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This is a serious engine.
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In terms of horse power, you're looking at about 12 million
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and four of these things put together would generate about 2 million pounds of thrust.
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It's not new. NASA's RS-25 rocket engine has been around since the 1970s.
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It's powered dozens of space shuttle missions.
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But NASA is testing it again,
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in the hopes that it will power future manned rocket missions to places like Mars.
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Hi. I’m Carl Azuz. Welcome to the show.
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We are one day after another Super Tuesday of sorts
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in the U.S. presidential nomination process.
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Voters in five states went to the polls yesterday to pick the Democrat and the Republican
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that they want to appear on a presidential ballot this November.
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The latest results from yesterday’s contest are at CNN.com.
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There can be only one candidate from each party on the presidential ballot.
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Each time a candidate wins a state,
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he or she wins a certain number of delegates from that state.
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The first candidate to reach a specific number of delegates overall would win the party’s nomination.
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That’s made official at the national conventions over the summer.
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But what if no one wins enough delegates to clench a party’s nomination?
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With several candidates in the race on the Republican side,
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this is a possibility.
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And it could trigger something unique in American politics, a brokered convention.
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What is a brokered convention?
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As the primary fight continues to heat up,
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we keep hearing people talk about the possibility of a GOP brokered convention.
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The idea of a brokered convention.
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That’s what we talk about with the brokered convention.
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And if you do have a brokered convention.
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But what exactly is it?
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A brokered convention happens when no candidate has a majority
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of the delegates needed to secure the nomination.
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The Republican candidate needs 1,237 to win the nomination.
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What happens at a brokered convention?
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First, during the Republican National Convention, a delegate vote is taken.
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This is called the first ballot.
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And if no candidate has the number of delegates needed,
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the convention is considered brokered and things start to get a bit more complicated.
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Once the convention is brokered,
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the delegates are longer tied to their original candidate
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and are free to vote for whomever they want and all bets are off.
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This is when serious wheeling and dealing takes place.
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Delegates can be persuaded to change their vote,
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and the candidate who originally have the most delegates
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may lose support and can suddenly be cast aside.
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The voting keeps on going until a candidate wins the designated number of delegates,
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and this can take some time like it did in 1880.
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The 1880 reference is also similar in that you had 14 guys running in that primary,
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14, just like this one.
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And the frontrunners, there were three frontrunners going into this,
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they went through 35 ballots, 35.
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And then two of the frontrunners ended up throwing their support behind a guy
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who wasn’t even running, Garfield.
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Garfield became the dark horse, or an unexpected winner,
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and this is what some people have been talking about when it comes to Mitt Romney.
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It’s likely Trump is going to be the nominee,
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but then we might have a brokered convention if he’s not.
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And that’s clearly the scenario that Romney prefers,
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which would of course, blow everything wide open.
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So, will it come down to a brokered convention?
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It’s rare. The last GOP brokered convention was back in 1948.
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But for now, the race for delegates is on.
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Here we go now with three of the schools
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that have made request to be part of the CNN STUDENT NEWS "Roll Call".
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Instituto San Robert is first up.
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Great to see everyone watching in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
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To the U.S. east coast, where we’re looking up to the Hawks.
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Mount Holly Middle School is in Mount Holly, North Carolina.
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And in the northern state of Wisconsin, we’ve got the Raiders online.
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Medford Area Middle School is in Medford.
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Another political headline today:
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the Obama administration has reversed its decision to allow oil drilling on the Atlantic coast.
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The background here:
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the U.S. government estimates there are billions of barrels of crude oil
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and trillions of cubic feet in natural gas on the Atlantic Ocean’s outer continental shelf.
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Last year, the Obama administration said that for the first time,
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it would allow companies to search for oil in offshore areas east of Virginia,
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down to Georgia.
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Drilling there was supported by oil companies,
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as well as lawmakers and governors who said it would create new jobs in the region.
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Environmental groups, as well as dozens of cities and towns
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on the East Coast opposed the decision.
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Yesterday, the administration changed course
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and said it would not allow offshore drillings in these areas.
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It cited the local opposition, the current oil market
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and the potential conflicts with other ocean uses as reasons for its decision.
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The U.S. interior secretary said this would protect the Atlantic for future generations.
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But the American Petroleum Institute said the decision was out of line
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with what U.S. voters want and that it shuts the door on new jobs
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and would increase energy costs for Americans.
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For the first time, the National Football League is publicly acknowledging
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that there’s a connection between the sport and brain disease.
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Yesterday, during a discussion with the U.S. House of Representatives,
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an NFL official was asked if he thought there was a link
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between football and degenerative brain disorders like chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE.
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His answer: certainly yes.
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Previously, the league had avoided saying there was a link,
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partly because it said it was waiting on more brain studies to be done.
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But now, after evidence that several former NFL players had CTE,
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the league is clearly stating that a link is there.
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There’s no cure for CTE
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and another problem is the disease can’t official be diagnosed
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until after a player has died and scientists can examine his brain.
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NFL football is more popular than ever.
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Ratings are high. Revenues are in the billions.
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The NFL says it’s continuing to improve equipment and make changes to the game
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to better protect its players.
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It remains to be seen if acknowledging the risks of the sport
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will affect athlete’s decision to play in the future.
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Charlotte Brown is a college athlete.
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Like a lot of competitors, she’s played injured.
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She’s played with broken bones.
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And she hasn’t let the fact that she’s legally blind prevent her from
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taking on one of the most difficult sports in track and field.
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She started by counting her steps and her follow-through is why’s she’s today’s character study.
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When you watch Charlotte Brown, it’s hard to believe she can’t see.
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She does live so seamlessly that often people don’t know she’s blind.
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The Purdue University freshman developed cataracts in both eyes
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at 16 weeks old and had surgery to remove them.
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I can see colors and I can see shapes and people.
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But I will always read large print and I can never see really well.
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In sixth grade, Charlotte’s vision got worse, and she was declared legally blind.
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We just kind of hiccupped over it.
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My parents, they never said, can you do that?
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It’s just how are you going to do that?
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A question they asked when she wanted to pole vault on seventh grade.
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No one on my team was doing it and it seemed dangerous.
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And I was like, ah, I wanted to do something dangerous.
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Charlotte and her coaches came up with a strategy.
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She places a beeper above the box where plants her pole and then counts the steps on her approach.
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I have very sensitive hearing.
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So, essentially, when I vault, I really don’t hear anything except for the beeper.
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In her senior year, Charlotte won bronze at the Texas state high school championships.
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I had a lot of kids come up to me and just think you’re the world.
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That’s really cool, just to know what you’re doing is going to have an impact on them.
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Now in college, the 18-year-old says the sky is the limit.
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I’m scared of a lot of things, I just chose to do it anyway.
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You just have to stare fear in the face and you just have to smile even if you can’t see it.
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
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If you’ve ever wanted to come to the CNN Center and hang out with me in person,
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asking whatever you want -- check it.
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Now you can. The CNN STUDENT NEWS Tour with Carl Azuz is live and filling up quickly.
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It’s an in-depth journalism-focused tour specifically built around our show.
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Walk-ups are not accepted. You do need to a reservation.
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So, to get more info, click the banner on the right side of our home page at CNNStudentNews.com,
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or email atltour@cnn.com.
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Hope to see you soon at the CNN studios in Atlanta.
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Finally today, ants -- the insects, not your mom’s sister.
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They’re strong, capable of lifting more than 100 times their own weight
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and banding together to drag relatively massive objects, like this unfortunate millipede.
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Well, researchers at Stanford University are trying to use micro-robots
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to mimic the super strong team work of ants.
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Working alone, they can move objects more than 2,000 times their own weight.
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Working together, they can move a car.
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This is three-and-a-half ounces of robots slowly moving 3,900 pounds of vehicle.
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A truly gargantuan feat though it moves at an almost stagnant pace.
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Of course, you could drive faster results by using a crank,
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but at 20 bucks a pop, the robots are ant that expensive.
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So, it’s really hard to say winch is better.
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We hope you’ll pull together to join us again tomorrow.