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NEXT@CNN
Scientists Find Way to Decontaminate Those Exposed to Anthrax; Web Site Helps Lesbian Parents Have Children; Man Builds High-Tech House
Aired August 31, 2002 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Today on NEXT@CNN, is there a simpler, non-toxic way to decontaminate people who've been exposed to anthrax? Russian researchers say the answer is as close as the nearest tap.
And another plan is in the works for protecting Congress from anthrax in the mail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have to worry about mail coming in here, or having to leave these buildings again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: But could this plan really deliver?
A Web site helps women have children, with no father involved.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, they, themselves, are writing the male out of reproduction just to make a quick buck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: The controversy over parenting without paternity over the Internet.
And we'll take you to a place where the doors don't need knobs, the drapes open on their own, and the walls are musical.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wanted great sound quality throughout the house, but I did not want to have ugly speakers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: You'll meet a man whose home is also his testing ground. All that, and more, on NEXT.
JAMES HATTORI, HOST: Hi, everybody, and welcome to NEXT@CNN, today from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I'm James Hattori. I've been away on assignment for a few weeks. Good to be back with you. It's been nearly a year since the anthrax attacks that terrified many folks in the United States and across the world. Scientists are hard at work at testing better ways to detect and destroy the bacteria. Well, in Russia, researchers have invented an amazingly simple way to kill anthrax, and, as Jill Dougherty tells us, it's being tested for possible use in the United States.
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JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Biological warfare -- the Russian's Army special troops on maneuvers, preparing for attack from an enemy using weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax, the bacteria mailed in letters to various locations in the United States that killed five people.
Now, scientists in Russia are testing new ways of destroying anthrax spores. And the solution, they say, is water. Here in his laboratory in Moscow, Professor Vitold Bakhir shows us electrodes that he says can turn regular tap water into a potent anthrax killer.
VITOLD BAKHIR, RUSSIAN SCIENTIST: The basic principal is to stream water through a miniature electrochemical reactor. Then it's subjected to a very high level of electricity.
DOUGHERTY: By adding a minute amount of salt to water then running the liquid through the device, the solution becomes highly active, so active the hydrogen and oxygen actually crackle.
(on camera): The scientists here also have made an aerosol from that solution. You hold your hands in the steam for literally five to 10 seconds, and they're completely disinfected.
(voice-over): In contrast to decontaminants currently used to kill anthrax, scientists say it is not toxic or irritating. This is just one of many inventions coming from the 50-year-old Russian Research Institute for Medical Engineering. A portable device for making the mixture, which can also be used of decontaminate chemical agents, is now being tested by Battelle Memorial Institute in the United States for possible use by the U.S. military. But scientists here in Russia who are great at inventing aren't necessarily good businessmen. Much of what they produce, from surgical instruments to water purifiers, is still made by hand. The Institute's director says he's trying to adapt the legacy of Soviet era science to the modern world.
BORIS LEONOV, RUSSIAN SCIENTIST: This transformation we've been going through for the past 10 years is making us think seriously about not only how to create technology, but to sell it, and we still haven't learned that lesson.
DOUGHERTY: In a world of biological and chemical threats, he says, Russian scientists can make a major contribution and maybe a ruble or two.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HATTORI: Meantime, on Capitol Hill, which was one of the targets of last year's anthrax attacks, a plan is in the works to keep members of Congress safe, by keeping mail from arriving in the building. Congressmen would instead get their correspondence through cyber space, as Kate Snow now reports.
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KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Main Street, Warrenton, Virginia, inside what used to be a small town hardware store. Mail, snail mail is being digitized, a tiny camera capturing images of both sides of each envelope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we start by taking an image of the exterior of the envelope, serializing it with a bar code so that it's trackable.
SNOW: Another machine scans the letters that were inside.
PAUL ROME, EXEC VP, IMAGING ACCEPTANCE CORP: There's a separation in the way people still deal with their physical mail with the way they deal with their electronic mail. The idea is to make them one and the same.
SNOW: Imaging acceptance corporation is one of several companies competing for a huge new client, the U.S. House of Representatives. Why would Congress want to revolutionize the way lawmakers get their mail? One word, anthrax. Digital mail is a lot safer.
REP. BOB NEY (R) CHAIRMAN, HOUSE ADMINISTRATION: You don't have to worry about mail coming in here or having to leave these buildings again or people having reaction, because it's all digitized and it's on a screen, not in the hands.
SNOW: And there's another reason. Ever since Congress was hit by anthrax, getting mail at the Capitol is a real pain. It takes at least 12 days, sometimes weeks or even months for a letter from a constituent to be irradiated and reach a congressional office.
Members of Congress are getting invitations too late, missing letters from constituents with urgent problems, getting advice from home after they've already taken a key vote. Digitizing the irradiated mail would cut the turnaround time.
ROME: Whatever comes in on any given day has to be done by the next day. Otherwise you are like Lucy on the line with the pies. They are piling up and you are trying to find a place to put it.
SNOW (on-camera): If it all works out, this could be the mail room for the U.S. House. Servers delivering digitized mail to Capitol Hill about 50 miles away. The technology is all here, but is Congress ready?
(voice-over): The longest serving member of the House has real concerns. REP. JOHN DINGELL (D), MICHIGAN: I think that this mechanism that they are discussing has the possibility of first of all destroying the confidentiality and second of all destroying the trust that exists between my constituents and I.
SNOW: Dingell also worries about the cost of digitizing 10 to 12 million pieces of House mail every year. But Congressman Bob Ney, who's pushing the project, insists it's cost effective. Not only will members get their mail quickly and confidentially, it could be sorted, filed instantaneously and staffers would no longer have to spend hours opening the mail.
Plans are moving forward, but slowly. A pilot program for about a dozen House offices is slated for later this fall. Fears about danger in the mail could change the century's old tradition of getting word to Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, an island that shrunk to almost nothing is now growing bigger. Find out what brought it back from the brink.
And later in the show, find out what electronic textbooks can do that traditional ones can't, and why some people still prefer the old- fashioned kind.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: Imagine a world without rhinoceroses. Well, if current trends continue, that could be a reality before too long. Gary Strieker tells us about efforts to save the Asian species of rhinos from disappearing forever.
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GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They look prehistoric, like creatures that should have disappeared long ago, but after millions of years on earth, Asian rhinoceroses now face increasing threats to their survival.
According to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund, all three species of Asian rhinos are endangered by loss of habitat and a new outbreak of poaching, targeted for their highly valued horns and other body parts, used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Recently in Nepal, 15 greater one-horned rhinos were killed by poachers, dozens more during the last four years. Wildlife experts say about 2,400 of these animals can still be found in a few protected areas in India and Nepal. Nepalese authorities are moving some of them into new safe havens to spread the risk, but the black market demand for rhino horn is a constant threat.
STEVE OSOFSKY, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: Poaching is a serious problem. There's always some level of poaching. We do think that there has been a spike, and we also think it's controllable, and we've recently increased resources going into anti-poaching. STRIEKER: The other two species are in more critical situations. The World Wildlife Fund says only about 300 Sumatran rhinos can be found in Indonesia and Malaysia, and not more than 70 Javan rhinos in Indonesia and Vietnam.
OSOFSKY: In order to save Sumatran and Javan rhinos, we have got to do two things. We've got to continue to protect them from poaching, and we need to mitigate the loss of forests across Southeast Asia.
STRIEKER (on camera): Expansion of logging and agriculture are forcing rhinos into smaller fragments of forest. While clearing land and building roads allow poachers easier access into those shrinking rhino habitats.
(voice-over): And experts say because these rhino populations are so small, even natural catastrophes like floods or disease could easily cause their extinction.
Conservationists are working with traditional practitioners of Chinese medicine, trying to find acceptable substitutes for rhino horn. But they also want urgent new measures to stop poaching, and to prevent further loss of forest and swamp areas that rhinos need to survive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Threats to nature just one of many topics on the agenda at the environmental summit going on right now in Johannesburg, South Africa. We'll have more on that meeting later on in the program.
An island in the Chesapeake Bay that was almost eroded out of existence is making a comeback. Brooks Jackson reports on what it takes to build an island.
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BROOKS JACKSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was an island that disappeared. Poplar Island was eaten away by the Chesapeake Bay's winds, tides and storms, until only this was left. Now, man is rebuilding what nature destroyed. The Army Corps of Engineers, often reviled as an enemy of the environment, is creating a wildlife refuge.
A gratifying change, at least for the man in charge.
SCOTT JOHNSON, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: I started my engineering career building nuclear power plants.
JACKSON (on camera): Which do you like better, building nuclear power plants or building islands?
JOHNSON: Building islands, by far.
JACKSON (voice-over): Rusty barges sunk here to protect Poplar failed to save it. JOHNSON: This little remnant in the foreground, along with a couple of other small islets, was all that was left of Poplar Island when we got here in '98. It constituted about three acres.
JACKSON: Now, man-made embankments extend for a length of 3.5 miles, containing 14 miles of roads, 800,000 tons of rock. The work will go on for years.
Why? The reason is economic: Ships, jobs, money. Baltimore harbor requires yearly dredging to keep the big ships coming.
FRANK L. HAMONS, DEP. DIRECTOR, HARBOR DEVELOPMENT, PORT OF BALTIMORE: We have ships running that are 2 1/2 to three feet off the bottom. In other words, in a 50-foot channel, we have ships leaving here with 47 1/2 feet of draft.
JACKSON: And the muck has to go somewhere. Just dumping it in deep water is no longer environmentally acceptable, or even legal in Maryland. So, now, it gets barged here, to Poplar Island, and pumped, as a soup of mud and salt water during fall and winter. Then, the real work starts.
JOHNSON: Once you place it in, the water becomes the enemy, and you really do everything you can to get it out.
JACKSON: Even after months of drying, the muck is still so wet it jiggles like pudding.
JOHNSON: We start by digging perimeter trenches, and then we dig these cross trenches, and funnel the water to the edges and then down to the discharge structure.
JACKSON: The drying muck will build up for more than a decade.
(on camera): It accumulates in cells -- this one is two miles long -- and piles up layer after layer. Eventually, this one will be several feet higher than where I'm standing now.
(voice-over): Once, Poplar Island teemed with birds. In the '30s, it was a hunting preserve for prominent Democrats.
PETER BAILEY, FORMER ISLAND OWNER: Poplar was 200 acres, and there was quite a bit of wildlife.
JACKSON: In the '40s, Peter Bailey often roamed the island. His family owned it. He was 7 at the time.
BAILEY: There were thousands and thousands of ducks. Great blue heron and lot of different shore birds.
JACKSON: Restoring that is a huge job.
For now, it's mostly an industrial site.
JACKSON (on camera): Most of Poplar Island looks like a moonscape now, but by the time it's fully restored, the goal is to have it looking like nearby Coache's (ph) Island, just a few yards away, with low-lying marshes and timber on the higher ground.
(voice-over): They're already planting small patches of marsh, using volunteers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's different from office work.
JACKSON: The project is years from completion, but wildlife isn't waiting, and that creates problems.
(on camera): What's your job here?
EMILY VLAHOVICH (ph), "TURTLE GIRL": I am turtle girl.
JACKSON (voice-over): Diamondback terrapins nested in a sandy embankment this spring, but on the wrong side, where the hatchlings would take a fatal trip to an area still under construction, so engineers built a fence, and turtle girl -- Emily Vlahovich (ph) -- gathers them up.
Shells are notched for identification. Then, they're released in an protected inlet that leads to open water.
The project has drawbacks. Cost is one, hundreds of millions of dollars, three to five times more expensive than dumping dredge muck in deep water, and creating land destroys environment for fish. Biologist Nick Carter urges caution.
NICK CARTER, BIOLOGIST: We're making changes in the system that we don't entirely understand. We just wouldn't want to see these things done over and over and over again.
JACKSON: But even Carter calls the Poplar Island project "a fair bargain" between the needs of man and nature.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on NEXT, Playstation 2 takes the lead in the online war of the game consoles.
Also ahead, from fireplaces that light themselves to e-mail you can read while working out. We'll take you to a man's home that is also his electronic castle.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: We all know people will try to sell almost anything over the Internet. Now, women wanting to have a child without a father involved can turn to the Web. Gavin Morris explains.
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GAVIN MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Conception without the complications. A simple surf, select and click, and sperm of your choice is sent to your door. It's parenting without paternity, an attractive proposition for some lesbian couples keen on a family, but frustrated by the rules of society and the regulations of fertility clinics.
JOE LEECH, LESBIAN PARENT: We have been discriminated against by everybody. We have contacted clinics. I have been in touch with people who have actually accessed clinics, and the amount they have to pay every month has been phenomenal. It has been the price of a small mortgage.
MORRIS: Then, Joe Leech and her partner Julie Williams found this Web site launched last month. They've already raised two children, but they wanted more. Now, they can ask the father's race, eye color, even height and weight, but never his identity. At ManNotIncluded.com, the man hardly matters. Take a look at the company's logo.
JOHN GONZALEZ, MANNOTINCLUDED.COM: We wanted something that would, in a way, encapsulate what we do and the public that we work for, and that was just great. You know, it was almost like when you get a toy at Christmas, and it says batteries not included, but you still get the toy.
MORRIS: But children and families are no playthings, say ethics groups.
JOSEPHINE QUINTAVALLE, COMMENT ON REPRODUCTIVE ETHICS: I find it particularly objectionable and difficult to understand how men could set up a Web site where they show a picture of a male and then put a cross through him, so they themselves are writing the male out of reproduction just to make a quick buck.
MORRIS: But Joe and Julie are convinced the site will catch on. After all, in a lesbian family, who needs a male when you have e-mail?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Well, on to more conventional uses for cyber space -- game-playing. This week, Sony unveiled an adapter for hooking the Playstation 2 to the Internet. Daniel Sieberg gets us plugged in.
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DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): It's good news for anyone trying to find someone to play video games with. Sony is the first of the current console manufactures to allow its Playstation 2 users to play games online. Sega did it with its Dreamcast machine a couple of years ago, and now Sony is leading the charge of the current console manufacturers onto the Internet.
We have the adapter right here. It goes for $40, and is available as of this week. It offers users a chance to have a dial-up or a broadband connection. There are a couple of ports on the back here where you'd connect your cords. And then once you've got the adapter, you plug it into the back of your Playstation 2. You will need an existing Internet service provider, or ISP, or broadband service in order to use it. Some software does come with it, though, to help you get started. Not all of Sony's games will be available to play with the adapter. However, Sony does say more than a dozen titles will be available by the end of the year to play online.
So what about the competition? Well, they are closely on Sony's heels. As for Nintendo with its Game Cube, they are having a slightly different approach. They've made plans for Japan only at this point. They haven't announced anything immediately for the U.S. market. They will, however, have separate adapters, one for dial-up, one for broadband, and as we see, September 12 in Japan.
As for Microsoft with its Xbox service, it's different entirely. People who have an Xbox don't need to get an adapter; it's already included in the machine. However, they will have to pay the $50 per year fee to get this broadband-only access as of November 15. It's called Xbox Live.
So as these game console manufacturers solidify their online plans, the question remaining at this point is will gamers buy into the idea?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: You might not think of Indiana as a tech Mecca, but a man who lives outside Indianapolis has a created home that might be the next best thing to Bill Gates' estate. Jeff Flock took a tour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SCOTT JONES: I use a special card, and I just hold it up to the stone, and I just heard that click.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Scott Jones unlocks the door to a world where fireplaces ignite, drapes close, televisions appear all as if by magic, where the ceilings play music, you do e- mail while working out, and everything is safe and secure.
(on camera): I got to believe there's wires running where we can't see.
JONES: There are miles and miles of wires.
FLOCK (voice-over): Scott Jones' home, all 27,000 square feet of it outside Indianapolis, is both showcase and laboratory for the technologies he develops. He's his own lab rat.
(on camera): Everything is right here.
JONES: Everything is right here.
FLOCK (voice-over): He shows his touch-screen panel throughout the house like this one that run light, security, heat and cooling, video and audio libraries.
JONES: I can rip. I can burn. I can do all of those things.
FLOCK: His speakers are embedded in the walls and the ceilings.
FLOCK (on camera): I'm trying to hear where these are coming from.
(voice-over): Behind the plaster.
JONES: I wanted great sound quality throughout the house, but I did not want to have ugly speakers.
FLOCK: His alarm clock neither beeps nor buzzes.
JONES: So music comes on and the drapes open.
FLOCK: And the lights go on and the shower starts running.
JONES: Sorry, but you won't be able to get in through there.
FLOCK: A fingerprint reader gives only him access to the wine cellar.
JONES: I hope your cameras can pick that up, but the front gate is now opening.
FLOCK: In most rooms, you can see all the security cameras as well as open any gate or door on the property. Motion sensors flash red as we move, or enter.
JONES: Is somebody were to open that door right there, we will see the door open right there. Yellow is an open door.
FLOCK (on camera): Standing outside the front door, I wouldn't even know I was being watched, unless of course I knew where the little pinhole video camera was, but, in fact, I am potentially being watched in every room in the house, as well as on the Internet, where, if Scott is traveling, and so chooses, he can call it up, open the door up and let me in from half a world away.
(voice-over): Then again, who needs to open their door from Paris? Or any of this?
JONES: Way back, a few decades ago, nobody wanted their phone answered by a machine.
(voice-over): Scott Jones should know. He got rich developing voice mail. The money financed Escient Technologies, a company that develops these systems to run houses like these one with the 20-seat movie theater, wine cellar, aquarium, bars, antiques.
JONES: And the slide.
FLOCK (on camera): And the slide I've heard about, which I hear is not just for kids.
(voice-over): Indeed, it is mostly for grown-ups whose work is play. Like Scott Jones.
(on camera): What drives you with all of this?
JONES: I like to build things and I like to change the world.
FLOCK (voice-over): One house at a time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: I think what we have here is a case of gadget overload. Well, time for us to push some buttons and make way for a commercial break and the latest headlines from the CNN newsroom, but don't go away. We'll be back in a few minutes.
ANNOUNCER: Still ahead on NEXT@CNN, books you can't call a page turner, even if you can't put them down.
Colorful protests and contentious topics at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.
And the things you can learn about people from the rings on their cell phone. That, and much more, coming up.
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HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN, this week from the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
You know, one back-to-college ritual for most students is buying a new batch of heavy, expensive textbooks. But some professors started sending students to the Internet rather than the bookstore for their texts. As Ann Kellan reports, e-textbooks are getting mixed grades.
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ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Michael Ruiz's classes at the University of North Carolina Asheville are never dull, whether he's making music and waves in his physics of sound class, or taking students to far reaches of the universe in introductory astronomy. You won't find them flipping through traditional textbooks.
In his classes, with a log-in and password, they get access to e- textbooks, off the Internet, that he writes and produces himself, with help from his computer-savvy son. Here, they are recording music for the sound class e-book.
(on camera): So what are we playing here?
MICHAEL RUIZ, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA: We're playing the blues.
KELLAN: This was fun.
RUIZ: This was great.
KELLAN: Now, one advantage that you have that others might not have is that because he's the author of his e-books, he can make changes on the fly, even the day before a class, and almost immediately you can see those changes on the Internet.
(voice-over): So, for example, when a new planet is discovered, his students can read about it in their textbooks the next day. The benefits, Ruiz says, are tremendous.
RUIZ: The e-text is a multimedia experience for the students. There are so many beautiful images.
KELLAN: Along with music, video and images that a hardback can't provide, students can do their own experiments using online tools.
RUIZ: You can use the Internet to deliver oscilloscopes, electronic equipment to the students' bedroom so they can do experiments 3:00 in the morning that are equivalent to what you would do in the lab, traditionally.
KELLAN: There's instant feedback.
RUIZ: I can monitor my students' progress.
ERIN BENSON, UNIV. OF NORTH CAROLINA STUDENT: And he has it working where he can look and see if you've gotten something wrong, and your homework you have feedback.
KELLAN: So they can keep trying until they get them right.
BENSON: This way, you can interact with the computer, basically, and you feel like you're enacting with your professor.
Those are different questions than I had.
KELLAN: And no two students get the same set of questions. One way to discourage cheating.
Stuck on a problem? Post your questions on the class bulletin board or forum, and classmates can help you out.
As good as it sounds, there are still a lot of problems with e- books.
PROF. DONNA MCCARTY, CLAYTON COLLEGE: You have to use a textbook actively.
KELLAN: At Clayton College in Georgia, last year, professor Donna McCarty gave e-books a try, and her students threw them out.
MCCARTY: I thought I had the stage set for great success.
KELLAN: The biggest problem?
MCCARTY: A lot of them actually just had technical difficulties.
KELLAN: They had trouble downloading the books onto their laptops. MCCARTY: They started saying things like, "I don't what to have to boot up my computer and wait for it -- Windows to load, and the software to load to be able to read my book."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I don't like reading off the screen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, you have to have research options, but at the end of the day, it's not the same as having the experience of reading a book.
KELLAN (on camera): Unlike with a regular book, you open it up, and you know you'll find the table of contents, there's an index, and it's broken up into chapters. With e-books, every time you log on to a new one, you have to figure it out.
(voice-over): Educators are working on setting standards for e- books and developing devices to making e-book reading as pleasurable as a page turner. Despite these hurdles, experts say e-books are the future.
PROF. ALLEN RENEAR, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: You can be fairly confident that publishing will be -- continue to become increasingly electronic. Reading will continue to become increasingly electronic. That e-books will be a big part of that. What you cannot be confident of is when this will happen.
KELLAN: Textbook publisher McGraw-Hill gives it 10 years.
ROGER ROGALIN, MCGRAW-HILL: So you can have a science book online that talks about volcanoes and then actually shows the process that happens, or about the human body, you can talk about how muscles work, but seeing it actually work is a lot more motivating and helps kids understanding.
KELLAN: Michael Ruiz spent his six-months sabbatical and about $50,000 in grant money to write his e-textbooks, a labor few in his profession can afford.
RUIZ: My advice to other faculty that are thinking about e-books would be to be very cautious, because of the time that you have to spend. I just do it because I love it.
Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Up next, energy-saving bulbs brings new light and a safer environment to a crime-ridden community. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: A centuries-old maritime quest may soon be realized. The Northwest Passage, the fabled shipping shortcut to the Canadian Arctic, may be open for business in our lifetimes, as Arctic temperatures rise and the Northern ice cap melts. Some researchers say the passage could be ice-free in as little as a decade, with a mixed bag of consequences. It would be a gold mine for cargo ships and tankers, but such an Arctic business boom could threaten the native way of life, and imperil wildlife, including polar bears and seals. This was reported in a news article in a current issue of the journal "Science."
NASA has come up with a new way to look at the world's wildfires. The space agency, working with the University of Maryland, used satellite images to make a global fire portrait, showing all the fires on earth in one year. It's the most detailed long-term record of fires ever created. The images help scientists track the pollution coming from fires. They are also used by firefighters to plan the best use of their resources. You can get a closer look at the pictures at gsfc.nasa.gov, the Web site for NASA's Goddard space flight center, or you can get there from our Web site, cnn.com/next.
The World's Summit on Sustainable Development is in full swing in South Africa. Delegates at the U.N. conference are debating a wide variety of topics, involving health, environment and poverty. As Jeff Koinange reports, energy is one key issue.
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JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The last time residents of Karankua (ph) just outside South Africa's capital, Pretoria, had street lights was four decades ago. It's an unsafe environment when the sun goes down. Residents live in fear as criminals take over the mean streets.
Life for these residents, though, is about to change dramatically, thanks to a $10 million project funded by the World Bank, the South African government and local investors. It involves the use of energy-saving bulbs installed in everything from street lights to homes, reducing costs by as much as a third what consumers would normally pay. Many here admit it's a win-win situation.
PETER KGAME, MANAGING DIRECTOR, BONESA: People who are now using electricity stop chopping off trees, there is now less power is required to be generated at the generation station, so therefore you save on water, you save on the coal that is used to generate electricity, and therefore all around, the country saves.
KOINANGE: Another alternative source of power and one which would be best suited to Africa's big, bright skies is the use of solar energy. At the ongoing World Summit on Sustainable Development, Greenpeace, known more for their protests than their innovations, were here to display how solar energy can help power everything from barber shops to Internet cafes. But even this simple technology is having difficulty getting a foothold where it's needed most.
PAUL HORSMAN, GREENPEACE: The reason these -- the simple technology is not being taken up is twofold, really. There's a perception that they don't work, there's a perception that the energy doesn't give real energy. I think the other barrier, particularly for solar, is that there are quite high upfront costs. KOINANGE: These solar power units, which can power a small business, can run anywhere from $300 to $500 -- an impossibility on a continent where millions live on less than $1 a day.
Officials here have no illusions about the mammoth task confronting them as the summit unfolds: That of convincing the world's rich to take stock and give a helping hand to the world's poor.
JAN PRONK: What is necessary here is to agree, it's not too difficult anymore, but to get a commitment to implement the agreement, to take action. We have to organize that commitment.
KOINANGE (on camera): Organizing that commitment will be key in the coming days as the delegates try to iron out what could turn out to be the most important document ever on sustainable development.
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HATTORI: Another significant part of that document, how to feed the world's poor. Money to improve farming technology is a big part of the issue. Some say industrialized nations should cut back on subsidizing their own farmers and share the wealth. Here's Charlayne Hunter-Gault.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These farmers may be dancing here, but it's a dance of protest. Protests against what these farmers have and they don't. What small peasant farmers believe are lavish subsidies, access to technology and capital, leading some to warn of a dangerous polarization, creating two different farming cultures.
M.S. SWAMINATHAN: One is production by masses, the other is a mass production.
MODOU DIAGNE, SENEGALESE ENV. MINISTER (through translator): We think that the fact that it prevents, prohibits countries of the south, such as ours, from subsidizing their agriculture, whereas those countries that are prohibiting us from doing this are doing this themselves, subsidizing their agriculture, we think that it's just simply not normal.
HUNTER-GAULT: Many North American and European officials say the criticisms are valid and that they are committed to reducing the subsidies but can't agree on how to do it.
JIM MOSELEY, U.S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE: It's going to be painful. It's going to be painful for farmers, the United States, it's going to be painful for farmers in the European Union. It's going to be painful for Japanese farmers. If we all take that pain together, then it works. But if only one takes the pain, then it's not going to do us any good.
HUNTER-GAULT: Meanwhile, poor countries want wealthy nations to commit .7 percent of their gross national product to aid their efforts at sustainability. But Western nations, including the United States, are opposed to specific targets and timetables.
As this debate rages within the summit, some 800 million people are going hungry in the world, with millions in southern Africa facing starvation.
(on camera): Agricultural experts here say that with the right kind of assistance to farmers, hunger could be rolled back almost immediately. It's a matter, they say, of political will.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come -- if you love "Family Feud," now you can take it with you wherever you go.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: You can play video games at home on a console, at work on your computer -- of course no one does that. Now you can play while waiting for a bus or even standing in line at the store, anywhere you can use your cell phone. Daniel Sieberg tells us how you can even feud with other cell phone users.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG (voice-over): Video games have gone from virtually nothing to virtually real. And along the way, they have become a multi-billion-dollar industry. And with over half of Americans carrying cell phones, video games can now be attached to your hip.
"Family Feud" is the first interactive game show made for cell phones. It's available through AT&T. Using the Web-enabled phone, players can meet in head-to-head competition with other players, just like the game show, only there's no host yelling...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "FAMILY FEUD")
LOUIS ANDERSON, HOST: Survey says, 26.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIEBERG (on camera): Part of the appeal of playing games on your cell phone is if you have got 10 spare minutes on your lunch break, you can just pick up your cell phone and play with any number of like- minded individuals who are online.
(voice-over): While cell phone games have come a long way since Snake, they still have a long way to go.
MARC SALTZMAN, CONSUMER TECH GURU: We're really in the primitive stages of cell phone gaming -- very crude graphics, if any, most of the games are still text based, like trivia, like Trivial Pursuit, or the Price is Right. Very text-based.
SIEBERG: "Family Feud" has advanced cell phone gaming from Pong- like games to maybe the Donkey Cong (ph) level, but game makers must keep the graphics basic to accommodate the slow connection speeds currently available in the U.S. But not for long.
SALTZMAN: As color phones start coming into play and new operating systems, like Java and high-speed networks like 3G, these games are going to proliferate and mature. They're going to get really, really cool.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Well, even if you don't use it to play games, experts say your phone may reveal something about the kind of person you are. What the tones tell us, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: If you're the kind of person who worries about people judging you based on the clothes you wear or the car you drive, here's something new to worry about -- your cell phone ring. A psychologist in Hong Kong says the ring you choose can reveal the real you. Andrew Brown has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These days, phones do more than just ring. They play symphonies, have cheerful chimes, and in vibration mode, they literally dance across the table. The Hong Kong-based psychologist, Xiaodong Yue, says ring tones may tell us something about the user's personality and emotional state.
XIAODONG YUE, HONG KONG CITY UNIVERSITY: Will be a competitive, type-A person, because you always want to do -- you always want to do your best.
BROWN: The kind of noise likely to impress a boss, or a business partner. But what happens if you are in a meeting, and...
YUE: Someone who is experiencing some downturn of emotions.
BROWN: What about this?
YUE: Unpredictable.
BROWN: A British consultant who gives consumer advice on ring tones, say tones often reflect what people do for a living.
PAUL DARBY, CONSULTANT: Zingy, zappy one, off the wall, zany, would be more to do with sales, show business, people involved in talking, in selling.
BROWN (on camera): Nokia's latest handsets not only take pictures you can send to your family and friends, they also feature upbeat melodies which makes it a pleasure to answer the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like it as music, but not as a ring tone. It would drive me absolutely bonkers.
BROWN: Why don't have you something funky like this? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not loud enough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A telephone should ring and not sing.
BROWN (voice-over): How about bark? Siemens is planning to introduce a canine ring tone for upcoming phones. This from the company that has been promoting its product as the ultimate tool for work hard, play hard executives. Just imagine what will happen when they let the dogs out.
ANNOUNCER: Nothing comes between you and success.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Well, just don't be surprised if your dog tries to answer your cell phone.
Well, we're out of our allotment of anytime minutes. So here's a look at what's coming up next week. A mixture of soil and polyester fibers keeps hillsides from turning into landslides, and it's environmentally friendly. We'll show you how it works.
Plus, if you've got an appetite for cooking, we've got the Web sites for you. Find out where to click for the best recipes, cooking tips and more.
That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, we'd like to hear from you. Drop us an e-mail. Our address is next@cnn.com.
Thanks so much for joining us this week, and thanks to our friends here at Golden Gate Park. For all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm James Hattori. We'll see you next time.
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