BBC marks ABBA’s Eurovision win

To celebrate 50 years since ABBA’s Eurovision victory, the BBC will air a series of specials across BBC Two, Radio 2, BBC Sounds, and BBC iPlayer in April.

The programming includes a documentary, When ABBA Came to Britain, featuring rare interviews, performances, and news footage from their time in the UK. More ABBA at the BBC will also be part of the evening’s specials. Additionally, Radio 2 will present Eras: ABBA, a podcast series detailing the band’s history in four chapters, and will host a vote to determine the Ultimate ABBA Song.

Terminator Zero showrunner on anime’s appeal

Mattson Tomlin, showrunner for Netflix’s anime series Terminator Zero, says the series attracted top voice talent like Timothy Olyphant and Rosario Dawson due to its engaging post-apocalyptic narrative. The show explores two timelines in Japan: the rise of Skynet in 1997 and the remnants of human resistance in 2022.

He believes animation allow for a richer, more complex story while managing budget constraints. The series aims to honour the franchise’s legacy while exploring new thematic grounds.

Time’s 2024 Kid of the Year

Heman Bekele has been named TIME’s Kid of the Year for 2024. The 15-year-old has come up with an idea for a soap that could help treat skin cancer, and he is working with scientists to test his idea.

Heman, whose family came to the US from Ethiopia when he was four, read about a medicine called “imiquimod” that can help fight skin cancer. So, he thought about creating a soap that contained the medicine inside super tiny “nanoparticles” that could stick to the skin and deliver the imiquimod after the soap had washed off.

Last year, when he was 14, Heman created a video explaining his idea, and used it to enter the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. He won the contest and the $25,000 prize. The 3M Young Scientist Challenge also pairs students with older, more experienced “mentor” scientists to guide them. Heman, now a 10th grade student, is working with Vito Rebecca, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University, and are running tests to see if the soap helps mice with skin cancer. It will take a long time and a lot of effort to develop his soap.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 28th, 2024