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Mars Rovers Find Evidence Of Water On Red Planet; A Look At The Stradivarius Violin; "Canjun Bot" Races Across Desert

Aired March 6, 2004 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: And at 5:00 "People in the News" profiling today's biggest name in the news, Martha Stewart. The conviction against her and the impact on Martha's Media Empire. But first a check of the top stories at this hour.
Mexicans visiting the U.S. for less than three days will not have to under go finger printing and photographing. That was a concession that came today during a meeting between Mexican President Vicente Fox and U.S. President Bush. At his Crawford, Texas ranch.

Meanwhile, President Bush found himself answering reporter questions about those controversial 9/11 political ads.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S: I will continue to morn the loss of life on that day. But I will never forget the lessons. The terrorist declared war on us on that day. And I will continue to pursue this war. I have an obligation to those who died. I have an obligation to those who were heroic in their attempts to rescue. And I won't forget that obligation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: Mr. Bush saying he will continue to speak about the effects of 9/11.

Well last of Libya's nuclear program equipment is on an American ship. National Security Council says the ship is carrying equipment, including long-range missiles and centrifuge parts. An embassy spokesman says it is carrying 500 tons of equipment but would not say where it's headed.

In the wake of her conviction Martha Stewart must report to a probation office in New York on Monday. She'll receive guidelines that will lie out some restrictions on her activities. She was convicted yesterday for obstruction of justice to trail with sentencing scheduled for mid-June.

A Russian rescue of stranded scientists. A Russian helicopter plucked a team of researchers from the Arctic Circle. A wall of ice crushed their research center. Twelve scientists were unhurt, but had to huddle together for three days in temperatures below minus 38 degrees.

Rescue workers have been busy along Australia's east coast. High winds and torrential rains pounded the region earlier today. Uprooting trees and flooding roads and highways. At least three deaths are reported.

And a nasty line of storms pummels parts of the Midwest. Meteorologist Rob Marciano has the latest on the weekend forecast in the United States.

ROB MARCIANO, METEROLOGIST: Storm that brought tornadoes to Texas a couple days back and some winds and rains across the Midwest yesterday, now across the east coast. Not quite as strong a storm, but bringing some rainfall across much of the eastern seaboard residents. That storm will push off sea later on today, and then another little clipper coming across the Midwest tomorrow.

The south central part of the country relatively calm and quiet. There are some winds across the inner mountain west and northern tier. And much of California looks to be dry for today and tomorrow. Next couple days some cities for you Boston, New York and D.C. will see rainfall today through early to mid afternoon. Then drying out tonight, briefly tomorrow night another batch of rain comes your way. Atlanta rains are pretty much done. Tomorrow looking for sunshine 66.

And Miami will see temperatures in the lower 80s. Chicago 41. Detroit and Chicago tomorrow, could see a mix of rain and snow. Maybe some accumulation in spots, 55 in St. Louis and 53 with sunshine tomorrow. Dallas 66 nice. Windy in Denver, those winds calm down tonight and it will be calm and sunny tomorrow. 81 degrees expected in Phoenix, Arizona. And some showers across parts of the northwest and Seattle, especially. San Francisco dry, Los Angeles gets to 73 tomorrow. That's a quick weather check. I'm Rob Marciano. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

FRANKEN: And I'm Bob Franken in Washington with more news at the bottom of the hour, but "NEXT@CNN" begins right now.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi everybody, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN, mission accomplished. The Mars rovers have discovered evidence that water flowed on the red planet. We'll tell you how they discovered it and what may be in store for future missions to Mars.

Why is the strad various violin sound so good? Well apparently it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ring. We'll explain.

And can this vehicle make it across the Mojave Desert without a driver aboard? That's the million-dollar question. All that, and more on "Next."

OK. So they haven't found Marvin the Martian, but one of the two rovers currently exploring Mars has found evidence that water once flowed on the red planet. And that means that Marvin or some other sort of life may have once existed there. More from Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (Voice over): It's cold, it's bleak and it's dry. But 4 billion years ago, you could be swimming, perhaps with the fishes, if you were here.

STEVE SQUYRES, MARS ROVER, CHIEF SCHIENTIST: Over the last couple weeks the puzzle pieces have been falling into place, and the last puzzle piece fell into place a few days ago. We have concluded that the rocks here were once soaked in liquid water.

O'BRIEN: The proof comes from NASA's intrepid rover Opportunity which landed in this small crater on Mars in January. It was a hole in one of epic proportions. The crater is ringed with exposed bedrock, a geo logic time machine. The more Opportunity augured in and ogled, the more it became clear they were Rosetta stones.

SQUYRES: We believe, at this place on Mars, for some period in time, it was a habitable environment. This was a ground water environment. This is the kind of place that would have been suitable for life.

O'BRIEN: The evidence appears to be rock solid. That the planet was not only wet but habitable. Opportunity's microscope spotted these tiny spheres. The scientists call them blueberries. As it turns out they're like little globs of concrete. And everyone knows concrete needs water. But that's not all; there are holes in the rocks that are tabular shaped. Apparently the empty molds of crystals formed and then probably washed away by water.

SQUYRES: And when I saw those that was the moment in which I began to believe it.

O'BRIEN: And check out the way these rocks are layered in angles, cross-bedding it is called. It means there was some kind of current that moved the sediment as the rocks formed. It could be the wind. But more likely, it was flowing water.

JIM GARVIN, LEAD SCIENTIST FOR MOON AND MARS: This is another piece of the water puzzle. This says at some time on Mars, and we do not know when, could have been hundreds of millions of years ago, to billions, at some point there was contact of liquid water.

O'BRIEN: And there is more than meets the eye. A mineral sniffing spectrometer on Opportunity found a huge amount of sulfur salts in these rocks. And in particular, a yellow mineral called Gerasite; it forms only one way, with water.

SQUYRES: You put that story together and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that this stuff was deposited in liquid water.

GARVIN: We figured out one of its secrets and it's a good one. That soaking water story is fabulous. We never knew that before. But there's a lot more to be played.

O'BRIEN: Scientists are still not sure whether the water was a lake or a sea or even ground water. And while it's not proof there were ever Martians, scientists remind us that wherever there's water on earth, there is life.

GARVIN: We don't have the gear on the rovers to go that next step. But the Mars science laboratory may have that gear. (INAUDIBLE) Some day maybe people with on-site labs and all kinds of fancy analysis stuff could do even better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIEBERG: You could find lots more about Mars and information about other stories in this week's show on our Web site, that's at CNN.com/next.

Well the European space agency's mission to catch a comet is finally off the ground. Katherine Jacob of the British news service ITN reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHRINE JACOB, ITN, (Voice over): It's a mission that's been decades in the making. Amid much trepidation and after two delays, the Aryan 5 rocket blasted off into space. On board its precious cargo, the European space agency's Rosetta probe. If it's successful it will be the first spacecraft ever to land on a comet. Back in the control room, the biggest sigh of relief came two hours after the launch.

At that point the upper stage begins. The rocket's ignition propelling it deep into space and on its way towards the comet. For those involved, then came the thank you.

DAVID SOUTHWOOD, (UNLEDGIBLE): We've got ten years ahead of us. And everybody who has contributed to get us to this point should feel very proud of what they've done, so thank you.

JACOB: The journey of 4.3 billion miles will take Rosetta ten years. But if successful, it will be worth it, giving scientists the closest look they've ever had at a comet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIEBERG: And here's how Rosetta is going to give scientists that close look. After launch ground controllers spread the 105 foot solar panels that will provide Rosetta with power. During its ten-year journey the craft will loop around earth three times and Mars once in order to get enough momentum to reach the comet.

Once there it will release a probe that will land on the comet's nucleus and take samples to see what it's made of. Rosetta will beam the information back to earth. Scientists are very interested in comets, because they're believed to be largely the same as they were when the universe took shape.

Later in our show, we'll talk asteroids. And their impact or lack thereof on the dinosaurs.

Also ahead, we'll profile a Web site that went bust during the dotcom downturn. Find out why that was a good thing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERG: Because it's fireproof, asbestos can be a lifesaver. But if you inhale asbestos fibers, well they can be as lethal as a three-alarm fire. CNN's Skip Loescher looks at a new report on asbestos and your health.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELLEN PATTON: One day, like I said, I was fine. And the next day I'm in the hospital being told that I am going to die.

SKIP LOESCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (Voice over): Ellen Patton suffers from a deadly asbestos related disease. According to a report by the Washington based environmental working group, more than 100,000 Americans will die in the next ten years from asbestos-related diseases.

RICHARD WILES, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP: At least 10,000 people a year dying from asbestos exposures. And this number appears to be increasing.

LOESCHER: Asbestos was widely used for fireproofing and insulation in homes, schools and businesses until the 1970s. The report, which looked at 25 years of government data on the two main types of asbestos deaths found that most of those deaths were among workers exposed decades ago. The report, which calls for an immediate ban on asbestos, contends that more than 1 million people are currently exposed at their workplace, with millions more are exposed to it in the environment. The industry and insurance companies say asbestos exposure has been dropping for years.

JAN AMUNDSON, ASBESTORS ALLIANCE: The widespread use of it has been so long out that we are going to start seeing everything going on the down side.

LOESCHER: The industry is backing a Senate Bill to do away with asbestos lawsuits. And transfer all pending and future claims to a $114 billion victims fund, bank rolled by the industry. Employees unions and many trial lawyers contend that figure is too low.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIEBERG: This past week you may have seen the dramatic pictures of the sinking of a tanker off the Coast of Virginia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayday, mayday.

SIEBERG: The tanker, which was carrying industrial ethanol, sank last weekend and the Coast Guard released tape of the disaster earlier this week. Eighteen crewmen were lost. The crew reported an explosion before the sinking. The survey ship run by the National Ocean Graphic and Atmospheric administration was called in and on Tuesday it found the sunken vessel under 250 feet of water. The ship used side-scan sonar to locate the tanker. It typically uses the sonar for mapping the ocean floor.

Well, you may want to be sitting down for this next story because you may not realize it but when you surf the net, hidden programs can secretly piggyback on each keystroke and web page you view and transmit information about your computer habits to third parties. Maybe advertisers or marketers. So some new legislation that was recently introduced would crack down on this so-called spy ware and ad ware. But they're often hidden files. So if they're hidden how do you find them?

Well, we've got a demonstration here that will help illustrate how you can find them on your computer. We're using a program called Ad-Aware. There are many of them out on the market. And we're going to start scanning this computer here in the newsroom to try to find any of these hidden objects. As you can see it's scanned a couple of thousand files already on this computer and it's looking for these suspicious files. Now we're going to let this scan for a while and talk about this legislation that was introduced.

It's a bipartisan bill that would prohibit any program that collects your personal information and sends it to third parties, causes pop-ups and other ads to appear on your machine without your consent, turns your computer into a Spam machine for someone else, even modifies your personal computer settings, such as your home page so you're stuck somewhere when you logon. Or it redistricts you to a fake Web site that looks like the real thing.

Now if we go back to our computer here it's finished the scan. It scanned about 36,000 on objects or files on this computer and it found 24 that it believes are suspicious. It's even got a little bug flashing here for effect. If we go to the next page we can see what those files are. And you decide whether you want to keep them or delete them if that will help you sleep better at night.

Now Ad-Aware is just one of many programs out there to help you scan your computer to find these files. We went to a Web site called Spychecker.com. They've got a list of a number of different programs out there. Some of them are free. Some of them you have to pay for. It just depends on what you want. In any case consider this a chance to be aware of spy ware and ad ware.

All right, when it comes to dotcom businesses, why do some ventures fly while others flounder? Well, for at least one Web site, the answer is in the bust. No that the dotcom bust. Jim Boulden explains.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM BOULDEN, ENGLAND: The litany of failed Web sites is now legendary. Boo tried to sell us designer clothes online. Others tried to sell toys, even dog food. But those who have survived the bust have thrived. Amazon and Google rule the dotcom world. Of course, many tiny dotcoms survived the bust, as well. Slowly but surely building up a loyal customer base. Now one is based here on a farm in the north of England. And it's called Ample Bosom.com. Five years ago, Sally Robinson decided to sell something from her family's remote Yorkshire farm. Something that people need. Something that's easy to put in the post. SALLY ROBINSON, AMPLEBOSOM.COM: For a lot period of thinking what could I sell mail order? So I got the letterbox and a girl that worked for me wanted a bra to get married on she couldn't find on the Hyde Street. So we -- she said that's what you should sell Sally bras.

BOULDEN: While her husband tends to the cattle, Sally and her small staff cater to 30,000 registered customers. She won't reveal the underlying profits generated by underwear sales. But says the average customer spends $80 per order.

ROBINSON: Half the populations are wearing them. It had all the potential, I thought, to be a winner. And so what we sell is ordinary, everyday bras that ordinary, everyday people wear, and the market's huge. A black 42-a and a white 44-dd.

BOULDEN: Ample Bosom sells sizes most shops don't keep on the shelves. Anyway Sally says many of her customers are shy about shopping in stores for the larger sizes. Tapping that market has forced Sally to find more office space on the farm.

ROBINSON: This will be the new office here. Huge plate glass windows and glass sliding door and big, posh offices. We've just grown out of that, really. And this will accommodate more of us, and be more modern.

BOULDEN: The Robinson's used to raise pigs. The foot and mouth outbreak in 2001 put an end to that. And it nearly disrupted deliveries for the dotcom business, as well. Sally says the cows will also have to go if there's another outbreak. The bras have to get through. Are you going to become a dotcom millionaire one day?

ROBINSON: We'll have to wait and see, won't we? I keep spending it on software and I.T and things like that. But, yes, we'll have to see what happens, won't we?

BOULDEN: Ample Bosom now offers swim wear and maternity clothes. But Sally's gotten a complaint about the latest offering. She adds a bit of chocolate to the order which one customer says is the last thing she needs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just ahead, some super headaches on Super Tuesday. For a few voters who used e-voting machines.

And later, what's a racecar without a driver? A potential million-dollar winner. We will explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Some people in Ohio will soon be getting more than just electricity through their power lines. The utility will start offering high-speed Internet service over electrical lines. Existing electrical outlets will turn into Internet connections and customers just need to plug in a modem. The FCC has been pushing the technology as a way to give more people access to broadband without the need to install new lines. New acronym introduced here, of course. The service is called BPL, short for broadband over power lines. It will first be offered to 16,000 customers around Cincinnati a division of Synergy Corporation. Prices start at about $30 a month, including the modem.

A few people using electronic voting machines ran into some glitches on Super Tuesday. In San Diego County, California, some touch screens refused to boot up properly. That caused delays of up to two hours and some voters were sent to other polling places where they voted with low-tech paper ballots. Scattered problems were also reported in Georgia, Maryland, and other California counties.

Now dozens of states plan to use electronic voting for the general election in November, but Tuesday's problems and a worse snafu in a Florida state election last month have some people worried about the accuracy of e-votes. Aaron Brown reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It wasn't supposed to happen again. The excruciating process of inspecting paper chads. Hanging, dimpled or pregnant. And this year, it wasn't the same. It was worse. Once again, it happened in Florida, an election hanging on a handful of votes. So close the loser got an automatic recount.

ED DION, BROWNARD COUNTY ATTORNEY: The results for the two main candidates were exactly the same as they were on Tuesday night.

BROWN: Most of the votes in this state house seat race had been cast on new electronic voting machines, and only the totals were stored in the computer's memory.

TAVI RUBIN, INFORMATION SECURITY INST. JOHN HOPKINS UINIVERSITY: The recount on a fully electronic machine is nothing more than a reprint. It will give you the exact same result that you had before. It's not going to tell you anything new.

BROWN: Something new, was exactly what technology was supposed to provide when Congress voted billions of dollars to modernize the state electoral processes. Increase accuracy build voter confidence. Early public trials were a success.

LINDA LAMONE, ADMINISTRATOR MARYLAND BOARD OF ELECTIONS: The voters who have seen the equipment out at the mock elections that we're doing as part of our voter outreach have 99 percent of them just adore the machines.

BROWN: And how could you not adore them? They're easy to use. They speak your language. They even enable the blind for the first time ever, to cast a secret ballot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To cast your ballot press 9.

BROWN: Modern, computerized, paperless, and the target of a firestorm of complaints. The problem is, that voters simply cannot be certain that the software inside the machines has accurately recorded their vote. A programming error, a hacker attack, or a dishonest technician could affect dozens, perhaps thousands of votes, and without a paper trail, the only way to check it, you guessed it, is to ask the computer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things that I've noticed is that the more people know about computers, and the deeper their knowledge and understanding of computer security, the more opposed they are to voting machines that don't have a voter verifiable paper trail.

BROWN: More security has been added. But election officials and industry representatives say that keeping an election honest depends on more than software.

LAMONE: I've got a great staff and a great group of people out in the counties, all of whom are dedicated to making sure nothing like that happens. If it does, the person that does is going to jail.

REP. RUSH HOLT, (D) NEW JERSEY: Some election officials have said to me we've been using these electronic machines for several years now and we've never had a problem. To which I say, how do you know?

BROWN: Congressman Holt is sponsoring a bill in Congress that would require more stringent standards. He says it's a question of trust. But trust is getting harder to find. And it didn't help that Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell sent out a fund-raising letter saying he was committed to helping deliver quote, electoral votes to the president.

Nor that California official found that uncertified software and unapproved machines had been widely used in the recall election for governor. Ironically, the worst that could happen might well be that nothing will happen.

MICHAEL WERTHEIMER, DIRECTOR RABA TECHNOLOGIES: I'm worried that complacency is going to set in. And some November, the attackers will have done the reconnaissance. They'll have a better idea. And if we don't continue to improve the security, change the software, make it a better system, we're asking for trouble.

ANNOUNCER: Coming up in the second half hour of NEXT@CNN, what keeps an ordinary violin from being as rad as a strad? We'll have the latest research.

Also ahead, when extreme clutter crosses the line between just messy and deadly.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FRANKEN: I'm Bob Franken in Washington. NEXT@CNN will continue after a check of the top stories at this hour.

Mexicans entering the U.S. for visits of less than 3 days will no longer will have to fingerprinted and photographed. That announcement came today from Mexican president Vicente Fox during a meeting at President Bush's Texas ranch.

The 2 leaders also outlined a new plan that could clear the way for professionals from either country to work on the opposite side of the border.

A U.S. ship left Libya today carrying all known remaining equipment associated with the countries nuclear weapons program. Included in the cargo, 500 tons of parts from the former uranium conversion facility and several long range missiles. A National Security Council spokesman would not say where the parts were headed.

In Haiti: keeping the peace. U.S. Marines are now on one-time rebel strongholds of northern Haiti. They will help ensure peace a week after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ousting. Next week, 400 Canadian troops will arrive in the Carribean nation, part of an international peacekeeping force.

And bouquets of red and white adourned the casket during funeral service for Marge Schott today. Baseball legend, Pete Rose and Mayor Charlie Luken were among those paying their last respects to the controversial Cincinnati Reds owner. Schott, known both for her philanthropy and her shockingly racist remarks, died Tuesday at the age of 75.

And I'll have all the days news at the top of the hour, but right now it's back to NEXT@CNN.

SIEBERG: Well, that false alarm back in 1998 wasn't the only time an asteroid caused a scare. On January 13th of this year, for several hours astronomers thought there was a possibility that an asteroid might strike the northern hemisphere within a few days. There were even reports that they considered contacting the White House. But further observations confirmed the space rock would miss Earth.

Now, you can blame asteroids for a lot of things, periodic panic among astronomers, even big budget Bruce Willis movies, but you apparently can't blame them for the disappearance of the dinosaurs, at least not totally. According to new research from Princeton University the asteroid usually blamed for the dino disappearance actually hit 300,000 years before the big extinction. The study says the dinosaur die out was probably due to volcanic activity and the resulting climate change, along with a series of many asteroid hits.

Well, climate change is usually thought of as a bad thing, especially if that research is right, it certainly was a bad thing for the dinosaurs. But according to a new study climate change may be the secret behind the world's most famous stringed instruments.

Sharon Collins explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For centuries, scientists have searched for answers to the unique sound of a Stradivari. No one disputes that Antonio Stradivari was a master craftsman. But, experts have debated whether his unique varnishes or other wood treatments helped create instruments considered superior to more modern violins.

JOEL SMIRNOFF, JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET: He was a kind of revolutionary when it came to violin making, Even though it's a long time ago.

COLLINS: In the latest theory, scientists say climate may be one of the keys to his instrument's multimillion dollar sound. A study pioneered by a Columbia University climatologist and a tree ring expert at the University of Tennessee has determined that a long cold spell that hit Europe from the mid 1400s to the mid 1800s created a little ice age, of sorts, an amomly that slowed tree growth, resulting in a more compact wood that built instruments with more resonance.

HENRI GRISSINO-MAYER, UNIV. OF TENNESSEE: We're saying that perhaps the density of the tree rings, and the spacing of the tree rings and the more uniform growth rates of the tree rings may contribute to the quality of the instruments made by Stradivarius.

COLLINS: Henri GrissinoMayor studied tree growth patterns from the 16th to 21st centuries to determine how those trees used by Stradivari created such warm melodies from such cold conditions.

GRISSINO-MAYER: We found that, indeed, that trees were growing much slower, and in fact the narrowest tree rings during the entire -- last 500 years occurred during the Maunder Minimum.

COLLINS: The Maunder Minimum, the coldest 70 years of the little ice age, occurred at the same time Stradivari created his most prized instruments. Despite the newest addition to the pool of theories, however, Grissino-Mayor emphasizes that his hypothesis is just one piece of a complex puzzle. He encourages other scientists to continue searching for answers to this centuries old mystery. In the meantime he says, as everyone else, he, too, will appreciate the gift that is the sound of the Stradivarius.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: All right. Well while we're on the topic of weather we thought we'd bring in CNN meteorologist, Orelon Sidney to answer a viewer question about weather.

Connie from Irvine, California, asks: "If we know how to seed clouds to cause rain, then why is there a drought in the Midwest?"

Well, I guess we have to start with what seeding clouds is all about.

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right, because the true -- the short answer is we don't know how to seed clouds to produce rain. The way it works is you have to have condensation nuclei in a cloud in order for the raindrop molecules -- the rain molecules to attach to something and then fall out of the cloud. I happen to have something here that could be called condensation nuclei. The water in here was very cold, you start to notice little water droplets all around this and that's because the bottle acts as kind of a latch for all of the water molecules to grab onto and... SIEBERG: Like your car, maybe, in the morning.

SIDNEY: Just like your car with the dew. Now, what you do in cloud seedings, you take little crystals of silver iodide and you sprinkle them all through the cloud. Hopefully then, that gives you more condensation nuclei, more water grabbing onto it to fall out of the cloud. The problem is we've never been able to conclusively prove that seeding a particular storm has would make it rain. It's almost like we would have to know the future to know that this cloud will not rain unless we seed it. That will be something fantastic. We don't -- we're not able to do that, so at this point, all the answers are mixed and we really just don't know how to seed clouds to make it rain.

SIEBERG: All right. So, it remains a theory, for now?

SIDNEY: That's right.

SIEBERG: Have to stick to a rain dance. Orelon Sidney, thanks so much for joining us here.

Now, if you have a question you'd like us to answer on the air, you can send us an e-mail at next@cnn.com. Just keep in mind we can't answer all of your questions on the show.

Don't go away, we'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Next up, getting ready for a million dollar race without a driver. Can bots do it for themselves?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIEBERG: Well, the competitors in an upcoming race are definitely on their own -- they're robots. And they'll have to find their own way along a challenging course without any direction from their builders. We spent some time in Louisiana recently with a team of robot makers all shooting for a serious pot of gold at the finish line.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: If "Cajunbot" could play a position upon a football team, what would he be?

JONATHAN RAUSH, STUDENT: Definitely IT would be O-lineman.

Offensive lineman?

RAUSH: Yeah. It's got big tires on it, it does well in the dirt and the mud, and stuff. Not real flashy, you know.

SIEGERG: Not wide receiver, quarterback?

RAUSH: No, It's not going to outrun anybody. SIEGERG: But, for a million bucks, it will have to try. "Cajunbot," which was developed by the University of Louisiana, will be one of about 20 robots all vying for that hefty prize next week during a race from Barstow, California, to Primm, Nevada, which is near Las Vegas. The contest is sponsored by DARPA, a low key Defense Department agency best known for helping foster the internet.

ARUN LAKHOTIA, COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR: This is a broad area where DARPA expects to set up the route. They have not told us the exact route, and we'll know it only about two hours before.

SIEGERG: DARPA launched the challenge to get some fresh ideas for autonomous military vehicles. Betting that sharp college kids, and even basement finkerers might design a better bot.

Dr. Arun Lakhotia and several graduate students decided to enter the competition in November. But, that months after other teams had already started. "Cajunbot" is clearly an underdog going into the race with no formal robotics program to back it up, it's scrambling for sponsorship. But, there's some glee at being able to crash the big party.

LAKHOTIA: Yes, there is a little gloating that we are in it, we are in the big leagues, and we are challenging them.

SIEGERG (on camera): Walking down that dirt track like this is something we all talk for granted. If it's a little bit steep we can accommodate for it, if there's an obstacle in our way, well we just go around. But, "Cajunbot" needs a little help. So its creators have put together a series of complex computer programs, GPS navigation, laser, sonar, everything possible so that it can travel more than 200 miles across the desert without any human intervention.

(voice-over): Computer science professor Anthony Meda helped configure Cajunbot's lasers for the long trip across the desert.

ANTHONY MEDA, SCIENCE PROFESSOR: So, that means this bot is going to have to know half a second in advance which way it wants to steer or it's going to collide into the obstacle.

SIEGERG: It's almost like a flashlight, the way it spreads out like that.

MEDA: Yeah. Yeah. It's on a two dimensional flashlight. And it's also angled down at about 6 degrees so that as we travel we can get three-dimensional information about the height of obstacles.

SCOTT WILSON, CAJUNBOT PROJECT MANAGER: Now it's going to turn -- right.

Stop.

Boom! Did what it's supposed to do.

SIEGERG: Hardware specialists, computer programmers, even car lovers, the team has put in many all-nighters while designing, building, and testing this ATV-sized robot which they started from scratch. There's even a "Cajunbot" simulator to test theories and prevent wear and tear on the machine itself.

WILSON: This GPS system is about $150,000. This is your basic motor, air power -- air-cooled gas motor. This is a skid turn mechanism similar to a tank. One of our biggest problems is going to be detecting objects below the surface: potholes, cliffs. And cliffs are the ones that concern us the most because that's the...

SIEBERG: That could end the race.

WILSON: Major -- major fatality.

SIEBERG: PhD student, Scott Wilson, says there's some Olympic sized satisfaction being in the same league as the big dogs of robotics.

WILSON: This is kind of not to the same scale, but kind of as the you know, Jamaican bobsleding team. This is a huge thing, it's just -- like I said, just to be in the top 25.

LAKHOTIA: It's like climbing the Mt. Everest. It's just the challenge of doing it. A million dollars, no one has even asked on the team "what's my share." So it's really not the dollars, it's just the drive to challenge people and be the winner.

RAUSH: This is a lot more fun than working homework problems out of a book, you know, you get to do some kind of real-world application, and it's -- like to me, I look forward to going and getting something done and going to work and seeing a finished product.

CHRIS MEAUX, STUDENT: I mean, just imagine a vehicle that we're working on possibly being used by the government to take the place of soldiers or out in the battlefield, is just, I mean it's just incredible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: In case you're wondering, the bots come in all shapes and sizes. For instance the red team from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is hummer sized and diesel powered. On board will be 1.5 terabytes of data, enough to create high resolution maps of the desert terrain.

Now, be sure to join us next week because we'll also be traveling to the Mojave Desert to see if any of these bots cross the finish line and collect that million dollar prize.

Well, if you're impressed by a vehicle that can rumble across the California desert without a driver, what would you think of one that can fly halfway around the world without a pilot? Phil O'Sullivan reports from the Singapore Air Show on the growing importance of pilotless planes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PHIL O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The main advantage is their ability to go where it's dangerous for human pilots to go, and to go there for much longer. This Global Hawk set the record for endurance with a flight from California to Australia. Taking off, flying, and landing safely all without a human aboard. More and more unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs are being used to watch from above.

HOSHE KERET, ISRAEL AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIES: With the aircraft, a manned aircraft there is so much you can do, one hour, two hour, five hour; with this you can be there 24, 48, weeks even.

O'SULLIVAN: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are becoming more common as the technology that flies them becomes more and more advanced.

(on camera): Unmanned Aerial Vehicles do actually have a pilot onboard and this is what they look like. It weighs just 28 grams and it flies the plane, with the help of a computer on the ground.

(voice-over): A set of instructions can be given to the aircraft and it can carry out its mission with very little assistance.

DAVE WAKEMAN, MICRO PILOT: There are many applications, and more and more everyday, where it is not as important and the computer can run the aircraft, if not as well, better than a human can.

O'SULLIVAN: The applications might include scientific monitoring of the weather, or our oceans. But, the use of predator UAVs during surveillance and combat attacks, in the last war in Iraq, has emphasized their importance in changing how wars are fought. And warfare unmanned combat vehicles can tell you where the enemy is hiding and then carry out missions too dangerous to risk a pilot's life.

So, far it's not expected these unmanned fliers will ever replace pilots completely. But, it is expected there will be a growing mix of manned and unmanned aircraft.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up next, ever wonder where all that spam is coming from? Of course you do. Stay tuned. We'll tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID KIRKPATRICK, "FORTUNE" SENIOR EDITOR: Intel is the colossus of computing, the company that builds the chips that increasingly are at the core of all computers. AMD, for many years has had the legal right to build clones of Intel processors, but the recent news is that AMD has come up with an entirely different design than Intel. Computers have almost always processed data in chunks of 32 bits of data at a time. Now, AMD has got a new way of processing data that takes it 64 bits at a time.

AMD, basically has two fundamental businesses, they have a microprocessor business, but they also have a memory business where they build flash memories that are used in digital cameras and MP3 players. And in that market they've recently gained the number one market share.

I think AMD, while always fated to remain a number two to Intel, is clearly giving it a run for its money in a new way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Ever wonder where all that spam in your in box is coming from? Well, the anti-spam, anti-virus company called Sophos in the U.K. decided to take a look. And they broke it down by countries around the world. We decided to award some rather dubious distinctions, using ribbons. These are not ribbons you'd want to hang on your wall.

Tied for third place, South Korea and China with six percent of the spam going around the world.

In second place, Sophos found Canada with seven percent of the spam going around in different in boxes.

And overwhelmingly in first place, was the United States, with 57 percent.

Now we also awarded an honorable mention to a number of other countries, including the Netherlands, Australia, Mexico and Spain all at about two percent.

So, why does so much spam seem to be coming from the United States? Well Sophos had a few reasons behind that. First of all, they said there are many computers in the United States that use a high speed or a broadband connection and that's a tantalizing target for spammers who want to hijack or take over these computers and use them as zombie spam machines, sending spam out unbeknownst to the person who has the computer.

For example, Russia which actually came in at No. 28 on the list, is known to have a number of hackers or hijackers who take over the computers in the United States. So, what can you do to limit the amount of spam that's coming into your in box? Well, we put together some tips for you.

First of all, don't post your e-mail address on a website or a message board. That's where spammers go to harvest e-mail addresses. Also, don't open or replay to a spam message, and that may seem like a no-brainer. But that just tells them it's a legitimate e-mail address. And don't click on those "unsubscribe" links at the bottom, those can be deceptive because that basically does the same thing. You can also set up a secondary or a junk e-mail account, using a web based one, for example, and you can use that to log into a website. You can also use a number of different e-mail filters or software programs out there to help again limit the amount of spam coming in. And always read privacy policies because you never know how a company might be using your e-mail address. And as a fallback, well there's always the delete key.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Still to come, Jeanne Moos explores the difference between harmless clutterers.

Hi Mike.

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And people with a potentially dangerous psychological obsession.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: There's a happy ending to a story we told you about several weeks ago. Remember the sea lion that mysteriously turned up 65 miles from the nearest ocean in California's San Joaquin valley? When the 321-pound critter happened up on the back of a patrol car belonging to the California Highway Patrol, better known as CHIPs, he got a nickname "Chippy," and we got some great video. Well then veterinarians discovered he had a bullet in his head, possibly explaining why he was disoriented and wandering through farm country. They removed the bullet and got "Chippy" healthy and on Wednesday the sea lion was released back into the ocean at the Point Reyes National Seashore. He's bow wearing a radio transmitter so the next time that "Chippy" decides to explore new territory wildlife researchers will likely know about it.

Now, if you're the type who hangs onto useless junk because it might come in handy. Well, you're probably just a harmless clutterer. But, taken to the extreme such behavior is considered a psychological illness.

CNN's Jeanne Moos may has a story that may make you feel less guilty about your messy home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you think you have trouble throwing stuff away, try finding your remote in this living room.

DR. RANDY FROST, CONSULTANT, NEW YORK CITY TASK FORCE ON HOARDING: This is where they sat during the evening and watched TV.

MOOS: And Martha Stewart wouldn't approve of this kitchen.

FROST: Every surface is covered.

MOOS: Psychologists call it hoarding.

FROST: The woman whose home we toured saved the inside cardboard of toilet paper rolls.

MOOS: Dr. Randy Frost was the keynote speaker at a conference on hoarding at Cordozo Law School. The conference held just weeks after a Bronx man was buried under his belongings, trapped for two days until neighbors found him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I seen was the guy's head covered with old books and everything; pile on pile of stuff on top of him.

MOOS: New York's most famous hoarders were the well-to-do Collier brothers. Both brothers were found dead in 1947. One was trapped under junk, the other starved. New York firemen still refer to any call to a junk filled apartment as a Collier.

And then there's animal hoarding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard to walk in this apartment.

MOOS: This woman faced eviction, along with her nearly 100 cats.

(on camera): Some people are going to say there's that like nutty cat lady.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I know. They always say, you know, there's the weirdo going, the one that likes the cats. Well...

MOOS: Hoarders think they're saving animals. They tend to be in denial about the squalor they live in. True hoarders find comfort in their possessions. The occupant of this house started to cry when she tried to throw away an old ATM slip with errands scribbled on the back, saying...

FROST: If I throw this away, I'll lose this day.

MOOS: Hoarders tend to be intelligent, yet unable to make decisions. They think spatially.

FROST: So if we were to ask her where her telephone bill is, she might be able to say well, it's about a foot down in the pile and a little over to the left.

MOOS: This hallway holds a decade worth of wrapped gifts that the occupant bought but couldn't part with. Hoarder's homes tend to be laced with goat trails.

FROST: A small pathway through the home about one foot wide.

MOOS (on camera): But just because you can't bring yourself to throw out a pile of magazines doesn't necessarily make you a hoarder.

Hi, Mike.

(voice-over): The difference between a hoarder and a clutterer?

FROST: When the clutter begins to interfere with the ability to function. So, if you can't cook because your stove is covered with things.

MOOS (voice-over): Clutter like the cat in a hot tin pot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: I'm just glad that Jeanne didn't use my desk during that piece.

All right, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week:

Venice Italy is nicknamed the "Bride of the Sea." But, it may be time for a divorce or at least a separation. Water is slowly destroying the city. We'll show you a unique engineering project that's designed to keep Venice from drowning.

That's coming up on NEXT. Until then we always love to hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at next@cnn.com. Thanks so much for watching. From all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg, we'll see you next time.

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At The Stradivarius Violin; "Canjun Bot" Races Across Desert>