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CNN 10
North Korea Test-Fires ICBM; Scientists: Unusual Asteroid has Entered Solar System; Origami Uses in Engineering
Aired November 30, 2017 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: On this last day of November 2017, we thank you for watching CNN 10, your objective explanation of world news. I`m Carl
Azuz at the CNN Center.
U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday. And the American leader said that more sanctions, penalties on
North Korea were on the way. China factors in because it`s North Korea`s only major ally.
What triggered this?
North Korea test-fired an ICBM, an intercontinental ballistic missile early Wednesday morning. It was the first time in two months that the communist
country had tested a major weapon. But it`s done this several times before. Despite international sanctions and the fact that the United
Nations says its weapons programs are illegal.
Something was different this time around, though. The ICBM reached an altitude as high as 2,800 miles. That`s higher than any other weapon North
Korea has ever launched. And though it`s splashed on off the Japanese coast, North Korea said it was capable of hitting the entire U.S. mainland.
Some scientists agree, but one analyst said it probably wouldn`t have gone as far with the heavy nuclear warhead on it.
North Korea said the missile did have a, quote, super large heavy warhead attached. Either way, the U.S. is pushing China to do everything it can to
convince North Korea to end its nuclear and missile programs. American officials say these programs endanger world peace, peace in the region and
the U.S., and that America has a long list of additional economic sanctions it can place on North Korea.
The Asian country sees its weapons as a deterrent, a strength that would discourage other countries from attacking and it says that no force on
earth can stop North Korea`s advance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Inside North Korea: What it`s really like.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I`ve been to North Korea 11 times over the last few years. And every time you come here, you hear the
tensions between the U.S. and North Korea are high. But I have to say that this is the most tense that I have seen it during anytime that I visited
the country.
Whenever I come here, I always get a sense that there are two very different worlds. There`s the world inside North Korea, and the world
outside.
Inside, everything in this society revolves around the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and beforehand his father and grandfather. This is a society
that is built up around its leadership. They hold their leaders up to the highest possible esteem.
And that`s very much in contrast with the view from the outside world that North Korea is erratic, unpredictable and moving on a dangerous path as
they continue to nuclearize.
In some ways, Pyongyang resembles many other cities, has an increasingly modern skyline. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has made it one of his
initiatives to build more skyscrapers and public amenities in the city.
In other ways, though, it`s radically different.
(MUSIC)
You hear music playing on loud speakers throughout the city all day, in the morning to wake people up, in the evening to put them to bed at night.
There is patriotic music. People are marching, they`re practicing for this huge, mass celebrations that they often do for national holidays, where
they celebrate the achievements of their leader.
And, of course, North Korea is one of the only places in the world where no matter who you ask, at least publicly, you will never hear political
dissent. Everybody will say that they are 100 percent behind their supreme leader. But given Kim Jong-un has absolute power in this country, what
else would they say?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:
Which of these celestial objects is called a "minor planet"?
Pluto, asteroid, moon, or Sirius?
Asteroids are also called minor planets, not to be confused with dwarf planets like Pluto.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: This is an interstellar asteroid. And it`s now in our solar system.
PAUL CHODAS, MANAGER, NASA`S CENTER FOR NEAR EARTH OBJECT STUDIES: This object is simply a piece of another solar system that was expelled and it
has been traveling through interstellar space for hundreds of millions of years, billions of years, we don`t know.
SUBTITLE: Astronomers have never seen anything like this enter our solar system from outside.
It`s 10 times as long as it is wide.
With a shape unlike any of the other asteroids in our solar system.
CHODAS: We don`t see that in our solar system. None of the asteroids in our solar system look like that. So, it`s very puzzling how it could have
obtained this shape.
SUBTITLE: It was first discovered by a telescope in Hawaii.
And was given the official name of Oumuamua, which loosely means in Hawaiian "a messenger that reaches out from the distant past".
That means this visitor could carry the secrets to how other solar systems have formed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Origami, which comes from the Japanese words "fold" and "paper" is increasingly being used to solve complicated engineering problems. On a
"10 Out of 10" segment last month, we cover an MIT project on origami robots. They included a small machine and a plastic exoskeleton that
folded into a predetermined shape when it`s heated.
Well, a former NASA physicist has folded his love for origami into his career as a mathematician.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT LANG, PHYSICIST & ORIGAMI ARTIST: One of the most one of the most important attributes of origami is once we have studied and understood the
way paper folds and unfolds, we can apply those patterns the things that are very different from paper.
I hope by bringing the tools of mathematics into my origami design, that I can then fold something that`s beautiful and it`s unexpected.
My name is Robert Lang and I`m a physicist and an origami artist.
SUBTITLE: The master of folds.
LANG: Origami is the Japanese name for the art of folded paper, and most origami is folded from a single sheet of paper with no cuts or tears.
I have loved origami entire life. I pursued it ever since I was a kid, but my study was science and engineering. I work for NASA, doing research on
lasers. But throughout that whole time, I had been pursuing origami, developing designs and writing books.
So in 2001, I quit my job to try to make a career out of origami.
I`ve worked on a couple of different folding patterns that were round and with wrap into a cylindrical geometry to fit in a rocket. And I developed
an air bag in a car that inflates from a small folded bundle. So whenever an engineer creates something that opens and closes in a controlled way,
they can make use of the folding patterns of origami.
Over the years, math has allowed me to realize as an artist shapes and creation that I couldn`t achieve any other way.
Traditional origami was relatively simple. The designs would have taken maybe 20 or 30 steps at most. But today, origami pieces can be so
complicated that they can have tens, hundreds, maybe even a thousand steps.
When I`m folding, it`s like working with an old friend. It`s like dancing with a partner whose moves I know. If I move this way, I know my partner`s
going to move that way and so, I explore the math, develop the equations, solve the equations, create the folding patterns, and then I find out what
it looks like. And as often as not, it is beautiful.
For me, the driving force is that there`s always something new to try a new problem, a new subject, a new shape that I didn`t think I was able to
create before but now I think I know how to realize it. And each time I solve the problem, you get this wonderful feeling and you want more of
those feelings.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Less than a month from Christmas, Santa Claus is getting huge, bro. This particular Santa is Albie Mushaney, aka Big Bad Santa. He squats 708
pounds and dead-lift 728 from the floor. He calls his training partner the world`s smallest elf, the Swelf.
Their workshop: the gym. Santa raises heavyweights and money for the children of wounded veterans, and he`s not only training for Christmas, he
plans to compete in the world`s strongest man competition.
I don`t think I can top Swelf. That pun slays me. But if you`re ideal Santa pulls his own sleigh, bench presses a reindeer and powerlifts back up
the chimney, Mushaney`s mega mass puts him in the clause all his own.
I`m Carl Azuz with another Santastic edition of CNN 10.
END
