Return to Transcripts main page

CNN 10

Argentine Submarine Vanishes; Satellite`s Perspective of Our "Breathing Earth"; A Black Friday Report; A Great Big Story: Blind Rock Climber

Aired November 20, 2017 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hi. I`m Carl Azuz. It`s great to have you watching CNN 10 on this Monday, November 20th.

We`ll have two shows this week, today and tomorrow. After that, we`re off to a Thanksgiving holiday until next Monday.

First story is about an international rescue effort at sea. The ARA San Juan is an Argentine submarine. It mysteriously disappeared last Wednesday

as it was travelling from the southernmost tip of Argentina back to its home port in Mar de Plata, which is a couple of hundred miles south of

Buenos Aires.

Argentina`s government said that various military bases had received seven satellite calls that likely came from the San Juan on Saturday. But

yesterday, a top Navy officer said that though the calls are being analyzed, officials don`t have, quote, clear evidence they came from the

San Juan.

The missing sub has 44 crew members aboard. Many of their relatives gathered for mass in a navy base yesterday to pray for the crew`s safe

return.

The San Juan is 213 feet long. It has one electric and four diesel engines. It had traveled through an area known for intense storm. In

fact, heavy winds and waves were hampering the search effort last night. The U.S. and British navies are both helping in that search. Aircraft,

ships, satellite information and a remote underwater vehicle were all involved.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Argentine Navy says San Juan has enough food, water, and oxygen to last for two weeks or more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUBTITLE: NASA has released a dazzling representation of life on Earth 20 years in the making.

The time-lapse animation depicts a "breathing" Earth.

It was created using data compiled from satellites over the last 20 years.

The colors show the annual life cycles of plants, animals and climate patterns.

For example, the color green represents plant life on land.

Light blue represents microscopic organisms in the ocean.

Watch the color patterns change with the seasons.

Another example is the color white, which depicts snow and colder temperatures.

You can see the snow descend during colder months and recede in warmer months.

DR. IVONA CETINIC, OCEANOGRAPHER: It`s this long-term data set that allows us not only to see exactly what`s happening but to be able in a much better

way to predict what`s going to happen.

SUBTITLE: NASA calls the project "the most complete view of global biology to date".

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: If NASA were to track American shopping habits through the seasons, it`d be expecting the whole country to light up in the days ahead.

The traditional holiday shopping season used to start with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and continue up to Christmas. It`s when retail

companies launch sales and shoppers go on the hunt for gifts, lines wrapping around stores, people racing down the aisles, trying to get the

best deals. This was the norm and still is in some places, but with department stores and online retailers constantly changing the dates of

these sales, in many cases, holding them earlier than Thanksgiving, shopping season is now a dynamic event, with no fixed dates.

Safe to say though that by Black Friday, which is this Friday, it`s in full swing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REPORTER: Black Friday sounds kind of scary, and it was. Black Friday first referred to the collapse of the U.S. gold market in 1869. A century

later, Philadelphia police used Black Friday to describe chaos and congestion. Downtown streets were clogged with hoards of shoppers headed

to the big department stores.

Retailers hated the term but then tried to reinvent it. It was the day their profits went from red to black -- so they said.

Black Friday really started catching on in the `80s and `90s pushed by the growth of big box stores.

Today, it`s all about bargains and Black Friday`s dark roots are for the history books.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Kayaking the Colorado River Rapids, summiting Mt. Everest, mountain biking Colorado`s 100-mile Leadville Trail, skydiving solo. Adventurers

take on these challenges all the time. One thing that makes an American named Erik Weihenmayer stand out is that he`s done them all and without the

sense of sight. He explains how he faces those challenges in today`s "Great Big Story".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIK WEIHENMAYER, ROCK CLIMBER: When people say they summit for the view, I think they`re missing a lot of the equation of why we do the things we

do.

The summit honestly is pretty anticlimactic. The movement is for me the most exciting part.

My name is Erik Weihenmayer and I`m the first blind person to have climbed the tallest peak in every continent.

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I was diagnosed with this incredibly rare disease called retinoschisis. It attacked my retinas and essentially

unravel them.

When I finally went blind, it was a weird relief like the worst thing had happened, so there`s nothing else to lose.

There was a recreational group taking blind kids rock climbing and that was it for me. It was sort of the full package of adventure, all the things I

thought I wouldn`t have as a blind person.

UNIDENTIFEID MALE: You need 14 for this pitch.

WEIHENMAYER: Yes, I`m counting them right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

WEIHENMAYER: When I get on to a rock face, I actually feel like I`m in my element. The things that sighted people learn to do with their eyes I`ve

learned to do with my hands. When I`m clipping a bolt to a carabineer, I`m feeling it, I`m making sure it`s correctly clipped and if I fall that that

carabineer is going to hold me.

I can`t look up the rock and see the holds and plan a big route. I can only see as far as my hands. It`s breathtakingly exciting.

Sometimes you hear those cars way down below you in the floor of the canyon. I love that sound of emptiness. A lot of external stuff sort of

disappears and you`re thinking about nothing but that next hold in front of you.

So, it`s very, very meditative, very much kind of like an inner mind sport.

I like that. I think that`s the best pitch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you feel that space like the exposure down there?

WEIHENMAYER: Yes, I mean, especially with these trucks flying by down there, you kind of echoes through the whole canyon and you can hear

everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. What do you say we top out?

WEIHENMAYER: Yes, let`s summit. It`s right up here, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

WEIHENMAYER: OK.

As blind climber, it`s really hard and you just sort of have to embrace that suffering. Blindness is just a thing that happened to me. I think

like all adversities, we got to use them as a catalyst to push you in new directions. It`s the idea of turning bad things into good things, and it`s

something I think we all could use.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Most consecutive forward rolls, longest drum roll, largest cinnamon roll, Guinness has a slew of world records related to rolls. And here`s

another one. This is called contortion roll. And the person doing it is China`s Liu Teng. And because she was able to roll 20 meters, about 65

feet in just over 15-1/2 seconds, she recently the Guinness World Record for fastest time total to roll that distance in a contortion roll.

She was on a roll when she made that honor roll. Maybe that was a bit of a stretch, maybe even a little twisted, but don`t get all bent out of shape

about it. You may be rolling your eyes, but these segments just prove how flexible we are to make the linguistic contortions that shape up our puns.

I`m Carl Azuz for CNN 10.

END