Tom: Hey everyone. It is Monday, March 30. I am Tom Hanson, and Channel One News starts right now.
Now, Scott is here to start us off with news from the Middle Eastern country of Yemen.
Scott: Yeah, we have been following the chaos over there, and it is an important country to watch because it has been a U.S. ally in the fight against terror. Now, many are concerned that a weak government could lead to more terrorist organizations using Yemen as a home base. So now, powerful countries in the region are taking military action.
Arab warplanes dropped hundreds of bombs on rebel targets in Yemen over the weekend. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the three countries flying air strikes, all view Iran, which is backing one of the rebel groups trying to take over Yemen, as a greater threat than ISIS.
For months, Yemen has been on the brink of civil war. It is the poorest country in the Middle East, making it a breeding ground for terrorists.
The chaos in Yemen is a three way fight for control between rival armed groups. There's the Houthi rebels who have now taken control of the government and kicked out the president and are backed by Iran. And then there's ISIS, and finally, members of al-Qaeda; all of which hope to claim power of the unstable country.
And though U.S. officials say there are no plans yet to put American troops on the ground in Yemen, a small team of American experts was sent to Saudi Arabia to help and give intelligencefrom spy satellites and drones.
But Saudi Arabia is asking for more American support in the fight. The objective of the bombing is to slow the rebel advance enough to give the Yemeni government forces time to regroup.
In a public address, Yemen's President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who is in exile, called on militants to pull out of government offices and the capital city of Sanna. Hadi fled the capital in February after Houthi rebels moved in.
The fighting is so bad, many Yemeni people have been forced to flee their homes and the U.S. ambassador warns many of them are in grave need of humanitarian help.
Another reason why people are watching this so closely is because the U.S. and Iran, two major players working against each other in Yemen, are currently trying to work out a big nuclear deal together.
Tom: Wow. Thanks Scott.
Alright, coming up, it is a space journey that’s never tried before.
Let's check out headlines, and first up,it is an experiment that’s never done before.Two twin brothers, one in outer space and the other here on Earth. And NASA will be conducting experiments on both to track differences in the human body.
Scott Kelly: I don't think I've ever done anything that will be as hard as this.
Tom: That's NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. He and two other Russian astronauts blasted off into space on Friday.
That's where Kelly will spend one year living at the International Space Station, something no American has ever done before.
His previous stay was only six months. But what's interesting about this mission is that Scott's twin brother Mark will stay here on Earth,as part of an experiment NASA has put together to gather new data.
But twin brother Mark did say he would have loved for an opportunity to go into space.
Mark Kelly: I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that Iwish I was blasted off in a rocket in a couple months.
Tom: Mark is married to former congresswoman Gabby Giffords.
The identical twins have agreed to undergo daily medical tests to track and compare the differences between a human living in space and a human living on earth.
Scott: I suspect we're going to learn a lot about our physiology and how longer duration space flight affects it and hopefully ways to mitigate those effects.
Tom: That data will help pave the way for what many scientists are excited about, long term space travel for future generations. Even maybe to Mars.
Earth Hour swept across thousands of cities over the weekend from New York to Nairobi to Paris, and a number of landmarks turned off their lights for an hour to mark the event.
They counted down, and then flicked the switch. The Eiffel Tower plunged into darkness.
Earth Hour is a worldwide initiative that calls for turning off lights for one hour to fight against climate change and promote energy efficiency.
In the European city of Brussels, the lights were turned off at the town hall. And in San Francisco, lights on the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge went out.
Even the bright lights at the Las Vegas strip went dark, as did the gateway arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
In all, a total of 172 countries joined the initiative.
Alright, coming up, we have story on animal intelligence that will definitely stick with you.
Until recently, scientists didn't know too much about animal intelligence, but new research suggests that animals are much smarter than we ever thought.
In part two of our series on animal intelligence we head underwater to check out one of the smartest animals in the sea. No bones about it. Here's Maggie Rulli.
Maggie: With eight arms, hundreds of suckers, and one big floating head, he looks more alien than animal.
AliciaBitondo: They don’t look like us. They look completely different. It’s hard for people to relate to them and therefore they think of them as totally alien. But intelligence can manifest itself in so many different ways.
Maggie: Octopuses can change color, solve puzzles, and play, something only intelligent animals do.
But scientists recently discovered that what makes them so different from us might actually be the very thing that makes them so special.
Alicia: They have eight arms. I don’t know if you knew that.Their arms are multipurpose. They do way more than our arms ever could.
Maggie: Made of pure muscle with no bones or joint.
An octopus’s arm can move in an infinite number of directions.
Maggie: So this arm right now is investigating me, isn’t it?
Alicia: And feel it. That is all muscle.
Maggie: Oh, wow.
Alicia: They’re arms are seven feet long. And so, they can easily rap their arms around things and attach themselves to a bunch of different objects at one time.
Maggie: And every one of those eight strong and flexible arms has a mind of its own, literally.
An octopus has one of the most complex brains of all invertebrates, proving you don’t need a backbone to be brainy. More than two thirds of its brain cells are found not in its head, but in its arms. Creating what’s kind of like eight mini brains, each one controlling each arm separately.
Alicia: And you see with one of his arms over there he is doing something else.
Maggie: So, here I am thinking I am all important because this one arm is shaking my hand. And seven of the other ones are off doing something else!
For Hannibal the octopus, life depends on eight arms. So, we test all eight of them.
So Alicia, what are we about to do?
Alicia: So, we’re about to give the octopus a puzzle. You ready?
Maggie: Yeah, let’s check it out.
Since octopus see food best through their suckers, we lather some shrimp juice on the outside of the puzzle.
Smells like something an octopus would love.
Alicia: I’m just going to put a couple pieces in here.
Maggie: And hide the rest of the shrimp deep inside.
So right now, his arm is actually tasting.
Alicia: Exactly.
Maggie: Oh look, he is already in there.
Alicia: Oh, he is?
Maggie: He is starting on that end, I think.
Alicia: Ok, that was pretty fast.
Well first of all, when you give the puzzle to the animal it’s the arm that’s tasting, that touches that toy and say’s “Oh thistastes like food.” And also, the arm is the part that’s investigating inside the tube. You notice that he’s not looking at it, and so that’s really important.
Maggie: Now octopuses aren’t the only animals whose smarts have caught scientists by surprise. Check out the cuttlefish. Sure its name is cute, but it kind of just looks like a blob.
Well that blob is a social animal, and experiences episodic like memory, meaning it is able to remember what, where and when it ate. Something that researches used to think only our great ape relatives could do.
Alicia: So they have the ability associate food with a certain object and then remember that object.
Maggie: With animals that are so different than us, often the greatest obstacle to study their intelligence is well, us.
Alicia: When we talk about them being smart or intelligent a lot of people try to put it in terms of human intelligence and that’s what makes it difficult to define because they’re really good at what they do.
Maggie: Once scientists stopped thinking of animals as humans and started thinking of them as well, animals, they were able to discover their hidden genius; begging the question, are humans smart enough to find out just how smart animals are?
Being this close it almost feels obvious that they, there’ssomething behind them right?
Alicia: Yeah. Exactly.
And it’s hard to study because they’re so different. But when you’re face to face with one it's like, it has to know what’s going on.
Maggie: Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.
Tom: Now to put your knowledge to the test, take our animal intelligence quiz on Channelone.com.
Alright guys, that's all the time we have today. We will see right back here tomorrow.
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