Program: Banana art and tracking farts

You're in for a weird and wonderful episode of News Time today! Hear about bananas stuck to walls, and scientists interested in hearing all about people's…. farts.

It's time for a News Time excursion, and we're off to an art gallery! What do you see? That's an artwork called Comedian, and it's by artist Maurizio Cattelan. The artwork is quite simple — a banana, stuck to a wall with a piece of silver duct tape. That's all there is to it! Maurizio first made a version of this artwork 5 years ago, but it's back! While it was on display, another artist came to the museum, cheekily took the banana off the wall and ate it! The banana was then replaced, and this time, it went on sale. It sold for… wait for it… 9 and a half million dollars! So, what did the buyer actually get for their 9 million dollars? They got a certificate of authenticity, which says that if they sticky tape a banana to their own wall at home, it counts as an artwork. And not just a random piece of fruit on a wall. So, you might be wondering what has become of this big-budget banana… well, the buyer took it off the wall, peeled it, and ate it. That's a very expensive snack!

Scientists at the CSIRO — that's Australia's national science agency — have put a call out to the big kids and the grown-ups of the country. They want the community to keep track of their flatulence. Farting is a perfectly healthy thing to do, but some people have reported that they fart a bit more than they'd like. So, the CSIRO are asking Aussies aged 14 or older to 'chart your fart', and keep a track of how many farts they let loose over 3 whole days. Scientists aren't just interested in the number of farts — they also want to measure loudness, length and stench… that's stinkiness levels. If enough people share information about their farts, scientists will get a better understand of how often Aussies do them. They'll understand whether things like your age your gender, where you live or what you eat affects how flatulent you are. It'll help us understand whether Aussies have healthy guts and tummies, and whether we're getting enough fibre in our diets — that's the stuff that keeps your digestive health on track. So, it's farting for a good cause, really!

The Paramatildas are Australia's national football team for women and girls with cerebral palsy or acquired brain injury. Those are both kinds of disability. They're a pretty awesome team, and we've talked about them on News Time before. But recently, Australia's ParaMatildas made history… they won the IFCPF Women's World Cup! A couple of years ago, the ParaMatildas made it to the final of the World Cup, but lost that game and came second. This time, they were up against the team from the United States of America. The US scored first… and then second! The ParaTillies were in trouble, but they managed to claw themselves back from the brink and take out the win. The ParaMatildas are the first Australian football team ever to win a world cup. The Matildas, our women's national soccer team, and the Socceroos, the mens national soccer team, have both done really well in world cup competitions in the past. The Matildas even made it to the semi finals! But the ParaMatildas are the first team to go all the way to the top, and win their final. Congratulations ParaMatildas, we can't wait to see what you achieve next!

There are lots of clues we can look at to understand the world before humans were around. Under the right conditions, animals and plants from ancient times on planet Earth can be captured as fossils! And stored for millennia, ready to be discovered. You might have seen fossils at a museum before. There are museums all over the country, and the world, and they store lots of special artefacts for people to look at, study, and marvel at. Fossils help us connect with Earth's history, and ask questions about what life was like then, and what it's like today. Museums Victoria have way more fossils than they can fit on display in a museum. So, when they're not behind glass for people to look at, they're safely kept in a storage area underground. Recently, however, one of their storage facilities flooded! And dozens of fossils got washed away down Melbourne streets. It turns out a water pipe burst, and water was flowing so much that it pushed open the doors and carried some artefacts out onto the street. Some of the fossils have already been found by members of the public, just walking around the place. But Museums Victoria have asked for people in Melbourne to be on the lookout for any lost pieces, and to hand them in. The team aren't totally sure what's missing yet — there's almost too much to count! But they say it could have been much worse, and that the damage isn't too bad.

Who would have thought that after millions of years, you might find dinosaur remains hiding on the streets of Melbourne.

Nikki Lyons is a sheep shearer in Bowning near Yass, in south west New South Wales. Nikki loves shearing sheep. She started 20 years ago, when she was a teenager, and since then has travelled around the country to different farms, exploring the land and shearing hundreds of sheep in the process. Recently, Nikki decided to attempt a world record. She wanted to shear more merino lambs in a day than any woman had sheared before. How many do you think Nikki managed in 8 hours? She managed almost double that number! Nikki sheared 395 sheep in eight hours. That's about one sheep every one and a half minutes, with no breaks. Imagine that! It was a massive undertaking, and it earned Nikki the world record. In order to achieve her goal, she worked on her fitness and stamina for more than a year in advance. She worked with a mindset coach, to get herself mentally fit, as well as a personal trainer for her body, and a nutritionist to help her eat the right foods to fuel her work. Nikki says it was a mental challenge, as much as it was a physical challenge. Nikki hopes her world record brings more attention to sheep and wool in Australia, and hopefully inspires more people to wear merino wool, the soft wool shorn from her fantastic flock.