On this week's news update…

New Spacesuit

A new spacesuit…

Fostered Cheetah Cub

A fostered cheetah cub...

Self-Burying Seed Carriers

And self-burying seed carriers.

First up…

We are used to spacesuits looking like this, but that is about to change. Scientists at NASA have commissioned a new spacesuit for their next mission to the Moon. The new spacesuits have been designed to fit both women and men, so more female astronauts will be able to go into space.

The key purpose of any spacesuit is to protect the astronauts and provide them with oxygen to survive. The new suit will give astronauts better movement and flexibility, making tasks easier to carry out. The helmet also comes equipped with inbuilt lights and a video camera that can send high-definition footage back to earth.

Scientists hope that this suit will make space exploration easier and enable more women to go on future missions.

Up next…

It’s animal watch.

Zookeepers at Monarto Safari Park recently welcomed the arrival of a single baby cheetah. Cheetah litters can vary in size but usually contain more than one cub. Single cubs are often abandoned after birth, so the zookeepers knew to act quickly to care for the cub.

They worked around the clock for eight days looking after the cub, until another litter of cheetahs was born at the zoo. After checking the second litter was healthy, they transferred scents from the den onto the single cub. Then, zookeepers placed the single cub in the den, hoping that they would be adopted into the new litter.

Within a day, the mother had fostered the single cub and was feeding them along with her own. Zookeepers were delighted to see the fostering succeed and plan to use the same process to help other single cubs survive.

And finally…

Planting seeds can be tricky on hard-to-reach land. So to help with this, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed self-burying wooden seed carriers.

The seed carriers are scattered on soil using planes or drones. This method of spreading seeds is particularly helpful in restoring plant life to large, inaccessible regions.

As this timelapse footage shows, the seed carriers coil and uncoil depending on the moisture in the air which helps them to drill into the ground and bury the seeds. Burying the seeds protects them from bad weather and being eaten by animals. This means they have a higher chance of survival and of growing to become plants.

By planting seeds as shown in these graphics, the scientists involved hope that they can help to reforest inaccessible land.

That's all for this week, we'll see you next time!