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American Morning
Scientific Developments in 2002
Aired December 30, 2002 - 09:41 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And we are back with more on our hot debate topic this morning. Now, if it's true, the world's first human clone may be the biggest story this year in the world of science. Joining us now to talk some more about the cloning debate and some other scientific developments in 2002, is Bill Nye. "The Science Guy." who joins us out of Seattle.
Good to see you again, Bill, how are you?
BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Good to see you, Leon. Great, I am great, great! Happy day before day before New Year.
HARRIS: There you go. I think the last time I talked to you, you were in South Africa for the eclipse.
NYE: That's right.
HARRIS: And you'd think that would be the big science story that we'd be talking about this year. But now it's this story with the clone, the alleged clone, coming back to the States. What do you think about that? Do you believe they have pulled this out?
NYE: Well, I am not ruling it out, okay? I don't want to think like so many journalists that cold fusion is true or something like that. But if anybody was going to do it, we are going to do it. These Raelians may be the people that would pull it off, because they are so -- apparently so caught up in science, and believe in it so strongly. But, on the other hand, to claim that they have a success rate 20 or 30, or 50 times better than the very best laboratories in mainstream science is pretty extraordinary.
HARRIS: Well, what do you think? What do you -- how about putting this into some sort of perspective for us. If they did pull this off, what would it mean to you? Or rather, what would it mean for all of us?
NYE: Well, it would mean that maybe people could have babies identical to themselves. Which, you know, as we all say in the scientific community is probably not a good idea. It's probably a bad idea. First of all, there's technical problems with cloning right now. You know, if you go to clone an animal right now, a lot of times it doesn't work. Dolly the sheep, the famous one, five years ago, 276 failures before a success.
HARRIS: Right.
NYE: And it's interesting... HARRIS: As I understand it, Dolly is aging faster than normal too, correct?
NYE: Right. Right. She has some unusual genetic properties that just aren't consistent with a regular sheep. You know, she was born older Leon, like George Bailey. And so people are not really sure why that is. And also these animals have arthritis and lung problems and these things. So to bring a kid into the world with these potential problems is -- seems like it might be pretty irresponsible. And yet, on the other hand, it's possible -- it's not absolutely impossible. We must adopt a wait and see.
HARRIS: All right, let's move on. Let's talk about another story, a scientific story of the yea: Global warming. To many people, the issue was proven this past year.
NYE: Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, Leon, I look like nobody, but I have been to the Ice Core lab near Denver, Colorado. And these people drill down to bedrock in Antarctica. They drill down to dirt in Greenland. And they have found pieces of ice with tiny, tiny bubbles of ancient atmosphere trapped in it. Now, from this, we learned clearly that the atmosphere used to have less carbon dioxide in it. And the world used to be colder. And you can go back 400,000 years. And so there's no question that there is more carbon dioxide in the last million and a half years, and the world is warmer than it was.
This wouldn't matter except when you get the world warmer, the ocean gets bigger. It expands. You know, when things get warm, they expand. So the ocean's going to overrun the land. The other thing is, and we have -- you guys have -- you have a lot of weather people, right?
HARRIS: Yeah.
NYE: Anecdotally, many of us may notice that the weather seems like it's getting wilder and wilder, and this would be consistent with models that -- by models, we mean mathematical arrangements of equations that predict the flow of heat in the atmosphere. And when you have more heat in the atmosphere. the weather just kind of gets wilder. And this could be good for a few places on Earth, but for most of us, it's going to be a big hassle. So here's the news -- here's the news, Leon.
HARRIS: All right!
NYE: That, no matter what we do in sort of conventional fossil fuels, we're outstripping the amount of carbon that we can remove from the air by conventional means. Here's what I mean, I don't mean to sound too complicated. It's just that, if we don't take extra steps to take carbon out of the atmosphere, we'll never catch up. That is to say, we will never bring the world back to what we know. But, on the other hand, a forward-thinking entrepreneur or two --
HARRIS: Such as yourself?
NYE: Well, I mean, no, really, Leon, with all due respect, I am probably too old, with all due respect. Young people who think about these problems could come up with ways to take out carbon out of atmosphere and dare I say it -- get rich! That there would be ways to improve everyone's quality of life and make the world more manageable for us humans. Because, you know, the world's going to be here whether or not we are. This is the old story of cockroaches, but what I --
HARRIS: We may have to consult the Raeliens about that. They may have their own theory about that too, so --
NYE: Well, yes, but I mean, in the next century, which is a long time, but it's not very long, depending on how you look at it, the world's going to change in ways that will be reminiscent of Holland, you know, where there's dikes and weirs to keep the sea away. And the weather's going to change.
HARRIS: Well, I sure don't want that to happen, because I don't like to wear wooden shoes. Bill Nye, "The Science Guy."
NYE: Oh, that's just for example.
HARRIS: There you go.
NYE: But, Leon, there is more to talk about. We got to go?
HARRIS: We don't have time? I wish we could talk some more.
NYE: Well, anyway, watch out for the coming Mars missions. They leave in May and June. We are going to go to Mars and look for water.
HARRIS: All right.
NYE: We found signs of water on Mars, we might find signs of fossil bacteria, and that would be something to think about. Hey, good to see you, Leon.
HARRIS: You, too.
NYE: And have a good new year.
HARRIS: Same to you, man. Happy New Year and hope to talk to you later on. Take care.
NYE: Thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 30, 2002 - 09:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And we are back with more on our hot debate topic this morning. Now, if it's true, the world's first human clone may be the biggest story this year in the world of science. Joining us now to talk some more about the cloning debate and some other scientific developments in 2002, is Bill Nye. "The Science Guy." who joins us out of Seattle.
Good to see you again, Bill, how are you?
BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Good to see you, Leon. Great, I am great, great! Happy day before day before New Year.
HARRIS: There you go. I think the last time I talked to you, you were in South Africa for the eclipse.
NYE: That's right.
HARRIS: And you'd think that would be the big science story that we'd be talking about this year. But now it's this story with the clone, the alleged clone, coming back to the States. What do you think about that? Do you believe they have pulled this out?
NYE: Well, I am not ruling it out, okay? I don't want to think like so many journalists that cold fusion is true or something like that. But if anybody was going to do it, we are going to do it. These Raelians may be the people that would pull it off, because they are so -- apparently so caught up in science, and believe in it so strongly. But, on the other hand, to claim that they have a success rate 20 or 30, or 50 times better than the very best laboratories in mainstream science is pretty extraordinary.
HARRIS: Well, what do you think? What do you -- how about putting this into some sort of perspective for us. If they did pull this off, what would it mean to you? Or rather, what would it mean for all of us?
NYE: Well, it would mean that maybe people could have babies identical to themselves. Which, you know, as we all say in the scientific community is probably not a good idea. It's probably a bad idea. First of all, there's technical problems with cloning right now. You know, if you go to clone an animal right now, a lot of times it doesn't work. Dolly the sheep, the famous one, five years ago, 276 failures before a success.
HARRIS: Right.
NYE: And it's interesting... HARRIS: As I understand it, Dolly is aging faster than normal too, correct?
NYE: Right. Right. She has some unusual genetic properties that just aren't consistent with a regular sheep. You know, she was born older Leon, like George Bailey. And so people are not really sure why that is. And also these animals have arthritis and lung problems and these things. So to bring a kid into the world with these potential problems is -- seems like it might be pretty irresponsible. And yet, on the other hand, it's possible -- it's not absolutely impossible. We must adopt a wait and see.
HARRIS: All right, let's move on. Let's talk about another story, a scientific story of the yea: Global warming. To many people, the issue was proven this past year.
NYE: Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, Leon, I look like nobody, but I have been to the Ice Core lab near Denver, Colorado. And these people drill down to bedrock in Antarctica. They drill down to dirt in Greenland. And they have found pieces of ice with tiny, tiny bubbles of ancient atmosphere trapped in it. Now, from this, we learned clearly that the atmosphere used to have less carbon dioxide in it. And the world used to be colder. And you can go back 400,000 years. And so there's no question that there is more carbon dioxide in the last million and a half years, and the world is warmer than it was.
This wouldn't matter except when you get the world warmer, the ocean gets bigger. It expands. You know, when things get warm, they expand. So the ocean's going to overrun the land. The other thing is, and we have -- you guys have -- you have a lot of weather people, right?
HARRIS: Yeah.
NYE: Anecdotally, many of us may notice that the weather seems like it's getting wilder and wilder, and this would be consistent with models that -- by models, we mean mathematical arrangements of equations that predict the flow of heat in the atmosphere. And when you have more heat in the atmosphere. the weather just kind of gets wilder. And this could be good for a few places on Earth, but for most of us, it's going to be a big hassle. So here's the news -- here's the news, Leon.
HARRIS: All right!
NYE: That, no matter what we do in sort of conventional fossil fuels, we're outstripping the amount of carbon that we can remove from the air by conventional means. Here's what I mean, I don't mean to sound too complicated. It's just that, if we don't take extra steps to take carbon out of the atmosphere, we'll never catch up. That is to say, we will never bring the world back to what we know. But, on the other hand, a forward-thinking entrepreneur or two --
HARRIS: Such as yourself?
NYE: Well, I mean, no, really, Leon, with all due respect, I am probably too old, with all due respect. Young people who think about these problems could come up with ways to take out carbon out of atmosphere and dare I say it -- get rich! That there would be ways to improve everyone's quality of life and make the world more manageable for us humans. Because, you know, the world's going to be here whether or not we are. This is the old story of cockroaches, but what I --
HARRIS: We may have to consult the Raeliens about that. They may have their own theory about that too, so --
NYE: Well, yes, but I mean, in the next century, which is a long time, but it's not very long, depending on how you look at it, the world's going to change in ways that will be reminiscent of Holland, you know, where there's dikes and weirs to keep the sea away. And the weather's going to change.
HARRIS: Well, I sure don't want that to happen, because I don't like to wear wooden shoes. Bill Nye, "The Science Guy."
NYE: Oh, that's just for example.
HARRIS: There you go.
NYE: But, Leon, there is more to talk about. We got to go?
HARRIS: We don't have time? I wish we could talk some more.
NYE: Well, anyway, watch out for the coming Mars missions. They leave in May and June. We are going to go to Mars and look for water.
HARRIS: All right.
NYE: We found signs of water on Mars, we might find signs of fossil bacteria, and that would be something to think about. Hey, good to see you, Leon.
HARRIS: You, too.
NYE: And have a good new year.
HARRIS: Same to you, man. Happy New Year and hope to talk to you later on. Take care.
NYE: Thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
