In today's news, with Paz and Trevor:
Taiwan's oldest residents, a fire on Easter Island, and NASA shoots an asteroid to change its orbit.
Stay tuned and don't go anywhere, these stories are coming up next!
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台東出土6000年前遺骸
Skeletal Remains Dating Back 6,000 Years Unearthed in Taitung
Taiwan is a very diverse (各樣的) country, where you can find many people from around the world living together.
There are Indigenous, Chinese, and many new residents from Southeast Asia too!
有原住民、華人、還有很多來自東南亞的新住民！
When we think about Taiwan's oldest inhabitants (居民), we might think of the Austronesian Indigenous people (南島原住民).
But did you know, many Indigenous tribes in Taiwan have legends (傳說) about a group of people who lived here even before they got here?
This group, known today as "negritos," are described as small-bodied, dark-skinned, and living in forested mountains or remote caves.
在今日，這群人被稱為"黑矮人"，他們被描述成身材矮小、皮膚黝黑、捲髮、，習慣住在深山叢林裡的森林或偏遠的山洞。
The legends are different depending on who you ask (取決於你問誰), with some stories saying they are aliens and enemies (外星敵人) of the Austronesian Indigenous groups, while others saw them as their ancestors (祖先).
And those legends might be more than just stories…
An international team of researchers has discovered 6,000-year-old human skeletal remains in Taitung which belong to an adult (成人) "negrito" woman.
Her skull and femur bone were excavated from the Xiaoma Caves.
他們從小馬洞裡挖出了她的頭骨和大腿骨。
They confirmed her origin through DNA analysis, and the researchers estimate (估計) she could have been 139 centimeters tall (139公分).
They say the new discovery brings attention to how older hunter-gatherer (狩獵族群) communities and the newer immigrant Austronesian farmers co-existed (共存) in Taiwan thousands of years ago.
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大火燒毀了復活節島的摩艾石像
Fire Damages Easter Island's Famous Statues
Easter Island is home to about 900 large stone statues called moai (摩艾石像).
The moai are carved (雕刻的) stone statues with extremely large heads.
They are normally (一般) around four meters tall, and the tallest is ten meters tall.
The statues were created over 500 years ago by the people who lived on the island.
They were Polynesians called the Rapa Nui people.
他們是被稱為拉帕努伊人的波利尼西亞人。
Even today, we still have many questions about how they created and moved such large stone statues.
It's hard to imagine (很難想像) when you see them in person.
On October 4th, a wildfire (野火) burned through the Rapa Nui National Park (拉帕努伊國家公園).
Nearly 400 moai were burnt near the Rano Raraku volcano (拉諾拉拉庫火山).
The park says because there weren't enough volunteers (義工) to help put the fire out, around one square kilometer of land (一平方公里的地) has burned down.
Experts are still checking to see how much damage the moai received.
Chile's government says the stones would have expanded in the heat first, and then shrunk as they got cooler.
智利政府表示，這些石像先在高溫時炎熱的時候膨脹，然後在冷卻時收縮。
That means the stone could be cracked (破裂).
Officials think the fire did not start naturally.
The park has been closed so experts can learn more about the damage caused by the fire.
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NASA DART 航天器擊中小行星
NASA's DART Spacecraft Crashed into an Asteroid
Some scientists believe an asteroid caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
一些科學家認為，一顆小行星導致了恐龍的大規模滅絕。
This means that at any moment, an asteroid (小行星) could fly towards our planet, and destroy a large part of Earth!
How could we prevent (防止) this from happening to us?
Scientists and engineers at NASA have thought of a solution.
They could try to shoot the asteroid and change its path.
嘗試射擊小行星並改變其路徑。
That way, it wouldn't be able to reach Earth!
On September 26th, NASA launched a spacecraft to crash into a distant asteroid.
9 月 26 日，NASA發射了一艘宇宙飛船，撞向一顆遙遠的小行星。
The collision (碰撞) is part of NASA's plan to protect Earth from a space rock.
The spacecraft (宇宙飛船) is called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, and the mission cost $325 million US dollars.
They shot DART into a small asteroid called Dimorphos that's about seven million miles away from Earth.
Because Dimorphos is in the orbit (軌道) of a larger asteroid, NASA's team is going to study how the crash affected their path around each other.
This will give them an idea on how to protect our planet from future possible collisions with rocks from outer space.
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So, in today's News Bites:
An international team of researchers has discovered human skeletal remains in Taitung.
The bones belong to a "negrito" woman who lived in Taiwan 6,000 years ago.
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A wildfire burned through the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island.
Nearly 400 moai were burnt, and many might be cracked.
The national park is closed while experts assess the damage.
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And,
Scientists and engineers at NASA launched a spacecraft to crash an asteroid.
It's part of NASA's plan to protect Earth from a mass extinction.
They shot DART into a small asteroid called Dimorphos that's about seven million miles away from Earth.
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And that's today's episode of News Bites!