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FTC Requires Visible Labelling Of Spam Mail; NASA Audit Shows Billions Unaccounted For; USDA Seeks Solution To National Identification Program For Livestock

Aired May 22, 2004 - 15:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: And here are the headlines. Bad people have parties too. That is the U.S. responses to allegations of an American attack on an Iraqi wedding party. The senior coalition spokesman says the attack this week near the Syrian border was on dorm for international fighters.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt says evidence found at the scene did not support claims that a wedding was taking place.

In the prisoner abuse scandal U.S. military launches eight more criminal probes into detainee deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan that makes 33 investigations into the deaths of 37 people. Several of the cases were lifted as homicides and some as justified homicides when prisoners tried to escape.

OPEC ministers are discussing the pain at the gas pump. They're holding informal meetings in Amsterdam this weekend. Ministers are considering calls by the U.S. government to increase production amid rising prices. The U.S. energy secretary says it's a positive sign that OPEC is discussing increasing quotas.

It's a rainy weekend for parts of the east. Will downpours spoil your plans for the weekend? CNN Meteorologist Jacqui Jeras has the national weather outlook.

JACQUI JERAS, METEOROLOGIST: Fredricka, it's going to spoil a lot of plans I think this weekend, unfortunately. And some of these thunderstorms are severe. We will have a new tornado watch in effect for southern parts of Michigan and a severe thunderstorm watch in effect for parts of Indiana, into Illinois, clipping northwestern parts of Ohio. A tornado warning in the last hour to the north and east of the Cleveland area. So be aware even though you are not under a watch. You may have severe thunderstorms still all across the Great Lakes and into the Northeast, and in to the upper Midwest. We'll have a complete report on the severe weather potential coming up in the 4:00 hour -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Jacqui thanks a lot.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center in Atlanta more news at the bottom of the hour. NEXT@CNN begins right now.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi everybody, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN, a new way to keep track of livestock might help stop mad cow and other diseases from spreading but ranchers aren't stampeding to adopt it. We will find out why.

Also invader fish species are turning up in more places. They could be a threat to native wildlife and to people.

And will an online cartoon bishop lead Web surfers back into the arms of the church?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm walking rather at the moment like Mr. Simpson, I think actually.

SIEBERG: All that and more on NEXT.

Ever wonder what's to prevent terrorists from using missiles to shoot down commercial airliners? Well until recently, the answer was not much. But a new system being installed on Israeli planes is designed to out wit the missiles before the pilot even knows they're coming. John Vause reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the system in action; the test plane comes under an electronically simulated attack and responds with counter measures. The bright lights are flares designed to confuse a heat-seeking missile and divert it away from the original target. Israel's national carrier El-Al will begin equipping all its planes with this system called Flight Guard, 18 months ago, in Newvata (ph) an Israeli charter jet came under attack just after takeoff. Two shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles narrowly missed the 757.

Security experts warn that shoulder fired missiles can be easily bought and relatively cheap and the Israelis believe they present the next big risk to the airline industry.

ARIK BEN ARI: So the Israeli government took the decision not to wait for another case to happen and to keep all aircraft, its aircraft with counter measure.

VAUSE: The planes will be equipped with a Doppler radar system made up of four antennas at the front, two on the sides and four at the back.

PENINA YOSEF, ELTA (ph) SYSTEMS: Those antennas are capable of giving full coverage of 360 degrees around the aircraft.

VAUSE: Within seconds of a missile being detected, an on board computer releases the flares, firing at different angles to act as a diversion.

YOSEF: The energy created by the flares is; of course, bigger than the energy of the engine in France and this is how the target is diverted.

VAUSE: And the system is completely automated, no involvement from the pilot or co-pilot simply because it all happens so fast, it's over before they could react. OMER, PROJECT MANAGER: The time that passes is something like one second or two seconds. And this time frame, the pilot of such a big aircraft can do nothing. It cannot maneuver, it cannot react, and it cannot even react to the other. So everything must be automatically.

VAUSE: The pilot will only be alerted that the plane was under attack once the threat is over. Already, flight guard is being used by Israeli helicopters and pilot jets in combat. This technology was originally developed for the Israeli Air Force 15 years ago. The manufacturers are now waiting for FAA approval before it's available for commercial airlines in the U.S. But with a million dollar price tag and thousands of aircraft, the many airlines the cost of the system could be a major obstacle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Well a team of amateur rocket scientists faced lots of obstacles, but this week they apparently achieved their goal. They say they launched the first amateur rocket into space. Monday's launch in the Nevada Desert was the third try for the group known as CSXT short for Civilian Space Exploration Team. Their instruments indicate the rocket got about 70 miles up and it's officially in space once it gets above 62 miles. Now, private air space companies have launched lots of rockets into space, but this is the first time it's been done by a team of amateurs.

A mysterious form known as dark energy is getting a little less mysterious thanks to new data from the Chandra Space telescope. Chandra took x-ray pictures of 26 galaxy clusters ranging from one to eight billion light years away. Scientists from NASA and Cambridge University used the pictures to spot changes in the rate at which the universe is expanding.

They say the expansion slowed for a while 6 billion years ago because dark energy overpowered gravity. But then the rate of expansion sped up again, and the new observations suggest the universe could expand forever. We'll keep you posted.

And while the Chandra Space telescope discoveries may be blowing scientists' minds, senators on Capitol Hill are blowing their tops over billions of dollars unaccounted for from NASA's budget. CNN's Lisa Sylvester has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): NASA may be able to accomplish great feats in outer space, but financially it's out of orbit. Among the findings by independent audit firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, $565 billion in accounting errors that stemmed from NASA's conversion to a new financial system. $2 billion in unaccounted funds, and an insufficient audit trail.

GREG KUTZ, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE: If you think about an individual reconciling their checkbook to the monthly bank statement, they basically were not doing it during the last fiscal year. EDWARD HUDGINS, CATP INSTITUTE: If this had happened in the private sector, heads would roll. The board of directors would have cleaned out management. The investors would have said no way are we going to put our money into this kind of an operation.

SYLVESTER: This is not the first time NASA's finances have been called into question. The International Space Station is five times over budget. The x 33 which was to replace the shuttle cost taxpayers nearly a billion before being shelled. In a hearing on Capitol Hill, NASA's chief financial officer defended the agency and promised to track the unaccounted money.

GWEN BROWN, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER: I'm reconciling my check book for the last five years, and I will continue that until I'm able to get to a point where I am comfortable in knowing where each and every dime went.

SYLVESTER: But critics say NASA's culture, which was in part to blame for the Columbia disaster is hinder something the agency. There are ten separate NASA centers, each with its own separate accounting department with little oversight from headquarters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SYLVESTER: Lawmakers are also criticizing NASA for buying a billion dollar financial system that still cannot produce basic financial statements for congress that is required by law. And the software used by the new accounting system is almost obsolete. It's no longer sold by the manufacturer and tech support will not be available after 2012.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we come back, can new rules for spammers keep female pornography under wraps? And later in the show, we'll meet a scientist who makes sparks fly when he visits schools.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Well, some whale watchers in California are learning where killer whales got their name. There have been an unusual number of Orcas attacks on gray whale cavs near Monterrey Bay, California over the past couple of weeks.

Grey whales had a baby boom this season and as they migrate up to West Coast to Alaska killer whales are do what comes naturally. Providing whale watchers with a fantastic, if somewhat disturb display of Mother Nature at work. Well, killer whales put on a more peaceful show in Puget Sound, Washington, this week. The Orcas swam into a small inlet west of Seattle thrilling residents. To protect the whales local officials quickly passed an ordinance putting a seven-mile per hour speed limit on boats in the area.

And an unprecedented effort to save the life of a gorilla at the San Francisco Zoo has failed. Last week, we reported on Kubie, the 29- year-old silver back gorilla who had surgery to remove a diseased lung. Doctors gave him 50/50 odds of surviving the operation two weeks ago, and he appeared to be recovering well. But Tuesday, Kubie stopped eating and became lethargic and died. Vets say he suffered internal bleeding from an abscessed pulmonary vessel. Zoo staffers were understandably shaken but they say the experience provided inspiration to explore new ways to care for animals.

We've told you how stores are starting to use radio frequency ID tags to keep tabs on their merchandise. It turns out the same technology can be used to track livestock. Here's an example of what one might look like. That can be crucial during outbreaks of diseases like mad cow. This week, the government and livestock industry met in Chicago too discuss the possibilities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG, (voice over): From farm to fork, a cow might be bought, sold, or moved many times: across state, even country borders. With about 100 million cattle in the U.S., tracking individual animal moves is quite a task.

ANN VENEMAN, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: A single Holstein cow from Washington state has tested as presumptive positive for BSE or what is widely known as mad cow disease.

SIEBERG: It took several days to trace the animal's lineage when a case was discovered last December. There's no standard system in the U.S. for these records.

DR. RICK SIBBEL: We started the necessary process to manage what could have been much worse situation than it turned out to be.

SIEBERG: Even though that situation was contained, dozens of countries immediately banned the import of U.S. beef, meaning billions in lost potential sales. The incident lit a fire in the Department of Agriculture's national animal identification system.

BILL HAWKS, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE: We want to be able to allocate an individual identification, just like you and I have Social Security numbers.

SIEBERG: This week about, 500 scientists, ranchers and meat industry reps packed a meeting in Chicago. Their goal a system to trace any animals's history within 48 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The situation in Washington in December, the situation in the U.K. Three-years ago, if you will, with foot and mouth disease put all of us on notice that we need to be able to identify animals, identify them quickly, to control diseases.

SIEBERG: Already in wide use on cattle is the same radio frequency identification or RFID Technology that tracks store merchandise.

RUSSELL BONINE, VTBX: This is a wireless connection. This uses a blue tooth radio, and it would transmit into a desktop or a laptop.

STUDIVANT: HARSH: Radio frequency technology has been installed into a number of different livestock species, producers can glean more information from tracking animals through radio frequency identification.

SIEBERG: RFID may be leading the herd, but retinal scans are also used as a tracking mechanism.

DANIEL BAKER: We just bring the camera up to the animal's eye, the controller analyses the frames and automatically captures the picture. This is linked to GPS coordinates so we know without question that this animal was at this place at this time.

SIEBERG: While tags and eye scans end at the slaughterhouse, one company traces the DNA all the way to the grocery store.

DR. BRENDAN FOX: The trace ability with live animals is important, but we want to go beyond live animals. We want to go through to the meat because that's where the consumer really needs this system.

SIEBERG: The USDA says all these technologies are possibilities. But could that turn into a format fiasco.

MIKE SAMPSON, DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE: If it gets to the situation where one state is using retinal scans and we're using RFID technology, we won't be able to access that information.

SIEBERG: Notoriously independent farmers and ranchers have other concerns. Just who will have access to information about their herds?

HAWKS: We will not be moving forward until we find a way to a mandatory system until we find a way to protect the data.

SEIBERG: There's no hard deadline yet for a national tracking system, but the USDA now has earmarked $18.8 million for the first phase of this earmarking technology challenge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEIBERG: All right, turning to other technology news now, an initiative that the FTC is referring to as like having a brown paper wrapper on your e-mail. What that means is that the FTC is requiring spammers to label any e-mails with racy content, with sexually explicit in the subject line. Why are they doing this?

Well joining us now to talk about it is Doug Eisenberg from canspamlibrary.com. Doug first of all describe what somebody might see in their inbox if a spammer complies with this. What are they going to see in their email?

DOUG EISENBERG, CANSPAMLIBRARY.COM: Well, in the subject line as you mentioned, they'll see the words sexually explicit as the first letters in the subject line. But then when somebody opens the e-mail message, what the FTC refers to as the initially viewable area that is what you and I see when we first open our e-mail cannot contain any sexual graphics or images under this new provision of the Canned Spam Act.

SEIBERG: You mention the Canned Spam Act, and this went into effect earlier this year, January 1st. What are some other provisions that are part of it in addition to the sexually explicit part?

EISENBERG: Right. All spam must include some type of an indication that's an advertisement. It is a new label that is required. All spam must have some type of opt out instructions or an indication to the recipient how to unsubscribe and not receive future spam from the same sender. All spam must include a valid physical mailing address of the sender and in addition to deceptive subject lines and other misleading information is now forbidden in spam messages.

SIEBERG: So is the hope with this sexually explicit labeling that it will some how cut down on people's spam in any way?

EISENBERG: Well or at least allow them to filter the spam if that is what they want to do. A lot of people don't want to receive sexually explicit e-mail in their inbox. About 15 percent of all spam it's estimated has some type of sexual content. Some people don't want to receive it or they don't want their children to receive it. Now by using a spam filter, some type of software on your computer or through a Web site, you can actually filter those email messages based on the subject line and put them directly in your trash if that is what you want to do.

SIEBERG: And are there some hefty penalties associated with violating any part of the Canned Spam Act?

EISENBERG: The violations start at $250 per email message that does not comply with these provisions. With a cap of $6 million. In addition, there are some jail time penalties involved. So the penalties are pretty stiff.

SIEBERG: Hopefully a big deterrent. And I guess the trick is tracking down these spammers. Doug Eisenberg from (INAUDIBLE), thanks so much for joining us.

EISENBERG: Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just ahead, is it time to take some oil out of storage to bring prices down? We'll hear some varying opinions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Well, as gas prices edge higher and higher, will it ever stop? Some people are looking longingly at the strategic petroleum reserve where millions of barrels are stored for emergency use. Allan Chernoff reports on the debate over whether to tap into the reserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The strategic reserves lie more than 2,000 feet underground in huge natural caverns along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, 660 million barrels of oil. Everyday, the government adds another 100,000 barrels. Even as the price of oil traded here in New York has jumped to an all-time record high. RICHARD SCHAEFFER: The closer we get towards the election, with prices staying as high as they are, I think the likelihood of a release to some percentage is a high possibility.

CHERNOFF: With oil above $40 a barrel and gasoline topping $2 a gallon, some industry executives are calling for the government to help by releasing reserves. The petroleum reserve is supposed to be for emergencies, but President Clinton opened the oil tap in the fall of 2000, temporarily pushing prices down shortly before the presidential election.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE U.S: The overriding purposes for our action is to increase supply and help consumers make it through the cold winter. Families shouldn't have to drain their wallets or to drive their cars or heat their homes.

CHERNOFF: The Bush campaign criticized the action. President Bush's energy department says the strategic petroleum reserve is off limits. That's the way it should be, argues the energy lobby.

JOHN FELMY, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE: There's no good argument for releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. It's our insurance policy so if we do have physical disruptions of supply, we can fill that void with oil from the SPR.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: But traders say a change in policy from the Bush administration would give the oil markets an important psychological jolt, the kind of catalyst needed to pull prices down from the record highs.

SIEBERG: Drivers yapping away on a cell phone are more likely to have accidents. That is according to studies. The California legislature is working on several bills that would restrict cell phone use behind the wheel. One focuses on a group of drivers that had more than its share of wrecks even before cell phones were invented. Rusty Dornin reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Like many teens, when 17-year-old Anthony Gilmore gets behind the wheel, he likes to multitask.

ANTHONY GILMORE, TEEN DRIVER: Like, I can hold it and dial like this if necessary, you know phones are fairly easy. A lot of people have speed dial set.

DORNIN: That's worry some to some legislators in California considering a bill to ban cell phone use for drivers under 18. Teen drivers according to the institute for highway safety are four times more likely to crash than older drivers. Cell phones or no.

DEBRA BOWEN, CALIFORNIA STATE: I looked at the accident risk. I looked at the risk to the driver and everyone else on the road and it was so clear that this group of inexperienced drivers poses a much greater risk than the more experienced drivers.

DORNIN: Several states are considering making a similar call for drivers under the age of 21. Some teens agree that a ban might be safer, even one who couldn't put down her phone long enough to answer the interviewers question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, you can be distracted. You're not old enough and aware and you've been driving for a long to you know be talking on your phone and driving at the same time. So I think that's a good idea.

DORNIN: A Harvard study from 2002 says the use of cell phones leads to about 2,600 deaths and 330,000 injuries. But the young are invincible or so they think.

GILMORE: As long as you're a little cautious and you pay attention, it's not very difficult to operate a hand phone while driving.

DORNIN: But for California's teens, lawmakers are considering telling them to just hang up and drive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour, the invasion of the alien fish. Should you be worried about non-native fish showing up in U.S. waters? And can a video game help young cancer patients cope. Those stories and a lot more coming up after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Suicide car bombings targets a top Iraqi officials home in eastern Baghdad. The blast killed seven people but the deputy internal minister and his wife escaped with only slight injuries.

Another car bomb attack south of Baghdad killed one U.S. soldier and wounded three others. They were members of the Army's 1st Armored Division.

Pakistan is welcomed back into the British Commonwealth under certain circumstances. The former colony was suspended 5 years ago after General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup. The commonwealth is demanding Musharraf give up his military role by the end of the year.

A busload of state prisoners are helping to pick up the pieces in the tornado ravaged Bragdate (ph) City of Iowa. Nearly every structure in this small down was either damaged or destroyed by last nights storm. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt. No estimate yet on the cost of the damage.

I'll have all the latest news at the top of the hour. Now, back to NEXT@CNN.

SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, anglers have been pulling some strange looking fish out of the waters along the East coast recently. Two alien species, the Lion Fish and the Northern Snakehead could cause serious problems.

Kathleen Koch has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Posters dot dozens of Maryland marinas, the "Northern Snakehead, wanted dead or alive." Then new fear is it's spreading after three of the veracious Asian imports have been caught in the Potomac River. Less than two years ago, an inland pond had to be poisoned to kill and I festation there. Brian Bealski pulled one in during a fishing tournament.

BRIAN BIELSKI, FISHERMAN: I wasn't sure what it was. It looked like what's called a Bowfin, to me. Since we had these pieces of paper with the picture on it, both he and I looked at each other and said that looks like a Snakehead.

KOCH: Now, that fish and others are being genetically tested by the Smithsonian Institution.

STEVE EARLY, MARYLAND DEPT. OF NATURAL RESOURCES: Could they have come out of Crafton Pond? Did they all come from the same fish dealer perhaps? Right now, it's a shot in the dark.

KOCH: No posters yet, about another phantom invader on the North Carolina coast. Just a warning to any who may venture into waters 80 to 300 feet deep, to beware of the venomous spines of the Lion Fish, which has just infested that area.

JONATHAN HARE, NOAA BIOLOGIST: People scuba diving, who may be attracted to watching these fish or trying to touch them and then also possibly people who are fishing, sort of hook and line fishing who might pull one up to the surface.

KOCH: The fish are the latest examples of the growing problem alien species entering the United States and wreaking havoc on native ecosystems. The cost to the economy, an estimated $120 billion a year. Federal officials insist they are making progress.

DEAN WILKINSON, NOAA: One preventing, two detecting things early in the process will probably be much more effective, and it'll ultimately cost the U.S. taxpayer less money.

KOCH (on camera): The federal government, last year, did ban the importation of live Snakeheads into the United States.

(voice-over): But that did nothing about the estimated 17,000 Snakeheads imported live before the ban. Biologists think the Lion Fish was dumped from an aquarium into Florida waters, the Gulf Stream carrying its eggs northward to North Carolina. There's little they can do except monitor the impact.

HARE: If there's a lot of them, they could be eating a fair amount of fish that -- fish and food that other fishes, that are commercially important, would eat otherwise.

KOCH: The toll in both cases, still unclear, as native species may again have to adjust to unwelcome intruders.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Every 17 years, Cicadas crawl out of their holes, and if they're lucky, mate and lay eggs that will hatch into the next batch in another 17 years. For the biggest group of Cicadas in the country, this is the year. Michael Shoulder reports on what all the buzz is about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL SHOULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You're listening to a love song.

PROF. MIKE RAUPP, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Boy, this is just spectacular. This is the big party up in the sky.

SHOULDER: An urgent love song from an all-male chorus that has only weeks to live.

RAUPP: This is what it's all about for these guys, and right now it's all about love for Cicadas.

SHOULDER: The singers are the Cicadas, an insect that, at this very moment is emerging from underground by the hundreds of billions over a third of the nation. The Cicadas spend 17 years underground and then suddenly, the entire Cicada population digs itself out for a four-week stint in the sun, to mate, reproduce, and die. Their life story is remarkable.

Professor Mike Rap is the Cicada Man.

RAUPP: Through a biological clock or perhaps molecular clock, they actually count the years, and when the 17th year comes, they know it's time to emerge.

SHOULDER: Many people find them disgusting with their beady red eyes covering their surface in their way.

RAUPP: The thing to remember about Cicadas is they are totally harmless. I mean, they can't bite, they can't sting.

SHOULDER: So how is it with no ability to protect themselves that this species has survived since the ice age?

RAUPP: Their survival strategy here is simply to overwhelm their predators with numbers. It's a safety in numbers game.

SHOULDER: It's safety in numbers that requires them to spend 17 years underground, to build a large enough population so once they emerge the birds and snakes and spiders that feast on them, simply can't eat them all. The billions of Cicada leftovers go on to spawn a new generation. Seventeen years underground followed by a mere month to mate, reproduce, and die. Talk about living for your children.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, we all know people can sin online, but now they can go to church and repent online, too. We'll show you how.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Well, a new videogame was recently unveiled that features battles and killing. Sounds familiar, right? Well, it's not your typical shoot 'em up. The story from Don Sanchez of CNN affiliate KGO.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON SANCHEZ, KGO CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Ben's Game, the hero battles cancer cells. The videogame is the wish of 9-year-old Ben Duskin who was diagnosed with leukemia four years ago. He wanted the game for other kids in the painful fight against cancer.

BEN DUSKIN, CREATOR OF BEN'S GAME: I just wanted to just try to help other people know what's going on inside their body.

SANCHEZ: Eric Johnson of LucasArts was the pro who worked with Ben for six months to create the game.

ERIC JOHNSON, LUCASARTS: He actually -- he brought in game design ideas that I never could have come up with. He actually brought in something called a port in a jar which is a device they implanted inside him and he said this is how a player gets into the game.

SANCHEZ: Here's how you play:

JOHNSON: We have seven shields, they're the trophies you collect, and each shield is associated with a side effect that a kid in treatment has to watch out for.

SANCHEZ: Things like fever, rash, colds, bleeding.

(on camera): The players become medicine in the battle against the cancer cells, and there's some advice in here from Ben to kids who may be going through what he did. He says, "Don't be afraid."

(voice-over): It's been a special emotional day for his family and friends.

BRIAN DUSKIN, FATHER: It just means closure. You know, it was -- Ben went through so much for so long and to have it end happily and hopefully helping other people is his dream and just -- just overwhelming.

SANCHEZ: Mayor Newsen declared this Ben Duskin Day. Make a Wish gave him a plague. And the best news is that Ben is in remission.

B. DUSKIN: I want to be a professional basketball player.

SANCHEZ: The game is available to download free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: In case you're wondering, you can find a link to Ben's Game on our website. That's at cnn.com/next along with plenty of information on other stories in this week's show.

All right, if getting up and getting dressed to go to church every Sunday is, well, just too much for you, as with so many other things, you can find a solution on the internet. Marga Ortigas reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The word made flesh.

MARGA ORTIGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An age-old message church leaders fear is falling on deaf ears, but a new means of communication may just help them reach out and touch someone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do this in the name of Jesus Christ.

ORTIGAS: this is the churchoffools.com, Created by the minds behind shipoffools.com, a not too stodgy online Christian magazine. In their nondenominational virtual church, you can log on and come dressed in your cartoon best to worship and attend services. On the site's launch even London's bishop stepped into cyberspace.

RT. REV. RICHARD CHARTRES, ANGELIC BISHOP OF LONDON: We always have to learn how to sing the lord's songs, as the psalmist says, in whatever circumstances we are.

ORTIGAS: With some typing help, the right reverend happily faced the new medium's opportunities.

CHARTRES: I'm going to have to learn more and more to be an ecclesiastical Ernest Hemingway with little staccato phrases.

ORTIGAS: And challenges.

CHARTRES: I'm walking, really, rather at the moment like -- like Mr. Simpson I think, actually, aren't I really?

ORTIGAS: A technical glitch that doesn't deter the web team from its mission to spread the gospels.

SIMON JENKINS, EDITOR SHIPOFFOOLS.COM: We're not replacing church, we're adding, really.

ORTIGAS: Adding an alternative for those unable to connect with god through more traditional means. The Church of England is moving in much the same direction, appointing it's first-ever web pastor. No church building or physical congregation for Alyson Leslie, but daily online services and a website of her own.

ALYSON LESLIE, WEB PASTOR: The more that we can put out there to encourage people to explore their sort of spiritual yearnings, the better.

ORTIGAS: So, will it work? This church goer thought it might.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's non-threatening, a lot of people don't want to go into a church because they feel it's threatening or I don't deserve to be here.

ORTIGAS: The church doesn't call itself a real church, but it wants to serve as an invitation for real people to find a more personal relationship with God, glitches and all.

CHARTRES: This is really Homer's gate, as I go to the front door.

ORTIGAS (on camera): Are you a bit like march with a collar then?

LESLIE: I think I'm probably much more Lisa Simpson.

ORTIGAS: Seems in the new century, the church, too, will only be limited by the imagination.

CHARTRES: Next time I come on, I will expect to be levitating, quite frankly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: The Church of Fools is attracting five to 10,000 people a day, including some who are less than reverent. Some log in as "Satan" and shout profanities at other church goers. The site is taking several steps to stop this, including appointing wardens who can smite people -- that is kick them off the site. Maybe the world's first online exorcism.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, we'll meet a man whose job is to know which way the wind blows.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Pilotless airplanes aren't just for military operations and reconnaissance. NASA is using drones to study thunderstorms. Brad Huffines with our affiliate WAAY reports from Huntsville, Alabama.

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BRAD HUFFINES, WAAY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Most pilots prefer to steer their aircraft away from weather like this. This little plane, on the other hand, heads right for thunderstorms, but then its pilot is miles away. This is Altus, a UAV, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, flown by remote control designed by NASA with capabilities similar to the Predator drone that proved so successful in Afghanistan and Iraq.

RICH BLAKESLEE, NASA: It could fly to very high altitude, 55,000 feet, and that would allowing us to fly over the tops of thunderstorms. This airplane would fly at very slow flight speeds. In addition, this airplane could stay aloft for a very long period of time.

HUFFINES: Altus is outfitted with optical cameras, electromagnetic sensors, electic field detectors, and a conductivity probe to collect data in yet another first for weather surveillance.

BLAKESLEE: In the front of the aircraft, we have a boom with magnetic instruments aboard that measures both the AC and DC magnetic electric fields from thunderstorms and actually, this is the first time that this type of measurement has ever been made by aircraft in the vicinity of a storm.

HUFFINES: Altus is based at the naval air facility in Key West. Florida was chosen for the experiments because of its high rate of thunderstorms and lightning strikes. Altus gives investigators on the ground a cloud top perspective. The UAV flies like a conventional aircraft, but pilot and copilot are on the ground. Altus can operate on instruments or can be controlled visually through an onboard camera. Armed with this promising new tool for weather research, NASA scientists see an exciting future for storm data collection.

BLAKESLEE: I think the future of weather research is continuing to improve the kinds of measurements that we make that would allow better forecasts -- you know, forecasts that will enable us to save lives, protect property, and reduce just the impact of hazardous weather.

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SIEBERG: So, how do you move 12 trillion gallons of water? Well, China is attempting to quench its water shortage with a project that will connect the Yangscy River in the south to the arid plains in the north. The venture will be enormous in scale, taking 50 years to construct a series of canals and pumping stations at a cost of $12 billion. Critics argue that the Yangscy is heavily polluted and the project will cause untold environmental havoc, but government officials are undoned and construction continues.

Well, where's the best place to locate a bunch of wind turbines? I know, the answer may seem obvious. You put them where it's windy. But as Mark Stevenson reports from the Canadian prairies, it's not quite that simple.

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MARK STEVENSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one of the windiest places in North America. So windy, little can grow and what does is up against the powerful Chinook winds that rip across the prairie from the west. That's where Justin Thompson comes in; he's a wind prospector, someone who makes a living finding wind for the booming wind energy industry.

JUSTIN THOMPSON, WIND PROSPECTOR: My friends often joke about my job. You know, they'll ask me do I put my finger in the air, do I throw grass in the wind, but there's a little more to it than that.

STEVENSON: More to the wind and more complicated than most people realize.

THOMPSON: It changes over very short distances. It changes with seasons. It changes with height as you go up and down.

STEVENSON: It's a science...

THOMPSON: This is a good site, so what we're going to do is mark down some of the key features of the site so when we come to the office, we've mapped some of the features that will help to us design a wind farm.

STEVENSON: ...but, also using arts, using instincts to pick up on subtle signs like these trees twisted by the wind.

THOMPSON: You can see that on the upwind side, the west side, there's virtually no branches.

STEVENSON: There are also clues at this old homestead, too windy and too dry to support a family.

THOMPSON: They may have found it just too hard to farm and left.

STEVENSON: Clues also in the stories by those who have somehow lived off the land.

ALBERT VALLIERES, FARMER: You can walk around the yard, but you've got to be real careful in doing it because the wind will pretty near blow you away.

STEVENSON: Eventually all clues point to this, a suitable site in a farmers' field.

THOMPSON: When you look around, your gut feel says this place is windy.

STEVENSON: But first, Thompson's gut will be tested by a wind tower before millions are invested in windmills, but he's usually right. He was right when he found this place, now the largest wind farm in Canada, producing enough to power a small city. For Thompson, it's all about looking for something that others take for granted.

THOMPSON: The wind is part of life here, and what we're doing is taking that and turning it into something positive.

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ANNOUNCER: Coming up, a shocking way to get kids interested in science.

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SIEBERG: Do you Google? These days it seems, who doesn't? Google has quickly become the internet's largest search engine. The name is actually a play on words, and a made up word, at that from Google comes from G-O-O-G-O-L, that's a math term that means one followed by 100 zeros, and it's meant to reflect the huge amount of data online. So how does Google Google?

Actually, it sounds pretty simple. A massive array of computers, and the company refuses to reveal how many, crawls the web searching for and then ranking relevant words and data. The number of links to a website also helps google prioritize the results. You can think of it as people voting on its popularity. Google has even branched out to include shopping sites, photos, and news stories.

Recently the company announced a web-based e-mail service called Gmail that will give users a huge amount of storage space, but critic worry, at the cost of privacy. Investors are hoping that Google's recent decision to offer stock to the public will create a small bubble without the bust.

Want to learn more? Well, you could always Google it.

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SIEBERG: Was it Beavis or was it Butthead who always said that explosions are like cool? Of course, that depends on what's exploding -- but one engineer uses the appeal of stuff that goes 'bang' to get kids fired up about science. Susan Lisovicz has the story.

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JOHN COHN, "IBM'S OWN EINSTEIN": What I'm going to do is run this thing.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Cohen is an electric personality and he's been using that, and his expertise to teach kids about science for over a decade.

COHN: I've never had an audience that I really couldn't crack.

There you go.

There's sort of a visceral reaction you get when you start seeing sparks and fire and big lightning bolts through the air that even the most reserved kid, event the -- you know, coolest customer just can't resist. LISOVICZ: Cohn, an IBM engineer, started his in-class experiments back in 1993 as a way to connect with his sons.

COHN: I'm not a big sports guy. I've got three boys, they're really cool. And I was never very -- you know, into football or anything like that and we were looking for stuff to do. So, I realized that was the first thing I could actually do in the schools that people thought, hey, that's fun, that's -- so it was good a relation points.

LISOVICZ: Since then, he's traveled the East coast to bring his own brand of weird science to 20,000 youngsters, and although he's had students follow his career path, he says that's not necessarily his goal. Just making them aware is satisfaction enough.

COHN: I think everybody can have an appreciation, just like people can appreciate a painting or a sunset or something. If we can give that basic understanding -- appreciation for science and technology to students, to kids, I think that overall, the entire world is actually going to benefit from that, whether they go into engineering or not, just the sort of technically savvy, scientifically savvy informed populace is good for everyone.

LISOVICZ: Cohn says he spends 10 percent of his time on the road and in the last five years, with the help of his company, has been able to take his lessons to a higher level.

COHN: What we really strive to do is create a long-standing relationship with a school. And actually understands what the curriculum is and builds a program around what they need.

LISOVICZ: Cohn is energized by his outreach program and says anybody can get involved.

COHN: This has become a personal mission for me and actually going and sharing this love of science and engineering and math with kids of all ages has really kind of karmacly been a very, very valuable thing for me. So, I would encourage anybody to -- you know, find that voice inside themselves that says" this is your purpose" and actually follow through with that.

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SIEBERG: Well, that's about all the kinetic energy we can pack into one show, but here's what's coming up next week.

You've probably seen ads for "The Day After Tomorrow," the upcoming disaster movie about climate change. Well, just how likely is this doomsday scenario? We'll have a reality check. That's coming up on NEXT.

Until, we'd like to hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at NEXT@CNN.com and don't forget to check out our website at cnn.com/next. Thanks for joining us this week. For all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.

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