, and landed safely back on earth. They spent about 3 days in space. What was unusual about this trip was that these four space travelers were amateur travelers. They were just regular people like us !
Scientists on the western coast of the US, are now in a race to save some of the oldest and largest trees - these are called giant sequoias. Some of these trees are over 1,500 years old.**
About 15 years ago, a group of children went fossil hunting in new zealand. they were part of the Hamilton Junior naturalist club. They came upon fossils or bones of a rather large creature, which was estimated to be nearly 30 million years old. Now, this fossil has been been analysed and found to belong to a giant penguin.