Speaker 1: Already, and this is the Daily This is the Daily.
Speaker 1: Ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Saturday,
Speaker 2: the twenty second of February.
Speaker 3: I'm Zara, I'm Emma, and it's that time of the week, Zara,
Speaker 3: where we pause reflect, talk about the joyful moments from
Speaker 3: the news cycle that you might have missed this week.
Speaker 4: Our favorite time of the week.
Speaker 1: Our favorite time of the week.
Speaker 5: And we're kicking things off today with a story I
Speaker 5: didn't think we would be including in this podcast.
Speaker 1: I know, a story about cancer treatment.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: I do want to say it's very rare and very
Speaker 2: strange to be talking about cancer treatment in a good
Speaker 2: news podcast, But I think that's what makes this story
Speaker 2: so incredible. And what has happened is that this week
Speaker 2: there were results from a clinical trial that were published,
Speaker 2: and those results proved that the majority of melanoma patients
Speaker 2: whose disease had spread to their brains could essentially be
Speaker 2: cured with a new treatment plan.
Speaker 1: This is huge breakthrough, right, huge.
Speaker 2: Breakthrough, and what are the first breakthroughs we've had in
Speaker 2: this field in so long? So just to delve into
Speaker 2: what the findings were, the results found that in using
Speaker 2: this combination immunotherapy, and this is something that Professor Georgina Long,
Speaker 2: who was the former Australian of the Year. We chatted
Speaker 2: to her on this podcast before. This is something she's
Speaker 2: really pioneered, this new treatment plan. Essentially, it found that
Speaker 2: with using this treatment there was an overall survival rate
Speaker 2: of forty eight percent of patients, with that rate then
Speaker 2: increasing to fifty one percent of patients when they were
Speaker 2: given the immunotherapy treatment up front.
Speaker 5: This is the treatment that some people might be familiar
Speaker 5: with in the conversation around Professor Richard Scollier, a co
Speaker 5: Australian of the Year exactly who pioneered with Georgina Loong
Speaker 5: the melanoma treatment of this similar nature.
Speaker 1: And then together or through sort of.
Speaker 5: Georgina Lung's work, they trialed this combination immunotherapy on Richards
Speaker 5: Golia's tumor exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think just to go to the heart of
Speaker 2: why this story matters so much. You know, you hear
Speaker 2: a good news story about a cancer treatment and sometimes
Speaker 2: it can.
Speaker 4: Be quite obscure.
Speaker 2: But just to really ground why this is such a
Speaker 2: big story. Australia has the highest melanoma rates in the world,
Speaker 2: there's one person diagnosed with the disease every thirty minutes,
Speaker 2: and there's one person dying every six hours. Then, to
Speaker 2: delve deeper into this cohort, brain metastases are present in
Speaker 2: between thirty and forty percent of patients at diagnosis with
Speaker 2: stage four melanoma and those are the type of patients
Speaker 2: that were involved in this clinical trial. And so in
Speaker 2: the past, prior to this trial, these patients only survived
Speaker 2: for around sixteen weeks.
Speaker 5: That is so scary. But as you mentioned, rarely we
Speaker 5: see breakthroughs.
Speaker 2: I know, it's kind of a field and now there's
Speaker 2: hope for the very first time. And to Georgina Long,
Speaker 2: she said, we are now confident that these patients are cured,
Speaker 2: a term not used lightly in cancer. I received a
Speaker 2: media release about this new research and the title was
Speaker 2: quite amazing. It said, from just sixteen weeks survival to
Speaker 2: long term disease control, and I think, you know again,
Speaker 2: that is just unbelievable. And Professor Georgina Long and her
Speaker 2: team are just responsible for so much good in this
Speaker 2: world and they deserve all the credit and all the
Speaker 2: success that has come their way.
Speaker 5: Exactly, and that combination therapy that you've spoken about there, Zara,
Speaker 5: is the same type of approach that Georgina Long has
Speaker 5: used to treat Richard Scollia. So he doesn't have a
Speaker 5: brainchimmer connected to melanoma, but it's the success of that
Speaker 5: type of therapy that has been applied to his own treatment. Okay, so, Zara,
Speaker 5: we are next moving on to Mardi Grass celebrations. The
Speaker 5: parade is upon us.
Speaker 2: It is It's been a year, I know, but yes,
Speaker 2: the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade will light
Speaker 2: up Sydney's Oxford Street next week. This year, the slogan
Speaker 2: of Marti Gras is free to Be, and the Mardi
Speaker 2: Gras organization said that the theme is an important celebration
Speaker 2: of the strides made towards LGBTQIA plus equality, while also
Speaker 2: acting as a global reminder that our fight is far
Speaker 2: from over. The CEO of the group said that our
Speaker 2: theme is about making a statement to embrace and rejoice
Speaker 2: in our unique individuality as well as our collective identity.
Speaker 5: Zara, we always see, of course, the Marti Gras celebrations
Speaker 5: culminate in this parade, but it's an annual kind of
Speaker 5: festival of advocacy and events and celebrations more broadly, over
Speaker 5: a period of a few weeks.
Speaker 4: I have a very important event to talk to you about.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you, that's what I was getting to.
Speaker 2: Okay, So next Friday there's going to be what's called
Speaker 2: the biggest Vogue Ball.
Speaker 4: In the Southern Hemisphere. Yeah, you know what a Vogue
Speaker 4: ball is.
Speaker 1: This is the cissy Ball, right.
Speaker 4: Talk to me about it.
Speaker 1: This event.
Speaker 5: I highly recommend you keep your eye out for footage
Speaker 5: of this from social media if you can't attend yourself.
Speaker 5: It is such a celebration of brilliance, of queer joy. Basically,
Speaker 5: if I had to describe it in a couple of sentences,
Speaker 5: just think about like the most impressive poses, strutting, dancing.
Speaker 2: Well, that's where vogue comes from, Right, you're voguing, posing
Speaker 2: like you're in a magazine.
Speaker 5: Yeah. It's like a battle of excellence on the catwalk.
Speaker 5: And we see just like costumes, personalities, drag queens, performers,
Speaker 5: all kinds of amazing people from within the community who
Speaker 5: come across the country to battle it out.
Speaker 1: And honestly, the hype in the room is electric.
Speaker 4: Well there you go.
Speaker 2: So the Vardi Gras Festival will wrap up on Saturday,
Speaker 2: the first of March with that parade that we know
Speaker 2: so well. The ABC is predicting that more than twelve
Speaker 2: thousand people will march and dance down Oxford Street, so
Speaker 2: make sure not to miss that next Saturday. Now, em
Speaker 2: I want to throw the mic to you to explain
Speaker 2: a story that you told me about earlier this week
Speaker 2: that I thought was just an incredible scientific discovery.
Speaker 4: Talk me through the pods in the airport in Texas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, well I have a good round three words there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the turbine pods.
Speaker 5: You didn't think we would be talking about today, But
Speaker 5: there is this airport in Texas. It's in Dallas, the
Speaker 5: Dallas love Field Airport, and they started this trial in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three where they developed these turbine pods.
Speaker 1: They kind of look like pinwheels, you know, those little.
Speaker 5: Toys that you might have had as a kid, kind
Speaker 5: of tiny wind turbines.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 5: They trialed this at the airport's control tower with a
Speaker 5: prototype which captured energy from the takeoff and landings of planes.
Speaker 1: Razy, so there is so.
Speaker 5: Much wind generated during takeoff and landing at airports. And
Speaker 5: the team that developed these had the clever idea that
Speaker 5: you know, all of that wind could be harnessed and
Speaker 5: converted into electricity. So there was a successful trial where
Speaker 5: they used that power for charging stations inside the airport
Speaker 5: for people to charge you know, phones.
Speaker 1: Laptops, devices.
Speaker 5: Over ten thousand devices were charged in the year of
Speaker 5: that trial, and now they are installing permanently dozens of
Speaker 5: these pods across the airport to develop six charging stations
Speaker 5: inside the airport where passengers can charge the devices, and
Speaker 5: the hopes are that they will create more and more
Speaker 5: of those stations, harness more and more energy, and that
Speaker 5: renewable energy will be used.
Speaker 1: Across other sources.
Speaker 5: I think it's a really clever innovation and you know,
Speaker 5: hopefully inspires other airports to maybe do the same.
Speaker 4: So so smart.
Speaker 5: Speaking of scientific breakthroughs, a very clever team of researchers
Speaker 5: in Victoria have discovered the oldest known fossil.
Speaker 1: Of a mega raptorid.
Speaker 5: Of course, of course, a mega raptorid we know is
Speaker 5: a kind of carnivorous dinosaur. So that has been discovered
Speaker 5: in Victoria alongside the first evidence of another kind.
Speaker 1: Of dinosaur in Australia.
Speaker 5: It's amazing to me that after all these yeah we find,
Speaker 5: we're still finding discoveries from the Cretaceous period.
Speaker 4: So if you are struggling.
Speaker 5: To imagine what a mega raptor might look like, they
Speaker 5: are a type of raptor. If you've seen Jurassic World,
Speaker 5: the raptors that Chris Pratt's character trains.
Speaker 2: Just like a very stereotype I'm looking at it now,
Speaker 2: very stereotypical looking dinosaur.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in the kind of t rex vibe, like the
Speaker 5: tiny arms, very scary, long powerful legs, long tail. Anyway,
Speaker 5: these fossils were discovered on the coast of Victoria by
Speaker 5: the Museum's Victoria Research Institute and monash Uni PhD student
Speaker 5: Jake Kotevski. Now it's believed they were formed up to
Speaker 5: one hundred and twenty one million years ago. That's nearly
Speaker 5: sixty million years before the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: But race copproaches. The other fossil discovered.
Speaker 5: This new one that I mentioned is called a carcer rodontosaur.
Speaker 1: Don't take my word on pronunciation.
Speaker 2: But the best part of podcast is that no one
Speaker 2: can fact check us in real time like you have
Speaker 2: to let us know in the comments if we've pronounced.
Speaker 1: Just talk about me behind my bag like the normal person.
Speaker 5: But this dinosaur is essentially a great white shark with legs,
Speaker 5: absolutely terrifying. But it's the first time something of this
Speaker 5: nature has been discovered and so exciting for that to
Speaker 5: be happening on Australian shores. The fossils of a really
Speaker 5: important insight into Victoria's ancient ecosystem, into the age of
Speaker 5: the dinosaurs globally, and the research team have called this
Speaker 5: discovery groundbreaking.
Speaker 2: Now, m I do want to finish on some homegrown
Speaker 2: talent and that is because the Matilda's star that we
Speaker 2: all know and love, Mary Fowler, has become the first
Speaker 2: player in the Women's Super League history to record at
Speaker 2: least two goal involvements. Don't know what that means, yep,
Speaker 2: Neither it means scoring or assisting in the scoring of
Speaker 2: a goal. So helping to set it up in some
Speaker 2: way yep. Mary Fowler did that four games in a
Speaker 2: row at least twice.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: She set up two goals in her side's four nil
Speaker 2: win against Liverpool earlier this week and she dies for
Speaker 2: Man City, she does, and that allowed for her to
Speaker 2: set the record, with her coach crediting her as a
Speaker 2: vital element in Man City's prospects this season. And I
Speaker 2: just think that to see the continued success of Australian
Speaker 2: sportswomen and especially overseas where it's such a competitive league,
Speaker 2: there is so much talent and yet we'd have our
Speaker 2: very own coming through the middle and absolutely killing it.
Speaker 5: There are so many amazing Matilda's players that play in
Speaker 5: that English woman's Premier League and if you want more
Speaker 5: Matilda's excitement, they are in the US at the moment
Speaker 5: playing in the She Believes Cup, and it's so exciting
Speaker 5: just to see that momentum from the twenty twenty three
Speaker 5: World Cups still paying off with how interested Australians are
Speaker 5: in their success in getting around them internationally.
Speaker 2: But given this is a Good News podcast, we won't
Speaker 2: talk about the results against Japan.
Speaker 4: Yes exact, we'll just leave that one. You can find
Speaker 4: that yourself.
Speaker 1: It not the podcast for it's the time, not the place.
Speaker 4: That wraps up another week of the Good News Podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us, and we will
Speaker 2: be back on Monday morning as normal with the day's
Speaker 2: deep dive. But until then, have a wonderful weekend.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl country.
Speaker 2: The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
Speaker 2: the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
Speaker 2: all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
Speaker 1: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
Speaker 1: both past and present.