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Stem Cell Researchers Take Plea To UN; Donor's Choose Program Allows Citizens To Make Huge Education Impact Over Internet; Scaled Composites To Launch First Private Manned Spacecreaft June 21
Aired June 5, 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: Hi there, I'm Daniel Sieberg.
Today, the battle over the cloning of human cells in medical research. Scientists take their plea to the United Nations.
A lot of celebrities are creating their own forests, so to speak. We'll tell you why and why some environmental groups aren't wild about the idea.
And you'll never guess what these folks are about to do with all these vegetables. Stay tuned. All that and more, on NEXT.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIEBERG: Should scientists be allowed to clone embryonic cells for medical research?
Well, the U.N. is expected to take up the issue in September and this past week, top scientists went to the U.N. to press delegates to allow such cloning.
Elizabeth Cohen has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Stem cell research has pitted Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford against the Pope, a Republican president against Nancy Reagan. And scientists from around the world against countries proposing a United Nations ban on certain types of stem cell research.
DR. GERALD FISHBACH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I think a ban would cast a pall over stem cell research, but even more than that, it would cast a pall over all of science.
COHEN: The debate inside and outside the u.n. Has become highly personal. Daniel Heumann was paralyzed in a car accident and he told U.N. delegates why allowing the research to continue is so important to him.
DANIEL HEUMANN, STEM CELL RESEARCH ADVOCATE: Some day, that will help my dream come true to be back on my feet and be with my wife and my child as an able-bodied husband and father.
COHEN: Mrs. Reagan's husband suffers from Alzheimer's. She's lobbying President Bush to undo his decision to sharply limit funding for stem cell research.
NANCY REAGAN, FORMER FIRST LADY: There are so many diseases that can cured or at least helped. We've lost so much time already, and I just really can't bear to lose any more.
COHEN: But Bush and representatives of many predominantly Catholic countries point out to do some kinds of stem cell research requires destroying an embryo.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Embryonic stem cell research offers great promise and great peril.
COHEN: They're microscopic and sitting unused by the thousands in fertility clinics but for Bush and for the Pope, they're more than a mass of frozen cells.
BUSH: You send a consistent word throughout the church and society that we ought to take into account the preciousness of life.
COHEN: And there's another ethical debate. Scientists believe the very best medical treatments would come from making an embryo that's genetically identical to the patient, but technically, that involves clonings, the exact same type of research the U.N. proposal would ban. Such a ban would have no legal weight, but it would have a heavy symbolic meaning for those who believe the research could save lives and for those who believes it destroys life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEGBERG: Clearly a controversial issue.
Well, as the U.N. debates stem cell research, the U.S. Presidential race will be going into overdrive and one block of voters the Republicans can generally count on is the 47 million Americans who hunt or fish.
As Frank Buckley reports, some political pundits say that may not be the case this year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Frank is an avid fisherman.
FRANK KUHN, REPUBLICAN: A big old brown down there waiting for me.
BUCKLEY: Who's just as passionate about his politics. He's a hard-core Republican and a President Bush supporter.
KUHN: He got my vote in 2000 and there's no doubt he's going to get my vote this fall, as well.
BUCKLEY: Guys like Kuhn who hunt and fish are part of the Republican base.
KUHN: Good shot.
BUCKLEY: But some political observers say President Bush cannot take them for granted this year. Take Tony Dean, who hosts this widely watched outdoors program on Midwest TV stations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the prairie pot hole country.
BUCKLEY: When we caught up with him in South Dakota on a freezing cold day in may, the Republican told us he's voting for the Democrat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I look at the alternatives to what President Bush is doing right now and John Kerry suddenly looks a lot more appealing. And I say this, as a lifelong Republican.
BUCKLEY: Dean is among Republicans in the so called hook and bullet crowd who have split with President Bush over conservation policy. Some outdoor groups assert, wildlife habitats important to people who fish and hunt are in danger under Bush because, they claim, the administration says one thing and does another.
PAUL HANSEN, IZAAK WALTON LEAGUE: They said they want to protect wetlands, yet the only thing we've seen for years is a measure that actually weakens protection. They say they want to protect wildlife as we develop oil and gas in wildlife rich areas, but the only thing we've seen on the ground are measures that exempt the few regulations we have for protecting wildlife in those areas.
BUCKLEY: Unclear is just how many Republican outdoorsmen are angry enough about Bush conservation policy to vote for the Democrat, John Kerry.
(on camera): Those Republican hunters and anglers could make a difference in a close election because many of them are concentrated in key battleground states. The importance of those voters illustrated by President Bush himself, just days after he hosted a meeting with leaders of outdoors groups, the president took up one of their main causes and killed an administration plan to rewrite the Clean Water Act. Republicans like Dave Dunnell who makes his living outdoors says Bush will get his vote in part because the president listens to sportsmen.
DAVE DOHNEL: We have got a voice again on how to protect the environment.
BUCKLEY: (voice-over): Both candidates meanwhile claim to be outdoorsmen. Voters will have to decide which one they believe is best suited to guarding America's natural treasures.
ANNOUNCER: Just ahead on NEXT@CNN, how you can help make a teacher's dreams come true at the click of a mouse.
And later, the planet Venus gives us a celestial show and we'll tell you how to see it without going blind.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERG: And now you can back up your computer files with the same tool you use to gut a fish. No, probably not at the same time, along with the standard blade, scissors and nail file, this Swiss Army Knife also comes with a -- ow, just kidding, a USB memory stick. The 64 megabyte stick plugs right into your computer where you can download your favorite pictures or word documents and then fold them up into your pocketknife. Just be careful you use the right tool for the job.
All right. A lot of schools don't have the right tools that they need to teach our children. Sometimes teachers are short on even basic supplies like paper and pencils. Well, a Web site has been created that let's good samaritans help them out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLES BEST, FOUNDER, DONORS CHOOSE: There and click this box right here. I think I knew since I was a sophomore that I wanted to be a teacher. It seemed like the most challenging and helpful thing I could do. My colleagues and I would be in the lunchroom talking about books we wanted our students to read, a trip we would take if there were just the funding for our best ideas for helping the students learn. For service, I think we could talk about the philanthropy account.
We started Donors Choose as this as an organic experiment at Wings Academy, and word of mouth just started to spread beyond the Bronx to other public school teachers in New York City. Donors Choose, begins with a committed teacher with a great idea for helping students learn. They go to Donors Choose, write a one-page essay. Donors Choose screen the proposal to make sure this is a viable well explained idea. At that point, it's up on the web for citizens philanthropist to read through and to choose the proposals who speak to them. We call our donors citizen philanthropist. I figured that, people giving to charity must have been becoming skeptical about writing a $200 check to an organization and not knowing what was done with their money.
CROWD: Whoa.
AMY CAI, TEACHER: We have a donor who decided to give you all these pencils because they know that it's hard for you guys to do your work without the pencils.
Believe it or not, things like, you know, paper, pencil, eraser, they constantly need to be replenished. Tests was coming up, I need the paper to make copies, so that they could practice, and it was great. It came right on time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was quite surprised. I thought I didn't know that there was people out there that were that generous. They really helped us because if we don't have paper, how can we learn?
LISA BEHNFELDT, TEACHER: My first proposal was for books and I got it within a couple days. Now they take books home everyday with them. Before maybe it was once a week if that. The whole class is reading and they just enjoy reading. They love to read. Another excellent item I was able to get through Donors Choose is the cash register making it fun to learn money through play.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lets pretend you have to buy something.
BEHNFELDT: The children are now accelerating with their learning because of it.
BEST: Donors Choose purchases the materials for the teacher. We send a disposable camera so that the teacher can take photographs of the activity taking place. Each student writes the donor a thank you note. The citizen philanthropist can see that the proposal they chose to fund had a major impact on the kids' lives.
CINDY ROSADO, TEACHER: Donor's Choose has been amazing because I'm 17 years in. It's been like a shot of vitamin C. It's brought a lot of materials at a time when New York City really needs them.
BEST: Donors in 48 states have funded 2,400 proposals which has been about $1.2 million worth of books, art supplies, science equipment.
Wow. I think this teacher wanted to do DNA analysis. We had just opened our doors in North Carolina, and we'll be expanding to Chicago, to Colorado, and the bay area of California in 2004. Five to 10 years from now, I really hope that Donors Choose is serving all public schools in the United States and that any committed teacher can get funding for the materials that their students need to learn.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: In case you're wondering, you can find a link to donors choose as well as information on other stories in this week shows on our Web site. That's at cnn.com/next.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on NEXT@CNN, bugs and drought are setting up the western U.S. for a devastating fire season. We'll tell you what's being done about it.
Later, we'll show you how world leaders will be getting around when they meet in Georgia in a few days.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: On Tuesday, sky watchers are in for a rare and special treat. The transit of Venus. The transit is sort of like a mini solar eclipse that happens when Venus passes between the earth and the sun. It will look like a little black spot and this is what the transit looked like the last time it happened on December 6th 1882, that's right, 122 years ago. And an astronomer David Peck Todd paragraphed it from Mount Hamilton, California. The surviving images were assembled recently into this movie. We're a bit out of luck this time around in the Western sphere. The transit will be best viewed by people in by in, Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. But if you live in the Eastern half of the u.s., you'll be able to see part of it at sunrise on Tuesday. Now if you want to watch just be careful, Don't look directly at the sun with your naked eyes, probably common sense here, but you could do some serious damage. You need to either get eclipse glasses like these or use number 13 or 14 welder's glass. The best views will be through a telescope.
Well, the world's privately built space ship is scheduled to launch June 21. Scaled Composites, the company that designed the craft, tested it In may. Space Ship I and its pilot took off in the Mojave Desert, carried by a unique looking jet, called White Knight. In flight, Space Ship I separated and reached a height of 40 miles before returning to earth safely. The upcoming flight should be similar except the craft will fly to 62 miles, that's considered the edge of space. So far Space Ship I is a top contender for the X prize, that's a $10 million competition for private space flight.
Well, in the West, Americans are stilling themselves for a devastating fire season. Countless acres of forest have turned into kindling.
Miguel Marquez reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is one of millions of dead and dying trees in just one forest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now the work starts.
MARQUEZ: Southern California's San Bernardino National Forest was wrack by fire last year, and with hot dry weather approaching it could be another season of fire.
MIKE DIETRICH, FIRE CHIEF: All the conditions are line up in terms of extremely dry fuel moistures. Another year of drought.
MARQUEZ: Another year of the drought. Another year of the bark beetle, a bug, slowing devouring forests from Alaska to New Mexico. An infrared image of just one section of San Bernardino, shows just how much of the forest is damaged by fire and bugs.
MAYOR LIZ HARRIS, BIG BARE LAKE, CALIFORNIA: There is a certain amount of fear because we know that we're sitting on a tinder box.
MARQUEZ: Last year's fire never reached Big Bear, but the bark beetle infests trees that surround it.
HARRIS: Everybody is working to remove dead trees and to manage the fire situation, but the worst case scenario, of course, would be another fire for us.
MARQUEZ: Researchers say one fire at the right time in the right place could wipe out entire forests.
PROF. THOMAS BONNICKSEN, TEXAS A&M: The people who live in our forests are endangered because we have not been good land stewards.
MARQUEZ: Too many years, say researchers, of not allowing the forest to burn and regrow naturally. The idea now, return forests to a more natural state by reducing trees in some cases from as many as 2,000 per acre to about 50.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is probably quite a bit closer to what was here several hundred years ago.
MARQUEZ: The cost is staggering, $16 million is being spent in the national forest this year to cull trees, but the Forest Service estimates the cost at about $300 million over 10 years. Multiply that over the entire western United States?
BONNICKSEN: It would cost about 60 billion dollars just for the initial restoration of 73 million acres of land.
MARQUEZ, (on camera): Researchers say it would take billions more to maintain the forests and with little to no profit to be made from dead trees, most of the tab would have to be picked up by the taxpayer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: While we're on topic of trees, there's a among celebrities to plant them or at least have the trees planted for them. It's about canceling out carbon emissions.
Sonia Sequeira explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SONIA SEQUEIRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice-over): Brad Pitt's doing it. Orlando Bloom is getting involved. Jake Gyllenhaal is putting his name to it. And we're not just talking the summer blockbuster movie. The latest must have in Tenseltown is your own forest. One company, Future Forests, will for a fee, help the environmentally developmentally concerned put back in what they take out.
DAN MORRELL, FUTURE FOREST: We can't let the CO2 impact other film or fans tour or a car hire or even an airline. We work on how much green gas activity creates and we compensate through the planting of long-term natural forest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing like this has ever happened before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least not in the last 10,000 years.
SEQUEIRA: Climate change will be a hot topic this summer with the release of "The Day After Tomorrow." In the film, freak weather connected to global warming wreaks disaster across the globe. Taking heed of his own film's warning, director Roland Emmrich paid to plant a forest to compensate for the carbon emissions generated during production.
ROLAND EMMERICH, DIRECTOR: I made my company. I made my life carbon neutral and I want to keep doing this in the future.
SEQUEIRA: One of the movie's main stars, Jake Gyllenhaal also got on board, planting trees to balance out his carbon emissions.
JAKE GYLLENHAAL, ACTOR: It raised my awareness to the extent that it could at this moment. And hopefully I'll buy a hybrid car soon, but right now I'm just into turning off my lights.
SEQUEIRA: Future Forest says the math is simple. A short haul flight emits .6 tons per person. Planting one tree will balance that out. A long haul flight from London to Australia will cost you five trees. And a car with a 1.8 liter engine traveling an average 12,000 miles per year, will set you back six trees. But critics warn that this may be just an easy way to pay off and ease your conscious.
CATHERINE PEARCE: The thing we have to remind ourselves that Future Forest is a profit making company. They're not a charity. The projects that they embark on are not necessarily sort of environmentally sound or sustainable. And it's that sort of quick fix solution that is not going to -- is not really going to help us.
SEQUEIRA: Environmental groups argue that clearing your pollution involves more than balancing the books by planting the trees. But they admit the idea and the movie goes some way to raising awareness of global warming and the damage it's doing to the environment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on next half hour of NEXT@CNN, rising oil prices may have put a crimp in your driving habits, but oil is threatening the very way of life of these people. We'll have that story.
Plus find out how zoo keepers in Dallas are keeping their gorillas happy after one escaped earlier this year.
That and more when NEXT@CNN returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, with oil and gas prices sky high, you'd think the oil-producing nations would be sitting pretty, but in at least one of them, the oil boom is causing a crisis. Jeff Koinange reports from Nigeria.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOINANGE: On patrol along Africa's third-largest river, the Niger Delta, with Nigeria's amphibious special forces. This is the territory that makes Nigeria the sixth-largest producer of crude oil in the world. This is the territory that has attracted so many multi- national oil companies who now need protection from angry villages who have not shared in the country's oil wealth.
Suddenly, dozens of villagers make their way into the water to plead with the soldiers for help, help in getting their fair share of what lies beneath this river, one of the largest oil reserves in the world. The village of Egua (ph), deep in the Delta. Once upon a time, it was a thriving fishing community, but on this day fisherman like Sunday Kanyofa has only managed to reel in a single fish which, he says, took him four days to catch.
SUNDAY KANYOFA, FISHERMAN: Look at this fire. Is it right behind my kitchen? Why should I get this fish difficult?
KOINANGE: More oil flares can only mean one thing: Nigeria's production of its black gold is in full swing. But it hasn't always been as good as gold when it comes to Nigeria's oil industry. In fact, experts have described the discovery of oil here nearly half a century ago as both a blessing and a curse. The 2 million barrels the country pumps out daily makes it the world's sixth largest producer. Oil exports, last year alone, totaled over $20 billion U.S., accounting for over 90 percent of the country's GDP.
But very little of that windfall is reflected in the day to day in Nigeria. Roads are dilapidated, the transport network antiquated, and prices at the pump continue to rise at an alarming rate, four times in the last year alone, now nearly $2 a gallon.
And here is something that makes little sense to the average consumer. Endemic fuel cues in Africa's richest oil-producer. The country's reserves too are deeply in the red. Its outstanding debt to the World Bank and other financial institutions were, at last count, somewhere around $30 billion U.S.
Africa's most populous nation is also one of its most violent. At the center of one of the country's numerous ethnic conflicts is the unequal distribution of the profits gained from its oil exports.
JAMES IBORI, DELTA STATE GOVERNOR: Some ethnic groups feel that particular new group has got the advantage of being -- you know, closer to the center and therefore using that advantage -- you know, to cause the equilibrium in the political arrangement. And added to that is cross-criminality -- you know, people take opportunity of all of this political and economical agitation to perpetrate criminal activities.
KOINANGE: Back on the Niger, communities continue to demonstrate at what they feel is a government oblivious to their plight.
(on camera): On either side of the banks of the Niger River, communities who eke out a meager existence as fishermen. Now, most of these are traditional farmers, and today the people behind me have been told to move off their land.
(voice-over): And it's this feeling that the government is oblivious to the public hardship that some analysts believe explains why locals resort to kidnapping foreign oil workers, demanding heavy ransoms, which if unpaid can have terrible consequences. Two kidnapped U.S. oil workers were killed here just last month.
But multinationals living and working in the area insist they're not about to be intimidated by these seemingly desperate tactics. DICK FILGATE: One thing about Nigeria, it's got a lot of challenges, but it also has a terrific number of opportunities. The opportunities are huge -- you know, the hydrocarbon reserves here, the potential is huge. The opportunities to build a relationship is there too, so my view is no, we're here for the long-term. We see Nigeria as a place we want to be and continue to be and will be.
KOINANGE: From big oil to the grassroots, a big and violent divide.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, some other weighty issues are about to be debated on Sea Island near Savannah, Georgia, this coming week, as leaders meet at the so-called G-8 Summit.
Now on the Island, they'll be getting around in vehicles that might make drivers of gas guzzlers jealous, especially with gas prices what they are. Shari Ast of CNN affiliate WSAV reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHARI AST, WSAV REPORTER: This may be the quietest motorcade ever to roll through Savannah's streets, so quiet, you can actually hear a bird chirping over the train of vehicles. And while you won't hear the electric motor, chances are you will be hearing more about this type of car. Local politicians test drove models that will be used by world leaders at the G-8 Summit.
MAYOR OTIS JOHNSON, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA: I was driving the car that President Bush is going to be driving.
AST: GEM, the company that makes them, is pushing a new concept in driving called "neighborhood vehicles." They're cars that are only meant to be used for short trips.
LARRY OSWALD, GEM CEO: You drive them around your neighborhood. You know, mainly within about ten miles of your home base.
AST: Top speed is about 25 miles an hour. GEM's CEO Larry Oswald thinks this is where the electric car market is going in the near future because he says higher speed electric cars can be too expensive.
OSWALD: Underneath the rear seat, we have the batteries, you can see...
AST: Oswald also says that by using electric cars for stop and go trips, you cut down on the majority of car pollution.
OSWALD: The dirtiest driving is the start up process and the short trip.
AST: But, what about safety?
(on camera):If I was hit by an SUV in this, I'd be a little worried.
OSWALD: Well, safety is always a concern.
AST: Oswald says there hasn't been one GEM fatality in six years. He says that's partly because they aren't designed to be used on high speed roads. If Mayor Otis Johnson is any indication, the neighborhood vehicle may catch on.
JOHNSON: I wish I could keep it. It would save me a lot of gas money, especially at the prices we're paying right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Next up, an angry elephant goes on the attack in San Francisco. That and more still to come, so don't go away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Seahorses around the globe are swimming a little safer these days after several species were hunted to near extinction for the worldwide pet trade and for Asian medicine. All seahorses have been awarded global protection by the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species or CITES for short. The listing requires that the 160 countries that currently trade the animals ensure the trade is sustainable. Now, one proposal for achieving that, limit the size of seahorses caught to four inches or larger. That would give the creatures a chance to reproduce before being caught. Seahorses are the only animals where the males give birth. Experts say that over fishing and habitat destruction have severely depleted the species. And according to trade surveys, about 24 million seahorses are removed from the wild each year.
An animal trainer at Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California is recuperating this weekend after being gored by an elephant. Jim Weider of CNN affiliate KGO has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM WEIDER, KGO REPORTER: Marine World keeps five elephants on site for shows some are even used to transport people on paid rides. Park officials say one of the elephants identified as Misha gord her trainer. The attack stunned employees.
JASON MANALANG, MARINE WORLD EMPLOYEE: It's a shock because -- you know we never had an incident like that ever.
WEIDER: hospital officials say 39-year-old Patrick Chapel of Napa was in emergency surgery for more than four hours. The park was filled today because of a promotion for northern California students. This middle school group from Ukiah saw a medical helicopter land at the pen, but didn't know what happened. Marine World opted to stay open and not inform guests about the incident. DANIEL ARMANIO, ST. MARY'S SCHOOL: We actually heard nothing. Everything seemed to be going along just as normal for the day, as far as I could tell.
WEIDER: Park spokesman described Misha, seen here in this internet image, as a docile 23-year-old African elephant. They say she was eating grass just before attacking her trainer. An animal rights group highly critical of Marine World in the past says noisy roller coasters and wildlife on display doesn't mix.
DR. ELLIOT KATZ, IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS: Maybe the stress of hearing all the noise from the rides and the confined spaces at Six Flags, this is no place for these elephants and sooner or later, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: A follow-up now to another case of animal trouble. Remember the zoo gorilla in Dallas that escaped from its enclosure earlier this year? Well, the zoo is taking steps to keep the remaining gorillas content to stay where they are. James Rose of CNN affiliate KDFW has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES ROSE, KDFW REPORTER: in March, a 13-year-old gorilla named Jabari escaped injuring three people before police had to shoot and kill him. Ever since, the five other lowland have been kept in an 8,000 square foot holding area outside the view of the public.
KEITH ZDROJEWSKI, ZOOKEEPER: They're so intelligent that to leave them be and not give them anything to stimulate their thinking, they would get bored very fast.
ROSE: Gorilla zookeeper, Keith Zdrojewski uses food, puzzles and lately even a TV to keep them from getting bored. This is Patrick, the loan teenager. Look how intense he's watching TV. He especially loves gorilla documentaries.
ZDROJEWSKI: He seems to enjoy -- you know, spend a bunch of time watching those more than the cartoons.
ROSE: Yes, cartoons. Maybe it's because they can relate.
LISA SIMPSON, "THE SIMPSON'S": You, sir, are a baboon.
ROSE: Actually, Zdrojewski says Patrick prefers children's cartoons because of all the vibrant colors, but that doesn't appeal to all ages of gorillas.
ZDROJEWSKI: There is two silver backs that will glance at the TV, but the youngest one, Patrick, who is 14, he's the one that tends to watch the most.
ROSE (on camera): As you can see, the TV is outside the reach of the gorilla behind this iron mesh. That's because lowland gorillas are notoriously harsh critic. Oh and none of them get the remote.
ZDROJEWSKI: The older ones have been around for a while; they've seen a lot of different things, so it's har to get them interested in new, innovative ideas.
ROSE: The gorillas won't be allowed back into their exhibit area until they determine how Jabari escaped and make any improvements, if necessary.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, speaking of being allowed in, guess who is coming for dinner? A rather uninvited guest. Some cops in Miami answered a call of the wild this week when a rather large alligator decided to swim in for a visit to this apartment complex. After a tussle with the patio chair and some anxious moments, the gator was finally captured to the relief of the residents. Not surprisingly, no one answered the door.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up next, how a little foot power can make a farmer's income jump tenfold.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: You know, the technology we usually cover on this show is of the high variety. But sometimes, low tech will make more of a difference to a person's life than anything the digital world could offer. Zain Verjee shows us an example in Kenya.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GASHEHI MUDYUKI (PH), FARMER (SINGING): This world is not me home, I'm just passing through.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gashehi Mudyuki (ph) sings in step with his story.
His name means "the one who goes slowly," but with each motion this Kenyan entrepreneur is steadily on the fast track to a better life.
For him, a water pump called the Super Money Maker is what it promised to be. So he sings a sublime expression of gratitude.
"It changed my life," says his wife, Agnes (PH). She toiled in the field for hours each day with buckets and ropes, too exhausted to look after her children by nightfall.
Gashehi shows me their old back-breaking method.
(on camera): The old way for getting water and the new way of getting water. (voice-over): Agnes heard about the pump on the radio and went to a demonstration. She eventually convinced her husband to leave his low-paying job and invest in the pump.
MUDYUKI: It has helped me in growing passion fruits.
VERJEE: Agnes waters their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) while her husband pumps out water from the well.
"I don't get tired holding this. It's easy to hold. You just do this," she says.
(on camera): The nozzle is quite cheap. It costs about 12- cents, and the water can be thrown as far from here as 20 feet over there.
(voice-over): "I'm very happy," says Agnes. "Using this is fast and easy."
Charity Warungu (PH) lives a few kilometers away. She bought a cheaper version of the pump 2-1/2 years ago, after seeing the demonstration in nearby Karatina Town (PH). She's tripled her income and is even exporting some crops.
The pump, she says, changed her life and the faces of her children.
It's easy to use. The pump's valve is put into the well and then its cylinder primed with water to start the process.
(on camera): Once you've got your balance on this single- cylinder pump, it's relatively easy to use. One stroke sucks the water out of the hole and the other pumps the water through to the hose.
(voice-over): Holes are drilled into the nozzle on the end so that the spray effect replicates rainfall.
NICK MOON, COFOUNDER, APPROTECH: Each pump comes supplied with one of these...
Nick Moon is a cofounder of ApproTech, the company that created the pumps. Nick and his San Francisco-based cofounder, Martin Fisher, see Kenyan farmers as potential investors who have the skills, knowledge and energy to be successful businessmen.
They say farmers just need an affordable opportunity to succeed, so ApproTech bases its innovations on one key principle.
MOON: Time is in abundance, labor is cheap, but it's capital, which is very, very expensive and sometimes impossible to obtain, so we need to develop technologies which are labor intensive, low capital and that way small-scale farmers, small-scale business people, entrepreneurs, can take advantage of what they have.
VERJEE: Martin Fisher says their technology has helped many Kenyan farmers generate more income.
MARTIN FISHER, COFOUNDER, APPROTECH: On average, the net income of a farmer in Kenya is about $120 per year, net income. Now once they get one of these irrigation pumps, on average their net income goes up to $1,200 per year.
VERJEE: ApproTech also oversees the distribution and manufacturing of the pumps.
Basic welders in Nairobi use local materials to make them.
(on camera): It takes about 7 hours to make just one pump. Every single day, about 20 pumps are manufactured, here. They're then inspected, tested and then finally pumps like these are taken into another area to get painted. They're delivered then to ApproTech, who ultimately takes them to the dealerships around the country.
(voice-over): Kenneth Mienhoenjoi (ph) uses another of ApproTech's designs, an oil press. He used to work for the government but has since retired to his farm in Karatina (ph). He presses sunflower oil seeds and filters the oil with a cloth gravity filter. He sells the sunflower oil locally.
MUDYUKI: I have bought myself some items.
VERJEE: Gashehi Mudyuki (ph) wants more wells, more pumps, more money. He's already bought a solar panel and a TV set with his extra income, and more.
MUDYUKI: I bought this table for my children to work on and this radio to be listening to news. I also bought my wife a good pullover because I love her.
VERJEE: A love that extends to the field, where the Mudyukis (ph) work step in step with each other.
(END VIDEOTAPE).
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come on NEXT@CNN: Music that's good enough to eat.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Ever tried to make a sound by blowing on a blade of grass? Remember that trick where you put it between your hands and blow? I was never very good at it. Well, some folks from Vienna, Austria have gone far beyond grass. They've developed an orchestra using instruments you'd think were more fit for a salad bowl. Danielle Elias has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DANIELLE ELIAS, CNN REPORTER: This isn't your typical instrument and this isn't your typical orchestra. These talented musicians are composing a salad of sounds: pumpkins, cucumbers, carrots and leeks provide the percussion and woodwinds of this ensemble
MATTHIAS MEINHARTER, MUSICIAN (through translator): We are constantly trying new sounds. We meet for practice every week where we develop new instruments and take one vegetable and ask ourselves what can be done with this one particular vegetable, how far you can go with celery.
ELIAS: The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra uses these fresh veggies to create musical masterpieces. New sounds emanate from the edible instruments, sometimes with the help of kitchen utensils. Fans flock to this unique event.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I found it very sensual and it smelled so nice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It was pretty unusual and I never would have thought it was possible to get a sound out of a cucumber, so I found it very interesting.
ELIAS: Attending a concert like this is a full sensory experience. Your eyes are captivated by the colorful veggies, your nose by the fresh smells that evolve with use, your ears from the melodies and don't forget, after the show, your stomach. With the tantalizing treat of fresh soup made from none other than the veggies you just heard.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: I know it may seem like a corny idea, but lettuce assure you it's the real thing.
That's going to did it for our smorgasbord of stories this week, but here's a quick preview of what's coming up next week.
Cds and DVDs may look tough, but won't last forever. Some, especially rewritable ones are vulnerable to rot. We'll give you some tips on how to lengthen the life of your digital library.
That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let's hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at next@cnn.com with some story ideas or just to tell us how we're doing.
Thanks so much for joining us this week. For all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg, we'll see you next time.
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