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Electronic Voting Machines Gain Popularity; Scientists Criticize Bush Administration For "Twisting" Science; Traffic Rose Exponentially Last Year
Aired February 21, 2004 - 15:00 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.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi everybody, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXTt@CNN, this primary season the computers are coming. They are meant to solve the problem of hanging chads. Will they cause even bigger problems?
As Mardi Gras rebellers celebrate in New Orleans, there's a different kind of feast going on below ground we will tell you about efforts to defeat an unseen enemy.
And if you still don't have a sweetie a week after Valentine's Day, well Jeanne Moos may have just the gadget for you. All that and more on NEXT.
They made Florida a laughing stock. Who could forget the hanging chads in the last presidential election? This election year, a lot of people will go chadless. More than a quarter of the nation will vote electronically in the hopes of avoiding the repeat of the Florida foul up. But just how reliable is electronic voting? Kitty Pilgrim reports.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just touch the screen, 50 million people is expected to vote electronically in the 2004 elections. The problem of hanging chads generated an outcry for a less complicated system, but some say electronic voting may not be it.
KIMBALL BRACE, PRESIDENT, ELECTION DATA SERVICES: From the voters standpoint, it appears to be less complicated but there's certainly a lot of inner workings with the electronics where they could go wrong.
PILGRIM: Worries about electronic voting include software malfunctions, vulnerability to hackers and a lack of paper trail or paper records of votes. In California, 14 of 58 counties are using electronic voting in the primary in two weeks. Some watchdog groups are concerned.
KIM ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA VOTER FOUNDATION: One of the main reforms my organization and a number of groups are calling for is a requirement that thereby a voter verified paper ballot that is produced at the time the voter votes. The voter can verify and make sure that the machine captured their votes accurately.
PILGRIM: In Ohio a state funded study found problems with four of the main electronic voting manufacturers and another report in Maryland the Robba (ph) report said there are "considerable security risks in electronic voting and made recommendations to ensure the election will be accurate." Debolt one of the main manufacturers said many of the concerns raised in these studies have been addressed and electronic voting in this election will be "safe, secure and accurate."
The problematic punch cards are being phased out. By the fall election, they will have disappeared in 11 of the states that used them in 2000. Still, some 32 million people will vote that way in November.
SIEBERG: From using computers to vote to using computers to find yourself, literally. A high school student from California did what I'm sure a lot of us have done before. Put your name into an Internet search engine to see what you get. He got the surprise of his life as Frank Buckley reports.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The California teenager was Googling with his friends, according to a missing child advocate when he entered his not so common first name. Orey, and up came this Web site, Find the Children.com. Which displayed a photo of this 3-year- old boy named Orey who authorities said had been abducted in Canada by his mother 14 years ago. Rodney Steinman is Orey's father.
RODNEY STEINMANN, FATHER OF MISSING BOY: I don't have any idea how he's lived or the man that he's become.
BUCKLEY: Court records indicate that Steinmann had just been granted full custody of Orey when the boy and his mother disappeared. Steinmann says he has worried about his son ever since.
STEINMANN: I don't know about things like if he got sick, did you take him to the hospital. You know, like when he was six, did he go to school?
BUCKLEY: Now the boy's mother, Gisele Johnson, faces extradition to Canada on child abduction charges but a friend says the Gisele Johnson she knows is a good mother.
RINA RIO, MOTHERS FRIEND: I mean to hear this, it's almost like she's a completely different person. But then she's a woman that loved her child.
BUCKLEY: Rina Rio says she has talked to Johnson on the phone since the arrest.
RIO: I asked her, I said what's happened? I said what happened? What's going on? She said, Rina, I can't tell you it's too long of a story and she said it's something that went on many, many, many years ago, and she said it's come back to haunt me.
BUCKLEY: Orey meanwhile is now in protective custody, but at 17 years old, authorities say he is old enough to at least have a voice in deciding whether he returns to Canada or stays in California where he learned he had been missing for 14 years.
SIEBERG: Truly an amazing story. And we'll let you know how it turns out. Now a story involving another Internet site, one that puts the thoughts of soldiers on the front lines on the Internet. Barbara Starr reports.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the Internet age version of a soldier's letter home. Companycommand.com, A Web site of e-mails and messages from hundreds of troops, their personal thoughts from the frontline, an unprecedented guidebook on survival for those headed to Iraq.
Captain Dan Morgan, 101st Airborne writes of the constant threat of death. "An explosion rocks the vehicle in front of you, throwing soldiers on to the street. Your soldiers stagger about trying to shake off the effects of the concussion. On this day I lost a platoon sergeant. He is alive but when I got to that truck he is a pile of blood and matter."
Morgan on the chilling reality of killing the enemy, "you should be able to calmly place the red dot of you m68 optic device on his chest and kill him with one shot."
Capital David Zinn 4th Infantry Division recommends how to keep a convoy safe. "Everyone goes red direct upon leaving the base camp. The vehicles most at risk are first and last. Sandbag the floors of humvees. Pull the tarp up on the sides, so that passengers can fight from the vehicles."
Some of the messages highly detailed recommendations about military tactics and there are everyday concerns. Soldiers with skills and plumbing, carpentry and electric will prove invaluable." Captain James Williams a military policeman.
"Grim reminders from those early days of the war. It is the most horrible environment you could ever imagine. Prepare for the worst, heat, dust sandstorms. The elements are as much your enemy as the Fedayeen." Captain Mike Titus, 101st Airborne Division.
"And they answer the question -- what will you remember 50 years from now?
"Seeing the whites of the eyes of the guy sitting behind a truck while an FSO called a hellfire missile and watching it just smash into him." Captain Gabe Barton, 82nd Airborn Division.
But there are many positive memories. Lieutenant Jessica Murphy, a military police officer, "I think I will most remember how happy the Iraqi kids were every time we interacted with them. If I helped make their lives a little better, it was worth it all."
Companycommand.com, a unique look at the sometimes-brutal reality of war from the front lines.
SIEBERG: In case you're wondering, there's a lot more on the Company Command Web site. You can find a link to it and get more information about other stories in our program on our Web site that is at CNN.com/next.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, why has it been so cold this winter? When scientists tell us the earth is heating up. We will explain the apparent contradiction.
Also ahead a rundown of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country. Find out if the list includes an intersection near you.
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SIEBERG: Science and politics don't always mix. But a group of distinguished scientists says they may be mixing a little too much these days. Bob Franken has the story.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From ozone to obstetrics, nowhere is the argument over the influence of so-called special interests in the Bush administration more angry than in the scientific community. Now, the blunt charge from the Union of Concerned Scientists that the administration has misrepresented scientific fact and misled the public.
KURT GOTTFRIED, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: This is unprecedented. That this is quite different from previous administrations of either party.
FRANKEN: Physicist Kurt Gottfried is one of more than 60 scientists including 20 winners of the Nobel Prize who signed off on the statement. They charge this president has embraced unfounded conclusions about research into abortion, has advocated policies that endanger the environment, they claim, contributing to global warming for instance, to do the bidding of his corporate contributors, and in the case of the debate over going to war --
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.
FRANKEN: The scientist argue the president slanted dubious intelligence about the aluminum tubing to back arguments Saddam Hussein was creating nuclear weapons.
GOTTFRIED: There can be implications. I mean there were implications in the case of the nuclear weapons program in Iraq. There is no question that in the case of public health, there are implications.
FRANKEN: The response from the president's chief advisor in a nutshell, the distinguished scientists were not being as scientific as they should be.
JOHN MARBURGER, BUSH SCIENCE ADVISER: I think that they're making sweeping accusations based on a set of miscellaneous incidents that simply don't add up to the kind of deliberate systemic behavior that they claim it does.
FRANKEN: Each side is charging the other with playing politics. The union of concerned scientists says it's the president, the administration reports the scientists made the concerns seems to be political. Added to the ferment of a political year. SIEBERG: The FAA is taking new steps to prevent fuel tank explosions on airliners. There have been three such explosions in the last 14 years including TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the coast of Long Island in 1996 killing all 230 people on board.
This week the FAA said it will order airlines to install a system that works by what is called innerding (ph), pumping inert nonflammable gas into fuel tanks. Now the rule won't actually take effect for at least two years, then the safety systems will be phased in over seven years.
What would happen if a space shuttle crash-landed a few miles short of the runway? Well NASA held a drill this week to prepare emergency workers for that situation. A mockup of the shuttles crew compartment was placed in swampland near the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center.
Rescue crews were choppered in wearing protective gear because shuttle fuel is dangerous. They helped volunteers posing as astronauts with various injuries. NASA holds emergency drills about once a year with different crash scenarios.
And NASA's two Mars Rovers have been digging holes in the red planet. Scientists are hoping the minerals under the dusty surface may give them clues to the planet's past. Opportunity used one of its wheels to dig a shallow trench in the Martian dirt. Researchers find it intriguing because the soil is not uniform in the four-inch deep trench.
Meanwhile on the other side of Mars the Rover Spirit explored a hollow and scientists think it is an impact crater. NASA says Spirit and Opportunity may keep working for six months or longer.
Mars is a long ways away, but astronomers say they find a tiny galaxy that is the most distant known object from earth, how far away is it? How about 13 billion light years, give or take a couple a miles. Astronomers used both the Hubble space telescope and observations from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to get a glimpse of the galaxy. Behind a cluster of galaxies know as Avell2218 (ph) the distant galaxy is here, these very faint red smudges, the galaxy gives researchers a peek at a time when stars first started to shine. Astronomers say the light captured in these photos was generated when the universe was a mere 750 million years old.
This winter has brought colder than average weather. Especially in the North East, so does that mean that global warming is a myth? Well Sean Callebs takes a look at the big chill and the big picture.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So where has it been the coldest? The Northeast? You're getting warm. New York? Warmer. Massachusetts, that's it. According to weather records, this past month was the coldest January ever seen there. Without question, it has been usually cold in the northeast.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's wrong? Cold? Are you cold? TOM CARL, DIRECTOR NATIONAL CLIMATE CENTER: This past winter has certainly been colder than normal in the northeast and especially the coldest time of the year. So that feels doubly cold.
CALLEBS: So what about all those cars slipping and sliding? Ice and snow dipping into southern states. According to Noah, the 48 contiguous states had a colder than average January. But temper that with this. The big picture, the entire planet.
CARL: In this past year, globally, temperatures were tied for the second warmest. January of this year, we were fourth warmest on record. Our records go back to the late 19th century.
CALLEBS: As New York suffers through its coldest winter in more than a quarter century; it's hard to think about huge glaciers or massive chunks breaking off and discusses global warming. Noah authorities say there are two issues here. One cyclical weather conditions, the other long-term concerns. And Carl says no question the earth is warming up.
CARL: Temperatures have warmed at a rate where over the course of a century four degrees Fahrenheit globally.
CALLEBS: It may not sound like a lot, but he says 18,000 years ago, the height of the ice age, the average global temperature was only ten degrees Fahrenheit cooler.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just ahead on NEXT@CNN, an assisted living community of sorts for sick or unwanted animals.
And later New Orleans has an eating problem, and it's shaking the very foundation of the French quarter. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: A new study says the number of traffic bottlenecks on U.S. highways has risen dramatically in recent years. Yes, it's likely your commute has gotten worse. More from Julie Vallese.
JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Drive Los Angeles, this Ventura Freeway, hit the I 405 interchange and you've hit the nation's worst bottleneck.
DIANE STEED, RESIDENT, AMERICAN HWY USER ALLIANCE: Los Angeles tops the list of bottlenecks. They have about five in the city.
VALLESE: 318,000 vehicles a day drive the stretch and more than 27 million hours a year are lost because of the commute.
STEED: We actually looked at the congestion all across the country and we identified about 233 bottlenecks in about 13 cities.
VALLESE: Houston, Phoenix and Chicago are all in the top five. In the five years since the last bottleneck study by the American Highway Users Alliance, the number of bottlenecks has increased by 40 percent. Eliminate all those bottlenecks says the Alliance and eventually --
STEED: We can reduce the number of crashes that occur and therefore the number of fatalities that occur. We can cut pollution nearly in half. We can save about 40 billion gallons of gasoline.
VALLESE: And save commuters 30 minutes a day but that takes money.
STEED: Some things that can be done, that would be simply improving the way traffic flows with signaling or ramp metering.
VALLESE: Atlanta hasn't done it. Three bottlenecks were identified in that city five years ago and they're still there today. The city is aware of the problem and says the they are trying options before major construction. While bottlenecks account for about half of all congestion, some cities have seen improvements. Seven of the worst bottlenecks from the 1999 study are no longer on this list and that is because of state renovation projects.
SIEBERG: Lots of dogs are named Lucky, but one in Newport Richy, Florida really deserves the name. She's recuperating at a veterinary hospital after she apparently spent several days in a commercial garbage bin and then was dumped into a garbage truck headed for the landfill. The driver behind the truck heard Lucky yelping and got the truck to stop. Humane society officials say they think she was dumped into the thrash bin.
Lucky has several broken bones and is recovering from eating metal and glass. When she's healthy, she will be available for adoption.
Unfortunately, it's not unusual for dogs and cats to be abandoned or dumped like Lucky was. If they're elderly or sick, often they have to be euphemized. But some shelters offer ailing animals a place to live out their final years. Kimberly Osiris takes a tour of one such shelter in Washington State.
KIMBERLY OSIRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If old Macdonald really had a farm, it might look something like this. The pig's next to the goat who's next to the chicken.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
OSIRIS: Who's in the pen with the cat?
MARK STEINWAY, FOUNDER PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN: Feline aids he's got FIV.
OSIRIS: And the others have stories too.
STEINWAY: Chester the miniature horse came from a domestic abuse situation where when the guy got tired of beating on his girlfriend, he would start punching the horse.
OSIRIS: They are the animals nobody wants. The aged and the infirmed from Vermont to California, by air, car, and word of mouth. They're brought here to Pasado's Safe Haven.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come here sweetie come out here.
OSIRIS: Founder Susan Michaels and Mark Steinway say it's a calling.
SUSAN MICHAELS, FOUNDER PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN: What we are doing is just following what is in our heart.
STEINWAY: We want to rescue those who aren't being helped by any other program such as the old dogs that are being dropped off at shelters.
OSIRIS: What would happen to those animals?
STEINWAY: Almost certain death.
OSIRIS: But here on 80 acres.
STEINWAY: It's kind of rugged out here.
OSIRIS: Two hundred animals run free. They all live in community, they get along.
STEINWAY: We do what we can; we don't make them suffer any more.
OSIRIS: They get treatment paid with donations and volunteer help.
STEINWAY: Given the right loving environment, they respond, and you see these huge turn around in their personalities and it's very, very rewarding.
OSIRIS: And best of all, they get a chance.
SIEBERG: By the way the Safe Haven is funded entirely from grants and donations. We've got to get a little funding here ourselves.
Time for a commercial break. But to get you to stick around ponder this -- why are the folks who make these cameras contradict a popular music act? We'll tell you and we'll have a whole lot more when "NEXT@CNN" returns.
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(NEWS BREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN.
OK, have a listen to this.
(MUSIC)
SIEBERG: I know you've probably heard it many times before, but that's Outkast advising fans to "shake it like a Polaroid picture" during the Grammy awards earlier this month. Well, the folks Polaroid say they cheered for Outkast during the Grammies, but says you shouldn't shake a Polaroid picture. You should lay it on a flat surface and shield it from wind. They say you might damage the image if you shake it too vigorously. And those Outkast dancers certainly are vigorous.
Well, the partying is already vigorous in New Orleans as fat Tuesday approached. But, Mardi Gras coverage everywhere else might focus on drinking and celebrating, so predictable, we at NEXT@CNN dare to be different. CNN's Michael Schulder takes you to the French Quarter and focuses on an issue that's considered make or break for New Orleans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SONG): Grab your coat, get your hat, leave your worries on your doorstep life can be so sweet, on the sunny side of the street
MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the old French quarter of New Orleans, a lesson in warfare. In order to defeat your enemy, you must understand your enemy.
NAN-YAO SU, TERMITE EXPERT: The problem with human beings, that we are very visual animals. If we don't understand them, we have a hard time understanding them.
The sideboard, huh?
SCHULDER: After spending his childhood playing with insects, Nan-Yao Su has devoted his entire career to understanding the enemy in question, one of the most veracious insects in on the planet, the Formosan Termite.
SU: Wow.
Now, this is probably only part of the large nesting structure, we are seeing.
SCHULDER: Formosan Termites arrived on a ship returning from Asia after World War II underground, out of sight, they steadily built up their colonies digging webs of tunnels that extended more than 300 feet infesting the historic buildings put up when this territory belonged to France and Spain. You'd have to dig up the entire city to find them all.
ED BORDAS, HEAD OF THE NEW ORLEANS EXTERMINATION EFFORTS: Basically these buildings are 200 years old and older and older, and to lose these structures to the Formosan Termite would have been tragic.
SCHULDER: New Orleans native, Ed Bordas is the city's chief commander in the war on termites.
BORDAS: I knew nothing, really, about what was going on, and I was guilty. I had a pest control business, I used chlordane and I thought when I sprayed that chlordane, I killed all those. I was fooling myself and fooling the world.
SU: You know, it's human reaction to insects -- when you see insects most people say, "Ah-uh, yuk, spray them." So, basically you are doing is what I call the "spray and pray."
SCHULDER: Year after year of spraying and praying did not work, which is why during spring mating season, the air in New Orleans is thick with the Formosan Termite's version of speed dating. The termites were winning. The strategy had to change.
SU: We don't even use any chemicals unless we find them. And we only put where we found them.
BORDAS: Thinking, why not bring the termite to us, rather than us trying to protect the building, chase the termites, move them around, and not kill the colonies.
SCHULDER: Small holes were drilled throughout the French Quarter. Simple blocks of wood inserted without any chemicals. When the termite tunnels hit the blocks of wood and the termites start eating...
SU: Now we are going to replace this one with bait. So termite come in connecting to this station here, it will carry this bait and going back to the nest and give the poison to everybody else.
SCHULDER (on camera): And you can insert enough poison on this bait to get the whole colony?
SU: It does not takes a lot.
SCHULDER: Now let me ask you something, because I'm looking at this bait station here, and if I'm a smart termite, I'm going to say, "That does not look like wood to me." How do you convince them to eat that stuff?
BORDAS: They're blind.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHULDER: Is that right?
ED: Oh, absolutely.
SCHULDER: How convenient. That's got to taste different from wood.
ED: Better.
SUE: Better
ED: It's paper. That's whey they eat paper between the wood first.
SUE: They love soft paper more than the wood. SCHULDER (voice-over): And, so these super termites, which have spread from a mere four colonies in the 1960s to countless infestations throughout the southeast, may have finally met their match. There are signs that their numbers are decreasing, and the progress is being made using just a tiny amount of chemicals strategically placed using the enemy against itself.
SCHULDER (on camera): What makes you think that you two guys Ed Bordus and Nanyao Sun can outsmart these -- this species that's been around for a hundred thousand of years?
SUE: We never promised we will, but we are making good progress.
(SINGING): Well, that's sunny, sunny side of the street.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Next on NEXT, a desert oasis with a water problem, and we're not talking about a lack of water.
And later, a one-of-a-kind Panda that could save the world he's dwindling Panda population.
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SIEBERG: The oasis of Siwa has been a haven in the Egyptian desert since the time of Alexander the Great. Now it's in trouble because of the very thing that makes it thrive: It's water. Sylvia Smith reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVIA SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the ancient caravan route to Memphis and just 50 kilometers from Egypt's border with Libya is one of the most mysterious of all oases: Siwa, the classic desert haven.
Over 300,000 date palms create shade and the basis of the economy. Every Siwan family has a plot of land, an allotment on which they grow their daily food requirements. Agriculture hasn't changed for 1,000 years. No pesticide or fertilizer has ever been used.
Thousands of tons of dates of all shapes and shades depend on the miracle of Siwa, its abundance of water. But this resource, bubbling up exuberantly from the center of the earth, is paradoxically Siwa's greatest threat. The excess that the land can't absorb runs off into the salt lakes that surround the oasis and these saline inland waters are growing in size, nibbling at the edges of the date groves that lie on their shores.
To compensate, farmers started to drill individual wells to irrigate their land and produce more.
MOUNIR NEAMATALLAH, ENVIRONMENTALIST: Drilling wells, this new technology that we brought to Siwa could be the most dangerous weapon that could impair the oasis because as you drill wells, we are literally destroying the balances between the deep aquifers that provide the oasis with its water and the natural springs that have traditionally fed the Siwans with water.
The first thing is to stop drilling any man-made wells and to rely entirely on the natural springs in the oasis.
SMITH: Now for the first time there are guidelines for new wells. Drilling for water has been in Abdul Raheem Mussah's (PH) family for generations. He has the new technology but is only allowed to practice his trade where the land owner has a very substantial plot to cultivate.
According to Abdul Raheem, there's plenty of water for everyone to grow what they need using the time-honored method of time-sharing.
Every plot has a specific amount of time allocated each week for irrigation. Respect for each owner's right to water his land while accepting the restrictions is the answer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When you look at the results of all these new springs, you realize that more damage is caused than benefit to individual farmers. Now they've built a wall along this side of the lake. It is supposed to keep the water from reaching the roots of the trees and killing them. It seems to work, for the moment, anyway.
SMITH: The emphasize is on maintaining and sharing older, deeper wells that have served Siwa for centuries.
This is Cleopatra's Pool. Herodotus, the Greek historian, remarked on its qualities. Those same qualities are also the source of a new industry. This modern bottling factory is taking advantage of Siwa's plentiful, perfectly balanced pure water and delivering it around Egypt and the Middle East.
The co-existence of these two types of water, sweet and saline, side-by-side, may seem to offer Siwa a fragile future. The huge deposit of rock salt at the bottom of the lakes could, in some way, be seen as the villain of the piece, but this natural resource has a crucial role to play. It's the basis for an important revival of traditional construction.
The idea came from the original fortress town, now abandoned on a hill. The Shali (PH) may look like a Godi-esque (PH) sculpture, but until the last century these salt and mud houses protected the inhabitants from outside invaders.
Muniani Matala (PH) is harnessing the mighty power of salt combined with mud from the lake to make an up-market sandcastle fantasy. It's called Ziadra Amalou (PH) after the White Mountain that cast its shadow over the spread of Bahamian (PH) chic constructions.
MUNIANI MATALA (PH), BUILDER: Rock salt is a very strong material. It is the material that gives strength to the buildings. The mud is the mortar. When the different layers harden, they become as strong as a beam. They can carry their own weight. SMITH: The special technique had almost been lost when the Siwans moved down from their old homes. Modernizing meant concrete. Now master craftsmen pass on their skills to others. It's as much about designing as simply building.
When Alexander the Great came to Siwa over 2,000 years ago, it was to ask the oracle an important question about his future. We don't know for sure what he asked, but the prophecy industry that kept Siwa on the map for hundreds of years is now being replaced by a new asset.
MATALA: The oracle center, in antique times, is the same oracle center here today, but the commodity is slightly different. The commodity that the Siwans have here, which is very precious, is that they have a very good chance at proving that sustainable development really works in making communities get out of the cycle of poverty.
SMITH: The paradox of water, at once Siwa's greatest asset and its most imminent threat, is at the heart of the oasis development. If it can be managed correctly, then this remote oasis could be an oracle for the future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Ahead on NEXT@CNN, lawsuits or the threat of them, appear to be working to slow illegal music downloading in the United States. We'll tell you where music execs are aiming their guns next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: The U.S. recording industry this week sued 530 people who share music over the internet. The take them to court policy appears to be working. Illegal downloading in the U.S. is on the decline. Now Europe's music industry is taking note as Jim Boulden reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SONG): This here's the story about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue...
JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And this is a story about the music industry fighting back. Music labels say illegal file swaping is down in the United States. And that the policy of suing people who swap music files is coming to Europe.
JAY BERMEN, FBI: In the aftermath of the lawsuits in the United States, it's become clear that people now understand that there are consequences and there are far fewer illegal files available today than there were before the lawsuit started.
BOULDEN: Much of the credit for legitimate downloading goes to Apple Computer and its iTunes and iPod service, 30 million downloads in less than a year. Two-year-old "wippit.com" started when most of the music industry refused legitimate down loads. Wippit says that and the cost of CDs lead to illegal swapping. Wippit users will soon pay just about 50 cents a song. PAUL MYERS, CEO, WIPPIT.COM: The margins are very, very, very slim, but it's a volume game -- it's a volume for us and it's a volume for the music industry as well, which is why, I think, the prices should generally be lower for downloads than they are at the moment.
BOULDEN: Myers says the way to hit the illegitimate market further is to allow kids to pay for legit music using their mobile phones, and by giving users unlimited access to the music they pay for.
MYERS: If I go to Gap and buy a sweater, they say I can't wear it on Tuesday and I really shouldn't wear it to this restaurant...
BOULDEN: A great many more legit music sites will be launched in Europe this year along with a host of lawsuits. That could give the long suffering industry something to sing about in 2004.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come: A digital version of "he loves me, he loves me not."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID KIRKPATRICK, "FORTUNE," SENIOR EDITOR: Ten or 15 years ago, people would come to work and they'd get all kinds of cool technology and they would say, hey, I want to use this at home. Today, that has completely reversed. So, consumers can truly buy things like cell phones in the hundreds of millions of units and as a result, the manufacturers can afford to take the most sophisticated technology, miniaturize it, make it manufactureable in these large quantities and get it out. Business, in general, doesn't represent the same kind of volume market, but certainly altering the landscape for the technology industry because companies that want to be in the forefront of technology are increasingly aiming their focus at the consumer because that's where the big dollars are for the state-of- the-art.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: China, home to the Giant Panda, is known for loaning the animals to zoos around the world. But now, one has been sent to China from the United States. As Phil O'Sullivan explains, it's all part of a plan to keep China's Panda population from dying out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hua Mei means China-America and this 4-year-old Giant Panda could claim to be from both countries, but she's back in the homeland of her parents getting used to a new way of life, unlike most first-time visitors to China, she's also coming to terms with a new language.
YANG BO, HUA MEI'S PANDA KEEPER (through translator): We talk to her in Mandarin now, but she's used to English, so she will have to get used to that. But, we use the same methods of taking care of her as they did in America.
O'SULLIVAN: Hua Mei grew up at San Diego Zoo. She's the first endangered Panda born in the United States to live for more than a few hours. But, now she's past the age of three. The rules of China's Panda Loan Program means she must be returned to China. Hua Mei is now in a month-long quarantine period in China's Sichuan basin, the vast bamboo clad area where around 1,100 China's remaining Giant Pandas are living.
Hua Mei has to adjust to temperatures much lower than she's use to. To help reduce the culture shock she will be gradually be introduced to Chinese food, but for now, she's on a diet flown in from the U.S. that includes her favorite Panda cookies and fresh U.S. bamboo shoots. As the official mascot of China, her new home country is doing its best to keep her happy. Standing by to help in that process, are three potential suitors. Hua Mei's return to China is vital to ensure the future survival of her species
WANG PENGYAN, WOLONG PANDA RESERVE (through translator): Hua Mei is already at the reproductive age and we hope after she gets acclimatized to her new environment, and as long as there are no medical problems, that she will be able to mate with one of the suitable male Pandas and produce some babies.
O'SULLIVAN: Pandas can be fussy who they choose to mate with. So, once Hua Mei gets used to a new country, she then gets to pick her first boyfriend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, if you spent Valentine's Day without a girlfriend or boyfriend, you won't want to miss this next story. Jeanne Moos found a device that, its makers say, can detect attraction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes it's hard to tell when someone's mad for you, when the question is "got love?" Maybe the love detector has the answer. Install the software in your computer, call someone you suspect has a crush on you, and secretly let the love detector analyze voice frequencies to detect...
NICOLE GRAHAM, V ENTERTAINMENT: The butterflies in your stomach, first affections, excitement.
MOOS (on camera): We have no love.
GRAHAM: There's no love between us.
MOOS (voice-over): You can tell there's no love lost when the petals fall off the daisy. Independent experts say this isn't total BS, that analyzing stress in the voice is based on science.
RICH PARTON, CEO, V ENTERTAINMENT: It's developed in Israel to fight terrorism.
MOOS: The CEO of V Entertainment demonstrated how voice technology...
BILL CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: I want you to listen to me...
MOOS: ...supposedly reveals the stress of lying.
CLINTON: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
MOOS: long-term couples and pretend couples trying to get a rise out of the petals had little luck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is arousal -- you know, like "I'm hot for you." That kind of thing, you know.
MOOS (on camera): It's sad. I mean not a single petal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, maybe after a few drinks.
MOOS: Loves me, loves me not.
MOOS (voice-over): Finally we tried it on a CNN staffer who recently proposed to his Argentinean girlfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know -- you know what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What honey.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really love you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really love you too.
MOOS: Eureka, a petal rose up, the love bar lengthened. Though the smitten are hard to satisfy.
(on camera): Now, you're disappointed because you only got one petal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I only got a petal.
MOOS (voice-over): Later this year they plan to sell similar technology embedded in eyeglasses so you can sneak around with 20/20 love detection.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
I guess a low-tech version is if your glasses fog up a little when you encounter a potential mate.
Well, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week:
There's been a lot of joy at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab lately, as two rovers landed on Mars and started exploring. We'll meet the man who's in charge of JPL and find out what makes him tick.
That's tick coming up on NEST. Until then, let us hear from you. You can send us an e-mail anytime at NEXT@CNN.com and we might answer your question on our show.
Thanks so much for joining us this week. For all of us on the SciTech beat, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.
END
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Criticize Bush Administration For "Twisting" Science; Traffic Rose Exponentially Last Year>
Aired February 21, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi everybody, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXTt@CNN, this primary season the computers are coming. They are meant to solve the problem of hanging chads. Will they cause even bigger problems?
As Mardi Gras rebellers celebrate in New Orleans, there's a different kind of feast going on below ground we will tell you about efforts to defeat an unseen enemy.
And if you still don't have a sweetie a week after Valentine's Day, well Jeanne Moos may have just the gadget for you. All that and more on NEXT.
They made Florida a laughing stock. Who could forget the hanging chads in the last presidential election? This election year, a lot of people will go chadless. More than a quarter of the nation will vote electronically in the hopes of avoiding the repeat of the Florida foul up. But just how reliable is electronic voting? Kitty Pilgrim reports.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just touch the screen, 50 million people is expected to vote electronically in the 2004 elections. The problem of hanging chads generated an outcry for a less complicated system, but some say electronic voting may not be it.
KIMBALL BRACE, PRESIDENT, ELECTION DATA SERVICES: From the voters standpoint, it appears to be less complicated but there's certainly a lot of inner workings with the electronics where they could go wrong.
PILGRIM: Worries about electronic voting include software malfunctions, vulnerability to hackers and a lack of paper trail or paper records of votes. In California, 14 of 58 counties are using electronic voting in the primary in two weeks. Some watchdog groups are concerned.
KIM ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA VOTER FOUNDATION: One of the main reforms my organization and a number of groups are calling for is a requirement that thereby a voter verified paper ballot that is produced at the time the voter votes. The voter can verify and make sure that the machine captured their votes accurately.
PILGRIM: In Ohio a state funded study found problems with four of the main electronic voting manufacturers and another report in Maryland the Robba (ph) report said there are "considerable security risks in electronic voting and made recommendations to ensure the election will be accurate." Debolt one of the main manufacturers said many of the concerns raised in these studies have been addressed and electronic voting in this election will be "safe, secure and accurate."
The problematic punch cards are being phased out. By the fall election, they will have disappeared in 11 of the states that used them in 2000. Still, some 32 million people will vote that way in November.
SIEBERG: From using computers to vote to using computers to find yourself, literally. A high school student from California did what I'm sure a lot of us have done before. Put your name into an Internet search engine to see what you get. He got the surprise of his life as Frank Buckley reports.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The California teenager was Googling with his friends, according to a missing child advocate when he entered his not so common first name. Orey, and up came this Web site, Find the Children.com. Which displayed a photo of this 3-year- old boy named Orey who authorities said had been abducted in Canada by his mother 14 years ago. Rodney Steinman is Orey's father.
RODNEY STEINMANN, FATHER OF MISSING BOY: I don't have any idea how he's lived or the man that he's become.
BUCKLEY: Court records indicate that Steinmann had just been granted full custody of Orey when the boy and his mother disappeared. Steinmann says he has worried about his son ever since.
STEINMANN: I don't know about things like if he got sick, did you take him to the hospital. You know, like when he was six, did he go to school?
BUCKLEY: Now the boy's mother, Gisele Johnson, faces extradition to Canada on child abduction charges but a friend says the Gisele Johnson she knows is a good mother.
RINA RIO, MOTHERS FRIEND: I mean to hear this, it's almost like she's a completely different person. But then she's a woman that loved her child.
BUCKLEY: Rina Rio says she has talked to Johnson on the phone since the arrest.
RIO: I asked her, I said what's happened? I said what happened? What's going on? She said, Rina, I can't tell you it's too long of a story and she said it's something that went on many, many, many years ago, and she said it's come back to haunt me.
BUCKLEY: Orey meanwhile is now in protective custody, but at 17 years old, authorities say he is old enough to at least have a voice in deciding whether he returns to Canada or stays in California where he learned he had been missing for 14 years.
SIEBERG: Truly an amazing story. And we'll let you know how it turns out. Now a story involving another Internet site, one that puts the thoughts of soldiers on the front lines on the Internet. Barbara Starr reports.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the Internet age version of a soldier's letter home. Companycommand.com, A Web site of e-mails and messages from hundreds of troops, their personal thoughts from the frontline, an unprecedented guidebook on survival for those headed to Iraq.
Captain Dan Morgan, 101st Airborne writes of the constant threat of death. "An explosion rocks the vehicle in front of you, throwing soldiers on to the street. Your soldiers stagger about trying to shake off the effects of the concussion. On this day I lost a platoon sergeant. He is alive but when I got to that truck he is a pile of blood and matter."
Morgan on the chilling reality of killing the enemy, "you should be able to calmly place the red dot of you m68 optic device on his chest and kill him with one shot."
Capital David Zinn 4th Infantry Division recommends how to keep a convoy safe. "Everyone goes red direct upon leaving the base camp. The vehicles most at risk are first and last. Sandbag the floors of humvees. Pull the tarp up on the sides, so that passengers can fight from the vehicles."
Some of the messages highly detailed recommendations about military tactics and there are everyday concerns. Soldiers with skills and plumbing, carpentry and electric will prove invaluable." Captain James Williams a military policeman.
"Grim reminders from those early days of the war. It is the most horrible environment you could ever imagine. Prepare for the worst, heat, dust sandstorms. The elements are as much your enemy as the Fedayeen." Captain Mike Titus, 101st Airborne Division.
"And they answer the question -- what will you remember 50 years from now?
"Seeing the whites of the eyes of the guy sitting behind a truck while an FSO called a hellfire missile and watching it just smash into him." Captain Gabe Barton, 82nd Airborn Division.
But there are many positive memories. Lieutenant Jessica Murphy, a military police officer, "I think I will most remember how happy the Iraqi kids were every time we interacted with them. If I helped make their lives a little better, it was worth it all."
Companycommand.com, a unique look at the sometimes-brutal reality of war from the front lines.
SIEBERG: In case you're wondering, there's a lot more on the Company Command Web site. You can find a link to it and get more information about other stories in our program on our Web site that is at CNN.com/next.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, why has it been so cold this winter? When scientists tell us the earth is heating up. We will explain the apparent contradiction.
Also ahead a rundown of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country. Find out if the list includes an intersection near you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Science and politics don't always mix. But a group of distinguished scientists says they may be mixing a little too much these days. Bob Franken has the story.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From ozone to obstetrics, nowhere is the argument over the influence of so-called special interests in the Bush administration more angry than in the scientific community. Now, the blunt charge from the Union of Concerned Scientists that the administration has misrepresented scientific fact and misled the public.
KURT GOTTFRIED, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: This is unprecedented. That this is quite different from previous administrations of either party.
FRANKEN: Physicist Kurt Gottfried is one of more than 60 scientists including 20 winners of the Nobel Prize who signed off on the statement. They charge this president has embraced unfounded conclusions about research into abortion, has advocated policies that endanger the environment, they claim, contributing to global warming for instance, to do the bidding of his corporate contributors, and in the case of the debate over going to war --
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.
FRANKEN: The scientist argue the president slanted dubious intelligence about the aluminum tubing to back arguments Saddam Hussein was creating nuclear weapons.
GOTTFRIED: There can be implications. I mean there were implications in the case of the nuclear weapons program in Iraq. There is no question that in the case of public health, there are implications.
FRANKEN: The response from the president's chief advisor in a nutshell, the distinguished scientists were not being as scientific as they should be.
JOHN MARBURGER, BUSH SCIENCE ADVISER: I think that they're making sweeping accusations based on a set of miscellaneous incidents that simply don't add up to the kind of deliberate systemic behavior that they claim it does.
FRANKEN: Each side is charging the other with playing politics. The union of concerned scientists says it's the president, the administration reports the scientists made the concerns seems to be political. Added to the ferment of a political year. SIEBERG: The FAA is taking new steps to prevent fuel tank explosions on airliners. There have been three such explosions in the last 14 years including TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the coast of Long Island in 1996 killing all 230 people on board.
This week the FAA said it will order airlines to install a system that works by what is called innerding (ph), pumping inert nonflammable gas into fuel tanks. Now the rule won't actually take effect for at least two years, then the safety systems will be phased in over seven years.
What would happen if a space shuttle crash-landed a few miles short of the runway? Well NASA held a drill this week to prepare emergency workers for that situation. A mockup of the shuttles crew compartment was placed in swampland near the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center.
Rescue crews were choppered in wearing protective gear because shuttle fuel is dangerous. They helped volunteers posing as astronauts with various injuries. NASA holds emergency drills about once a year with different crash scenarios.
And NASA's two Mars Rovers have been digging holes in the red planet. Scientists are hoping the minerals under the dusty surface may give them clues to the planet's past. Opportunity used one of its wheels to dig a shallow trench in the Martian dirt. Researchers find it intriguing because the soil is not uniform in the four-inch deep trench.
Meanwhile on the other side of Mars the Rover Spirit explored a hollow and scientists think it is an impact crater. NASA says Spirit and Opportunity may keep working for six months or longer.
Mars is a long ways away, but astronomers say they find a tiny galaxy that is the most distant known object from earth, how far away is it? How about 13 billion light years, give or take a couple a miles. Astronomers used both the Hubble space telescope and observations from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to get a glimpse of the galaxy. Behind a cluster of galaxies know as Avell2218 (ph) the distant galaxy is here, these very faint red smudges, the galaxy gives researchers a peek at a time when stars first started to shine. Astronomers say the light captured in these photos was generated when the universe was a mere 750 million years old.
This winter has brought colder than average weather. Especially in the North East, so does that mean that global warming is a myth? Well Sean Callebs takes a look at the big chill and the big picture.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So where has it been the coldest? The Northeast? You're getting warm. New York? Warmer. Massachusetts, that's it. According to weather records, this past month was the coldest January ever seen there. Without question, it has been usually cold in the northeast.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's wrong? Cold? Are you cold? TOM CARL, DIRECTOR NATIONAL CLIMATE CENTER: This past winter has certainly been colder than normal in the northeast and especially the coldest time of the year. So that feels doubly cold.
CALLEBS: So what about all those cars slipping and sliding? Ice and snow dipping into southern states. According to Noah, the 48 contiguous states had a colder than average January. But temper that with this. The big picture, the entire planet.
CARL: In this past year, globally, temperatures were tied for the second warmest. January of this year, we were fourth warmest on record. Our records go back to the late 19th century.
CALLEBS: As New York suffers through its coldest winter in more than a quarter century; it's hard to think about huge glaciers or massive chunks breaking off and discusses global warming. Noah authorities say there are two issues here. One cyclical weather conditions, the other long-term concerns. And Carl says no question the earth is warming up.
CARL: Temperatures have warmed at a rate where over the course of a century four degrees Fahrenheit globally.
CALLEBS: It may not sound like a lot, but he says 18,000 years ago, the height of the ice age, the average global temperature was only ten degrees Fahrenheit cooler.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just ahead on NEXT@CNN, an assisted living community of sorts for sick or unwanted animals.
And later New Orleans has an eating problem, and it's shaking the very foundation of the French quarter. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: A new study says the number of traffic bottlenecks on U.S. highways has risen dramatically in recent years. Yes, it's likely your commute has gotten worse. More from Julie Vallese.
JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Drive Los Angeles, this Ventura Freeway, hit the I 405 interchange and you've hit the nation's worst bottleneck.
DIANE STEED, RESIDENT, AMERICAN HWY USER ALLIANCE: Los Angeles tops the list of bottlenecks. They have about five in the city.
VALLESE: 318,000 vehicles a day drive the stretch and more than 27 million hours a year are lost because of the commute.
STEED: We actually looked at the congestion all across the country and we identified about 233 bottlenecks in about 13 cities.
VALLESE: Houston, Phoenix and Chicago are all in the top five. In the five years since the last bottleneck study by the American Highway Users Alliance, the number of bottlenecks has increased by 40 percent. Eliminate all those bottlenecks says the Alliance and eventually --
STEED: We can reduce the number of crashes that occur and therefore the number of fatalities that occur. We can cut pollution nearly in half. We can save about 40 billion gallons of gasoline.
VALLESE: And save commuters 30 minutes a day but that takes money.
STEED: Some things that can be done, that would be simply improving the way traffic flows with signaling or ramp metering.
VALLESE: Atlanta hasn't done it. Three bottlenecks were identified in that city five years ago and they're still there today. The city is aware of the problem and says the they are trying options before major construction. While bottlenecks account for about half of all congestion, some cities have seen improvements. Seven of the worst bottlenecks from the 1999 study are no longer on this list and that is because of state renovation projects.
SIEBERG: Lots of dogs are named Lucky, but one in Newport Richy, Florida really deserves the name. She's recuperating at a veterinary hospital after she apparently spent several days in a commercial garbage bin and then was dumped into a garbage truck headed for the landfill. The driver behind the truck heard Lucky yelping and got the truck to stop. Humane society officials say they think she was dumped into the thrash bin.
Lucky has several broken bones and is recovering from eating metal and glass. When she's healthy, she will be available for adoption.
Unfortunately, it's not unusual for dogs and cats to be abandoned or dumped like Lucky was. If they're elderly or sick, often they have to be euphemized. But some shelters offer ailing animals a place to live out their final years. Kimberly Osiris takes a tour of one such shelter in Washington State.
KIMBERLY OSIRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If old Macdonald really had a farm, it might look something like this. The pig's next to the goat who's next to the chicken.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
OSIRIS: Who's in the pen with the cat?
MARK STEINWAY, FOUNDER PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN: Feline aids he's got FIV.
OSIRIS: And the others have stories too.
STEINWAY: Chester the miniature horse came from a domestic abuse situation where when the guy got tired of beating on his girlfriend, he would start punching the horse.
OSIRIS: They are the animals nobody wants. The aged and the infirmed from Vermont to California, by air, car, and word of mouth. They're brought here to Pasado's Safe Haven.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come here sweetie come out here.
OSIRIS: Founder Susan Michaels and Mark Steinway say it's a calling.
SUSAN MICHAELS, FOUNDER PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN: What we are doing is just following what is in our heart.
STEINWAY: We want to rescue those who aren't being helped by any other program such as the old dogs that are being dropped off at shelters.
OSIRIS: What would happen to those animals?
STEINWAY: Almost certain death.
OSIRIS: But here on 80 acres.
STEINWAY: It's kind of rugged out here.
OSIRIS: Two hundred animals run free. They all live in community, they get along.
STEINWAY: We do what we can; we don't make them suffer any more.
OSIRIS: They get treatment paid with donations and volunteer help.
STEINWAY: Given the right loving environment, they respond, and you see these huge turn around in their personalities and it's very, very rewarding.
OSIRIS: And best of all, they get a chance.
SIEBERG: By the way the Safe Haven is funded entirely from grants and donations. We've got to get a little funding here ourselves.
Time for a commercial break. But to get you to stick around ponder this -- why are the folks who make these cameras contradict a popular music act? We'll tell you and we'll have a whole lot more when "NEXT@CNN" returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN.
OK, have a listen to this.
(MUSIC)
SIEBERG: I know you've probably heard it many times before, but that's Outkast advising fans to "shake it like a Polaroid picture" during the Grammy awards earlier this month. Well, the folks Polaroid say they cheered for Outkast during the Grammies, but says you shouldn't shake a Polaroid picture. You should lay it on a flat surface and shield it from wind. They say you might damage the image if you shake it too vigorously. And those Outkast dancers certainly are vigorous.
Well, the partying is already vigorous in New Orleans as fat Tuesday approached. But, Mardi Gras coverage everywhere else might focus on drinking and celebrating, so predictable, we at NEXT@CNN dare to be different. CNN's Michael Schulder takes you to the French Quarter and focuses on an issue that's considered make or break for New Orleans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SONG): Grab your coat, get your hat, leave your worries on your doorstep life can be so sweet, on the sunny side of the street
MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the old French quarter of New Orleans, a lesson in warfare. In order to defeat your enemy, you must understand your enemy.
NAN-YAO SU, TERMITE EXPERT: The problem with human beings, that we are very visual animals. If we don't understand them, we have a hard time understanding them.
The sideboard, huh?
SCHULDER: After spending his childhood playing with insects, Nan-Yao Su has devoted his entire career to understanding the enemy in question, one of the most veracious insects in on the planet, the Formosan Termite.
SU: Wow.
Now, this is probably only part of the large nesting structure, we are seeing.
SCHULDER: Formosan Termites arrived on a ship returning from Asia after World War II underground, out of sight, they steadily built up their colonies digging webs of tunnels that extended more than 300 feet infesting the historic buildings put up when this territory belonged to France and Spain. You'd have to dig up the entire city to find them all.
ED BORDAS, HEAD OF THE NEW ORLEANS EXTERMINATION EFFORTS: Basically these buildings are 200 years old and older and older, and to lose these structures to the Formosan Termite would have been tragic.
SCHULDER: New Orleans native, Ed Bordas is the city's chief commander in the war on termites.
BORDAS: I knew nothing, really, about what was going on, and I was guilty. I had a pest control business, I used chlordane and I thought when I sprayed that chlordane, I killed all those. I was fooling myself and fooling the world.
SU: You know, it's human reaction to insects -- when you see insects most people say, "Ah-uh, yuk, spray them." So, basically you are doing is what I call the "spray and pray."
SCHULDER: Year after year of spraying and praying did not work, which is why during spring mating season, the air in New Orleans is thick with the Formosan Termite's version of speed dating. The termites were winning. The strategy had to change.
SU: We don't even use any chemicals unless we find them. And we only put where we found them.
BORDAS: Thinking, why not bring the termite to us, rather than us trying to protect the building, chase the termites, move them around, and not kill the colonies.
SCHULDER: Small holes were drilled throughout the French Quarter. Simple blocks of wood inserted without any chemicals. When the termite tunnels hit the blocks of wood and the termites start eating...
SU: Now we are going to replace this one with bait. So termite come in connecting to this station here, it will carry this bait and going back to the nest and give the poison to everybody else.
SCHULDER (on camera): And you can insert enough poison on this bait to get the whole colony?
SU: It does not takes a lot.
SCHULDER: Now let me ask you something, because I'm looking at this bait station here, and if I'm a smart termite, I'm going to say, "That does not look like wood to me." How do you convince them to eat that stuff?
BORDAS: They're blind.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHULDER: Is that right?
ED: Oh, absolutely.
SCHULDER: How convenient. That's got to taste different from wood.
ED: Better.
SUE: Better
ED: It's paper. That's whey they eat paper between the wood first.
SUE: They love soft paper more than the wood. SCHULDER (voice-over): And, so these super termites, which have spread from a mere four colonies in the 1960s to countless infestations throughout the southeast, may have finally met their match. There are signs that their numbers are decreasing, and the progress is being made using just a tiny amount of chemicals strategically placed using the enemy against itself.
SCHULDER (on camera): What makes you think that you two guys Ed Bordus and Nanyao Sun can outsmart these -- this species that's been around for a hundred thousand of years?
SUE: We never promised we will, but we are making good progress.
(SINGING): Well, that's sunny, sunny side of the street.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Next on NEXT, a desert oasis with a water problem, and we're not talking about a lack of water.
And later, a one-of-a-kind Panda that could save the world he's dwindling Panda population.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: The oasis of Siwa has been a haven in the Egyptian desert since the time of Alexander the Great. Now it's in trouble because of the very thing that makes it thrive: It's water. Sylvia Smith reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVIA SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the ancient caravan route to Memphis and just 50 kilometers from Egypt's border with Libya is one of the most mysterious of all oases: Siwa, the classic desert haven.
Over 300,000 date palms create shade and the basis of the economy. Every Siwan family has a plot of land, an allotment on which they grow their daily food requirements. Agriculture hasn't changed for 1,000 years. No pesticide or fertilizer has ever been used.
Thousands of tons of dates of all shapes and shades depend on the miracle of Siwa, its abundance of water. But this resource, bubbling up exuberantly from the center of the earth, is paradoxically Siwa's greatest threat. The excess that the land can't absorb runs off into the salt lakes that surround the oasis and these saline inland waters are growing in size, nibbling at the edges of the date groves that lie on their shores.
To compensate, farmers started to drill individual wells to irrigate their land and produce more.
MOUNIR NEAMATALLAH, ENVIRONMENTALIST: Drilling wells, this new technology that we brought to Siwa could be the most dangerous weapon that could impair the oasis because as you drill wells, we are literally destroying the balances between the deep aquifers that provide the oasis with its water and the natural springs that have traditionally fed the Siwans with water.
The first thing is to stop drilling any man-made wells and to rely entirely on the natural springs in the oasis.
SMITH: Now for the first time there are guidelines for new wells. Drilling for water has been in Abdul Raheem Mussah's (PH) family for generations. He has the new technology but is only allowed to practice his trade where the land owner has a very substantial plot to cultivate.
According to Abdul Raheem, there's plenty of water for everyone to grow what they need using the time-honored method of time-sharing.
Every plot has a specific amount of time allocated each week for irrigation. Respect for each owner's right to water his land while accepting the restrictions is the answer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When you look at the results of all these new springs, you realize that more damage is caused than benefit to individual farmers. Now they've built a wall along this side of the lake. It is supposed to keep the water from reaching the roots of the trees and killing them. It seems to work, for the moment, anyway.
SMITH: The emphasize is on maintaining and sharing older, deeper wells that have served Siwa for centuries.
This is Cleopatra's Pool. Herodotus, the Greek historian, remarked on its qualities. Those same qualities are also the source of a new industry. This modern bottling factory is taking advantage of Siwa's plentiful, perfectly balanced pure water and delivering it around Egypt and the Middle East.
The co-existence of these two types of water, sweet and saline, side-by-side, may seem to offer Siwa a fragile future. The huge deposit of rock salt at the bottom of the lakes could, in some way, be seen as the villain of the piece, but this natural resource has a crucial role to play. It's the basis for an important revival of traditional construction.
The idea came from the original fortress town, now abandoned on a hill. The Shali (PH) may look like a Godi-esque (PH) sculpture, but until the last century these salt and mud houses protected the inhabitants from outside invaders.
Muniani Matala (PH) is harnessing the mighty power of salt combined with mud from the lake to make an up-market sandcastle fantasy. It's called Ziadra Amalou (PH) after the White Mountain that cast its shadow over the spread of Bahamian (PH) chic constructions.
MUNIANI MATALA (PH), BUILDER: Rock salt is a very strong material. It is the material that gives strength to the buildings. The mud is the mortar. When the different layers harden, they become as strong as a beam. They can carry their own weight. SMITH: The special technique had almost been lost when the Siwans moved down from their old homes. Modernizing meant concrete. Now master craftsmen pass on their skills to others. It's as much about designing as simply building.
When Alexander the Great came to Siwa over 2,000 years ago, it was to ask the oracle an important question about his future. We don't know for sure what he asked, but the prophecy industry that kept Siwa on the map for hundreds of years is now being replaced by a new asset.
MATALA: The oracle center, in antique times, is the same oracle center here today, but the commodity is slightly different. The commodity that the Siwans have here, which is very precious, is that they have a very good chance at proving that sustainable development really works in making communities get out of the cycle of poverty.
SMITH: The paradox of water, at once Siwa's greatest asset and its most imminent threat, is at the heart of the oasis development. If it can be managed correctly, then this remote oasis could be an oracle for the future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Ahead on NEXT@CNN, lawsuits or the threat of them, appear to be working to slow illegal music downloading in the United States. We'll tell you where music execs are aiming their guns next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: The U.S. recording industry this week sued 530 people who share music over the internet. The take them to court policy appears to be working. Illegal downloading in the U.S. is on the decline. Now Europe's music industry is taking note as Jim Boulden reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SONG): This here's the story about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue...
JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And this is a story about the music industry fighting back. Music labels say illegal file swaping is down in the United States. And that the policy of suing people who swap music files is coming to Europe.
JAY BERMEN, FBI: In the aftermath of the lawsuits in the United States, it's become clear that people now understand that there are consequences and there are far fewer illegal files available today than there were before the lawsuit started.
BOULDEN: Much of the credit for legitimate downloading goes to Apple Computer and its iTunes and iPod service, 30 million downloads in less than a year. Two-year-old "wippit.com" started when most of the music industry refused legitimate down loads. Wippit says that and the cost of CDs lead to illegal swapping. Wippit users will soon pay just about 50 cents a song. PAUL MYERS, CEO, WIPPIT.COM: The margins are very, very, very slim, but it's a volume game -- it's a volume for us and it's a volume for the music industry as well, which is why, I think, the prices should generally be lower for downloads than they are at the moment.
BOULDEN: Myers says the way to hit the illegitimate market further is to allow kids to pay for legit music using their mobile phones, and by giving users unlimited access to the music they pay for.
MYERS: If I go to Gap and buy a sweater, they say I can't wear it on Tuesday and I really shouldn't wear it to this restaurant...
BOULDEN: A great many more legit music sites will be launched in Europe this year along with a host of lawsuits. That could give the long suffering industry something to sing about in 2004.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come: A digital version of "he loves me, he loves me not."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID KIRKPATRICK, "FORTUNE," SENIOR EDITOR: Ten or 15 years ago, people would come to work and they'd get all kinds of cool technology and they would say, hey, I want to use this at home. Today, that has completely reversed. So, consumers can truly buy things like cell phones in the hundreds of millions of units and as a result, the manufacturers can afford to take the most sophisticated technology, miniaturize it, make it manufactureable in these large quantities and get it out. Business, in general, doesn't represent the same kind of volume market, but certainly altering the landscape for the technology industry because companies that want to be in the forefront of technology are increasingly aiming their focus at the consumer because that's where the big dollars are for the state-of- the-art.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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SIEBERG: China, home to the Giant Panda, is known for loaning the animals to zoos around the world. But now, one has been sent to China from the United States. As Phil O'Sullivan explains, it's all part of a plan to keep China's Panda population from dying out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hua Mei means China-America and this 4-year-old Giant Panda could claim to be from both countries, but she's back in the homeland of her parents getting used to a new way of life, unlike most first-time visitors to China, she's also coming to terms with a new language.
YANG BO, HUA MEI'S PANDA KEEPER (through translator): We talk to her in Mandarin now, but she's used to English, so she will have to get used to that. But, we use the same methods of taking care of her as they did in America.
O'SULLIVAN: Hua Mei grew up at San Diego Zoo. She's the first endangered Panda born in the United States to live for more than a few hours. But, now she's past the age of three. The rules of China's Panda Loan Program means she must be returned to China. Hua Mei is now in a month-long quarantine period in China's Sichuan basin, the vast bamboo clad area where around 1,100 China's remaining Giant Pandas are living.
Hua Mei has to adjust to temperatures much lower than she's use to. To help reduce the culture shock she will be gradually be introduced to Chinese food, but for now, she's on a diet flown in from the U.S. that includes her favorite Panda cookies and fresh U.S. bamboo shoots. As the official mascot of China, her new home country is doing its best to keep her happy. Standing by to help in that process, are three potential suitors. Hua Mei's return to China is vital to ensure the future survival of her species
WANG PENGYAN, WOLONG PANDA RESERVE (through translator): Hua Mei is already at the reproductive age and we hope after she gets acclimatized to her new environment, and as long as there are no medical problems, that she will be able to mate with one of the suitable male Pandas and produce some babies.
O'SULLIVAN: Pandas can be fussy who they choose to mate with. So, once Hua Mei gets used to a new country, she then gets to pick her first boyfriend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, if you spent Valentine's Day without a girlfriend or boyfriend, you won't want to miss this next story. Jeanne Moos found a device that, its makers say, can detect attraction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes it's hard to tell when someone's mad for you, when the question is "got love?" Maybe the love detector has the answer. Install the software in your computer, call someone you suspect has a crush on you, and secretly let the love detector analyze voice frequencies to detect...
NICOLE GRAHAM, V ENTERTAINMENT: The butterflies in your stomach, first affections, excitement.
MOOS (on camera): We have no love.
GRAHAM: There's no love between us.
MOOS (voice-over): You can tell there's no love lost when the petals fall off the daisy. Independent experts say this isn't total BS, that analyzing stress in the voice is based on science.
RICH PARTON, CEO, V ENTERTAINMENT: It's developed in Israel to fight terrorism.
MOOS: The CEO of V Entertainment demonstrated how voice technology...
BILL CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: I want you to listen to me...
MOOS: ...supposedly reveals the stress of lying.
CLINTON: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
MOOS: long-term couples and pretend couples trying to get a rise out of the petals had little luck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is arousal -- you know, like "I'm hot for you." That kind of thing, you know.
MOOS (on camera): It's sad. I mean not a single petal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, maybe after a few drinks.
MOOS: Loves me, loves me not.
MOOS (voice-over): Finally we tried it on a CNN staffer who recently proposed to his Argentinean girlfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know -- you know what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What honey.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really love you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really love you too.
MOOS: Eureka, a petal rose up, the love bar lengthened. Though the smitten are hard to satisfy.
(on camera): Now, you're disappointed because you only got one petal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I only got a petal.
MOOS (voice-over): Later this year they plan to sell similar technology embedded in eyeglasses so you can sneak around with 20/20 love detection.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
I guess a low-tech version is if your glasses fog up a little when you encounter a potential mate.
Well, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week:
There's been a lot of joy at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab lately, as two rovers landed on Mars and started exploring. We'll meet the man who's in charge of JPL and find out what makes him tick.
That's tick coming up on NEST. Until then, let us hear from you. You can send us an e-mail anytime at NEXT@CNN.com and we might answer your question on our show.
Thanks so much for joining us this week. For all of us on the SciTech beat, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.
END
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