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At least 51 people have been killed after torrential rain caused flash floods in southern and eastern Spain, although the exact number remains unclear.
London Korean Film Festival: Director of cult classic Save The Green Planet on AI of the future.
Plus, China’s youngest astronauts reach space
Here’s a fully automated transcript:
Hey, it's Rachelle Abbott, and you're listening to The Standard's Tech and Science Daily podcast.
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Coming up, director of cult classic Save The Green Planet on AI of the Future.
But first, authorities say at least 51 people have been killed after torrential rain caused flash floods in southern and eastern Spain.
Although, the regional president of eastern Valencia has said it's still too early to give an exact figure, and many people are still missing. Rescue efforts remain underway.
Footage uploaded to social media shows floodwaters causing chaos, knocking down bridges and dragging cars through the streets.
Spain's National Weather Service is forecasting storms to continue through until Thursday.
The country has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years, and scientists say increased episodes of extreme weather are likely linked to climate change.
Now, the 19th edition of the London Korean Film Festival, organised by the Korean Cultural Centre UK, kicks off on November 1st and runs until the 13th.
Tech and Science Daily have been speaking to Jang Joon-hwan, the director of Cult Classic and featured title in this year's festival, Save The Green Planet.
For this interview, we have a translator, Seh Rho.
This film is about a young man called Lee Byeong-gu, who believes that the CEO of the company he used to work for is an alien, so kidnaps him, and the stories that unfold from there, and it's about the character Lee Byeong-gu.
This film has numerous elements combined together to make the story, but also cinematically as well.
For example, there is a range of genres that are combined, including action, thriller, comedy, melodrama, science fiction, and horror.
However, they're combined in a way that it comes together to make one story, which I feel is quite unique, although it is a bit embarrassing for me to call my own film unique.
The festival is supported by the Korean Film Council as part of the Connect Korea campaign, which promotes Korean arts and culture across the UK.
We asked him how he feels about representation of Korean cinema globally, and if he thinks it should be improved.
I think it's great that so many Korean films are being shown in the UK.
Recent examples include Parasite and there's also Squid Game as well.
So of course, more Korean films being introduced and loved by international audiences abroad is something that I as a Korean filmmaker very much support and very much applaud.
When you look at Korean history, ever since escaping from Japanese colonialism, there's been rapid advancement and growth in a very short space of time.
And during this time, there have been huge conflicts, many challenges and difficulties, as well as consequent emotional reactions that I think become dynamically reflected into Korean cinema and films.
There is a phrase that art is a mirror to society.
And I think that's true with the case of Korean society, with its dynamic history, the events or the incidents or the consequent emotional turmoil that comes through in our arts, including Korean cinema.
Which is why I suspect that Korean films leave such a striking impression to many international fans.
And he told us his thoughts on AI in cinema currently, and how he thinks it will be used in the future.
So recently, I believe the Hollywood writers' strikes were also related to this question of AI.
So I really do sense that this is no longer the domain of imagination, but it's entered now our realm of reality.
When looking at the visual images generated by the AI computer Sora, it's very surprising to see what it can generate.
And with these changes that are happening in the world, I think it's the creator's role to accept new technologies, imagine different types of stories, and be able to effectively communicate these new stories that we can create.
So rather than it only coming with negative aspects, I think we can also create opportunities where there will also be positive aspects to using this technology.
I sometimes imagine maybe in the future, there will come a time where rather than using our five different senses to receive stories.
Maybe in the future, we will be telling the stories more directly, neuron to neuron, and share various creative mediums in this way.
Now, China says it has successfully launched a new three-person crew to its space station as it expands its space program.
And they're the youngest astronauts that have been sent to its orbiting outpost.
The crew, consisting of two men and only the country's third female astronaut, launched aboard the Shenzhou-19 spaceship at 4:27 a.m. Beijing time and after a six-hour journey docked safely.
They will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months and are expected to stay until April or May of next year.
Let's go to the ads.
Coming up, Woody the dog, saving puffins on Rathlin Island.
We'll see you back here in just a minute.
Welcome back.
The UK's leading dental surgeons are urging parents to cut sweets this Halloween.
In a list of tips from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, they suggest swapping sweets for stickers or play dough, buying a new toothbrush and to use fluoride toothpaste before bed if sweets are consumed, to name a few.
They've also reminded the public that tooth decay is the leading cause for hospital emissions among children.
According to NHS England data, in 2023-24, some 19,381 children aged 5-9 in England were admitted to hospital because of tooth decay.
Next, have you heard of Rathlin Island off the coast of Northern Ireland?
If not, it's around 6 miles long and 1 mile wide, and is well known for its puffins and other seabirds, who breed on the island every year in their thousands.
However, they've been attacked by ferrets and rats.
Puffins, for example, they burrow underground.
They kind of dig a bit like, almost like a rabbit, they use these claws on the end of their feet.
And they'll dig a burrow underground that can be a meter long, and have their chick at the end of it.
And that's great when you're protecting it from, you know, other birds or something like that on an island.
But as soon as you get a rat or a ferret that is designed to go underground and hunt, then they're kind of literal sitting ducks.
And it's really sad, there's one ferret that got into the puffin colony, and in a day and a half, two days, it killed 27 puffins.
That's Anna Feeney, LIFE Raft communications and volunteer manager.
Ferrets were introduced to the island in the 1980s to help control the rabbit population.
The project is now protecting the seabird populations with the help of Woody, the detection dog.
So what he does, he actually smells the scat.
He runs around the island of the team, and is trained, when he smells a ferret scat, to stop, which is very unusual for Woody.
And then the team actually know they need to go in there with traps or trail cameras, and then they take it from there.
Woody's job is to help us find the last ferrets, but he'll soon be retrained onto the rats as well, so he'll be able to find the last rats on the island too.
And he even wears a very stylish pair of goggles to protect his eyes from brambles while he's on job.
It's hoped the island can declare itself fully ferret and rat-free sometime in 2025.
And finally, ByteDance co-founder, Zhang Yiming has become China's richest man.
The company is behind TikTok, which has become one of the most popular social media sites across the world.
And despite Zhang stepping down from his role in 2021, a rich list produced by the Hurun Research Institute, reveals that he is now worth a whopping $49.3 billion.
Only 30% of people on the list had an increase in their net worth, with the rest facing a decline.
You're up to date, come back at 4pm for The Standard Podcast.
For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk.
This podcast is back tomorrow, see you then.
