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Hello and welcome to CNN 10. I'm Coy Wire with your news for Thursday, August 14th. First, a random thought Thursday for you.

 

Why is it that when we have more than one goose, we call them geese, but more than one moose isn't meese? The plural is still moose, and a group of squids is called a shoal? Shouldn't a group of squids be called a squad? The collective nouns can be confusing.

 

moose [mus] n.【动】麋；北美麋

shoal [ʃol] n. 魚群; a large school of fish or other aquatic animals

 

Without further ado, your 10 minutes of news starts now.

 

Big news for those of you with college applications on the horizon.

 

The free application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has opened early. The Department of Education says a small number of beta testers can now access the application. And if you can't, no worries, it will be available to everyone starting October 1st.

 

beta tester: beta 版测试者; someone outside a company who tests a new product, especially a computer program, for the company before it is launched (= made available for the public to buy)

 

For those of you that need a FAFSA refresher, we got you covered. The FAFSA uses your family's financial information to determine how much government financial aid you may qualify for to attend college.

 

refresher [rɪˋfrɛʃɚ] n. 补习课程 (在这里，它的作用是再次提醒人们有关 FAFSA 的基本信息)

 

It's sent to any schools you're interested in attending, so they can calculate how much aid you could receive.

 

Still not sure if you need one? The Department of Education says anyone planning on attending college should fill one out, since it helps determine if you qualify for other aid programs.

 

Lots of students and families were making a mistake early on in their college research, and this mistake was crossing an expensive school off of their list of consideration early on without following through and finding out how much financial aid that school is actually giving out.

 

If this sounds like a lot to keep track of, no worries.

 

You can head to studentaid.gov to create a profile and get started as early as today. And while the final deadline isn't until June of next year, many states encourage you to apply as early as possible.

 

An unprecedented wildfire season is continuing to thrash Europe, and there doesn't appear to be any relief in sight for the world's fastest warming continent.

 

Record heat and droughts have helped fuel the blazes across the continent. More than 2,200 firefighters have been deployed across Spain and Portugal, where temperatures are also expected to be well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the coming days. And it's not just the Iberian Peninsula.

 

Iberian [aɪˋbɪrɪən] adj. 伊比利亚半岛的

 

Dozens of fires are raging across Italy, France, and parts of the Balkans, prompting evacuations, threatening landmarks, and claiming at least one life.

 

Officials say the fires have burned through nearly 2.4 million acres so far this year, putting 2025 on pace to be the most expansive European wildfire season to date.

 

Scientists also warn that as the human-caused climate crisis escalates, these wildfires will only become more frequent and severe.

 

Ten-second trivia. Which city is home to the fastest operational train in the world?

 

Moscow, Tokyo, Shanghai, or Sydney?

 

All aboard. The fastest train in the world is the Shanghai Maglev.

 

The trans-rapid commercial train travels at approximately 286 miles per hour using electromagnetic propulsion. They rarely even touch the tracks. The Shanghai Maglev can cover 19 miles in less than eight minutes.

 

propulsion [prəˋpʌlʃən] n. 推进（力）

 

Two of America's largest railroad companies, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, just announced a mega-proposal to create America's first transcontinental freight railroad.

 

transcontinental [͵trænskɑntəˋnɛnt!] adj. 横贯大陆的

 

Railroads are crucial to America's economy, carrying about 30 percent of the nation's freight in terms of weight. Trains transport cars, retail goods, food, and energy products, as well as raw materials and parts needed to run many factories.

 

Transcontinental rail service for people, travelers, has been available since 1869, right after the end of the Civil War. But moving goods or freight cross country has always required they be handed off from one railroad to another.

 

hand off（接力赛跑时的）接力棒交接

 

In theory, this plan would allow stuff to get sent on a train all the way from the Port of Los Angeles to the ports in New England more efficiently, and cut down on emissions because fewer goods would be shipped in 18-wheelers.

 

18-wheeler: semi-trailer truck; 半挂式卡车

 

Still, experts say the merger could take months, if not years, for the deal to close.

 

Meet Wavy Dave, a robotic fiddler crab built to mimic the weird and wonderful ways these crabs flirt. Scientists are studying which claw-waving moves make female crabs swoon.

 

fiddler crab【动】招潮蟹

flirt [flɝt] v. 调情，卖俏

swoon [swun] v. 狂喜，心醉神迷

 

And Dave's got some shell-lebrity type of swagger, as you can see. It's a pinch of science, a wave of technology, and maybe even a little craptivating courtship. Our Shannon Hodge has more.

 

swagger [ˋswægɚ] n. 昂首阔步；神气活现的样子

pinch [pɪntʃ] n.（一）撮，少量; 捏，拧；夹

 

It's crab versus machine. As researchers at the University of Exeter built this robot, dubbed Wavy Dave, to study how male fiddler crabs compete for female attention.

 

Scientists placed Wavy Dave on a mudflat teeming with thousands of crabs, and gave the robot claws of varying sizes to wave near a real male's burrow.

 

mudflat [ˋmʌdflæt] n. 淤泥滩，潮泥滩

 

I was very surprised at how they reacted, because the pessimist in me thought they won't see this as a crab, that they'll see through it, that we're essentially trying to pull a magic trick on them.

 

pessimist [ˋpɛsəmɪst] n. 悲观者；悲观主义者

 

And I didn't think that it would work.

 

Cameras captured how the crabs adapted, finding that the males abandoned their normal routines, and continued waving their massive claw to compete with the robot.

 

adapt [əˋdæpt] v. 调整…以适用

 

Adapting your strategy and kind of rolling with the punches, that's not something that's special to humans.

 

roll with the punches 渡过一道道难关；克服一连串困难

 

While some males were less likely to compete when a rival had a larger claw, others would not back down from this robotic intruder.

 

The fight between the fiddler crab and Wavy Dave, I wasn't expecting it when the individual did manage to break the claw off.

 

I thought it wouldn't be strong enough. That just goes to show that you should never try and predict what's going to happen when you're working with animals.

 

We went on some CNN 10 field trips this summer.

 

One town making the list, Las Cruces, New Mexico. Beware, this report might make you hungry.

 

This laid-back town is famous for one of their iconic foods that's part of centuries-old traditions.

 

laid-back [ˋled͵bæk] adj.【俚】悠闲的；懒散的；闲散的

 

Let's check out the unique blend of captivating sights, cultures, and cuisine that made New Mexico's second largest city one of CNN's America's Best Towns to Visit.

 

Southwest cuisine is the mix of Native American culture and Spanish culture and whatever was growing around you at the time.

 

In Las Cruces, New Mexico, southwestern cuisine has evolved over hundreds of years.

 

Chef Rulis Gonzalez grew up on the food here in the Mesilla Valley. Now he honors the region's evolving culinary traditions in his own cooking.

 

So as people move through the city, they leave their spices behind, they leave their traditions behind, and the food builds on that.

 

This is where a lot of that mestizaje, that mixing of cultures happened in this area, so that's why the food is so good.

 

It was time to spread my culinary wings. Our first stop, the James Beard nominated Chope’s.

 

This is my first time trying chile rellenos. I am tasting history right now. Here we go.

 

chile rellenos 辣椒镶肉

 

It's so good.

 

The Hatch green Chile really takes center stage in southwest cuisine. It's the star of the show.

 

chile [ˋtʃɪlɪ] n. 红番椒；辣椒的一种

 

And these chillies didn't travel far. They grew up right up the road in the town of Hatch. The food alone is enough to make the trip worth it, but if you ever find yourself in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the top of your list has to be White Sands National Park.

 

275 square miles of gypsum dune fields. It's the largest of its kind in the entire world. This stuff is magnificent.

 

gypsum [ˋdʒɪpsəm] n. 石膏

 

You really feel a sense of peace sitting on the dunes, and maybe that's the draw for Las Cruces. Natural beauty and a quiet, calm pace of life. Oh, and really great chile rellenos.

 

Today's story, getting a 10 out of 10. Girl power meets power tools. Girl Scouts at Minnesota's Camp La Camaga participated in the fourth annual camp called Power Girls, where they partnered with professional tradeswomen to break down barriers and build a brand new mini golf course from the ground up.

 

tradeswoman [ˋtredz͵wʊmən] n. 女商人

from the ground up 从头开始

 

The annual camp aims to break stereotypes and give girls some valuable firsthand experience with the trades.

 

The girls not only learned how to handle some serious power tools, they also learned the value of planning, perseverance, and that with the right mindset, anything is possible.

 

All women, like there's only probably one male in here.

 

So that shows that women can power anything.

 

It's kind of really scary because you can take a risk that you wouldn't really like usually do. It like really shows that any gender could do anything and that we're all powerful and we can all do something that's out of our comfort zone.

 

All right, superstars, time for some shout outs. Now this one goes to Miss Guza, Miss Lalonde, Miss Holiday, and Mr. Cryer from Alma Middle School in Alma, New Mexico. Your classes hand knit this hat, hat-tastic.

 

You put the cap in captivating. Can't wait to rock this all fall.

 

And from our YouTube subscribers in our comment section, John W. Moore Middle School in Florence, South Carolina, rise up.

 

Thank you for watching us each day.

 

All right, I have an important announcement from all of us here at CNN10 headquarters, a new simplified website, cnn10.com. So if you have our old address bookmarked, it's slightly different, be sure to update it to simply cnn10.com. And of course, you can always catch us on YouTube. Happy Friday Eve, everyone.

 

We'll see you right back here tomorrow. I'm Coy Wire and we are CNN10.