Return to Transcripts main page

NEXT@CNN

A Look at Controversy Surrounding Video Game Narc; A look at Robot Soldiers with Medical Uses in Front Line Combat

Aired April 23, 2005 - 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: Our top stories now. The U.S. military has arrested a half dozen people in connection with Thursday's downing of civilian helicopter north of Baghdad. Insurgents posted video online. They claim showed the helicopter being shot down. Eleven people including six Americans were killed.
The violence in Iraq goes on this weekend. Insurgents killed nine Iraqi soldiers in a roadside bombing earlier today on the western outskirts of Baghdad. An American soldier was killed in a separate roadside bombing.

Among some hundred thousand Germans arriving in Rome for tomorrow's papal inauguration is Reverend George Ratzinger, the Pope's older brother. Ratzinger is a retired priest. The two are said to maintain close ties. Pope Benedict XVI is the first German to be elected pope if five centuries.

And President Bush's brother, Jeb, is in Rome to lead the U.S. Delegation at tomorrow's papal inauguration. The Florida governor is a Catholic convert. He says the U.S. can look forward to a good relationship with the new pope.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the 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 news.

CHRISTINA PARK, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi, I'm Christina Park. Daniel Sieberg is on vacation. Today on NEXT at CNN, the next big thing for combat medicine could involve robots with doctors hundreds of miles away. Introducing the Trauma-pod.

Tired of fighting commuter traffic? Well, one company has plans to take commuters above it all in one of the world's most congested cities.

And we'll show you what can happen when a wildlife wrangler runs into trouble with a 250-pound alligator. All of that and more on NEXT.

You've heard of robo-cop, well, how about robo-doc? The defense department is funding a program did to treat severely wounded soldiers on the battlefield. More from CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Urban combat in the year 2025 as envisioned by the Pentagon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man down. Man down.

STARR: A soldier is shot. A driverless vehicle rolls up. The soldier is carried away and treated by robots. No doctors or nurses are on the front line. Treatment is immediate. The soldier is saved. It's just a concept for now but it's got a name, the trauma pod. And if it works, it can save lives.

DR. ADRIAN PARK, UNIV. OF MARYLAND MEDICAL CTR: Right now, we're doing basic stabilization. So stabilization of fractures and hemostat are stopping the bleeding.

STARR: Today's operating rooms are already taking the first steps in automation and robotics. Surgeons routinely use laproascopic (ph) instruments to peer into the human body with tiny cameras. One step removed from directly holding the scalpel. But with the trauma pod, military surgeons will rely on high definition screens and instant communications to tell the robot what to do.

PARK: I may be in another city, maybe in another country.

STARR: The Pentagon is funding a $12 million effort to see what is possible.

STARR (on camera): Here at the University of Maryland Medical Center researchers are part of a team exploring critical issues that may occur whether a badly wounded soldier is treated robotically by doctors hundreds of miles away.

STARR (voice over): High-speed communications will be a challenge. Any satellite delays sending data between the robot and the human surgeon must be less than 0.2 of a second. Robots will need to perform high definition scans. Insert IVs and clear a soldier's airway. The robo's scrub nurse will provide instruments and bandages. As the robot scans, it will locate anybody damage as smalls a 30th of an inch. While robots will do the work, experts insist there will always be a human doctor in control.

TIM GANOUS, TRAUMA POD PROJECT MANAGER: There will be a surgeon on joysticks, let's say, back at a military hospital who is participating in this surgery.

STARR: And then, the soldier will be lifted out of the trauma pod and carried off by another robotic vehicle flying through the air.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARK: The Pentagon is relying more and more on another type of unmanned aerial having, the predator for combat missions. And now these aircraft may get an additional duty with more in CNN's continuing "Security Watch" coverage again, here is Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice over): Fallujah, August 2004, the insurgency is raging. An air force predator unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV looters above watching trunks with mounted 50 caliber machine guns. The predator fires its missiles. . Now the air force is moving to the next step. Doubling the size of the predator fleet.

LT. GEN. STEVE WOOD, AIR FORCE DEP. CHIEF OF STAFF: I think we are looking in the neighborhood of 200 to 250 of our predators.

STARR: Funding for all UAVs is expected to grow from $350 million in 2001 to more than $2 billion this year. In Iraq and Afghanistan, predators UAVs have struck dozens of targets without putting pilots at risk. Operators are hundreds of miles away using cameras and sensors on board the predator to watch the battlefield but government accountability office issued a report warning of emerging problems. Such as operating in bad weather and limitations on satellite communications. With a larger predator fleet, also comes a possible new mission, homeland defense.

WOOD: I think that they do have a place in homeland defense but we're starting to just sit down and looking at how we will do that.

STARR: The coast guard may monitor coastlines and waterways with the UAVs. The border patrol has already used some UAVs along the border with Mexico. But the ultimate question could the predator find the ultimate target Osama Bin Laden? General Woods says the predator's cameras don't have the resolution to see Bin Laden's face, but would look for other clues.

WOOD: If we knew that he was -- he was in the area and we'd had other kinds of intelligence to put there, we would be able to discern by the way he travels. I know he travels with a group, bodyguards and others. There would be key indicators.

STARR (on camera): A new version of predator that can fly longer and carry more weapons is in the works. UAVs now here to stay watching for America's security.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ahead on NEXT@CNN, a troubled 13-year-old, online messaging, and school bullies a potentially lethal combination. We'll tell you why.

And later, some are calling it a new low in video gaming. A game where players can get high virtually of course.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARK: anyone who's been a kid knows how hard it can be to deal with school yard bullies, but the computer age has given bullies a whole new venue. Adaora Udoji reports on one case that had tragic consequences.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Everyone says Ryan Halligan had a wicked sense of humor. So funny, he dreamed of become a comedian. But at 13, Ryan committed suicide.

KELLY HALLIGAN, RYAN'S MOTHER: He was very carefree, very generous spirit.

UDOJI: His shattered parents at a loss have relived moments over and over again looking for clues. Ryan struggled academically, but he had lots of friends, and he loved being online.

K. HALLIGAN: He was a well-liked, good looking kid who fell under everybody's radar in terms of being a typical kid that's bullied.

UDOJI: So what happened?

JOHN HALLIGAN, RYAN'S FATHER: I had spent a lot of time reconstructing going back.

UDOJI: While Ryan's parents did not know at the time was that their son was getting bullied here at school and the bullies were following him home in cyberspace.

Ryan spent hours online following his parent's rules. No talking to strangers. No pornography sites. No giving out personal information. But his father discovered a chilling world of instant messages and e-mails. The real problem, people Ryan knew. Some taunted him about girls he liked. Others hurled homophobic accusations.

J. HALLIGAN: I found just some very hurtful stuff. Hey, Ryan, I'm gay I like you. I want to do this to you, very graphic sexual kind of stuff.

UDOJI: One so-called friend encouraged Ryan to kill himself.

J. HALLIGAN: Where the kid said, you're finally going to stop complaining and, my son, yes, tonight's the night, I'm going to do it. You will read about it in the papers tomorrow. And the kid said it is about f-ing time.

UDOJI: Ryan's friends say the Halligan's stumbled into a world many parents don't know exist. An anonymous cyber world where everyone is a potential victim.

MATT CONN, RYAN'S CLASSMATE: You can say whatever you want to them because you know they can't get you back because you're like a nameless face out there.

UDOJI: They describe a sometimes-vicious place of backbiting where teens even send nasty notes under assumed or stolen names.

How many of you have been called a name or teased online while you were instant messaging? And I-Safe American survey found nearly 80 percent of teens said that they had been threatened or bullied online. Few complained fearing their parents will pull computer privileges or make things worse by irritating the bullies. Why won't you stay off of the computer?

ELLEN SHEEHEY, RYAN'S CLASSMATE: Because the computer is like your link to everything now. Like for us, like that's what we do. SARAH SNOW, RYAN'S CLASSMATE: If you're not there when everyone's like make the plans and stuff, you'll probably be left out for a lot of stuff.

UDOJI: They don't think adults take cyber bullies and their victims seriously.

SHEEHEY: They wouldn't get in trouble, as much if they punched him and verbal can be worse. It is worse than.

UDOJI: Because?

SHEEHEY: Because it hurts you.

ASHLEY FAY, RYAN'S CLASSMATE: Physical, like, yes you will have a bruise for a little while. But you'll get over it. But when someone tells you something hurtful, it really stays with you.

UDOJI: The Halligan's don't blame cyber bullies for Ryan's death, they only wish they knew what was going on so they could have intervened which is why John successfully pushed for a cyber bulling law in Vermont one of the few in the country. Now he also talks to groups about a problem he says is growing fast.

J. HALLIGAN: The advice I give to parents is I think that you should go ahead install those programs that help you not enter the activity that's going in your computer. To me it's the trust and verify approach, right I trust you and we're going to verify that things are going OK.

UDOJI: Their story, he says is a cautionary tale. Parents can't take the computer lightly. They must get involved, he says, even more than they think necessary. Their child's health may be at stake.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARK: Another worry for parents and other folks for that matter, a closing counter with a vicious dog. It's estimated up to 20 people die each year from fatal dog bites in the United States. Now communities are establishing computer databases to keep track of dangerous canines as Kareen Wynter reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Anyone can find out if their convicted sex offenders registered in their community by looking under their county's Web site but what if you wanted to search for a different kind of unwanted neighbor. In Spotsylvania County, Virginia a new online database lists dogs deemed dangerous by the county's animal control department. The move prompted by last month's vicious pit bull attack in Virginia that killed 82-year-old Dorothy Sullivan and her dog. It happened right in her backyard.

THEA VERDAK, VA HUMANE SOCIETY: I was very saddened and appalled and I thought, how could this possibly happen in our county?

WYNTER: Humane Society director Thea Verdak was once attacked by a pit bull herself.

VERDAK: It growled and it opened its mouth and if I moved, it moved. It was -- my adrenaline was absolutely pumping.

WYNTER: She says she loves dogs but wants to make sure her neighbors feel safe while out on a jog or walking with their pets. Verdak worked with the county to set up the online registry that lists the owner's name, address, and dog's description.

WYNTER (on camera): The county that finds a dangerous dog is one that's bitten, attacked, or inflicted injury on a person or companion animal. The dog must wear a special collar and be muzzled when out in public.

WYNTER (voice over): Warning signs are also posted on the owner's property. Tampa, Florida established the first dangerous dog Web site in Virginia, Fairfax County chairman; Gerry Connolly wants his community to get on board.

GERRY CONNOLLY, FAIRFAX COUNTY CHAIRMAN: That the public is entitled to know where in dangerous dogs may be in our community so they can take appropriate planning to avoid them and protect themselves.

WYNTER: An animal advocate Maureen Hauch raises a breed similar to the pit bull and says the online registry unfairly targets pet owners.

MAUREEN HAUCH, AMERICAN DOG OWNERS ASSN: To have it out there with their addresses I think just really sets them up for some problems with maybe people coming by and harassing them.

WYNTER: Proponents say no simple solution in finding the balance between privacy and safety. Only more reassurance the public will have this new cyber tool to protect themselves.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up, how some car owners are able to sell their used vehicles for more than they paid for the cars.

And later, escaped elephants caused caucus in Korea. Those stories and much more are still to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARK: Sentencing for the suspect in a string of arson and vandalism at SUV dealerships in southern California. A judge sentenced 24-year-old William Catrel (ph) to serve eight years in prison and pay $3.5 million for his role in the attacks. The fires a couple years ago targeted several California dealerships selling Hummers and other SUVs. Catrel (ph) admitted to only spray painting vehicles during the incident. He said he didn't know that two friends who have since fled the country were bringing Molotov cocktails.

Well while eco-activists may shun SUVs they love hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius. So many people want to buy a Prius they often have to wait two months before one is even available. That's leading some folks who have finally gotten the Prius to help out those Prius owner wannabes at a price of course as Allan Chernoff reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Ken Ruck, proud owner of a brand new Toyota Prius, fully loaded and with a hybrid engine, gas and electric. It gets 55 miles per gallon.

KEN RUCK, PRIUS OWNER: I love this care because not only is it saving money on gas but it is also pretty cool.

CHERNOFF: What he'd love even more would to be sell the Prius at a profit of $10,000. Can an employee of Virgin Mobile is advertising on the Web to sell for $37 grand.

RCUK: I posted the car on Craig's List's Web site for $10,000 more than I paid for it and pretty much everyday since then I've had three to four e-mails offering me, not as much as what I am asking for but more than what I paid for it.

CHERNOFF: Yes the Prius is popular. Toyota says the average wait for the car is two months.

CHERNOFF (on camera): With gasoline prices near record levels, some people don't want to wait. They want their Prius now. Kelly Blue Book the authority on car prices says used Priuses are selling for $1,000 to $3,000 above sticker price. You can find them at Cars.com or eBay Motors. But $10,000 above list and --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are either crazy or it's a great car. One or the other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe he's a better businessman than I am.

CHERNOFF: This Toyota dealer says his customers need wait only a month for a Prius but in New York, he says, anything is possible.

BRUCE EDELMAN, QUENNSBORO TOYOTA: I won't pay $10,000 more for a car, no matter how great that car is. But there are some individuals who really want the car and they quest that they want to get that car and they will pay. They will pay a high, high premium over the sticker price of what the customer paid for it. Probably he will get it.

CHERNOFF: If Ken Rucks gets his price, he says, he will buy another Prius to turn a quick buck but perhaps only he sees green when looking at his silver car. At the very least, he'll save money on gas as he shows off his Prius.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

PARK: California inventor Woody Norris is also seeing green. He's just won the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT prize for numerous inventions, including an acoustical devise that enables sound to be targeted to an individual listener and a personal flying craft called the air scooter. The air scooter is an ultra light recreational flying machine that could hit the market as early as this year. Other folks also have plans for airborne vehicles. Paula Hancocks reports on a company that's working on a flying taxi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's a familiar site, the choked roads of a major city. Give it five or six years, and this could be just as commonplace. The jet port as an airborne taxi that's quiet and environmentally friendly.

MIKE DACRE, AVCEN: The aircraft had to land and take off in 125 meters. It also had to have a very low noise output and the aircraft needed to also accelerate rapidly up to 350 miles per hour in order to get point-to-point low level very quickly.

HANCOCKS: In aeronautics jargon this is a VQ stall aircraft. To you and me, that's a very quiet short takeoff and landing aircraft. It sparks comparison with Bruce Willis' taxi in the film "The Fifth Element." But the jet part has a chance of becoming a reality 200 years ahead of its movie equivalent.

JOE IANNELLI, CTR. FPR AERONAUTIC CITY UNIV: This aircraft can take off within 125 meters because a portion of the engine thrust is deflected downward. This creates an additional force pointing up. So that's the total upward force exceeds the weight of the aircraft and the aircraft can take off.

HANCOCKS: The inventor estimates the test flight could take place in less than a year and a half, with final certification by 2010. It has the seal of approval from London commuters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely, yes. Fantastic. Can I have one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sounds good. If you could land it in my garden, would it be better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. It would be easier wouldn't it?

HANCOCKS: The plane is expected to carry up to seven passengers with estimates that the port could be profitable charging just $18 per person.

DACRE: We would be looking at about say 50 aircraft to service a city the size of London, 50 sectors a day. So that would take in our calculations about 37,000 cars off of the road.

HANCOCKS: If true, would it play a role in reducing countries c02 emissions.

HANCOCKS: Of the he runway only needs to be 125 meters long the inventors believe the options in the city center are endless. They suggest building an elevated platform on the river or building an elevated platform over the approach to a railway station. They even say simply building a runway above a congested road is plausible. The feature of a quiet daily commute with city landmarks at your feet could be only five years, away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In our next half hour, meet some environmental activists who've gone way beyond the call of duty and are now being rewarded for their efforts.

Also ahead, new technology that turnings sweat and urine into drinkable water. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center in Atlanta. NEXT@CNN continues in a moment. But first a look at the top stories.

The U.S. military has arrested half a dozen people in connection with Thursday's downing of a civilian helicopter north of Baghdad. The arrest came after a tip from an Iraqi civilian. Insurgents had posted video online. They claim show the helicopter being shot down. Eleven people including six Americans were killed in that incident.

The violence in Iraq goes on this weekend; insurgents killed nine Iraqi soldiers in a roadside bombing earlier today on the western outskirts of Baghdad. An American soldier was killed in a separate roadside bombing.

Now lets get a check of the weather from CNN's Orelon Sidney.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PARK: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. On this Earth Day weekend, does it make you feel good to recycle your paper, glass, and aluminum or to help clean up a local stream? But just how far would you go to defend the environment? CNN's Marsha Walton introduces people who have put their lives on the line for Mother Earth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHA WALTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They have survived assassination attempts, jail time, and bounties their heads. They have taken on money and power to protect land and people.

RICHARD GOLDMAN, GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE: They're outstanding people, they're modest people, they're taking risks and they're getting results.

WALTON: For 16 years, the Goldman Environmental Prize has recognized in the trenches activists. In year's winners include agronomist, Chivon John Batiste, who's taught sustainable agriculture to the people of Haiti. He says defending the land rights of peasants can be politically dangerous

CHAVANNES JEAN-BAPTISTE, PEASANT MOVEMENT OF PAPAY (through translator): We know that for 30 years, we've been working under threats, but that's our choice. I'm not afraid it die, you can die at any time, you can die in your sleep, you can die in an accident. If you die for a cause that's just, that you believe in, it's good.

WALTON: Biologist, Kasha Atakhanova of Kazakhstan saw disease and mutation caused by the Soviet Union's four decades of nuclear testing.

KASHA ATAKHANOVA, BIOLOGIST (through translator): About 1.5 million people suffered, the people who were near the testing site, but more than that have been impacted because radiation is moving and a lot of people in the northern Kazakhstan have been affected as well.

WALTON: When she found out government was planning to import foreign nuclear waste to make money, she organized scores of community groups and forced the government to dump the plan.

Congo botonist, Corneille Ewango, developed a deep understanding of the rare okapi giraffe and the Pygmy people who share its habitat. They all have been threatened by poachers and civil war.

CORNEILLE EWANGO, BOTANIST: They killed one of our gods in the national park where is gorilla. So in some area, it's very, very dangerous for us to work.

WALTON: After first putting a stake in a plan to build a Dracula theme park in an old growth forest in Transylvania, Stephanie Roth organized citizens via the interned and local rallies to put a stop to a large open pit gold mine.

STEPHANIE ROTH, ACTIVIST: And as unique architecture treasures, all of it will be destroyed together with the natural environment.

WALTON: Isidro Baldenegro Lopez says drug dealers use illegal logging to launder money. He's mobilized villageners in Mexico's Sierra Madras Mountains to protect the land.

ISIDRO BALDENEGRO LOPEZ, FARMER COMMUNITY LEADER: The First thing we're trying to do is to permanently stop the logging from taking place. We've got some processes in the court, in the government of Mexico, and the next step would be actually restoring the ecosystems.

WALTON: Honduras priest, Andres Tamayo, who organized small farmers to oppose destructive logging practices in his country, made it clear that consumers in the developed world also bear some responsibility.

REV. ANDRES TAMAYO CORTEZ, COMMUNITY LEADER: When the logs come out, they end up going to the Caribbean, to Europe, they go to Miami, they go to Los Angeles, and so I ask myself, what type of luxury is this that people receive the wood from our area? And yet they don't have any knowledge about the misery that's being left benign our country.

WALTON: Each of this year's Goldman Prize winners receives $125,000. A (END VIDEOTAPE) PARK: A $25,000 prize offered by the World Wildlife Fund inspired inventors and scientists from 16 countries to come up with some real-world solutions to the problem of bycatch. Bycatch is the accidental killing of sea turtles, whales, and dolphins when they become trapped in fishing net. The grand-prize winner came up with the design that takes into account the specific depths that sea turtles frequent, and contrasted that with the depths where the target species, like tuna, usually thrive. Steve Beverly's idea is to weigh down the main line with lead weights and to put the hooks deep than about 325 feet. Since turtles are most at risk at much shallower waters, they would be less likely to encounter the hooks. And, early tests of the gear also showed a bigger catch of tuna. The World Wildlife Fund will be working with several winning designers to help bring their inventions to more widespread use.

In Oregon, environmentalists are working to prevent logging on the side of a huge wildfire three years ago. Why do people care about a bunch brunt trees? Gary Strieker explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It began with a lightning strike and grew into a blazing monster, the nation's largest wildfire, in 2002, scorching half a million acres in southern Oregon. Now almost three years later, the legacy of the so-called "Biscuit Fire," a vast landscape of charred timber and sharp differences and court battles about how this Sequoia National Forest should be managed.

DON SMITH, THE SEQUOIA PROJECT: We're look here at Fiddler Mountain, which is an area that has been set aside for old growth and it's being logged right now.

STRIEKER: After the fire, the U.S. Forest Service decided to sell the timber that could be salvaged on about 20,000 acres of the burned area, including some tracks of old growth and roadless forests that had been off-limits to logging before the fire.

As planned, it was to be one of the largest timber sales in U.S. history. Enough logs, it was said, to load a line of trucks stretching from the Mexican border to Canada.

SMITH: That's our concern.

STRIEKER: But some say that decision violates the law and is bad forest management.

SMITH: This is not a dead forest. This is an area that's presently going through natural regeneration and the logging will set that back for many decades.

STRIEKER: Logging this timber, they say, will steal nutrients from the future forest, and cause erosion and impact on water quality in key spawning habitat for salmon. But, the timber industry argues the "Biscuit Fire" was not a natural disaster. But a catastrophic burn caused by a massive build up of fuel in the forest resulting from decades of fire suppression.

LINK PHILLIPPI, ROUGH & READY LUMBER CO.: These stands will never regeneration on their own. The fire was -- this was a standard placement fire, and it needs human intervention, some active scientifically help based management to bring these stands back.

STRIEKER: That kind of active management would include salvage logging followed by replanting of commercially valuable trees. The Forest Service says revenue from the salvaged sales will help to pay for restoration work and at that the public should understand what is actually being sold.

TOM LINK, U.S. FOREST SERVICE: We're not really harvesting green trees, this is about dead trees. These trees are dead, they're going to fall down sooner or later.

STRIEKER (on camera): All the argument about salvage logging can be reduced to one simple question, what's the right thing to do with all this scorched dead timber?

(voice-over): Opponents of the salvaged sales continue to challenge them in federal courts. Meanwhile as time passes, the trees are losing value.

PHILLIPPI: This is a load of logs off the "Biscuit" salvage. There's a lot of rot on the outside of these logs. This darkened area on the outside is stained, which a lumber degrade. The bark's falling off, you have worm -- bugs that are penetrating into the log.

STRIEKER: Whatever the outcome of the lawsuits, the Forest Service now admits the final timber sales will be far less know that the original forecast.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Up next, with the new crew of the International Space Station now on board, the focus turn the next visitors. The crew of the first shuttle flight since "Colombia" disaster. That's just ahead, stay with us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARK: The new crew of the International Space Station is now aboard and preparing for the visit of the shuttle "Discovery," scheduled for next month. It'll be the first shuttle flight since "Columbia" disaster two years ago. Last week, CNN's space correspondent, Miles O'Brien spoke with Leroy Chiao, the commander of the old crew, along with the two new crew members, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips. He asked Chiao about the concept of "Safe Haven." That's an emergency plan that would allow the crew of the shuttle to stay aboard of the station if their spacecraft suffered severe damage. The shuttle crew would use the station as an orbiting shelter until another shuttle could be launched to rescue them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: What are your thoughts on "Safe Haven?" Is the station really -- is it really, in fact, a safe haven for that many people, if you had nine people up there? What would that mean?

LERYO CHIAO, COMMANDER, EXPEDITION 10: Well of course it would be crowded and there would be inconveniences, but, you know, you do you what you have to do. It's like any situation that you might have had on earth, you know, I mean, when push to the extreme, people tend to rise to the occasion and make things work and that's exactly what we do onboard. We do have the consumables and supplies and the capacity to support nine people at least, you know, a little while. And we, of course, cut back and deal with the smart things, we would have a lot of smart people on the ground who've thought through these scenarios and we figured out how to expend our consumables as long as we could. And still, I think, you know, people would step up to the plate and, of course, and we'd do what was necessary to save the crews.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARK: Well, some of those smart people at NASA have also come up with a new system of recycling and purifying water on spacecraft, including, usually, distasteful liquids like sweat and urine. As Ralitsa Vassileva reports, the space-aged technology will have some down to earth applications.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RALITSA VASSILEVA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Around the globe, from Iraq to areas hit by the tsunami, there's an urgent need for clean water. Now, technology developed for space is set to bring a safe sanitized water supply to millions of people worldwide.

TODD HARRISON, CONCERN FOR KIDS: This is technology that NASA's been working on for years.

VASSILEVA: NASA's new water recovery system is like a miniature water treatment plant. About the size of refrigerator, it was developed for use on the International Space Station. The system is designed to recycle most the waste water generated on spacecraft, including sweat, urine, and other fluids. But, despite how distasteful some of the sources may seem, the end product is quite palatable.

ROBYN CARRASQUILLO, NASA MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CTR.: It's very pure water. It tastes bland compared to water that comes out of your tap because it doesn't contain all of the minerals and salts that we're used to tasting in our normal tap water this is what is inside.

VASSILEVA: The waste is run through a series of raisin (PH) lined filters that remove solid salts and organic matter, then disinfected with iodine before it's heated to kill any trace organisms left behind.

NASA engineers say by recycling over 90 percent of available water, the system will allow the agency to launch longer missions with larger crews, deeper into space, for lower cost. And the system's developers hope that this money saver for NASA will also prove to be a life saver right here on earth by providing clean water to regions where potable water virtually unavailable able.

CARRASQUILLO: That's what we like to see when we develop technology for NASA is for it to be commercialized and used for the benefit of everyone.

VASSILEVA: There are plans to deploy NASA's water filtration technology in remote regions around the globe.

HARRISON: We'll go village to village this unit on the back of the pick-up truck and stop at the village long enough to fill up the village central water tank when then two or three or four days later you are right back there.

VASSILEVA: Poison, pesticides and other contaminants will simply disappear, NASA scientists say, replaced by fresh-tasting water for only pennies a gallon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: After a break, a video game that you might want to take a crack at. We'll show you the high points.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARK: We've seen violence, sex, and rock 'n' roll in video games, now it's time for drugs. That's right, a video game came out recently in which drug use is a major part. As Daniel Sieberg reports, some think the bad game a trip.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Smoke crack and become a crack shot, take speed and run down the bad guys, drop acid and the world melts around you, enemies become devil-headed cartoons. In the first person video game, Narc, you play a cop busting drug dealers. Except in this game, you can virtually take the drugs you confiscate and they can even enhance your performance.

SCOTT STEINBERG, VIDEO GAME REVIEWER: If I want to pop a Quaalude it's going to improve my vision. So I'm going to be able to actually pause the game here and zoom in and see who's hiding down on the corner. The problem is, if I do this too often, I'm going to develop an addiction.

SIEBERG: Addiction can lead to withdraw, but unlike real life, a few clicks on the game controller and your character kicks his habit.

STEINBERG: Oh, look at that, we're clean just like that.

SIEBERG: But you don't have it take drugs in the game, illicit activity is a matter of choice, says game reviewer Scott Steinberg.

STEINBERG: You can be a bad cop, a good cop. The thing is there are consequences, so I can beat up suspects all I want, I can go to a killing spree, if I need to. I can even use or sell drugs to the citizenry. The think is, if I do it, there are random drug test and I can get busted, I can develop addictions, or my fellow officers can come chasing me.

SIEBERG (on camera): This is the first time you can take virtual drugs in a video game. Now, Narc is rated "M" for mature, that a 17 year and older rating, but family groups that have fought against violent and sexual content for years says this new high in gaming is an all-time low.

DAVID WALSH, NATL. INST. ON FAMILY & MEDIA: It glorifies drugs and the fact that, you know, games are interactive technology, making them more impactful than a lot of other media, I think there are a lot of concerns about a game like this.

SIEBERG (voice-over): Publisher, Midway, turned down our request for an on-camera interviewed, but released a statement saying, "The players who choose to take drugs will face consequences; they will experience the highs and lows of the culture, but following this path will ultimately lead to failure."

WALSH: They do portray the extreme -- you know, that the use of drugs can lead to bad outcomes and the game penalizes you for misusage drugs, but the flip-side of that message is that some drug use actually enhances play, that's glorification part. That's the dangerous message that, you know, drugs are OK, just don't overdo it.

SIEBERG: But whether in moderation or abuse, drug use is one of many activities in the game if you choose to just say no, well, you can always pick up a machine gun.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still to come, the tables are turned for a renowned alligator trapper.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARK: Forget bulls in the china shop. On Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea, it was elephants in a restaurant that wreaked havoc. Six elephants escaped from an amusement park zoo and three of them smashed through the windows of an eatery. Perhaps they were tired of being paid in peanuts? One of the other elephants injured a woman in an nearby alley by hitting her with its trunk. The elephants were recaptured eventually. Authorities say it all began when one pachyderm was startled and ran away from its handlers while the elephants (INAUDIBLE) a parade at park. The five others followed because, one zoo official said, they have a tendency to do that.

In south Florida, the problem is usually alligators, not elephants. When gators go where they are not supposed, to a trapper is called in and the critter is routinely caught with no injuries problems to people, well at least its route on to the trapper, but as John Zarrella reports, recently that routine was broken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Todd Hardwick is one the most familiar faces in South Florida. He's always on local television doing something most clear-thinking individuals wouldn't dare attempt.

ANNOUNCER: Leave it to expert Todd Hardwick to make it look easy.

TODD HARDWICK, ALLIGATOR TRAPPER: Nice and steady because I will sit down on him.

ZARRELLA: Hardwick has been an alligator trapper for 17 years. Making it look easy, doing fun things like hanging over a guardrail to pull a 12-foot 400-pound gator out of the Miami River, or lassoing one on the street.

HARDWICK: That alligator's eaten something recently. Look at that belly. That's probably a dog in there.

ZARRELLA: He's never been bitten, until last week. Hardwick was on his 27th capture in seven days. He was just about on top of the alligator when a grappling hook used to secure the line came loose and buried itself in its left wrist.

HARDWICK: At that moment, the alligator went into what we call a death roll. As he death rolled, the line jerked tighter sinking the hook deeper and deeper.

ZARRELLA: As people watched and home video cameras rolled, Hardwick fought for his life. Hardwick, with his right arm, put the 8 1/2-foot, 250-pound creature in the head lock and struggled it from keeping it from taking him under.

HARDWICK: I probably would have drowned or had to let go and gotten bit, it was going bad very, very quickly.

ZARRELLA: A neighborhood resident pulled Hardwick to shore, the hook still in his wrist. He never went to the hospital and the gator was captured. Just three weeks ago during another capture, Hardwick was live on CNN's "Live From."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long is it, that gator, roughly?

HARDWICK: He's definitely in the 9.5, 11-foot range.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he looks pretty angry.

HARDWICK: Yeah, he hasn't missed many meals either, he has good weight on him, he's a good looking alligator.

ZARRELLA: In Florida, this is gator mating season, and Todd Hardwick's busiest times. The gators are frisky and seem to be everywhere, in neighborhood lakes on back porches, even under cars. When they get too close to humans they become nuisance gators. That's when Hardwick gets the call. This time Hardwick was almost on the losing end.

HARDWICK: You know, I kind of admire that alligator because of all of the alligators I have ever caught; this is the first one that almost bested me.

ZARRELLA: Ninety-nine percent of all nuisance gators caught are destroyed. But Hardwick says this one deserves to live and will spend the rest of its life in a captive sanctuary, never become an alligator handbag.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARK: And that's all of the time we have for now. But before we go, here's a peak at what's coming up next week.

Thousand of wild horses roam the west, some destined to remain free, some destined to be adopted, but horse advocates say others could become dog food thanks a new federal law. We'll explain.

That's coming up on NEXT@CNN. Until then, we'd love to hear from you. E-mail us at NEXT@CNN.com. And don't forget to check out our Web site, at cnn.com/next.

Thanks so much for watching, for Daniel Sieberg and the rest of the Sci-Tech team, I'm Christina Park, see you next time.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com