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NEXT@CNN
Smog Season Brings Respiratory Problems; Changing Patters on Salamanders Could Signal Larger Troubles
Aired May 4, 2002 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER (voice-over): Today on NEXT AT CNN, it's that time of year again when breathing can be a health hazard.
JOHN KIRKWOOD, PRESIDENT & CEO, AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION: Ozone is an irritant. It's like getting a sunburn on your airways.
ANNOUNCER: As the U.S. smog season gets underway, we'll tell you the best places to breathe and where the air is downright dangerous.
Why are these salamanders changing their spots? That's what these researchers are wondering and worrying about.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something is happening to them.
ANNOUNCER: Could pollution be to blame? And this Brooklyn school is the scene of a modern day fairy tale. We'll tell you about the little red robot that could, all that and more on NEXT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES HATTORI, HOST: Hi everybody and welcome to NEXT AT CNN, today from San Francisco's historic Coit Tower atop telegraph hill. I'm James Hattori.
This month marks the start of smog season, and well what we have behind us today is a little of our typical fog, six of the ten smoggiest metro areas in the U.S. are right here in California. That's according to a list put out this week by the American Lung Association. Natalie Pawelski reports on the best and worst of the list and what it means to your health.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): From coast to smoggy coast, half of all Americans are living dangerously in places where air pollution levels, a report says, can be hazardous to your health.
KIRKWOOD: There actually has been an increase of about 18 percent in the areas that are rated an F, which is unhealthy. PAWELSKI: For the third year in a row, the four smoggiest cities are in California: LA, Bakersfield, Fresno and Visalia. Houston, Texas came in fifth. Atlanta ranked sixth, followed by Merced, California; Knoxville, Tennessee; Charlotte, North Carolina and Sacramento. All these cities who were F's were at ground level ozone.
Note most on the list are hot and sunny. Start with the pollution most cities have, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons from tailpipe emissions and smokestack pollutants, mix in the heat and sunlight, and you get ozone. That's the main ingredient in smog. Ozone is especially dangerous for people with Asthma, children and the elderly.
KIRKWOOD: Because ozone is an irritant. It's like getting a sunburn on your airways and that affects everyone.
PAWELSKI: But some Americans are breathing relatively freely in cities that earned an A, suffering no smog alerts from 1998 through 2000. That list includes Bellingham, Washington; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Duluth, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota; and Flagstaff, Arizona. Also on that clean list, Honolulu, Laredo, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska, McAllen, Texas; Salinas, California; and Spokane, Washington.
Some of these cities are relatively low smog because of climate of geography. Others have less traffic or fewer industrial sources of pollution.
KIRKWOOD: You can't do anything about the weather and the topography. What you have to address are the sources of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions.
PAWELSKI: Cleaning up the sources of that pollution from the plants that power our homes and businesses to the tailpipes on America's increasingly crowded roads will not be easy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: If you want to see whether your town made the list, you can find an Internet link to the American Lung Association on our Web page, cnn.com/next. Up beyond the smog and the fog, the Hubble Telescope with its newly-installed camera is busy taking never before seen pictures of the universe. Our Ann Kellan shows us some of the first heavenly images.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Behold the first snaps taken from orbit by a $75 million camera.
HOLLAND FORD, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: We had underestimated how extraordinary the images would be.
KELLAN: This cluster of galaxies is named for its shape, the tadpole. FORD: Four hundred and twenty million light years away, we see a spectacular tail of stars that stretches across the image. It's composed of stars, gas and dust.
KELLAN: This one called the mice, shows two galaxies colliding and gives us a peak at what scientists expect is going to happen to our own galaxy.
FORD: Our Milky Way and our nearest large neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy are falling towards one another. Several billion years in the future, the Milky Way and Andromeda will likely undergo a merger like the one you're seeing at this moment. The simulation shows that the two galaxies will eventually merge forming a large elliptical like galaxy.
KELLAN: This is just a test drive of the camera, offering one example of what scientists hope to learn. It's called the advanced camera for surveys and replacing the faint object camera onboard the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
Shuttle astronauts Jim Newman and Mike Massimino made the switch in March. The new camera is designed with new lenses and updated optics for sharper, higher resolution images. These images show the collection of gases and dust, where hot new stars are born, further proving how this camera can peer farther into space to capture faint objects, billions of light years away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Also up in the heavens this week, the world's second space tourist, Mark Shuttleworth.
HATTORI (voice over): The South African millionaire has spent a week on the International Space Station conducting experiments on stem cells and the HIV Virus, and generally enjoying weightless life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK SHUTTLEWORTH: It's a lot easier than I expect. I was very concerned that it would take me many, many days to settle down but after just one, one and a half days, I felt almost normal, and now I feel just as I do on the ground. I don't feel any strange effects, other than the fact that things don't stay where you put them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Shuttleworth and the two crewmen who accompanied him come back to earth in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft this weekend.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, will small Internet radio stations have to turn off the turntables because of new government regulations? And, an aircraft called the Dragonfly will test a new approach to flying.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: When it comes to the seamier side of the Internet, you can find all sorts of content filters and age verification programs to protect children from seeing things they shouldn't, but do these programs work? Jonathan Aiken reports on a new study that says sometimes they do but not always.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When it comes to protecting their own from what's out there online, Matt and Susan Matyuf are pretty sure they're doing it right, limiting their children's access to the web and keeping their computer in open view.
MATTHEW MATYUF, FATHER: Primarily just looking over their shoulders, where are you at? Where are you going? What's this? And, just nebbing.
AIKEN: This isn't an ad for the company that owns CNN, but the Matyuf's use AOL because they say it's kid friendly, and it's filtering systems give them a measure of parental control.
But a two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences found those filters, while helpful, offer no guarantee and never will that the technology will always work. There just is no magic answer.
JOHN RABUN, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN: I think where we've seen serious problems is when either in public policy or technology or law, we've tried to do the simple fix, and we can't find a simple fix.
AIKEN: Thirteen-year-old Aniscia Matyuf gets an hour online each day, much of it spent sending instant messages to friends. But a harmless check of e-mail could expose her to messages any parent would consider offensive.
ANISCIA MATYUF, 13 YEARS OLD: One of them was like, see live nude males, and I was like, what is this garbage.
AIKEN: Really.
A. MATYUF: Yes.
AIKEN: So that's pretty gross when you don't know where it comes from?
A. MATYUF: Yes, I didn't. I mean I've never been on a porno site or anything.
AIKEN: The whole point is she doesn't have to. Type in the name of the Canadian Rock Band Bare Naked Ladies and her cousin Jason will tell you, there's no guarantee where you'll wind up.
JASON STURMER, 13 YEARS OLD: I know if I look up some Bare Naked Ladies, something's going to pop up and you're going to see a real bare naked lady.
AIKEN: Yes.
STURMER: And you just have to expect it and just ignore it.
AIKEN: The report says education and legislation can help, but it all starts in the home.
IRIS BECKWITH, ABUSE PREVENTION DIRECTOR, CHILDHELP USA: Really what children want is they want limits. They want the parents to be parents, so that I think is key.
AIKEN: While the Matyuf children may chafe at the restrictions placed on them -- Do your parents are going to tell you, you'll thank them when you get older?
A. MATYUF: Yes.
AIKEN: What do you think?
A. MATYUF: A lot.
AIKEN: They would probably say that's why they're doing it to begin with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Pornography aside, the computer has become an indispensable tool in schools. For computer makers, students are a must sell. Just ask the Dell dude.
To that end, Apple this week unveiled the eMac, its first computer made only for the educational market. It kind of looks like the original iMac on steroids, bigger screen, faster processor, at just under $1,000.
STEVE JOBS, CEO, APPLE: About half the computers used in education are Apples, so we have a legacy there and we have a great business there, so it's very, very important.
HATTORI: Besides education, another growing market is digital entertainment, using computers as so-called hubs for movies, photos and music. But one source feeding that hub, Internet radio, faces an uncertain future. Hundreds of webcasters staged a one-day strike this past week to protest new fees they're being singled out to pay.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI (voice over): In half a converted San Francisco garage, Rusty Hodge runs Soma FM, an Internet radio station, playing a digital stream with an eclectic beat.
RUSTY HODGE, SOMAFM.COM: The reason I got into doing Internet radio, I couldn't find radio stations I liked to listen to.
HATTORI: Today, he programs nine channels, drawing 3,000 listeners a day, but it could soon come to an end.
HODGE: I really want to kept it going on, but it's really going to be hard to keep it going on. HATTORI: That's because by May 21, the U.S. Copyright Office will decide on new congressionally mandated fees imposed on Internet stations to pay performer royalties. It doesn't sound like much, as little as one-fourteenth of one cent, but that's per song, and per listener. Hodge estimates it could cost him as much as $1,000 a day.
HODGE: You're hearing some things like, you know webcasters are basing their whole business and economic models on other people's art. It's like what economic model? You know, we're losing money. It's a labor of love.
HATTORI: There are perhaps 10,000 Internet stations. Most draw small audiences compared to AM or FM operations. Still, the recording industry says it's time artists got their due.
JOHN SIMSON, RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: It is a question of equity. They spend a lot of time and money creating these works and people are using them to build a business. They should be paid for them, the same way they pay for every other part of their business.
HATTORI: And it's not just the fees. AT UC Berkeley's student run KALX, the new rules would also require extensive recordkeeping.
SANDRA WASSON, KALX GENERAL MANAGER: They want UPC codes and they want the length of the song and the song title, and some of the records don't even have the names of the songs.
HATTORI: The recording industry says it's working to adjust the burden on small stations, but on paying artists, it says the buck and the beat stop here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: When we come back, a high-flying spy plane adds some deadly weapons. And, remote controlled rats could one day save human lives. We'll show you how.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: Military aircraft designers have long wanted to combine the best of both tactical worlds, the maneuverability of a helicopter and the cruising speed of a fixed wing plane.
The newest entry in the group is a pilot-less craft called the Dragonfly, scheduled for flight tests this summer. It can take off in small spaces like a helicopter. When it's ready to speed up, its rotor stops turning and its engine propels the craft like a jet. That contrast with a B-22 Osprey which tilts its rotor to turn it into a big propeller. The Dragonfly is being developed by Boeing and the Defense Department.
If it goes into production, the Dragonfly will join a growing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles. In Afghanistan, UAVs have scored some big successes watching and sometimes attacking enemy positions. Now, as Barbara Starr reports, the U.S. Air Force is testing new drones that, for the first time, will be able to launch missiles and bombs against enemy troops.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): After years of using Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, as spy planes to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance over hostile territory, the Air Force, for the first time, is now testing a new drone, one that will be heavily armed, flying into the battlefield with missiles and bombs and no pilot onboard.
LT. COL. DOUGLAS BOONE, U.S. AIR FORCE: They built this as a larger aircraft. It flies higher. It flies faster than regular Predator. We in the Air Force have bought two of these. We're flight testing them to see what are their characteristics, how high, how fast, how much weight can be carried internally, how much weight can be carried on the wings, and can we control them from the exact same ground station that we control our regular Predator.
STARR: In February, an unmanned Predator in Afghanistan stocked three suspected al Qaeda members from high overhead. It fired a Hellfire missile, killing all three men. The entire mission watched by ground controllers miles away and commanders back in the United States via video link. But it was the CIA, not the military, which was operating that lethal UAV.
Until now, only the CIA has had armed UAVs. Those owned by the military do not carry weapons, their only mission, reconnaissance and surveillance. The new Air Force armed Predator can carry up to eight Hellfire missiles, as well as 2,000-pound precision bombs and even miniature bombs now under development.
It will still be a spy plane, flying at 45,000 feet, nearly twice the altitude of the current version with twice the payload. It can stay airborne for 24 hours. Advanced sensors will allow the UAV to eyeball enemy troops 50 miles away and view objects four inches across. Analysts point out that UAVs fly relatively slowly and are vulnerable to being shot down.
MICHELE FLOURNOY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: There's always, of course, the additional possibility of an enemy, once they realize the UAVs are there could try to actively conceal things, deceive, create disinformation, things that would essentially fool the eyes of the UAV.
STARR (on camera): Pentagon war planners say the next step is already in the works, actual combat airplanes with no one in the cockpit and ground controllers miles away. As 21st Century warfare unfolds, it may be planes without pilots that win the next generation of wars.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: From remote controlled planes to remote controlled rats, or maybe ratbots. Researchers at the state University of New York in Brooklyn are controlling the behavior of test rats by putting electrical probes into their brains. They can actually steer the rats along a chosen path using remote signals. Some of the probes are in the brain areas where the rat processes sensations from its whiskers.
If the scientists signal the left whiskers, the rat was supposed to go left. The rat was rewarded when it followed instructions by another brain probe that produced pleasure. The rats soon learned to follow the remote signals. One long-term goal of developing ratbots that could be directed on missions like search and rescue, possibly equipped with tiny cameras.
HATTORI: On to more conventional robots, but not too conventional. Every year, an organization called First puts on a robot competition for thousands of high school kids from the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Brazil. Some of the high-schooler built robots are amazingly sophisticated, and then there's the little red robot.
Beth Nissen has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Once upon a time in the urban kingdom of Brooklyn, there was a public school that decided to enter a robot competition, even though the students have no robotics background, no workshop, no tools.
MIKE DENCH, ROBOTICS INSTRUCTOR: We didn't have a lathe. We didn't have a drill press. We didn't have a band saw. The only table saw we had, I brought in. We didn't have the basic machine tools that you really need to build a decent robot.
NISSEN: The would-be robot makers, eventually 50 students would take part, held fundraisers, begged corporate sponsors, scrounged together the $5,000 competition entry fee, and got in exchange of robot starter kit of basic electronics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just dump them on the table and spread it out, things like what is all this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we were like, how are we going to make something out of this.
NISSEN: The students had six weeks to design and build a robot for the competition known as First. This year's First contest required robots that could fill, move and goals with soccer balls, maneuver balls into scoring position or do both. They built their robot out of wood, reluctantly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wanted metal. You know he's like metal, metal, metal.
NISSEN: But metal was too expensive and they didn't have the tools for cutting or drilling it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our mentor, Dench, he just told us stick with wood. It's stronger than metal in some cases.
NISSEN: Students borrowed tools from the school janitor, from teachers, parents, even this day from a CNN sound man. They turned the classroom into a makeshift shop, worked on the robot after school, on weekends, often late into the night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a (UNINTELLIGIBLE), come straight to this room and start working on the robot.
NISSEN: Many of the students' families, friends, and peers in other schools doubted the rookie Brooklyn team could do it.
RICO ST. JUSTE, 11TH GRADER: There were a lot of stereotypes, thinking that since this was a minority school that we were going to do really badly and that we were going to be lazy and probably wouldn't even complete the robot in time.
NISSEN: But they did, just in time for the regionals in Manhattan last month. They were amazed and unsettled when they saw the robots built by other schools with greater resources, complex robots, multi-functional robots, sweet expensive robots made of plexi- glass and metal, metal, metal.
DENCH: They were like "oh God, look at all these. I said, "do you know the more pieces a machine has, the more there is to go wrong."
NISSEN: The team gamely put its plain red robot into play. They painted it red with leftover fire hydrant paint. The game is far too complex to explain here in full, but trust us, the little plywood robot did well against the other fancier robots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Theirs was made out of metal, so their robot was a little slower than ours, and so we can grab the balls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Way before they can.
NISSEN: Other robot teams scored more points, so the team from (UNINTELLIGIBLE) High School wasn't expecting anything at the award ceremony. Then, the award for Exceptional Design was announced.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the little red robot that could.
NISSEN: The team qualified for the national finals at Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida, a storybook ending in itself for these teenagers, most of whom planned for college and careers in science and technology. Is there a moral to the story?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks can be deceiving.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never underestimate the power of a rookie team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Determination beats ability every time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: No doubt you're wondering how the little red robot did in the finals. Well, the big test was this past weekend at Epcot Center in Orlando. Despite performing well, the robot was eliminated early in the competition. Still, three seniors on the team were awarded $10,000 a year scholarships to college. Juniors on the rookie team said they'd try again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, next year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next year, twice as strong and twice as bad.
HATTORI: They'll be back next year and we'll be back in just a few minutes, after a break and a quick check of the headlines from the CNN News Room.
ANNOUNCER: Still to come on NEXT AT CNN, salamanders at a golf course get an unintended makeover. Monarchs still reign, despite a winter die off in Mexico. And some shoppers are letting their fingers do the buying, all that and more coming up. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT from San Francisco's Coit Tower. Leopards don't change their spots if you believe the old adage, but apparently salamanders do. Researchers think changes in the patterns on some salamanders' backs may be a sign of bigger problems. Ann Kellan connects the dots for us.
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KELLAN (voice over): What does a golf course have to do with the spots on this spotted salamander? Researchers at Cornell University have, pardon the pun, spotted some changes in salamanders living near the college golf course compared to ones that don't, and compared to salamanders that lived in the same area before the golf course was built 60 years ago. Those salamanders are now preserved in jars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) located similarly.
KELLAN: Spotted salamanders are found in the eastern United States and Canada. Typically, the spots on the left and right side of its body match up one for one. But the salamanders near the golf course are not symmetric. Spots of the left and right sides don't match.
KELLY SAMUDIO, CORNELL UNIVERSITY: Here's an example. This guy has a lot more spots on the right than on the left.
KELLAN: What does this mean?
ZAMUDIO: This is an indication that there is population stress at the golf course pond compared to a pond that hasn't been disturbed.
KELLAN: Stressed salamanders from golf courses? Researchers don't know the reasons but point to the runoff of fertilizers and chemicals used to maintain pristine greens as a possible stress factor.
ZAMUDIO: At our particular golf course, apparently some of them really nasty chemicals that were used in the past are no longer being used.
KELLAN (on camera): You can see where this is going, environmentalists complaining that golf courses are bad for wildlife. But here's the twist. Some environmentalists are working with golf courses to take advantage of these huge green spaces. At least they're better than a strip mall.
KELLAN (voice over): Many toxic products are off the market says Ken Mangum who manages the grounds at the Atlanta Athletic Club Golf Course in Georgia. So they are different?
KEN MANGUM, DIRECTOR, ATLANTA ATHLETIC GOLF COURSE: Oh very different.
KELLAN: Even though he's a little skeptical about all the worry about salamander spots, he says people are more cautious about using pesticides than they used to be.
MANGUM: I remember spraying along creek banks with shorts and no shoes.
KELLAN: Today, he doesn't spray the banks at all, lets them grow wild, which reduces runoff and erosion. They plant grasses that need less fertilizer but points to other factors that can cause stress. So these guys are in trouble? Like drought, that's what's hurting these pine trees. This course has become a haven for wildlife that is losing habitat to nearby development.
MANGUM: We have bluebird boxes. Almost every hole we've got ducks. We've got geese.
KELLAN: So you have deer here?
MANGUM: Oh, yes we've got about 15 acres in two different locations that's just all natural. We actually plant some food plots so they don't eat the flowers on the golf course. I love the texture of this. The salamander stands a lot better chance on that golf course than it does if there's a subdivision there or if there's a shopping center there.
KELLAN: Researchers aren't singling out golf courses. They're hoping with this research that a species under stress will now be easier to spot.
ZAMUDIO: Something is happening to them and this might be a great tool for trying to figure out which populations are in stress before they actually go extinct.
KELLAN: Who knows, researchers say, maybe the stripes and spots of other species will react to changes like the spots on a salamander's back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Monarch butterflies aren't changing their spots as far as anyone has noticed, though they have had a tough year. Over the winter, millions of the butterflies were found dead at their winter nesting ground in Mexico, but the Monarch seemed to be bouncing back.
Waves of butterflies are flitting through the Mexican forest beginning their annual spring time migration to Canada. Researchers think the winter die-off was caused by unusually cold weather and shrinking forests.
Threats to the world's forests were the subject of an unusual meeting held recently in Atlanta, unusual because it brought together groups that have often been enemies. As Gary Strieker reports, environmentalists and industry took some small steps toward finding solutions that both sides can accept.
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GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It looked like just another commercial trade show.
PAUL KRONICK: We're manufacturing certified doors from certified hardwood, which comes from sustainable forests. This comes from tropical forests. This is a mahogany look alike.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of this outdoor furniture in Vietnam, made in Vietnam and we import these, you know, from Solomon Island and a lot of our customers want us to use (UNINTELLIGIBLE) certified wood.
STRIEKER: But behind these exhibits, the Forest Leadership Forum in Atlanta was a serious three-day conference. More than 1,000 people from 44 nations addressing what many believe is the world's most alarming environmental crisis.
The earth is losing its natural forests, experts say at a rate of 140,000 square kilometers a year, an area the size of Bangladesh or Wisconsin.
BRUCE CABARLE, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND U.S.: We have less of shrinking in many places and we're losing a lot of the things that we care about that are in the forest.
STRIEKER: Major causes of deforestation are land clearing for agriculture or plantations and timber harvesting by industrial operators and illegal loggers. For decades, environmentalists and the logging industry have been hostile adversaries. But now, there are signs of change.
V. ALARIC SAMPLE, PINCHOT INSTITUTE: What we're seeing today is a coming together or organizations that probably were not on speaking terms with one another five years ago, maybe even a year ago.
STRIEKER (on camera): Organizers are calling this a landmark event, for the first time bringing together environmentalists, retailers and the wood products industry for talks about trade and responsible wood products and protecting the world's forests.
STRIEKER (voice over): The sponsors were strange bedfellows like Greenpeace, International Paper, the World Wildlife Fund, and Home Depot. CABARLE: We need to have allies, and those who have often been cast in the role of villain, rightfully or wrongfully so, needed to be part of the solution.
GEORGE O'BRIEN, INTERNATIONAL PAPER: Forestry today is significantly more environmentally oriented and you know with greater stewardship than it was even ten years ago.
STRIEKER: But this was no love fest. There are still serious differences on issues like certification, what system should be used to verify to consumers that wood products come from well-managed forests.
RON JARVIS, HOME DEPOT: It's a product category that's growing with us and we're selling millions of dollars a week today of certified wood.
STRIEKER: Many environmentalists support the FSC grant from the Forest Stewardship Council, but the timber industry says it's not right for them.
O'BRIEN: If we were to adopt the FSC system throughout the United States, it would mean significantly more expense, more expense to the industry, more expense to the landowners.
STRIEKER: Industry is pushing its own certification standards that critics say are inadequate.
MICHAEL MARX, FORESTETHICS: What they've really done is listened to our message to their customers and then they've repackaged their old forestry with a new name.
STRIEKER: These arguments were overshadowed by this breakthrough event. It's too early to foresee, but organizers hope it leads to new coalitions between governments, industry, and conservationists that can tackle the global forest crisis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Next up, we'll take you through a time warp to the era of Q-Bert and Pac Man. Nothin' but net does the '80s, stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: Looking out over San Francisco Bay, is that the "Love Boat?" I don't think so, but in this weeks' Nothin' but Net, you can relive the days of the "Love Boat," plus "Three's Company," "Who's the Boss," and a bunch of other TV shows popular in the 1980s. In fact, the site features a boatload of songs, movies, even arcade games popular in that decade. Sharon Collins takes us back to the glory days of 20 years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Remember the fast cars and faster women of "Miami Vice?" How about the place where everybody knows your name? Ah, the '80s. For a lot of people, they were "The Wonder Years," and one family in Orlando, Florida is keeping the memories alive.
David and Ricki Wieslthier started tripletsrus.com to share information with others about the birth of their triplets, hence the name. As their children grew, so did the site. It now has three main sections, one part devoted to the kids' love of Disney, the original section about the children, and the 1980s section, which includes just about every cultural icon imaginable from 1979 to 1990. It's even become a small side business, selling videos, games, music, books and more.
DAVID WIESELTHIER, TRIPLETSRUS.COM: I do it because of the love really. If I didn't - the money is extra. I really enjoy gathering stuff and putting it on the Web site and sharing with people.
COLLINS: Pac Man anyone? Triplets 'R Us features more than 100 arcade games. Need lyrics to your favorite old songs? The site has the words to nearly 2,000 post disco hits. You can also listen to music, including TV theme songs. Music and gaming are the two most popular parts of the site.
RICKI WIESELTHIER: We wanted to be able to share something we love with everybody and the '80s, both of us grew up in the '80s and if we could sit there, we'd love listening to the '80s music, so it just came about from that.
COLLINS: Even though Triplets 'R Us has grown beyond its original purpose, it is still a modern day family scrapbook of sorts, especially for the triplets.
D. WIESELTHIER: They can go back and look at the first birthday pictures, the second birthday pictures, the third birthday, all their Disney pictures, all the times they've been to Disney World.
R. WIESELTHIER: For them it's a living diary, a scrapbook of their life.
COLLINS: Triplets 'R Us has had more than four and a half million visitors since it went online in 1997; looks as though the '80s may not be gone forever after all. I'm Sharon Collins and that's Nothin' but Net.
ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, opera may just be the thing if you're looking for a new way to web surf, but don't expect to find a fat lady singing; that story and more as NEXT AT CNN continues.
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HATTORI: When it comes to web browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominates the market, but a David has stepped up to take on the digital Goliath, a browser that says it's not over until the fat lady sings. Bruce Burkhardt has today's Technofile.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Looking for an alternative to the big two web browsers, Internet Explorer and Netscape? You're probably not, but the folks at Opera Software of Oslo, Norway would like to change that.
Opera has all the features you'd expect in a browser, like a bookmark system for your favorite pages and configurable tool bars. It also has built-in search functions that let you quickly run searches on Google, Amazon, and other popular search sites. Opera's creators call it the world's fastest web browser.
DENNY ARAR, EDITOR, PC WORLD MAGAZINE: Well, it is pretty fast. I mean the pages were very snappy when the loaded in my test, but Internet Explorer is not painfully slow. So, we're talking about a couple of seconds at best at difference.
BURKHARDT: Features unique to Opera include something called hot click. Highlight a word or a sentence on any Web site you might be reading, right click, and you're given the option to translate the phrase into another language, look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia, or use it to search the web. You can also choose to refuse all pop-up windows, display them normally, or send them all to the background. Opera also has an unusual system for displaying browser windows.
ARAR: One of its trademark features is the ability to bring up multiple pages within a window, a single window of the browser. So, for example, if you want to look at two sites side-by-side, opera makes this quite easy.
With Internet Explorer, you would probably have to start a new window of Explorer and then size them to fit on the screen. But you can also set it to just run the way Internet Explorer does and just show one page.
BURKHARDT: The Browser is only a three megabyte download or ten megabytes if your computer needs Java installed. Internet Explorer is about eight times that size. You can download Opera for free, but your browser window will contain banner ads. Buying software for $39 removes the ads. Using a lesser-known browser isn't without its perils though.
ARAR: Internet Explorer is so dominant in the market now that people write for Internet Explorer. And therefore if you use anything but Internet Explorer, sometimes you get unexpected results.
Eventually, in my tests with the browser, it always was able to work with the pages, except with the exception of the Microsoft sites. For example, the Zone, the Gaming Zone, Microsoft's Zone, forget it. When you bring that up on Opera, you get a message saying this is not Internet Explorer and, you know, come back when you've got it.
BURKHARDT: But if you're curious about the world outside of Microsoft, Opera is a pretty good way to get there. I'm Bruce Burkhardt and that's Technofile.
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ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, a store where a new way to pay for groceries is right at your fingertips, a touching story when we come back.
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HATTORI: What if you could buy a week's worth of groceries without ever handing over a credit card, debit card, check or any cash? It may sound impossible, but a Seattle store has the technology to make it happen. Deborah Feldman from our affiliate KING TV has the story.
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DEBORAH FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For some people, paying for groceries with a debit card is novel enough, but for others, carrying a wallet full of cash and credit cards is nothing short of a hassle. That's why on Wednesday, this Thriftway will start giving customers the option of using finger imaging technology as a way to pay for their everyday produce.
PAUL KAPIOSKI, STORE OWNER: You don't need to bring your card into the store. You just need to bring your finger.
FELDMAN: Thriftway's owner says this is the first time biometrics will be used in a Seattle store. Up until this point, it's only been discussed as a safety measure in airports or home and business security systems. Depending on the system, people can use their fingers or their eyes as a personal security code.
In this case, Thriftway's system uses just a third of a person's fingerprints to verify the customer is who she claims to be, and then automatically links to their account, so no fears of stolen identities.
KAPIOSKI: In the Seattle area, we're used to new technical things. I think it will be a big hit.
FELDMAN: But it's not a big hit with everyone. Some worry of voluntary fingerprint scan in this store could lead to non-optional screening devices down the line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It does not sound like something I would want to do.
FELDMAN: Why not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I think that we're embarking on some pretty serious privacy issues.
FELDMAN: But for others, efficiency outweighs any Orwellian theories.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, if I don't have to carry my credit cards and all my bank cards and all of that, that would be sounding pretty good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been fingerprinted before so it doesn't matter.
FELDMAN: So you would probably do it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: If the idea really catches on, I guess we'd never get caught short. Well, we're not running out of cash, but we are running out of time. Here's a look at what's coming up on NEXT. A digital camera that's smaller than most cell phones. We'll see what kind of pictures it takes and see if it's worth the price.
Plus, a dream find for archaeologists turns into a nightmare for the people whose homes sit on top of history. That and a lot more coming up on NEXT. Until then, let us hear from you. Feel free to e- mail us. Our address is next@cnn.com. Thanks so much for joining us this week and thanks to our friends here at Coit Tower. For all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm James Hattori. We'll see you next time.
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