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Natuaral Disasters Play Big Roles In American Lives, Japan's High Gas Prices Force It To Be Leader In Fuel Efficient Cars; MIT Offers Web Site Access To Some Classes
Aired September 18, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLINS SPENCER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Collins Spencer at CNN Center. In the news now. Two kidnapped Americans and their British colleague are seen in a newly aired video on Al Jazeera. The three were kidnapped from their home office in central Baghdad Thursday.
As the southeast struggles to recover from Hurricane Ivan, more than a million homes and businesses remain without power. Most are in Alabama, where nearly 700,000 customers wait for their electricity to return. Ivan is blamed for at least 25 deaths in the region.
Time now to get a check on the weather across the country. With that we go to Jacqui Jeras who is in the CNN weather center. Hi Jacqui.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLGIST: Hi Collins. We're looking at some wet weather across the northeast. The remnants of Ivan still bringing in some pretty heavy rainfall at times. But certainly the worst of it is over with. It's causing some airport delays Philadelphia, Newark and LaGuardia all reporting sizable delays. So make sure you call ahead right now.
Right now doing OK at Logan. But we could have a little bit of a hold-up there we think because of the clouds. Flooding remains a big concern. Flood warnings in effect in the dark green with flood watches effect in the light green. Could see be picking up another one to two inches of rainfall. Those of you that are still getting the showers right now.
But everybody else it is really pulling on out. What's left of Jeanne here, Jeanne still a tropical storm right now could blow back up to a hurricane. But the good news is it appears that once it get through the Bahamas it should be shifting up toward the north and likely will not be a threat to U.S. Still have to keep our eye on Jeanne, but right now I think a lot of happy people that it looks like it's going to be OK.
Also we've got Hurricane Karl way out there in the Atlantic. That also not threatening any land -- Collins.
SPENCER: Thank you Jacqui. Talks to restore home rule in Northern Ireland ended in failure today. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern hosted negotiations at Leads Castle in England. Sticking points remain IRA dis-arment and the make up of a new power-sharing government. The United Nations is set to vote this afternoon on a measure threatening sanctions against Sudan. The U.S. sponsored resolution would target Sudan's oil experts. The Bush administration blames the government for failing to stop what top U.S. official's call genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.
I'm Collins Spencer at CNN Center in Atlanta. More news at the bottom of the hour. NEXT@CNN begins right now. Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everybody. I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN new technology gives firefighters the upper hand as they battle California wildfires.
Also we'll show you how to get an M.I.T. education for free.
And a high-tech treasure hunt. Find out why geo-cashing it is catching on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My wife calls it Pavlovian hiking because there's a little reward at the end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIEBERG: All that and more on NEXT.
One of the big stories on our radar this weekend is, of course, the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. For the people in its path it may have felt like the storm of a lifetime. But how does it compare to hurricanes of the past? Chad Myers takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Let's take a look at some of the extremes of extreme weather. The official Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November. And no hurricane has ever hit the U.S. outside of those months. But Atlantic hurricanes have been reported off shore as early as March and as late as January 5th.
In 1971, Hurricane Ginger set the mark for longevity with hurricane force winds for 20 straight days. It watered between Bermuda and the Carolinas, causing some damage to the Outer Banks. Hundreds lost their lives in 1969 in Hurricane Camille. The storm battered the Mississippi Gulf Coast with a record 24-foot storm surge before moving north into Tennessee and Virginia.
The busiest day, September 28th, 1998, four Atlantic storms. George, Ivan, Jeanne and Karl were at hurricane strength all at the same time. And occasionally one of these tropical terrors heads north of the border. The Canadian Hurricane Center says six hurricane strength storms have struck eastern Canada in the last 10 years.
And most recently in September 2003. Hurricane Juan killed eight and knocked out power for two weeks in parts of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. And in a half-century since forecasters have been naming Atlantic hurricanes only once have we made it to the letter "t." In 1995 Hurricane Tanya was the last of the year's 19 named storms.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: All right, when it's hurricane season in the Atlantic and Gulf states, it's wildfire season out west. Donna Teatreault reports on some new tools for firefighters that could help them control the flames.
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DONNA TETREAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): From the air to the ground, new technology is giving firefighters in southern California a better shot at stopping a fire in its tracks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are the victor frequencies that I'm doing air to air.
TETREAULT: Firefighters call these helicopters, the quarterbacks of the fire. With new emofree (ph) red technology they can identify hot spots and help stop a fire from moving forward. A computer with maps is connected to a high power GPS system allowing for precision in battling fires. And real-time intelligence allows firefighters to prioritize.
LEE BENSON, PILOT, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPT: We can look at the terrain and we can look at the density of the brush in front of the fire, get an idea where we ought to be trying to fight the fire, where we ought to be making our stand.
TETREAULT: To make a stand on the lines, there's the super dozer with tinted oven tempered glass. It comes extremely close to a fire.
CAPT. AL FORTUNE, L. A. COUNTY FIRE DEPT: We have a structure attached to the main home that started on fire. The tractor operator went up and actually peeled that little out building off and saved the main structure.
TETREAULT: Back up in the air, this black hawk helicopter. It's another tool to get close to the fire. Crews in it take direction from the quarterbacks above.
HAMK REIMER, FIREFIGHTER PARAMEDIC: It's a multi-mission effort. We can hoist work in mountains, rescue work. Drop water on fires. We've got 1,000-gallon water tank. We can either ground fill it or snorkel from a water site.
TETREAULT: Together this triple threat can be very effective in snuffing out fires. The investment by L.A. County is in the millions, an indication of what firefighters are up against here in southern California during wildfire season.
(END VIDEOTAPE) SIEBERG: OK, from natural disasters to man-made mishaps, on Tuesday afternoon, a computer failure knocked out the radio system at an air traffic control center near Los Angeles. Controllers and pilots couldn't communicate. As Kimberly Osias reports, the outage created a huge mess for travelers.
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KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was an air traffic nightmare. Radio communications lost with hundreds of planes. Airport delays up and down the west coast from San Francisco to Mexico. For more than three hours, pilots and passengers waited.
ROSS SEROLD, DELAYED TRAVELER: They said this flight is canceled. The next flight to Minneapolis is canceled. Get in line and rebook.
OSIAS: They sat, they read, they passed time. On the Tarmac and in the airport thousands of travelers trying to reroute and find answers. There were no immediate answers to be had.
TONY MARTIN, DELAYED TRAVELER: It's very frustrating. But these things happen I guess and you just have to make the most of it.
OSIAS: Travel plans changed. Some of the diverted flights were allowed to land at the San Francisco airport. The mandatory ground stop lasted three hours. No planes allowed to take off from much of California. Only a few flights allowed to land at the affected airports. That backed up flights for hours. Four hundred flights were impacted at L.A.X. alone. Slowly flights resumed and were pretty much back too normal by early morning. But getting there was the hard part.
REESE OLLMAN, DELAYED TRAVELER: I think it's going to be a late night tonight. I think we might be here. Get settled in and get comfortable.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well the FAA says the outage happened because a routine maintenance check wasn't done causing an automatic shutdown. A union official says some planes got dangerously close to each other during the radio shutdown. The FAA said the planes were closer than they are supposed to be. There was no danger of a collision.
Well if that report didn't spoil your appetite for air travel you may enjoy a story that is coming up. Richard Quest will tell us about the ups and downs of a flight that stays airborne for more than 18 hours.
And later in the show, a custody battle over some microscopic creatures found in an African lake.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: If you think gas prices are high here in the United States, you should try going to Tokyo. The Japanese pay about twice what we do. And that's driven Japan to take the lead in using energy efficient automobiles. As Atika Shubert reports.
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ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Tadao Suzuki is the proud owner of a Prius. Toyota's energy saving hybrid car. At the touch of a power button, the engine starts with a quiet purr. And a dashboard computer says the car runs at 23 kilometers per liter, twice as good as a regular car. At low speeds the car uses an electric engine. In a rush the car switches to gas. You can count the savings at the gas pump.
More than 120,000 Prius cars have already been sold in Japan. Honda and Nissan are also rolling out hybrids. So why is Japan ahead of the energy saving pack?
TADAO SUZUKI: Gasoline prices are higher in Japan than the USA. So Japanese people, naturally -- of the gasoline prices.
SHUBERT: Tokyo's metropolitan government is taking it a step further testing a fuel cell bus for the morning rush hour. It runs on hydrogen and emits only water. No gas, no pollution.
SHUBERT (on camera): This is Tokyo's hydrogen station where vehicles like this fuel cell bus can fill up on hydrogen. Clean energy from a renewable source. But doesn't come cheap this station alone cost $2.7 million.
SHUBERT (voice over): Tokyo officials say in the long run, it's worth the extra cost. Japan depends entirely on imports this official told us. If the political situation in exporting countries is unstable, Japan's energy suffers, but hydrogen energy can be produced domestically. Then Japan won't have to worry. For now hydrogen vehicles are too expensive to mass-produce. Hybrid cars may be the best alternative.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's why I am very proud. I am ahead of the other people.
SHUBERT: With rising oil prices driving demand, he may not be ahead for long.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well Asia is also on top of another transportation trend. Ultra long haul airline flights. You need several books for these ones. Richard Quest took a ride on the worlds longest nonstop flight, 18.5 hours from Singapore to New York to see if it's a flight of fancy or just an endless ordeal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Singapore Airlines nonstop flight from Singapore to New York is the longest nonstop commercial flight in history. The airline also flies a 16-hour leg from Singapore to Los Angeles. Singapore is not the only carrier to offer ultra long haul flights. Cathay Pacific flies between Hong Kong and New York.
For the flight time of 15 hours and 50 minutes. Continental offers the same service in about the same time and Emirates flies nonstop between Dubai and New York. That flight takes about 14 hours. A lot of preparation goes into the ultra long haul flights the aircraft is especially designed from the start are specially trained.
LINDA WEE, LEADING STEWARDESS, SINAPORE AIRLINES: They do give us training on the fatigue management, during the long flights of blending with the time, exercise, to take care of our diet and eat lightly on board.
QUEST: By avoiding stopovers, these flights can shave a couple of hours off your journey.
QUEST (on camera): If you have to spend 18 hours in the air, imagine how grim it is if you have to do it in economy. And that is why they've had to rethink the way economy's seating, layout, the seats, the amount of space available for the passengers. It can be so dispiriting if you are stuck in a seat like this for so many hours.
Executive economy is one of the ways they are trying to get routed.
QUEST (voice over): Still, there's only so much you can do on a plane. And then there's the effect of being in that pressurized environment can have on your health.
FARROL KAHN, DIR. AVIATION HEALTH INST: Well, the exposure to lower oxygen levels for up to 18, maybe 20 hours. This is abnormal for the human body. The fatigue, the problems really start after 12 hours. Now I would imagine that there's going to be an increase in heart attacks, for example, and this is going to be expected.
QUEST: Even with all of the precautions there's still a question on whether this type of nonstop really long flight will catch on.
CHRIS AVERY, AIRLINES ANALYST JP MORGAN: Ultra long haul will certainly have a role in the future of aviation. There is no question about that. People who prefer to go nonstop, if nonstop is available.
QUEST: The nonstop service may be appealing to the business traveler. Analysts are skeptical about its worldwide appeal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up an education from M.I.T. is a valuable commodity. We'll explain why the university came up with a surprising idea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: You know, an undergraduate at M.I.T. can spend more than $100,000 bucks on tuition over four years and walk away with a prestigious diploma. But if you are willing to skip the diploma and the face time you can get the same courses for nothing. Ronita Rashpaul (ph) has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: M.I.T., The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The students just getting in the door is an achievement. To walk these halls, they need to be academically brilliant and financially fortified. If not, mortified. Tuition costs nearly $30,000 a year. Add bed, board and books and you are looking at $40,000. That's not uncommon these days.
Though it's hard to stomach for those who feel education should be more accessible. Much like the Internet. That also was originally created to open channels of communication to freely exchange ideas and information. But during the Internet boom, forces in just about any subject sprung up on the Web, offered for a fee by established educators and upstarts alike.
M.I.T.'s management saw the potential of the Internet, but didn't want to just jump on the bandwagon, so it formed a committee to look at the options. After extensive research and a good deal of hand ringing, committee chairman Dick Yue had a eureka (ph) moment.
DICK YUE: y wife insists that she can remember the night that I sort of had this ah-ha, let's just do it moment. The question was what could we do that could help us sort of exert our leadership as a university? And her comment was why don't we just give it away, give it away, give it away.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Give it away by putting the courses that are taught at M.I.T. on the Internet for anyone anywhere to follow as if they were sitting in the lecture halls. The revolutionary idea in these cynical times almost idealistic.
ROBERT BROWN, M.I. T. PROVOST: It's idealistic, but in some ways it's no more idealistic than the concept of a university and higher education. If you think of a university, the ideals of a university are an open environment. And what has happened since the beginning of time is it was open to anyone who could come, physically come.
And what the Web does is allow that to be open in some aspects. Not all aspects, but some aspects to a broader part of the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The end result was a program called Open Course Ware, OCW for short. All an individual has to do is go to MIT's OCW Web site and click on the course of choice. Once there the curriculum, papers and select lectures can be accessed. Some of the most advanced and previously exclusive courses are at your fingertips.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am going to release this object, and I hope I will be able to do it at zero speed. Three, two, one, zero. Physics works and I'm still alive. See you Wednesday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now this couldn't have been achieved without the cooperation of M.I.T.'s faculty. Well anticipation is voluntary there has been no shortage of takers among M.I.T's professors and teachers. There are some 900 M.I.T. courses available on Open Course Web.
ANNE MARGULIES, OCW EXEC. DIRECTOR: You have to give a lot of credit to the M.I.T. faculty. I think first of all, for thinking very big because they could have just thought about how to cash in on their intellectual property. But, instead, they thought about how they could together use their materials to help education all over the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While self-learners make up the biggest group of OCW users, educators are encouraged to use it as well. The universities and other places of higher learning are free to use OCW in essence M.I.T's material becomes part of their curriculum. This was the case when five M.I.T. students went to a university in western China this summer. Peter and Michelle were part of that group. They used materials posted on OCW to teach a computer science course to the Chinese.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we did was we went on the 6001 Website on OCW and we used the lecture notes, the problems, the readings and recitations and exams from OCW.
PETER JEZIOREK, MIT STUDENT: As a tool for teaching it was invaluable because I wouldn't have been able to teach in China without it. We actually didn't know very much what our students would be like, how many we would have. But we were able to go there with very little preparation and in a few days, we were teaching already.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For individual users, the courses on OCW differ in places to those taught in the M.I.T classroom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First you need to create a vacuum.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Restrictions on intellectual property rights occasionally get in the way and of course Web site users don't have personal access to the facility or their facilities. At the end of the day, there's no M.I.T. degree, but getting hung up on those things would be missing the point says OCWs architect.
YUE: People ask, what is the ultimate vision of MIT doing open course work? My personal dream is that many other institutions will also do something like open course work. Other leading universities that have expertise in a variety of areas in public health, literature, and law, and the arts, internationally. My vision is that open courseware would not be an M.I.T. thing in the years to come but that it would be something that many institutions would join together to do. When that day happens, now we're really talking about something profound and influential.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up in our next half hour the creatures that live in the mud of this lake can be used to make money. Lots of money. So now the question is, who owns them?
And speaking of things in the mud, there's a four-ton hydrogen bomb buried in the sea floor near Savannah, Georgia. Should people be worried? Those stories and a lot more are coming up after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, good news for conservationists this week. The country gained a new national park. Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Monument on Monday was promoted to national park status. Twenty-seven-thousand acres of the neighboring Baca Ranch have been added to the park. The ranch lies above a huge aquifer and the underground waters are actually key to the stability of the dunes which are up to 750 feet tall. The new park is home to abundant wildlife, including seven species, six insects and a mouse that live nowhere else on earth. This is the nation's 58th national park.
Well, now a story about an international incident over microbes. These bugs live in hot springs in Kenya and that country accuses a U.S. biotech company of helping itself to the microbes illegally. More from Gladys Njorge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLADYS NJOROGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These hot springs have temperatures similar to those found in a turning washing machine. They are also home to bugs called extremophiles that live in high temperatures and extreme conditions of acidity or salinity.
Bugs that are now the focus of an international row between the Kenyan Wild Life Service and Genencor, a U.S.-based biotechnology company. The Kenyans say Genencor illegally acquired bug samples taken from these hot springs and an alkaline lake in the Rift Valley and is using them to produce enzymes that are used in laundry detergents and in the making of denim blue jeans.
(on camera): The enzyme found in mud samples collected from this alkaline lake, scientists say, are used to give denim jeans that softer feel and faded look.
(voice-over): Wildlife officials in Kenya say Genencor does not have authorization to commercialize the bug samples and are now demanding royalties.
EVANS MUKOLWE, KENYA WILDLIFE SERVICES: We have documentation, documentation prepared by the companies themselves. There is evidence from within the country that these samples were collected and that with -- together with that documentation I have just told you about, that the commercialization was eventually effected.
NJOROGE: According to reports, the enzymes are produced through a genetic engineering process in laboratories around the world.
Genencor acknowledges using enzymes from samples from the soda lakes. On its Web site, the company claims to be the first to commercialize the enzymes from the extremophiles. In a statement, Genencor says it sells one of the enzymes to detergent manufacturers, but declines to name the manufacturers. It also denies illegally acquiring the bugs. Genencor says it got samples from England's University of Lester (PH), which got them during an expedition in 1992. The company notes: "Although we were not involved at the time, Genencor acted in good faith to obtain biological samples in accordance with existing laws and proper permits obtained in partnership with local hosts."
But a researcher involved in the 1992 expedition from Kenyatta University's Botany Department told CNN that the University of Lester (PH) had a permit to collect samples for research purposes only.
Kenya's National council of Sciences and Technology, which approves research permits, agrees.
JOSEPH WARUTERE, SR. WARDEN LAKE KAKURU NAT'L PARK: And even if it is of no affiliation, usually it is for research only, but we know that you can have inventions as a result of research.
NJOROGE: The University of Lester (PH) has declined to comment on the issue.
Wildlife officials also claim that extremophile samples may have been continuously collected for more than a decade, the most recent being two years ago. The Kenyan Wildlife Service is not alone in its demands. Now residents living near the hot springs want a piece of the pie.
"We've asked the community and they say if anyone has stolen anything from Lake Bogoria, he should bring back the benefits. If he has made money, he should pay some to the government and to us," he says.
The Kenya Wildlife Service has engaged the help of an international property rights group that is now in the process of gathering a team of lawyers to fight the case in court.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, a new way to get your MP3's playing in your car wirelessly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: So, you are driving down the road with music from your MP3 player plugged into your stereo feeling pretty cutting edge, think you're on top of the digital music revelation. Well, think again. Now you can send those MP3's from your desktop to your dashboard wirelessly. Andy Serwer checked it out.
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ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE (voice-over): All those songs you download to your PC, they can now ride shotgun on your way to work. And thanks to new technology, you don't have to actually bring your MP3 player with you.
TOM O'MARA, OMNIFI: Every time we put something new in the computer, it becomes available in your car, so you never have to touch it. Human nature is out, you don't have -- you can be lazy. Simply just...
SERWER: Tom O'Mara is talking about WiFi. His company's new $600 digital jukebox player can wirelessly sync up your hard drive to your car stereo. All you have to do is park your car within 300 feet of your house and tell the Omnifi music player when to zap the songs, up to 3,000 of them.
(on camera): And what do we got back here? This is an antenna so you can actually download songs from, say, the house on a WiFi system right to this antenna?
O'MARA: Exactly.
SERWER (voice over): To test out the system, Tom synced up a driving classic: Steppenwolf.
(on camera): Let's hear some of the tunes: "Born to be Wild."
O'MARA: No. 1.
SERWER: "Magic Carpet Ride."
O'MARA: No. 2.
SERWER: After that, they kind of fell off.
(voice over): Eight minutes later, the entire album was in Tom's car, a lot longer than just popping in a CD or plugging in your MP3 player, but on top of being wireless, Tom says the Omnifi player won't skip.
(MUSIC)
SERWER (on camera): All right.
(voice-over): Other hurdles: The high price tag, and having to park right next to your home. But Apple and BMW have rolled out a $150 adapter for the iPod that plugs right into the glove compartment. To use the iPod in other cars you have to sync up an adapter to a local radio station.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: I know you're probably thinking, hey, what will they think of next? Well, how about television in your cell phone? Eunice Yoon has that story.
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EUNICE YOON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is it a digital camcorder, an MP3 player, a TV, a game console, or a mobile phone? No doubt today's cell phone is facing an identity crisis.
NAM PARK, TELECOM ANALYST HSBC: I think generally there is a trend toward the mobile phone becoming the Swiss knife, if you like, of portable consumer electronics.
YOON (on camera): The phone can now double as a digital camcorder. Samsung Electronics is offering a 2 megapixel digital camcorder handset that can record your favorite holiday for up to four hours. But, at $600 a pop, will consumers buy it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I'd rather buy a camcorder and use it because it feels different when you're using an actual camcorder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): If the memory can take in four hours, I think it's worth it.
YOON (voice-over): Television phones will hit the South Korean market at the end of the year. Retailing at $800, the digital media broadcasting phone will let TV junkies flip through up to 13 networks and 26 radio channels wherever they go. One of the brains behind the TV cell phone is confident it will catch on, especially with young people.
YOUNG-KIL SUH, CEO TU MEDIA: Mobile telephone is, literally, one part of their body. It is not only a telecommunications tool, but also entertainment tool, educational tool, social life tool.
YOON: For tech-hungry Koreans, the new service will be cheap, costing $10 a month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Watching TV on my phone sounds good to me.
YOON: There's something for music lovers, too, though downloading digital music on a cell phone is already a run-of-the-mill feature here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): A lot of people are using digital music phones. I think it's a good idea.
YOON: Filming movies, playing music, or paying the bills, it looks as though there isn't anything the mobile phone can't do. It can even make phone calls.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come: A zoo in a war zone does what it can to survive, even if it means stuffing animal victims of the violence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERG: Life is harsh for most people in the West Bank, so it takes a special effort to make a home there for exotic animals. John Vause reports on a small zoo and its struggles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's hardly what you expect in the West Bank, but somehow, through four bloody and violent years, this zoo in the Palestinian city Qalqilya has managed to survive.
Qalqilya itself is surrounded by a 20-foot wall built by Israel to stop suicide bombers. Dr. Sami Khadr (PH), the resident veterinarian says, in a way, this zoo is a cage within a wage.
DR. SAMI KHADR, ZOO VETERINARIAN: You stay in the cage like this animal. Which animal you like to be, OK?
VAUSE (on camera): (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
KHADR: Lion.
VAUSE: Why?
KHADR: Because you stand outside and you are afraid from him.
VAUSE (voice-over): The zoo was closed for two years during the worst of the fighting, but with the relative calm and after Israel eased curfews and road closures, the gates here reopened six months ago. Visitors are still rare, just a few each day. And the animals have not escaped unscathed.
VAUSE (on camera): Sami, why did you stuff the giraffe?
KHADR: Brownie (PH), the man which die, I cannot lose the sentiment. I cannot throw it out, so I stuffed it and put it here.
VAUSE (voice-over): Brownie panicked during a burst of gunfire, ran, hit his head, fell down, and died. His pregnant mate Ruthie was so upset, she miscarried. Three zebras died from tear gas, they were stuffed as well. And the monkeys have been traumatized according to Dr. Khadr, now frightened by the sound of his cell phone.
KHADR: They don't understand what is the meaning of guns.
VAUSE: There are three new lions donated from an Israeli zoo, but they only respond to commands in Hebrew.
KHADR: I will try to teach him all of it.
VAUSE (on camera): The zookeepers here know that cages with bars and cement are a cruel substitute for open spaces with grass and trees, and they say conditions here will only ever really improve when there is an end to the fighting with Israel.
(voice-over): They would like to build a nature reserve, but that will only happen, they say, when the turnstiles here start tipping over, when Palestinians are free to go wherever they want, whenever they want, even to the zoo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: All right, on to animal news here in North America. For years, some people said there was a giant turtle hiding in Laguna Lake near Fullerton, California. Well, turns out they were right. Meet a living legend, "Old Bob." the alligator snapping turtle. Bob turned up when workers started dredging the lake as part of a restoration project. He weighs in at about 100 pounds and is estimated to be 50 years old. Turtle lovers speculate that he was a pet that got too big for his aquarium. I'll say. He's being cared for by a turtle protection group. They want to find him a new home where he won't endanger swimmers toes.
Also looking for a new home, Bailey the duck and her best friend, Molly, the cat. The duo ran afoul of law that bars certain animals as being kept as pets in Kitchener, Ontario. Ducks are on the no-no list. Bailey's owner had to find temporary quarters for the pair at a farm outside of town. Now she says she'll move, even if finding a new job is necessary so the family can be reunited. Molly adopted Bailey as a duckling, maybe mistaking her for a kitten, and they've been inseparable ever since.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up: Combine affordable GPS devices with tantalizing clues on the web and you've got geo cashing. We'll show you why it makes people tackle rough terrain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: An unarmed hydrogen bomb has been lost somewhere off the Georgia coast for the past 46 years, and now the Air Force is investigating a claim it's been found. Paul Ray of CNN affiliate WSAV has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL RAY, WSAV: So you are telling me that you have found the Tybee bomb?
DEREK DUKE, RET. AIR FORCE PILOT: I'm telling you we have found something that would lead you to believe we have found it.
RAY (voice-over): After nearly seven years of interviewing experts, researching military records and probing the depths, retired Air Force pilot, Derek Duke and his partners, say they found something buried at the bottom of Wausau Sound. But it is the Mark 15 nuclear bomb lost in the '50s? With radiation levels seven to ten times higher than normal centered around a large burried object, Duke says he thinks so.
DUKE: You've got remarkably high radiation levels centered about this exact spot where they said it landed.
RAY: Duke is optimistic that his long-time campaign to find and dispose of the bomb is nearing an end.
DUKE: I've never believed we would be better off just to ignore it and let sleeping dogs lie.
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SIEBERG: incidentally, Air Force authorities had concluded it would be better to leave the bomb where it is, but now that it may have been found they say it's only prudent to check things out.
Well, speaking of finding things, what do you get when you combine a $100 global positioning device, a love of the outdoors, and some spare time? You get something called Geocaching. And, while participants may only find a handful of cheap trinkets, the enjoyment comes from solving a puzzle.
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RICK CLAWSON, GEOCASHER: So, are you ready to go Geocach?
SIEBERG (voice-over): To go on a high-tech treasure hunt, all you need is a GPS device, some good walking shoes, and a little patience. Age is not an issue. We tagged along with Rick Clawson and his daughter, Emily, to find one of the thousands of Geocach sites out there, this one just outside Atlanta, off the beaten spots where someone has hidden, well, a hidden treasure of sorts.
CLAWSON: My wife calls it "Pavlovian hiking," because there's a little reward at the end.
SIEBERG: A stay-at-home artist, Clawson only started Geocaching late last year, but now says he's totally hooked. A Geocaching website provides us with the coordinates.
(on camera): So, where are we headed?
CLAWSON: Right down the trail here onto the Silver Comet Trail.
SIEBERG: OK, is it going to be pretty rough terrain or...?
CLAWSON: No...
SIEBERG: Can Emily handle it?
CLAWSON: Yeah, she can handle it.
SIEBERG: If she can handle it, we can handle it.
(voice-over): The idea of trekking cross-country with just a few satellite points to guide the way has actually been around for a few years, but it's increasing in popularity as the GPS devices get cheaper and some of the prizes provided by sponsors like Magellan and Jeep get better. RANDY HALL, MAGELLAN GPS: It wasn't started by any company or anything like that, it was really enthusiasts who love their GPS and want to be able to be in the outdoors and go explore, and so they've invented this treasure hunt game. And, it's internet-based and it kind of just took off on its own. Someone started a -- you know, a few websites and it really has caught on like wildfire.
SIEBERG (on camera): Now, it looks like it's telling us to go off that way?
CLAWSON: Yeah, the path will wind around to the right over here.
SIEBERG: OK.
CLAWSON: And it should join the Silver Comet Trail.
SIEBERG: You having fun, Emily? Yeah?
CLAWSON: Most of the time she's on my back, if the trail gets rough, or if we have to go into the woods then I'll take her out of the stroller and we'll piggyback it.
I've lost like 20, 25 pounds in six months just walking through the woods with her.
SIEBERG: All right, so now we're about 100, 120 feet away?
CLAWSON: I got 107, it's right back here.
SIEBERG: Emily's taking a little nap.
CLAWSON: Yep. We'll wake her up for the cach.
SIEBERG: Go right up the hill? Scramble up?
CLAWSON: Yeah.
SIEBERG: OK, sure. You got it?
CLAWSON: Yeah. You're almost standing on it.
SIEBERG: Really? I'm almost standing on it? Oh, see, now that is camouflaged like so many of these other things around here.
CLAWSON: Exactly.
SIEBERG: And you're allowed to take whatever you want as long as you put something in there.
CLAWSON: Right, if you take two things, put in two things, or put in more. You can put in as much as you like. A little first aid kit.
SIEBERG: I could use some of those moist wipes right now.
CLAWSON: (LAUGHING) Sunglasses case, mini pocket knife, odd little lava ball.
SIEBERG: Oh, that's kind of cool.
CLAWSON: You never know what you're going to find. Check the log book.
SIEBERG: So, what are you going to write, here?
CLAWSON: "Long hike. Good hide."
SIEBERG: No blood, a lot of sweat, and no tears later.
CLAWSON: No blood, a lot of sweat.
SIEBERG: How does it feel once you're -- once you're here, once you solve it?
CLAWSON: Oh, it's fun, it's like -- you know, a sense of accomplishment and the fact that you've got a highway right here with all these people zooming by, have no idea that somebody's up here playing with toys and finding treasure.
SIEBERG: And obviously, it's a good workout.
CLAWSON: It's a good workout, yeah, I'm drenched.
SIEBERG: And now we got to hike back.
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SIEBERG: A couple of fun footnotes on Geocaching: If you see someone on the trail who doesn't know what Geocaching is, they're referred to as a "muggle," a "Harry Potter" reference. And if you see someone dancing around sort of moving like this, that's the "GPS dance," as you're trying to get a better signal on your device.
All right, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week: Miles O'Brien goes airborne, really airborne to profile Peter Diamandis, the man behind the $10 million X Prize for private space flight. He's also the man behind the first zero gravity airplane flights for tourist. We'll take you for a ride.
That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let's hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at next@cnn.com and don't forget to check out our website, that's at cnn.com/next.
Thanks so much for joining us, for all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg, we'll see you next time.
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