podcast
CNN 5 Good Things
How about a break — for your ears? At CNN, we know the news can be a lot to take in. So each week, 5 Good Things offers you a respite from the heavy headlines and intense news cycle. Treat yourself to something fun and uplifting every Saturday as we share the bright side of life from all over the globe.
The 8-Year-Old Behind Artemis II’s Moon Mascot
CNN 5 Good Things
Apr 4, 2026
She once worked at this hospital as a janitor – now she’s returning for her residency. The Artemis II mission is historic – hear how an 8-year-old became a part of it. Scientists are seeing a phenomenon for the first time in the wild, and it’s offering new clues about how species can adapt to climate change. A major study examines the role spirituality and religion play in addiction recovery. And a high school freshman made it onto the ballot in this state’s gubernatorial race.
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Host/Producer: Krista Bo Polanco
Producer: Eryn Mathewson
Senior Producer: Matt Martinez
Showrunner: Felicia Patinkin
Editorial Support: Amanda Swinhart, Giana Asterito
Episode Transcript
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:00
Hey there, happy Easter and happy Passover to those who celebrate. I'm Krista Bo Polanco and this is CNN 5 Good Things.
Dr. Howard Koh
00:00:08
In public health, we often talk about the leading causes of death. That's really important. But can we complement that discussion with another discussion on the leading cause of life?
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:18
New research examining half a million people suggests a powerful factor that can help people recover from addiction. Plus...
Lucas Ye
00:00:25
I was super lucky to get chosen. Like this is actually gonna go thousands of miles away from earth.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:35
'An eight-year-old's imagination is hitching a ride to the moon. Later on, a hopeful sign in the fight against climate change is blooming in California, and over on the East Coast...
Dean Roy
00:00:44
I kind of just looked up what the age limit was to run for governor. I figured out that there are none.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:49
This gubernatorial candidate can't even vote yet, but he's on the ballot anyway. When we come back...
Shay Allen Taylor
00:00:54
I never thought in a million years that I would do this.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:00:58
Proof that where you begin doesn't decide where you end up.
Group cheers
00:01:07
One, two, one, go! I'm going to Yale!
Krista Bo Polanco
00:01:14
That's the sound of a dream coming true. Shay Allen Taylor matched for her residency at her top choice, Yale New Haven Hospital. It's not only the hospital where she was born, but it's also the place where she worked as a janitor for 10 years.
Shay Allen Taylor
00:01:27
I definitely did not know that this was my destiny. When I started the job as a janitor, I only wanted to make some money for me and my family. I never thought in a million years that I would do this.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:01:39
'Shea started working full time at the hospital fresh out of high school at 18- years-old, eventually juggling that job full time while going to college at Southern Connecticut State University.
Shay Allen Taylor
00:01:49
I didn't know what I wanted to do for a while. It wasn't until my sophomore year of college that I was like, okay, I can obviously see myself doing this because my mom got sick and she was dealing with healthcare disparities.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:02:00
She says when her mom got sick, she took her to Yale New Haven Hospital a bunch of times to try to find out what was wrong with her. But she says her mother's symptoms were dismissed as mental illness. That is, until Shay reached out to the CEO of the hospital for help. She says they found out her mom had vocal cord dysfunction.
Shay Allen Taylor
00:02:15
I got to see my CEO advocate for my mom, and I got to see that firsthand, and I knew I wanted to do that for other patients. Always speak up.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:02:22
Seeing what her mom went through inspired her to become a doctor, but the road to get there was a little bumpy. She was initially rejected from more than 20 medical schools she applied to. But with the help from her mentor at Yale School of Medicine, she eventually got into Howard University College of Medicine and started classes in 2021. Now she's headed back to Yale New Haven Hospital this summer, ditching the mop and picking up a stethoscope to become an anesthesiologist.
Shay Allen Taylor
00:02:46
I show that the sky is the limit as cliche as it sounds and being in this country I continuously show that if you put in the hard work you can definitely do it and it's not where you start it's always where you finish and just keep going no matter what losses you take.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:03:03
For the first time in more than 50 years, four astronauts are heading back to the moon on NASA's Artemis II mission, going farther into space than any human has gone before.
Announcer
00:03:14
3, 2, 1. Booster ignition and liftoff Artemis II!
Lucas Ye
00:03:24
It was really cool. This is actually gonna go thousands miles away from Earth.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:03:32
'That's Lucas Ye, the eight-year-old from Mountain View, California, didn't just watch history take place this week, he's a part of it. Out of more than 2,600 submissions from over 50 countries, the third-grader won NASA's zero gravity indicator contest with his adorable design named RISE. You've got to see this, we've linked pictures in the episode description.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:03:52
Artemis II's mascot is a small smiling moon wearing an earth baseball cap that'll float around the cabin as the crew's visual cue that they've reached zero gravity. RISE's mission is also to carry an SD card of over 5.6 million names submitted by people worldwide. Astronaut Christina Koch, the first woman to venture to the moon, said last week Rise's design stood out to the crew right away.
Christina Koch
00:04:13
This little guy, RISE, really resonated with us because the theme is actually the earth rise photo taken on Apollo 8, which is inspirational to all of us. And it is a mission that sort of mirrors our own.
Lucas Ye
00:04:29
I was super lucky to get chosen. And I was thinking, like, what! And wow! And I was feeling really surprised and happy.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:04:43
'This cute zero-G indicator is packed with meaning, carrying symbols of the past, present, and future of space exploration.
Lucas Ye
00:04:50
The Orion constellation is representing the Orion mission to the moon and the footprint on the back was made in 1969 by Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:05:05
And for Lucas, he's already shooting for the stars.
Lucas Ye
00:05:07
When I grow up, I would like to be an astronaut or an astrophysicist or work at NASA or something.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:05:19
Scientists have documented something they've never seen in the wild before. Several populations of a red wildflower species called the scarlet monkey flower were on the brink of extinction in California, but they evolved fast enough to save themselves. Wildflower researchers Amy Angert and Daniel Anstett from the University of British Columbia and Cornell, respectively, witnessed the comeback, and it happened during one of the worst droughts California had ever seen.
Prof. Amy Angert
00:05:47
It's a story of just remarkable resilience.
Prof. Daniel Anstett
00:05:50
We have a story of hope with these populations that did well and they were able to, against all odds, adapt themselves and ultimately come back despite this extreme drought.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:06:02
From 2012 to 2015, the devastating dry spell killed millions of trees and plants across the state. And in many places, scarlet monkey flowers were disappearing fast. But instead of dying out, some evolved to survive the extreme heat.
Prof. Amy Angert
00:06:14
We did find that the plants evolved to lose less water from those little pores in their leaves and so at the broadest level these changes are all pointing to really rapid evolution of drought adaptations.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:06:27
Scientists call this evolutionary rescue, and here's why it matters. This is the first time scientists have been able to clearly show this is happening in the wild. Meaning, if researchers can understand what gave these flowers a fighting chance, they might be able to predict which species can survive extreme events brought on by climate change, and which ones might need help before it's too late. Daniel says this research shows the importance of genetic diversity within a species.
Prof. Daniel Anstett
00:06:52
The idea that if species have more land set aside for them, if populations are better connected, then you set up the conditions so that the populations can sort of pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and be able to adapt to climate change themselves. We just need to set up those conditions.
Dr. Howard Koh
00:07:12
In public health, we often talk about the leading causes of death. That's really important. But can we complement that discussion with another discussion on the leading cause of life, such as meaning and purpose and connection to something bigger?
Krista Bo Polanco
00:07:28
That's the focus of a major study from the Harvard Initiative on health, spirituality, and religion. It found a connection to a higher power or community might be good medicine. Dr. Howard Koh led the research focused on the role spirituality and religion plays in preventing substance abuse and enhancing recovery. The Harvard professor and his team looked at 55 studies involving more than half a million people over two plus decades. And the results published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry were encouraging.
Dr. Howard Koh
00:07:55
We found that spiritual practices that include things like prayer or meditation or especially regular religious service attendance was associated with reduced risk of substance use. It enhanced prevention. It helped people to get into recovery.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:08:16
Jenny Teeters of Edgefield, South Carolina was in her 40s doing her best, balancing a successful tech career, motherhood, and a serious drinking problem. But the juggle became too much in 2019 when she lost her job. Jenny says she eventually confessed her alcoholism to a trusted nun and priest, and a few months later, she turned to another source of support.
Jenny Teeters
00:08:35
I begged God for help. Like I completely surrendered. I cried like the hardest cry I've ever cried before.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:08:42
Jenny says she hasn't had a drink since, and credits her return to her Catholic faith and her commitment to recovery programs with keeping her sober for the last six years. She's also quick to say the benefits of spirituality aren't limited to people involved in organized religion.
Jenny Teeters
00:08:58
I think we all can agree that there is some power in the world that's greater than us. So that might be the power that brings on a hurricane or a tsunami, the power that makes beautiful plants grow, the energy of other people, friendships like love and connection. And could that power be something to rely on in those times of need.
Dr. Howard Koh
00:09:18
'That's what spirituality is all about. It can build a sense of meaning and purpose and longing and connection to something bigger in your life through practices like prayer and meditation. Or it could be done in a community, for example, in a religious service context or 12-step programs to increase their coping skills, to increase your sense of resilience and getting support from others in a time of need.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:09:49
There's more to the research and Jenny's story, so check out Jen Christensen's piece on it at cnn.com. Coming up, this high school freshman isn't running for class president, instead.
Dean Roy (campaign video)
00:10:00
Hello, I'm Dean Roy, running to become the youngest governor of the state of Vermont.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:10:04
No age limit, no budget, no problem. How one teen landed on the ballot for governor. Stick around.
Dean Roy (campaign video)
00:10:18
'Yeah, I'm 14. I know it sounds crazy, a 14-year-old running for governor, but honestly look at the people in charge right now. They've been doing this forever and things still aren't working.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:10:29
Dean Roy is a freshman at Stowe High School in Vermont. And last week, he became the first teenager to get onto the state's general election ballot.
Dean Roy (campaign video)
00:10:37
Vermont needs change, and that change might have to come from someone completely out of the blue.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:10:44
Unlike most other states, there's no minimum age to run for governor in Vermont. The state constitution only requires that candidates have lived in the state for four years. Dean told the AP he secured a spot on the ballot by founding his own party, the Freedom and Unity Party.
Dean Roy (interview)
00:10:58
My eighth grade winter, I spent six weeks at the Capitol working as a page. I watched all these people doing great things, really making change in their state, and I realized that I kind of want to do that.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:11:10
Dean's built the campaign almost entirely online.
Dean Roy (interview)
00:11:13
I obviously do not have a huge budget behind me. In fact, I have zero dollars behind me, but social media, the nice thing about it is it takes essentially nothing to start posting. And for me, I've just found it a lot more effective.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:11:25
Those videos are racking up tens of thousands of views. One of Dean's former teacher's are impressed.
James Carpenter
00:11:31
'He was always dialed in and really focused in class, asked great questions, even though it seems really far-fetched or people are telling you that it's not worth your time, being like, no, I'm gonna give it my all. It's kind of great.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:11:45
Ultimately, Dean hopes his campaign inspires more young people to get involved in politics. The election is on November 3rd.
Dean Roy (interview)
00:11:52
I don't expect necessarily to win. What I do expect is to start the movement and to get more young people to come in behind me and say, yeah, we also want to make change.
Krista Bo Polanco
00:12:08
'All right, that's all for now. Thank you so much for listening. But before we go, we've got some more good news. Five Good Things has been nominated for a Webby! We're super pumped about it and we hope you'll do us a favor and vote for us. The link to vote is in the episode description and if you do, let me know on my socials. You can find me @kristabopolanco on X, Instagram, and TikTok. And join us tomorrow for the next edition of CNN One Thing. After promising to crack down on toxic chemicals, MAHA's not very happy with the Trump administration's latest stance on a key herbicide. Take care, till next time.
