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Chinese Brain Drain; Five Second Rule Confirmed by University Study; Debris Found in Indian Ocean Could Be Missing Plane; Drones and Cell Phone Hacking; 3d Printers Give Hope for Amputees in Southern Sudan

Aired March 21, 2014 - 04:00   ET

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


CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: Fridays are awesome. Welcome to everyone watching worldwide, including our viewers in Edison and Ringle, Georgia who visited CNN Center in the past week. I`m Carl Azuz.

First up, a brain drain. It`s when trained professionals or scientists or professors leave a country and search better opportunities elsewhere. China`s "People`s Daily Newspaper" said last year that China has the world`s worst brain drain. In 2013, 8.5 million Chinese were living abroad, but only about 850,000 people had moved to China. Reasons for the exodus include wealth. People don`t think China`s financial system is stable enough to protect their money. Another reason, getting a foreign education brings a bit of status. And, of course, you have infamous pollution in some Chinese cities.

But when a country`s movers and shakers move away, it can hurt a country`s future educationally and economically. A human resources expert says China is fighting this with the talent war, trying to attract talented people from around the world.

Moving now to Perth, Australia. It`s the closest major city to what could be a new clue in the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane. The aircraft vanished in mid-flight last weekend with 239 people aboard. The search area is tremendous. This gives an idea of where debris was located. It was detected several days ago by satellites scanning the area. That`s a problem, because whatever this is, might have drifted since it was found. And while it could be debris from the missing plane, it could also be another false lead, something that fell overboard from a ship, for example. The southern Indian Ocean where two objects were detected is one of the most remote places in the world. And everything from waves to weather is hampering the search.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time for the "Shoutout." Which of these scientists is known for the discovery that germs cause disease? If you think you know it, shout it out! Is it Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, Benjamin Banneker or Ivan Pavlov? You`ve got three seconds, go!

It was Louis Pasteur who found the link between germs and disease in the 1860s. That`s your answer and that`s your "Shoutout."

AZUZ: Pasteur`s germ theory of fermentation goes a little deeper than the five second rule, but some researchers in Britain say that rule is not entirely an urban myth. Here`s what they did: they dropped food on the floor for different amounts of time. And then picked it up to see how much bacteria was on it. They found that time does factor in that food that set for a few seconds on the floor was likely to have less bacteria on it than food that set for longer. In their study, the type of floor mattered. Carpeted floors were least likely to transfer bacteria. Laminate or tiled floors were most likely.

But while that and the five second rule do count for something, the lead professor on the study said, any dropped food can pick up infectious bacteria depending on how nasty the floor is.

You probably heard the reports that public Wi-Fi, free Internet connections at airports and coffee shops isn`t always secure. That a hacker could use it to tap into your phone or computer. But as technology gets more and more advanced, your personal information could be at risk while you`re just working around with Wi-Fi turned on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN WILKINSON, SECURITY RESEARCHER, SENSEPOST: Three devices, or three mobile phones down below, and are collecting data about at least three people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s a hacker. He`s using technology installed on a drone to grab cell phone information from people below. This technology is being used on cell phones and laptops. One day, it could be installed in a larger aircraft. Think helicopters or small planes.

WILKINSON: And down the road, and I see lots of devices, it must be the people walking down the road.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He can also see your user names, passwords, credit card information and get this - in some cases, your home address.

WILKINSON: So, somebody who`s walking in the park, that`s most likely their house. One of these houses here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The tech on the drone is called snoopy. We took snoopy out for a spin on the streets of London.

WILKINSON: They will fly within a relative close distance of a person with a phone tucked safe in their pocket. And if they`ve left their Wi-Fi on, which most people do in my experience, the phone will very noisily be shouting out the name of every network that`s ever connected to you. So, it`ll be shouting out Starbucks, are you there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can protect yourself by turning off your Wi-Fi. But if you don`t, Snoopy can trick your phone and send back a signal pretending to be the network the phone is looking for. Then, the drone can intercept everything the phone sends and receives.

WILKINSON: Your phone is looking for Starbucks, and I pretend to be Starbucks. Your phone connects to me and then I can see all of your traffic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We tested it out on some dummy accounts we created.

WILKINSON: And we can see here as logging to yahoo.com. Yahoo mail, and I created an account. Angela Smith and there`s the user name, and the password is ABC123. And so, here`s Amazon, also for PayPal. So, PayPal, email address, user name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wilkinson is an ethical hacker. He built the snoopy drone to highlight insecurities in smart devices. In a world were drones fly and tech enables them to potentially spy, it`s more important than ever to protect your data.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: And now that we`ve all turned off our Wi Fi after hearing about a dark side of technology, we have a report for you about its bright side. One of the amazing ways the new technology of 3d printing is being used to help people. It concerns civil wars in South Sudan, a central African nation where millions have died or been disfigured during years of conflict.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The second civil war in Sudan was one of the largest Africa has ever known. It`s a conflict that`s displaced about 4 million people, making massive refugee camps a stark reality. The fallout from the fighting is startling. And has left more than 50,000 amputees in its wake, but in this unlikely place comes a tale of hope. The story of Daniel. Mick Ebeling is the founder of Not Impossible labs. IT`s a non-profit whose main mantras are help one, help many. And technology for the sake of humanity.

(on camera): What is 3D printing of an arm? I mean for people who`ve never heard of this, what does that mean?

MICK EBELING, FOUNDER, NOT IMPOSSIBLE LABS: It`s like a pastry chef. Put it right in "Happy Birthday" on a cake. Squeezing, you know, frosting out of the bottom of the tube, except for every time you right the H, you write on top of it again, and you write on top of it again, so that your H just starts to build from the ground up, and so you get a 3 dimensional H.

And that pastry tube is on 3D printer`s called an extruder and the frosting is this hard can of plastic spaghetti that gets spit through the extruder heated up and then spit out in whatever shape the program is going to do it.

GUPTA: What was it like when you first saw Daniel?

EBELING: Daniel was very recluse, he was turned away. He, you know, had his arms and his stumps slightly hidden.

So, November 11th, 2013, we had been in (INAUDIBLE), we had set up in the NGO`s back shed, and it finally comes to a point where we`ve got everything together, and so Daniel came over and put it on, and I`m just testing kind of the ergonomics and how he was going to position to get his hand up to his mouth, and I was seeing him doing that, and it`s actually happening. So we melted a little piece of orthoplastic on it And popped a spoon, a tin spoon into the piece, and he fed himself for the first time, and it was - I mean it was one of the most amazing experiences I`ve had in my life.

Everybody - there`s a crowd kind of gathered around watching it, and everybody was equally as blown away.

Yes!

GUPTA (voice over): Days after Daniel received his own arms, he began to print arms for other amputees.

EBELING: I think the brilliant thing about the human mind is that the more you do something, the more you tweak it and the more you see how you can change it. When I go back, the arm will be way better than the arm that I taught him how to build. And that kind of progress is just so exciting.

This Friday, our "Roll Call" takes us on a southeast path across the middle of the country. The coyotes or coyotes kicked things off for us. They are watching in Dodson, Montana, at Dodson High School. Then the huskies (INAUDIBLE). Northwest high magnet school in Omaha, good to see you all in Nebraska. And our third stop is in Hardy, Arkansas. That`s where we find the rebels who are online at Highland High school.

It`s the wheel fortune equivalent of a buzzer bidder. A contestant named Emil didn`t have much to go on in the final round Wednesday night. The category was thing, which, of course, can mean anything. But when he said the first thing that came to mind, host Patsy (ph) Jack said it was the most amazing solve in his 30 plus years on the show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New baby buggy, new baby, new .

Oh my god!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: He just couldn`t believe it was for a wheel. But it brought him a $45,000 fortune, and incredible turn of events, a new spin on an old show, an exceptional tale to tile. It came as a great ressolution and showed some serious game on a game show. I`m Carl Azuz. And we`ll begame a new week on Monday. Have a wheely great weekend, everyone.

END