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There are many theories about what happened to a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, but confirmed information is hard to come by.
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We`ll tell you what we know today on CNN STUDENT NEWS.
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It`s been 13 days since the flight with 239 people aboard vanished over Southeast Asia.
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There are 26 countries involved in the search.
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The area is almost 3 million square miles from Eastern Europe to the Southern Indian Ocean.
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It even extends to the pilot`s house. A flight simulator was there,
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and yesterday, Malaysian officials said some files have been deleted from its hard drive.
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Investigators are trying to recover those to see if they hold any clues, though it could be just another dead end.
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U.S. officials say the aircraft`s most likely location is the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
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The big complete area is still enormous.
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You are still talking about an area around the size of the United States.
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But the area they are focused on most today is about the size of Arizona.
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Remember, we`ve talked about these two arcs out here, the northern and southern arcs.
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This is along the southern arcs.
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And they are specifically focused on this area about 1400 miles or so away from the West Coast of Australia.
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This is a moving target, by the way.
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This was bigger yesterday.
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You put it on the floor now.
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And it was a little bit further to the West, but because of drifting patterns and things like that,
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they adjusted with the hours.
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This is all based on something from mathematics called Bayesian theory, which is basically saying,
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as all of your parameters change hour to hour, day to day in a search, you adjust the probability of where you will find it.
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And now that equation has led them to focus most on this area.
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And one of the reasons we know they are focusing on it so far or so hard right now, is this, this airplane.
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This is the P8 Poseidon, it`s made by the Navy, or the Navy has them out there.
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This is the result of a $35 billion program.
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Each plane costs around a quarter billion dollars.
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And many people consider this the most effective sub-hunting plane in the world now because when it looks down at all this water,
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which you and I would look at with our eyes, we would see sunlight glinting off,
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and making it hard for us to see things.
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And we might see white caps. And all sorts of things that make it visually hard to see something.
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It uses radar to scan many, many, many miles of this.
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Thousands in a day to spot even little tiny items.
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So, the fact that this plane, this quarter billion dollar plane has been moved down to search that specific area,
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shows you that their sense of probability that it could be one of the more important search areas has reason substantially.
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It doesn`t mean they are going to find anything, but it means they think they might fight debris on the surface.
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But remember, even if you find something on the surface,
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even if all the calculations by NTSB and everybody else says it should be down here somewhere,
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if you find something, the bigger challenge lies ahead,
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because this plane vanished over about 200 feet of water.
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But if you fly into this part of the Indian Ocean,
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and you keep going down below the surface,
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look what you get - you get the kind of topography that you would get on the surface.
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A geography of hills and ridges and valleys and all sorts of places where that pinger that they might search for could be difficult to locate.
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The families of the missing are in anguish.
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They are frustrated with the lack of search progress.
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Some accused the Malaysian government of withholding information.
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There is some technology that was launched too late to help with this incident.
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But astronaut Chris Hadfield describes how it could help in the future.
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Five weeks ago, the space station released 28 little tiny satellite cameras that are now orbiting the world.
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They are about the size of a long skinny shoebox.
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And each of them goes around the world every 90 minutes,
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and they can see things down maybe to about the size of a car.
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The beauty of those will be, they will take a picture of basically every second,
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and you go five miles a second.
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So, every five miles they will take a picture of the world and continuously stream that information back to us,
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giving us a look at the planet like we`ve never before.
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Time for the Shoutout. What`s the world`s oldest currency still in use?
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Is it, the British pound, Indian rupee, Japanese yen, or Swiss franc? You`ve got three seconds, go!
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The British pound was established more than 1,000 years ago when Anglo- Saxon kingdoms began using sterlings or silver currency.
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That`s your answer and that`s your Shoutout.
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There`s a new pound in town, at least there will be in 2017, and here it is.
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There`s a new pound in town, at least there will be in 2017, and here it is.
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12 sides, two metals, two tone.
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The United Kingdom made the change in hopes of confounding counterfeiters.
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This is supposed to be the world`s most secure coin.
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Britain`s Royal Mint estimates that three percent of the pound coins currently in circulation are fakes.
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That would total out to about 46 million pounds or $76 million. Making the new coin will cost the country.
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New machinery will be needs.
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And wending machine operator will have to alter their machines to accept the new coin.
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And that will cost them.
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But one expert says, it`s also wending machines that tend to be ripped off the most by fakes.
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The current pound coin was introduced 30 years ago. At today`s exchange rate it`s worth about a $1.66.
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Now, if converting currency or doing any kind of math for that matter really, really bothers you,
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it just might be in your genes.
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As in genetics.
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A new study out of Ohio State University looked at people`s anxiety levels when it comes to math.
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It found that the genetics aren`t the main reason why some people dread numbers or angles or solving for X.
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But it may account for 40 percent of the reason.
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That if your parents or your siblings struggle with math, you might two.
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Other reasons for math anxiety may be even bigger reasons include environment.
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So, if you don`t get enough support at school, for example it may make you anxious.
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And if others in your family get that way about math, it could make the problem worth.
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Why does this matter if you`ve still got to learn and then do math?
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Researchers say that the more aware educators are about students anxiety, the more prepared they`ll be to tailor their lesson plans to help.
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There`s plenty of math in figure skating from the triple axels and quad touloups (ph) we saw in the Sochi Olympics to angular momentum and vertical velocity.
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Physics, that`s factored in to those jumps.
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But there`s a broader reason why Sharon Cohen is getting young people involved.
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She`s working to help a group of girls in Harlem, on and off the ice.
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She`s a CNN Hero and a woman improving other women`s life this women`s history month.
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I love the crispy feeling of the air.
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The sound of my skate crunching on the ice.
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Skating relieves me from everything.
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I just want to fly, I just don`t want to stop.
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I heard that there were some girls who wanted to figure skate in Harlem.
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Growing up I was a competitive figure skater and I knew that skating was not a diverse sport.
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There was not access for kids in low-income communities.
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They were so eager to get started I began teaching them and it was really inspiring to me.
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Now, we serve over 200 girls a year.
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Wow! Look at those spins! You did it!
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The best part about skating is that it gives you qualities that you use for the rest of your life.
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They gain discipline, perseverance.
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Step, cross. Step, cross. Excellent, girls.
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They fall down and they get back up and they learn they can do that in anything.
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It`s a building block. Skating is the hook, but education comes first.
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Is that how you spell when? Oh.
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Before they even get on the ice, they have to get their homework done, they get tutoring. The minimum of three afternoons a week.
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So that`ll be Z minus 12.
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Algebra was not my best subject and I failed it. Ms. Sharon hired a special tutor for me that felt like, hey, you have to get back up.
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It was that simple? Now, I`m doing way better in school.
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Ladies and gentlemen, Harlem Ice.
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We want girls to believe and know they can do anything they put their hearts and minds to.
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It`s not all about skating. Miss Sharon is teaching us to be the best we can be in life.
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We are headed west for today`s CNN STUDENT NEWS roll call like really far west.
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In the Pacific state of Hawaii, we`ve got the bulldogs on today`s roll.
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They are watching from Le Jardin Academy in Kailua (ph).
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Back in the continent, hello to Roosevelt Junior High School in Roosevelt, Utah.
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That`s Roosevelt isn`t teddy because these are the rough writers.
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And one state south, it`s all about the bears and grizzlies.
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They are online in Shonto Preparatory Middle and High School in Shonto, Arizona ...
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Probably, you can`t get college credit for this, especially from the professors who wrote some of these books.
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But a group of students in Poland did get a Guinness world record for knocking them down like dominoes.
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They lined up 4998 books, don`t know why they didn`t just go for an even 5,000,
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but with one quick tip they toppled the previous record of 4845 books.
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And earned themselves a place in the record.
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Book. Might not be the most productive chapter in their lives, but the experiment didn`t put them in a bind,
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it fell together nicely, it moved at a steady page.
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They were domino problems, even though they had a lot of ground to cover.
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I can read your thoughts from here. We`ve reached the tipping point with these puns.
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I can read your thoughts from here.
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So, we`ll close the book on today`s show and hope you`ll book ten minutes with us again on Friday.