(upbeat music) - [Gabriel] Coming up next on "News Depth".

Penny for your thoughts on coins?

Plow drivers are working long days and hours thanks to the latest round of snow.

Clevelander Garrett Morgan holds a big spot in Ohio inventor history, and Jeff tells us about our early human ancestor, Lucy.

"News Depth" is now.

(upbeat music) President Donald Trump is out to change the U.S. penny.

Hello everybody, I'm Gabriel Kramer.

Thank you for joining us.

We all know the saying, find a penny, pick it up.

But soon you might not be able to find pennies anywhere.

The president has instructed the US Treasury to stop minting new 1 cent coins.

As he says, it costs more to make them than they're actually worth.

Minting is the action of stamping onto metals to make coins.

Marybel Gonzalez spoke to experts of how this could help or hurt your pockets.

- [Marybel] Two sides of the same coin.

- We need the penny.

- You see him lying on the sidewalk.

People don't even pick them up.

- [Marybel] A debate after President Donald Trump ordered the US Treasury to stop minting new pennies.

Describing it as quote, wasteful.

- I've been advocating this for oh, about a decade and a half.

- [Marybel] Economics Professor Robert Waples points to the cost of production.

According to the latest annual report from the US Mint, it costs 3.70 cents to make a penny and 13.80 cents to make a nickel.

- We taxpayers lose money every time that we, you know, produce extra pennies.

The problem is on us because when we get change, we don't bring it back to the store.

- [Marybel] Instead, Waples proposes a system of rounding up to the nearest nickel.

- It's $2 and 1 cent, it gets round to two.

If it's $1.99, it gets round to two.

And those two things basically canceled out in the thousands and thousands of transactions that occur.

- [Marybel] But penny advocates like Mark Weller from Americans for Common Sense, disagree.

- There's billions of transactions that take place under $25 and those are mostly made in cash.

And so you're gonna have a rounding tax on the people that can least afford it.

- [Marybel] Weller says, phasing out the 1 cent coin could cost us a pretty penny.

- The penny does cost a little bit more than its face value, but the nickel cost 14 cents right now.

So how are you gonna save money if you start making more nickels that are costing more money?

- Thank you, Marybel.

And that brings us to our poll for the week.

What do you think?

Should we get rid of pennies?

Jump over to our poll page to vote.

Students can choose between, yes, we should get rid of pennies or no, we should keep the pennies.

Last week our intern Aiden gave us the highlights from Super Bowl 59, and we asked you if you watch a Super Bowl too.

Let's check out the results of the poll.

Wow, 55% of you said you did watch a Super Bowl.

I'm part of that group.

About 25% of you said you watched, but only for the halftime show and another 20% of you said you didn't watch, but still ate plenty of snacks that day.

Thank you all for voting.

Before we get back to the news, I think our buddy News Hound said he had a special Super Bowl related story for us.

Let's catch up with him to see what he found for this week's petting zoo.

(upbeat music) (dog barking) Hi News Houn- Oh, we're too late.

He's already at doggy daycare, but he is a professional.

He surely got his work done ahead of time.

Hey, News Hound, did you find a good petting zoo story this week?

Oh, it's a story about the Puppy Bowl.

I love watching the Puppy Bowl.

- [Announcer] Dan Schachner has worn the stripes as the Puppy Bowl's referee since 2012.

- It is amazing and it's something I'm grateful for all the time.

You know, smooshed swoosh.

Okay, and you disrobed.

So that's actually two penalties for the price of one.

- To hear more from the Puppy Bowl referee, check out the full story on our website or YouTube channel.

Thanks for the story News Hound.

Oh, News Hound.

Before you leave, I want to share this letter we got from my friend Allison from Gilly Suite Elementary in Fairview Park.

Allison had an answer to our writing question from a couple episodes ago.

You know the one about how winter has affected our communities?

She wrote, the recent cold weather has affected my community a lot because not that long ago, we had a two day school week because of MLK Day and then the dangerously cold weather.

Lastly, I wanna say that me and my whole class, and especially Mrs. Rushknock, absolutely love watching News Up every Friday by News Hound rules.

News Hound.

You do rule.

And thank you Allison for writing this letter.

I love getting letters and since you brought it up, how about another cold weather story for you?

After a short thaw, snow and ice are once again in full effect across the country, and that has the Iowa State Department of Transportation plow drivers hard at work to try to clear the roads.

Libby Randal got a firsthand look into the driver's work.

- [Libby] Even if the interstate is void of any cars, Iowa DOT plow drivers will continue to travel back and forth on the roadway to ensure it's clear of snow.

Not only are they working, but they're also looking out for other driver's safety in more ways than one.

- You're just constantly checking your mirrors, checking who's coming up because you're trying to do a job.

Like I said, we're plowing, we're winging, we're turning our material on.

But yes, you always in your mirrors, looking back and forth.

- [Libby] Iowa DOT plow drivers will typically work 12 hour shifts during a snowstorm.

Amid this particular snowfall, there wasn't much they could do in terms of pre-treating the roads.

- It seems like every snow storm's different.

They all got their temperature, you know, wet snow, dry snow, wind.

It just seems every single one's a little bit different.

- [Libby] The winter operations manager says, pre-treating with salt isn't always effective, which is why they plan ahead for each and every snowfall.

- Salt is not as effective when we're down into the single digits.

We still treat with some of it, but it is not as effective.

So there was not probably as much pre-treatment that was going on yesterday.

In preparation for the storm, as we typically like to do.

- [Libby] He says, regardless of weather conditions and roadways, plows are likely driving anywhere from 10 to 30 miles per hour.

- Transportation officials like to remind us motorists to put away our phones when driving, especially through winter weather conditions.

Sometimes the bitter cold can come with something sweet.

In this case, strawberries.

Farmer Tyler Froberg is happy as strawberries not only survived a winter storm under blankets of snow, but thrived, resulting in the fruit to be incredibly sweet.

Using a barometer farmer Tyler found the strawberries had a sugar content of 16%.

Much higher than the typical 8% of store-bought berries.

A barometer is an instrument measuring atmospheric pressure.

Reporter Matt Doherty explains how the cold weather causes the plants to concentrate their sugars resulting in exceptionally sweet fruit.

- I see a really good strawberry right by that blanket there.

- [Matt] Farmer Tyler Froberg takes us on a tour through his family's strawberry patches.

- This flower right here, as long as a bee visited it today, then in 21 days it's gonna be a strawberry.

- [Matt] Do the math.

Two and a half weeks ago we were in the middle of a winter snowstorm.

These are the snow covered strawberry patches of Froberg's farm.

Beneath thick blankets strawberries were ripening, the plant survived and so did most of their fruit.

- This is a frosted strawberry so, or a cold weather berry.

See how it's kind of misformed?

- [Matt] Maybe not the prettiest, but arguably the tastiest and definitely the sweetest.

- As we started trying them we were like, what is going on?

And so we got this little nifty tool out.

This is called a barometer.

It measures, not to sound scientific, it measures dissolved solids in liquids.

In fruit's case it's sugar.

And so a normal grocery store berry, 8% right?

A normal berry out here, 12 to 13%, we got a 16%.

- [Matt] Although it hasn't been confirmed, Tyler says his strawberries are quite possibly the sweetest in the state of Texas.

He explains the scientific process by which the plants consolidate their carbohydrates during the extremely cold temperatures.

The result is sweet.

- So this really cool thing happens.

If you can protect them, you'll get the sweetest fruit that you've ever had, which happened to us.

- [Matt] The pickers who've come out to the farm this week have caught on taking home bucket loads of berries.

- We're still seeing that just overly sweet berry.

- [Matt] At the end of the day, you'll be hard pressed to find a ripe strawberry still standing.

Luckily, these plants are fast producers Tyler says.

These patches of green will be peppered with red once again by tomorrow morning.

- It's a pretty sweet story Matt, thank you so much.

A Wisconsin man was sick of shoveling his driveway in the cold and came up with a unique solution for removing snow.

He designed a remote controlled snowblower.

Kerry Bloedom has a story.

- [Kerry] One man in Minocqua turned a tiresome winter chore into a fun engineering project.

Designing a unique solution that lets him tackle snow removal from his fingertips.

Minocqua resident Ryan Wonka built a remote controlled snowblower.

(blower running) As his plowing rates increased, Ryan decided it was worth the investment to adapt a snowblower that would let him clear his driveway from the comfort of his warm car.

It was the perfect chance to put his engineering skills to work and have fun while doing it.

- I, you know, started a design and I went from there, obviously, as you'll see, took a couple iterations in order to get to what I wanted.

- [Kerry] Ryan's background in engineering and RC car racing sparked the creative idea.

He began experimenting by adapting radio controlled motors to take over the manual functions of his snowblower.

From moving it forward and steering to activating the auger and rotating the snow shoot.

Ryan turned a simple snowblower into a remote controlled powerhouse.

- Yeah, after I got it going, I sat in my car and I'm like, hey, this works.

You know, I just sit up at the end of the driveway or I can sit in the garage or whatever and blow the driveway.

- [Kerry] Every motor Ryan added is carefully enclosed in custom parts he designed and 3D printed himself.

While he loves the thrill of remotely controlling his snowblower, it's the hands on process of building and troubleshooting that drives him.

- You know that there is that potential of it not working and then you get to go back to the drawing board and then when it does work, it's that much higher of a success.

- Super cool.

Thank you Kerry.

Sticking with inventions, one California teenagers invention is the latest tool being used by firefighters.

Since the fifth grade, the young inventor has been working on technology designed to stop wildfires before they spread out of control.

Michele Gile has the details.

- I'm actually very excited because this is our very first deployment.

- [Michele] It's a dream come true for Newport Beach teenager Ryan Honary, who's created an AI driven early wildfire detection system designed to alert firefighters before the flames are spotted by humans.

- And the whole idea of my platform is to be able to detect the fire when it's when it is, or smaller than one foot by one foot.

So the idea is that by the time the firefighters are there to put it out, a human shouldn't have even been able to see it from their house or things like that.

So right here we have the solar panel with this box that has all of the electronics and batteries in it.

Up here we have the infrared camera with the gas, that smoke sensor right below it.

- [Michele] The 17-year-old put his technology to work in Irvine's Quail Hill open space not far from the flashpoint of the destructive 1993 Laguna Beach fire.

It's an invention he's worked on since fifth grade.

- And I was watching the devastating fires that were killing many people and destroying their homes.

And I thought that- - So it would take a picture of that fire, it would detect it from its infrared and maybe even its smoke as well.

And then it would instantly send that information and as a email, text, or push notification to, for example, it might be directed toward the Orange County Fire authority's phones.

- [Michele] Honary partnered with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, which provided $250,000 in funding.

Orange County Fire Authority.

Chief Brian Fennessy is a mentor who says, we are proud and grateful that his technology has the potential to provide our firefighters with real-time data that expedites resource allocation improves firefighting strategy and enhances our mission to protect life and property.

- Way to go, Ryan.

You know, Ohio has been home to a lot of great inventors.

For example, Garrett Morgan from Cleveland created an early version of the traffic signal and the gas mask.

Or Inventor, Earnie Fraze, who dreamed up the pull tab, still popular on beverage cans today.

In today's Know Ohio, Mary provides a look back to what inspired these inventions.

(folk music) - Lemme just take a sip of this flavored water.

(can opening) Well, speaking of inventions, did you know that the pop tab design originated from Earnie Fraze?

A machine tool operator from Dayton, Ohio.

Beverage cans used to require a separate opener to access the beverage.

One day, Fraze forgot his opener and had to use a car bumper to access the beverage.

Fraze decided there had to be an easier way to open the can, and in 1959 he developed a pull tab can.

Much like today's version that allows the user to pull a tab to access the drink.

Years later in 1977, Fraze created a new version where the tab remained attached to the can.

And as you can see, the design is still used on cans today.

Another creative mind, Garrett Morgan developed the concept of the traffic signal after witnessing a crash between a car and a buggy.

In 1923 while living in Cleveland, he applied for a patent for the T-shaped design and sold it to General Electric for $40,000.

But that's not the only thing Morgan invented.

In fact, in 1916 he created a version of the gas mask.

As an African American inventor Morgan faced some resistance among buyers as racial tensions remained high during that time.

When a tunnel collapsed under Lake Erie, Morgan and his brother dawned the safety mask and ventured into the shaft first and saved some of the miners.

Fire departments and mine owners across the country ordered his design and it helped to save countless lives.

It's been almost 100 years since that time, and Garrett Morgan still holds a big spot in Ohio inventor history.

- Thank you Mary.

Another great inventor from Ohio is Shlok, a recent graduate from Chagrin Falls High School and he is this week's A plus award winner.

We recently met with Shlok who was not only interested in careers that involve AI and other technologies in the field of machine learning.

He's already hard at work charting his career path.

Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence and computer science, which focuses on the use of data and algorithms to imitate the way that humans learn.

As an advanced placement student AP for short, Shlok had to do a research project his senior year.

He is very interested in AI, computer science and machine learning, so it only made sense for him to do his project on a topic that he's interested in and that can also help others.

Shlok noticed that over the last few years, the amount of inappropriate language and interactions on social media has been increasing and he wanted to do something about it.

The question he wanted to answer was, can you teach a computer like you can teach a student?

While he was working on this question, he was able to partner with a professor at Indiana University and several PhD students who were studying computer science.

His work led him to develop an app called I2Vibes.

The app is a social networking app that helps you spend time with yourself reflecting on the good things that have happened and lets you be yourself without judgment.

How cool is that?

Shlok has also founded a non-profit organization called Cognitive Harmony, whose goal is to research ways to prevent anxiety and depression in young people by using technology, AI, and machine learning.

This week's A plus award goes to Shlok for not only creating an app and a nonprofit, but for using his research to make the world a better place.

Keep it up Shlok.

We are very impressed with your work.

Now from impressive inventions let's turn to groundbreaking discoveries.

Lucy, one of the most famous fossils was discovered more than 50 years ago in Ethiopia by a team led by Donald Johnson who has Cleveland ties.

The nearly complete skeleton proved that early human ancestors walked upright 3.18 million years ago.

Jeff St. Clair has this brand new spot on science, all about early human adaptations.

- One of the world's most famous fossils was discovered more than 50 years ago.

I'm talking about the bones of an ancient cousin of US modern humans.

Lucy.

Legend has it that the scientist who in 1974 discovered the fossils were listening to a song by The Beatles, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

When someone decided to call the bones Lucy and the name stuck.

Lucy is the nearly complete skeleton of an early human ancestor with the scientific name Australopithecus Apheresis or southern ape from Afar.

Afar is the region of the African country of Ethiopia where Lucy was found.

(electronic music) Lucy has Cleveland connections.

The man who led the team that discovered her, Donald Johansen was head of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Many of the scientists that studied her bones were also from Ohio.

That includes Owen Lovejoy, who 50 years later is still teaching at Kent State University.

- I'm Owen Lovejoy.

I'm a professor of anthropology at Kent State University and I've been teaching here for about 45 to 50 years.

So my entire career has been dedicated to learning about human evolution.

How our ancestors first became human-like, and how they progressed over time and how social life has changed as a consequence of all the things that they did and that their descendants did and that their descendants did.

And over the last a hundred, 150 years, we've been collecting fossils of ancient humanlike animals that were our ancestors.

And it now stretches back to over 5 million years.

And when you go back 5 million years, obviously our ancestors look very different than we do now.

But with this fossil record, you can trace all the changes that have taken place during that 5 million years.

And our job is to explain why those changes took place.

- The scientists studying Lucy used sophisticated tests to determine that her bones were 3.18 million years old.

Now that's old.

Now at the time, Lucy was the oldest known human ancestor and provided proof that people had been walking upright for a long time.

- So when Don Johanson found that little knee joint in 1973, he brought it to me and that's when we diagnosed the fact that it was from a complete up upright walking biped.

And as you know, Lucy was 3.2 million years ago, and so humans have been walking upright like we do right now for at least 3 million years.

- Lucy would've stood around three and a half feet tall and weighed around 65 pounds.

Lucy from the neck down her knees, legs, and feet were not that much different than ours, but Lucy's skull was very different.

Her skull was shaped more like a chimpanzee.

With no forehead and a jutting upper jaw.

And Lucy's brain was more ape-like than human too, according to researchers.

But scientists believe Lucy was more human in other ways, especially her upright walking.

Scientists like Owen Lovejoy believed that this change from living in trees to walking on the ground allowed our ancestors the freedom to use our hands and arms in new ways.

Lucy and her kin could carry things.

Unlike tree dwelling apes, upright human ancestors could carry food and their babies from camp to camp.

They could also carry sticks or stone tools, things that allowed humans to survive in a very hostile world 3 million years ago.

- For persons of her species, life was two major things.

Finding food and avoiding predators.

And the way they did that was to cooperate with one another.

- It turns out that what really made us human years ago wasn't our big brains.

It was our hands and feet.

- Thanks Jeff.

More fossils for you.

A stomach turning and mind blowing fossil has been found.

Paleontologists and fossil experts are known for digging up starling discoveries, but recent remains in Denmark are most definitely not your average fossil find.

They found vomit that they believed to have come up from a Cretaceous area dinosaur.

The Cretaceous period is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago.

Jeremy Roth explains - [Jeremy] A rare and bizarre fossil find making headlines from Denmark is as stomach turning as it is mind blowing.

What you're seeing here, according to the country's geomuseum, Faxe is 66 million year old fossilized vomit.

It was discovered by amateur paleontologist and self-described fossil nerd Peter Bennicke while walking along a cliff lined coastal region.

The find was later examined by experts who said it's believed to contain at least two species of lily plants likely eaten, then barfed up on the beach by a Cretaceous era creature.

It may be hard to stomach, but believe it or not, experts say disgusting discoveries like these provide important new knowledge about the relationship between predators and prey and ancient food chains.

- Thank you, Jeremy, for our Write To Us this week.

No, this is a fun one.

We want to hear your theories about what happened.

What do you think made that dinosaur sick?

Students can use our inbox form online or send us an email to newsdepth@ideastream.org.

Last episode, we visited the first ever black-owned shipyard in the country and we asked you why you thought history is important and worth preserving.

Let's see what you had to say by opening our inbox.

Noel from Avon Heritage Elementary in Avon starts us off with Dear News Depth, the preservation of history is important because it helps us understand our past.

It helps us grow our identity.

We can learn from the past mistakes and successes.

It helps us pass down traditions and in making decisions.

If we don't preserve our history, we could lose important knowledge and lessons and artifacts.

Good job Noel.

Jack from Harding Middle School in Lakewood thinks we can always learn from history.

Preservation of history is very important for many reasons.

One of the biggest reasons is that people should know where their culture is coming from.

Another reason is because preserving history could also be a good thing for us because we use a lot of systems from earlier in the 1900, today.

Ellie from Parkside Elementary in Concord says that studying history should be taken very seriously.

Dear News Depth, history helps us understand change and how the society we live in came to be.

The second reason history is inescapable as a subject of serious study.

History is full of transitions that have altered the world's story.

Owen from Wycliffe campus in Wycliffe thinks that history made us who we are today.

Dear News Depth, I think history is important because without it, we will not know where we come from and how things work.

I also think history is important because I would not have a really awesome class to learn it.

And Carmelita from Middle Branch Elementary in Canton thinks that knowing history can make you a better student.

Dear News Depth.

I think history is important because it can help you in case you have to write an essay about someone in the past and you don't know anything about it, then it would be hard.

I speak from experience.

Thank you all for writing.

I think we have a lot to learn from history and from each other.

Well, that is a wrap for this episode of News Depth.

But before I leave, I wanted to share another letter we received from Stephanie from Austinburg Elementary in Geneva.

She wanted to give a shout out to her teacher, Mrs. Kozsey.

Mrs. Kozsey, you're funny, nice, and I enjoyed telling you all of my stories.

Thank you Stephanie and Mrs. Kozsey for watching and for the letter.

And if any of you have any stories you'd like to share with us, there are plenty of ways for you to stay in touch with us.

You can send a letter.

We're at 1375 Euclid Avenue.

That's Cleveland, Ohio.

Zip code here, 44115.

And you can email us at NewsDepth@ideastream.org.

Plus you can catch all of our special segments on YouTube.

Hit subscribe if you're old enough so you don't miss out on any of our new videos.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Gabriel Kramer, and we'll see you right back here next week.

(rock music) - [Child] News Depth is made possible by grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.

(modern theme)