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Airborne Experiment Designed to Warn of Terror Attacks; Web Ads That Do Not Go Away; Fashionable Feet for Those Who Do Not Eat Meat

Aired April 27, 2002 - 13:00   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Today on NEXT AT CNN, an airborne experiment that could give advance warning if terrorists use crop dusters to attack. Also, in your face Web ads that won't go away until they've done their thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we're seeing is a battle of technology, a battle for the eyeballs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Does this really make people buy products?

And, fashionable feet for those who don't eat meat. Check out a shoe store where nothing is made of leather. All that and more on NEXT.

JAMES HATTORI, HOST: Hi, everybody, I'm James Hattori. And welcome to NEXT@CNN, this week from San Francisco's Pier 39, where visitors come to take in world-class views of the city by the bay.

You know, tourism in the U.S. is picking up, although since September 11th, many Americans are understandably a little more wary. No one knows when or how another terrorist attack might occur. One possibility officials are taking seriously, chemical or biological weapons sprayed from a crop-dusting plane. As Susan Candiotti reports, the Army is taking to the skies in hopes of combating the threat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A crop duster about to drop a payload off the Florida keys, an experiment that might not have happened before September 11th. When investigators learned hijacker Mohammed Atta had been inspecting crop dusters in Florida, it was a wakeup call.

DR. RONALD ATLAS, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROBIOLOGY: A crop duster with the right nozzle could be a devastating delivery device.

CANDIOTTI: For months, the Army's been using crop dusters to dump mach weaponized chemicals over land at army sites to test military radar systems.

BOB LYONS, BATTLEFIELD COORDINATOR: We found that military radar systems could differentiate between chemical and biological munitions and regular high-explosive munitions in the environment.

CANDIOTTI: Now civilian radar is being tested. So these are the egg whites that you'll be dropping?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CANDIOTTI: Egg whites stand in for anthrax, one of the simulated agents being used.

COLONEL CHRISTOPHER PARKER, U.S. ARMY PROJECT MANAGER: We're hoping the radar scans discern that release from a crop duster, and be able to tell us that potentially a chemical or biological incident has occurred.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Right now, experts say, there's not much that can be done to warn civilians of a pending biological chemical air assault, but in the future, radar like this could be used as a valuable tool to detect toxins in the air, otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

(voice-over): Radar that tracks drug runners and Dobler used by weather forecasters are part of the $400,000 experiment. In a chase plane, the air drops are monitored by sensors and computers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a great release that time. It looked to work perfectly.

CANDIOTTI: At a command post on the ground, coordinators call the shots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That will be a 100 gram release, copy?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, 100 gram release at 900 feet.

CANDIOTTI: The egg whites create a white plume that radar is trying to capture. So far, it appears to be working.

(on camera): And one day once properly configured radars nationwide might be able to pick up a cloud of potentially threatening biochemical weapons?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the goal.

CANDIOTTI: That's the goal.

(voice-over): A beefed up detection system, if adopted, may be a few years away, a long time to wait to calm a sea of new fears.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Another source of those post 9/11 fears is air travel, specifically how can airlines keep their cockpit crews safe from attackers. We've already installed more secure cockpit doors, so what's next?

Well, United Airlines has begun arming its pilots with stun guns, but will they keep airplanes safe? Our Patty Davis got some conflicting answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A training session at United Airlines, each of its 9,000 pilots learning how to defend the cockpit against intruders with a taser stun gun.

CAPTAIN HANK KRAKOWSKI, UNITED AIRLINES: Our goal is to make sure we keep the bad guys off the airplanes; if they get on the airplanes, to keep them out of the cockpit; and, if they try to get into the cockpit that we have a way of absolutely stopping them.

DAVIS: United is the first of the major airlines to do the training. It's convinced that, as in this real life example, tasers will bring potential attackers down with a jolt. Taser says its M-26 has a 94 percent success rate in the field and says some 1,300 police departments use them.

TOM SMITH, TASER INTERNATIONAL: One shot anywhere on the body, immediate incapacitation and you don't have to be a marksman to use it.

DAVIS: Before United can go ahead with plans to put two stun guns in each cockpit, it has to get Transportation Department approval. An aviation security consultant says tasers won't stop hijackers and arrange this real life demonstration with his taser, the same one United is using.

(on camera): A pilot seat belted in would have to turn around like this and shoot.

(voice-over): Seven police officer volunteers, wearing normal clothing, were barely slowed down.

OFFICER LORI BEACH, FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE: I think the surprise was the worst part, just not knowing what it was going to feel like. But if I had done it before, then I certainly would be even less stopped by it.

JOHN DESMEDT, PROTECTIVE SAFETY SYSTEMS: From what we saw today, the reliability factor isn't real high, and there might be other modalities of protection that are better for the cockpit.

DAVIS: What the union that represents the United pilots says is better for defending the cockpit is real guns, but because the Bush Administration is against arming pilots with lethal weapons, stun guns may be just what ends up in pilots' hands.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: A South African businessman is shelling out big bucks to spend the next week or so on the International Space Station. Mark Shuttleworth is the second tourist to buy his way up into space. As Jill Dougherty reports, his big adventure began on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As a giant Soyuz rocket fired its engines, inside the Soyuz capsule, South African Mark Shuttleworth, the second amateur in space, looked cool and collected. On the ground, his parents embraced as mission control pronounced it a perfect liftoff. Ten minutes later, Shuttleworth and the two professional cosmonauts flying with him, Russian Yuri Getzenko (ph) and Italian Roberto Vittori (ph) were in outer space.

Almost three hours into the flight, the crew reported to ground control everything was going smoothly. Shuttleworth, a 28-year-old self made Internet millionaire, trained eight months for his eight-day visit to the International Space Station. He paid a recorded $20 million for his ticket. He thinks it's worth it.

MARK SHUTTLEWORTH, SPACE TOURIST: That's a very long story that goes back as long as I can remember that I've known about space flight. It's been my dream to fly, and it's a great privilege after many months of training to be sitting here with this great crew.

DOUGHERTY: The Russian space program thinks it's worth it too. Officials freely admit it needs some money.

VLAD SOLOVYOV, FLIGHT DIRECTOR (through translator): Shuttleworth's flight means additional finances for the development of our program on the International Space Station, and also the whole new set of interesting, even revolutionary experiments, will be conducted during his stay on the space station. Beside the additional finances, the Shuttleworth flight brings world attention and popularity to space exploration.

DOUGHERTY: On the International Space Station, Shuttleworth will perform experiments prepared by South African and Russian scientists, including tests on animal stem cells and methods of fighting HIV/AIDS.

(on camera): He also plans to talk live from space with schools in South Africa, telling students that, just like him, one day they too may be able to fly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up next, dry times lead to hot times in the American west as wells run dry in the east. And later, DJ Matty Matt learned how to mix it up with the pros. Those stories and much more as NEXT@CNN continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Parts of the United States are suffering through their worst drought in decades. In the West, snow packs are low and fears of a record fire season are high. Already this year, thousands of acres have burned in Colorado alone. One blaze in the town of Bailey forced school closings and hundreds of evacuations. In the East, many communities have declared drought emergencies, restricting car washing and lawn watering, and as Natalie Pawelski reports from York County, Pennsylvania, some wells are running dry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a backyard in Pennsylvania, Mike Cochran drills another dry hole. He's trying to find a new source of water for a family whose well has run dry.

MIKE COCHRAN, A.C. REIDER DRILLING: Normally, we get one to two wells per day with somebody who has either run out of water or a low- yielding well. This year so far we've had as many as 16 in a single day.

PAWELSKI: Usually, Cochran says, he hits water on the first try, but with the northeast suffering its worst drought in decades, finding water is getting harder. At a nearby lake, the drought has left acres of mud where water should be.

(on camera): A spring day at Codorus State Park and this dock should be crowded with dozens of fishermen and boaters. But today, there's nobody here. Lake levels have dropped so low that the dock has been left high and dry.

(voice-over): The park's lake, which normally hosts more than a million visitors each summer, is down almost 15 feet.

ED KAUTZ, CODORUS STATE PARK: Basically we haven't had any major rainfall since last June, and we're about halfway through the spring season, when we normally are increasing our lake level, and we're still losing. So it's going to be a long summer if we don't get some major rainfall.

CHIEF DAVID GEMMILL, NEW BRIDGEVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA FIRE COMPANY: This is our tank truck. What we do is this truck does nothing but haul water to the scene.

PAWELSKI: The drought is also a hot topic at the New Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Company. Firefighters here are responsible for a 64 square mile territory that has only one fire hydrant. From the firefighters' point of view, the drought could be downright dangerous.

GEMMILL: We normally have to draw water from streams and ponds, things of that nature, and with the drought conditions, the water in those reservoirs, the ponds and the streams, have declined greatly.

PAWELSKI: The water is too low in some places for the firefighters' pumps to function.

GEMMILL: I've never seen it quite this bad. Some of the water people in the community have said that this is a drastic situation that they've not seen anything like this since like the 1930s.

PAWELSKI: Government forecasters say, at least for now, there is little relief in sight. (END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Ongoing drought on the West Coast has heated up a battle between fisherman and farmers. The fight is over water from Oregon's Klamath River. Wednesday, commercial fishermen filed a lawsuit demanding that the government release more water into the river. The fishermen say so much water is being diverted for irrigation that young salmon are not getting to the ocean. Last year, it was the farmers who were protesting because their irrigation water was cut off to protect endangered fish species. Earlier this month, the Bush administration announced a new initiative can balance competing demands for the Klamath's water.

Meanwhile, down in rural Florida, a different kind of water war caused not so much by drought as growth and it could have oyster lovers especially concerned. Here's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Indian Pass, a roadside stop in Apalachicola, Florida where they come for the steamed shrimp and the oysters, treasures that come from here, a backyard estuary. Apalachicola Bay provides 90 percent of the oysters sold in Florida and 10 percent sold in the U.S.

TOMMY WARD, WARD SEAFOOD COMPANY: The best oysters in the world come from here.

CALLEBS: For 70 years, Tommy Ward's family has made a living working the bay.

WARD: I love it down here. This is the last part of this country that's like this. I feel like you know as far as growing oysters on this coast that's not developed.

CALLEBS: But the health of the bay is threatened and that is putting fewer oysters on the table and putting some watermen out of business. Development on tributaries that feed the bay, especially the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta, is sucking critically important fresh water from Apalachicola.

SALLY BETHEA, RIVER KEEPER: Atlanta right now takes out 300 million gallons a day of water out of the river up here, projected not too many years away to be taking 500 million gallons of water a day.

CALLEBS: It's triggered a water war among Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Florida is demanding restrictions on how much water the other states use.

LEE EDMISTON, FLORIDA ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: It's very hard to find estuaries that have not had serious problems related to developmental or alteration of the habitat or alteration of the fresh water flow.

CALLEBS: Talks among the three states have broken down and the courts could have to step in and resolve this feud. Eventually, the bay could be the big loser and a way of life that for generations has kept watermen working could be gone forever.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Preserving a way of life was behind much of the work of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Every year, the San Francisco based Goldman Foundation awards six prizes of $125,000 each to environmental activists from five continents and the world's islands. This year's prize for North America will be split among three members of the Gwich'in Nation in Alaska. They spent years lobbying Congress and the world to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They say drilling would threaten the Gwich'in way of life by harming Alaska's porcupine caribou herd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NORMA KASSI, GOLDMAN PRIZE WINNER: It has sustained my people for thousands of years, not only my people but other Arctic people such as the Inuits, the Eskimos that we share the Arctic with, and our sole sustenance comes from what the caribou has nourished us with for all these years. And, our villages are strategically placed by our ancestors within the entire range of the habitat of the porcupine caribou.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HATTORI: Other winners include a woman from Somalia who saved Acacia trees in the northeast region of her nation from being logged to make charcoal; an ecologist from Thailand who worked to protect the country's coastline from fishing and logging; a woman from Poland who is using ecotourism to preserve her nation's traditional family farms; an entrepreneur from Puerto Rico, who led a successful fight to turn a mining zone into a forest preserve; and a woman from Guyana who is working to protect (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from mining.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, a singing CEO, and a computer company that says restricting the right to download music legally is udder nonsense.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Anyone who's surfed the Internet recently knows there's a battle being waged, a battle to attract your attention. Advertisers have come up with new kinds of ads employing new techno tricks. Marketers call them eye-catching, but some net surfers may call them obnoxious.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI (voice over): In a cyber world jammed with information, a new generation of Internet ads is desperate to cut through the clutter. TAMARA GAFFNEY, ANALYST, NIELSEN NET RATINGS: The largest traditional advertisers see them as an excellent opportunity to brand and get better awareness.

HATTORI: Awareness as in more in-your-face these new so-called floating ads fly and bounce across your browser screen. In some cases, they even take over the entire page, and unlike the now common pop-up boxes, many of the floating ads are impossible to click away, leaving users no choice but to watch until they stop or disappear.

GAFFNEY: What we're seeing is a battle of technology, a battle for the eyeballs.

HATTORI: And for consumers, a battle between content and commercial distraction.

DOUG KNOPPER, VICE PRESIDENT, DOUBLECLICK: There's certainly the risk always if you use any kind of advertising improperly of alienating the end user.

HATTORI: When it comes to online ads, there's a fine line between being effective and annoying. Some companies are pushing the envelope with ads that obscure the page for as long as 20 seconds, others flash like Las Vegas neon signs. Marketers acknowledge there is a limit to what consumers will put up with.

KNOPPER: We have done some studies, and another study showed that more than 70 percent of end users found that they were accepting of these rich media formats, and in fact, they found that the average number of acceptable per hour was three.

HATTORI: Some Web sites use cookies or special software to limit the number of times you see the same ad. Now if you're thinking about trying ad blocking software, think again. So far, it doesn't always work with floating ads.

The technology putting these ads in motion has been around for a while, but advertisers have been employing it judiciously over the last year, dipping their toes before they take the dive. So far, marketers find it very appealing.

GAFFNEY: They're very similar to television in that they move, they have sound, and they're very engaging.

HATTORI: And Web surfers can do little but let them float on by.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Now, we have to confess you'll also find most floating ads on CNN's Web site.

Ads, of course, are not why people buy computers. One growing reason why people do get computers is to download and pass around music from the Internet, and while the recording industry is still a little nervous about that, computer makers are embracing the trend. Our Renay San Miguel caught up with one computer company CEO who's taking on the recording industry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When it comes to tech company executives who sing, Gateway Founder and CEO Ted Waitt has to be one of the best.

TED WAITT, CEO, GATEWAY: One of my mottos is, you know, don't take yourself too seriously, so I think it's OK to go out and make fun of yourself rather than, you know, being I'm Mr. CEO.

SAN MIGUEL: OK, so Waitt's actually lip-syncing along with a hip-hop version of Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown." But this lighthearted ad campaign has an underlying serious message that has the recording industry singing the blues.

The ad is really a shot across the bow at a bill sponsored by Senator Ernest Hollings that would make all consumer electronics companies include copy protection technology in their machines. As you might expect, the recording industry likes the bill, hates the Gateway ad.

HILARY ROSEN, RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: The tech industry, I think, hasn't done enough to come to the table. You know I think the Gateway ad frankly cynically shows that. Instead of coming to the table and trying to work these issues out, instead they're basically spending a couple of million dollars, you know, spreading falsehoods and scaring consumers and kind of lying about our intentions.

WAITT: We absolutely do not support piracy. I mean I think artists who create content need to be compensated for it, and that's who we really focus on. We focus on the artists and on the consumers. So I don't think there was anything in our advertising.

RICK GRIENCEWIC, GATEWAY: If you're a novice and you're coming into Gateway and you don't know how to burn a CD or download music from the Internet, our people can show you very easily.

SAN MIGUEL: Waitt's company knows that digital music is one of the few things the PC industry has going for it in a tough market. That's why it's partnered with emusic.com for free legal downloads from gateway.com's digital music zone.

WAITT: I think digital music, you know, has tremendous opportunities and business opportunities. It's one of those things that, you know, the genie's out of the bottle, so to speak, so don't try to stop it. Try to look at it and utilize it as a business opportunity.

SAN MIGUEL (on camera): Gateway's stand against the Hollings bill is about more than just consumer rights. These are pretty lean times in the PC industry and Gateway just finished up a tough fiscal year full of layoffs and store closings. Did the ad campaign, the Sundown ad campaign, result in Gateway selling more PCs? DAVID TURNER, SENIOR VP, GATEWAY: The answer is yes. It absolutely did. We had overwhelming response to the ad. We had, the first day we had 35,000, 40,000 people come to our site.

SAN MIGUEL (voice over): Gateway won't say how much money it made because of the commercial, citing competitive reasons.

WAITT: You know, design is one of the ways we can differentiate our products.

SAN MIGUEL: Waitt is still trying to boost sales in other ways, like different designs and colors, new DVD and CD docking stations for laptops, bigger notebook screens, partnering with broadband providers, all to make the PC more of an entertainment center and less of a word processor, and he knows digital music is hitting the right notes with consumers in this economy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: You can read more of what Ted Waitt had to say on our Web site, cnn.com/next.

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, musicians and dancers miles apart get in the same groove via the Internet and Sumatra's rich forests are being devoured by booming industry. Those stories and much more are coming up in just a few minutes. First, we'll take a quick break and get the latest headlines from the CNN newsroom. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT, this week from San Francisco's Pier 39.

The fossilized remains of an ancient mouse-like creature could help scientists understand how mammals evolved. The fossil, found in China, dates back to the age of the dinosaurs. It's so well-preserved that it still includes the fur. It's the earliest known example of a group that includes most of today's mammals, including humans. Scientists think the animal, which they named eomea (ph), was good at climbing trees, which may be how it kept out of the way of dinosaurs.

In Indonesia, the race is on to save the largest low land forest in Sumatra, an area home to more than twice as many plant species as live in the Amazon rain forest. Gary Strieker reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Sumatra, these are the new growth industries. Huge mills producing palm oil and pulp and paper, powerful economic forces driving the destruction of Sumatra's last lowland forests.

NAZIR FOEAD: If the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) situation carries on, then the lowland forests in Sumatra will be gone within the next five years. STRIEKER: These industries rely on plantations producing essential raw materials, palm fruit for the oil factories and fast- growing acacia trees, providing wood chips for the pulp mills.

In Sumatra, most high-quality timber has already been taken out of the forests, and there's now intense pressure to convert remaining forests to profitable plantations.

A.J. DEVANESAN, APRIL: Unless you have the land to plant acacia on, you cannot be on plantation wood, and to do that you need to have this non-productive forest land.

STRIEKER: This four-year-old pulp mill in Rial Province is owned by April, a company based in Singapore. Said to be the world's largest, its capacity has been expanded to two million tons a year. A state of the art plan consuming trees on one side and rolling out photo copy paper on the other.

But the company's young plantations are producing less than half the wood needed by these hungry production lines. The rest of the trees are harvested from natural forests, including nearby Tesonilo (ph), at 700 square miles, the largest block of lowland forest still standing on the island.

In the recent studies, scientists found a record number of plant species in Tesonilo (ph), more than twice the number found in the Amazon rain forest, and it's prime habitat for Sumatra's elephants, tigers and other wildlife. Conservationists are now calling for the entire Tesonilo (ph) forest to be set aside as a national park.

But the campaign to save it may have started too late. April has already been allowed to clear cut a kilometer-wide corridor through the forest, and it plans to cut another, dividing it into four fragments, chopping the trees into chips and planting acacia where the forest once stood.

Meanwhile, illegal loggers are swarming through Tesonilo (ph). Like this man. They sell their trees to the pulp mills.

(on camera): What's left of the Tesonilo (ph) forest might still be saved, but there seems little chance of that without effective law enforcement here, and as long as investors and creditors force the mills to consume the forest at this rate.

(voice-over): Indonesia's pulp and paper industries have grown by almost 700 percent in 20 years. The price: An annual loss of forests equal to an area the size of Belgium, the highest rate in the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, trying to separate the truth from the hype at the grocery store? We've got a Web site that can help. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Many of us already recycle newspapers, aluminum and glass. But what about food scraps? Unless you compost them, they are probably cluttering up a landfill. Now, a new approach to recycling food garbage could reduce landfill waste by as much as 40 percent. Here's Lillian Kim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chicken bones, more pizza and some banana peels.

LILLIAN KIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This isn't trash. What used to be thrown out is now recycled.

ROBERT PANTLEY, FOOD RECYCLING PARTICIPANT: I thought they had made a mistake, and then we read the information and they said no they really mean chicken bones with the tree leaves so here we go.

KIM: Offered in only a few U.S. cities, food recycling could be coming to a curbside near you. And it's not just food scraps, this truck will haul off biodegradable paper like pizza boxes and used paper towels, items not usually recyclable.

JOSH MARX, WASTE REDUCTION AND RECYCLING: This is the future of recycling. Where they're now recycling glass and cans and newspaper, we're asking them to take the next step and actually recycle their food scraps.

KIM: Mixed with yard clippings, the food waste is dumped at a nearby plant where it's turned into compost, a product used as a soil supplement.

(on camera): It takes about a ton of organics to make one cubic yard of compost, so I'm literally standing on a mountain of material that would otherwise have gone to a landfill.

(voice-over): But health departments that haven't approved the plan yet want to know how much organic waste smells and whether it attracts flies. Those who are now trying it say it's not so bad.

PANTLEY: I get passed the icky factor pretty quick, and it's just about retraining your senses.

KIM: A sign that food waste will no longer be wasted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: When you go grocery shop, do you scan the labels for words like organic, hypoallergenic or fragrance free? And do you know what those words on the label actually mean? Well, there's a Web site to help you figure out what's helpful information and what's just hype. Bruce Burkhardt has more in this week's "Nothin' but Net."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So many labels. So many claims. So little we can actually depend upon is true.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He only eats organic food. Right, buddy?

BURKHARDT: Well, it depends on what your definition of organic is. Environmental labels are everywhere, claiming products are organic or hypoallergenic. Labels we use to try and make the right choice for our health, the environment, but do these labels always tell the truth?

URVASHI RANGAN, CONSUMERS UNION: We have come across a number of labels that have very few, if any, standards behind them.

BURKHARDT: Consumers Union, publishers of consumer reports, help shoppers sort out the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on their Web side, eco- labels.org.

RANGAN: With the growing number of labels comes a growing amount of concern on the part of consumers. It's hard for consumers to tell exactly what the label means. And this site takes consumers behind the label and explains to them which labels actually mean something and which ones are just marketing hype.

BURKHARDT: With the site, consumers can compare products and print a report card to take along when they go shopping. Ecolabels has done the research to see which claims are real.

RANGAN: Consumers can be assured that when they do see the organic label, especially after October 2002, when the USDA program will be fully implemented, organic will mean the same thing from product to product, and consumers can trust that label.

BURKHARDT: But as Ecolabels tells you, don't trust everything you read.

RANGAN: Hypoallergenic is a claim that is used on several cosmetic products, which basically has very little meaning. Hypoallergenic can mean anything that a manufacturer wants to mean.

BURKHARDT: A watchdog like Ecolabels helps, but in the end making sure that product claims are responsible is up to the consumer, an educated consumer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: For a link to the Ecolabel site and other information, check out our Web site, cnn.com/next.

ANNOUNCER: Next up, dueling DJs and how you can get in on the music mixing. That and more coming up on NEXT@CNN. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: World music takes on a new meaning with a project going on at the University of Florida. The project allows musicians, dancers and other artists from across the globe to collaborate. And as Ann Kellan tells us, they can do it from the comfort of their own homes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You are watching one of the world's first virtual orchestra conductors at work. James Oliverio, along with staff and students at the University of Florida, have combined art and technology to create the Digital Worlds Institute.

JAMES OLIVERIO, DIRECTOR, DIGITAL WORLDS INSTITUTE: It's a joint enterprise between the College of Engineering and the College of Fine Arts. So really we bring together two cultures that are traditionally seen as very desperate, even to the point of being from different sides of the brain, if you think of it like that.

We're trying to apply digital technology to serve what I think of as the emerging digital culture of the 21st century.

KELLAN: In this virtual studio, Oliverio links with musicians, dancers and other artists who can be anywhere in the world. Well, any place hooked up to the Internet. It's done using a series of large screens, cameras and computers, all running across high-speed Internet connections.

OLIVERIO: When you collaborate with an artist, especially in the performing arts, you have had to be in the same space at the same time to get anything done. Now we're able to actually see and hear each other at a great distance and start to put together pieces of art.

KELLAN: The dancers choreograph to the sounds of the music, and the musicians in turn change their tune based on feedback from the dancers.

James recently showed some of his work to the global supercomputing conference in Denver, Colorado.

OLIVERIO: We actually had a master percussionist in Brazil, a choreographer in Minnesota, dancers in Florida, more musicians in Florida, dancers in Denver, and joining North and South America, music led to the dance, the dance was facilitated in multi-points by this technology.

KELLAN: Their effort was dubbed most courageous in creative use of the high-speed network.

KELLY DRUMMOND-CAWTHON, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR: If this is contemporary art, it should be all about our time, and our time involves digital media.

KELLAN: The musicians and dancers say the virtual studio may help ease the strain of busy performance schedules, while at the same time enhancing the creative process.

K. KAY SPENGLER, DANCE MAJOR, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA: The schedules are crazy for performers, and for artists, and for engineers, and for all of the people that are working on these things. But if we can look across the screen and talk to someone, we can share those ideas and have something that's more creative than either one of us could have done by ourselves.

KELLAN: Those involve, however, stress that the virtual studio is not a substitute for the real thing.

DRUMMOND-CAWTHON: I think the theater and the live performance is essential; I don't want to take that away, but I want to add to that.

KELLAN: Professor Oliverio and the University of Florida are working on plans to grow the program in the near future. For now, their students say their program has taken a giant leap in the right direction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: If you're in the mood to make music, you might want to think a little bit smaller. In this week's "Technofile," Natalie Pawelski talks with personal tech expert Marc Saltzman, who has some ways for you to mix your own music.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): DJ Marc Saltzman is in the house, with some very strange looking equipment. What is this?

MARC SALTZMAN, CONSUMER TECH GURU: Well, today's theme is going to be about taking control of your music. Of course, you can buy CDs or download MP3s off the net, but the latest trend is giving the user the ability to create their own music, mix it, scratch it, however you like, so you get to play DJ in your own house.

So I brought a couple of toys today, including the DM square. It's a digital music mixer, a $100 gadget that connects to your computer. You put in the software, and then you can mix and match and scratch your own music.

PAWELSKI: Just like a real DJ?

SALTZMAN: Sort of. We can try it out, see how we fare, but it may not replace the real DJ. You're ready? OK.

There we go. And we're done. OK. It wasn't the best, but we tried. And that's it. That's the DM Square, and there's some house music for you.

PAWELSKI: Well, and there are other kinds or is that all just (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

SALTZMAN: Well, yeah, it's mainly dance music to start. I mean, classical music doesn't really lend itself to remixing and scratching.

PAWELSKI: Wouldn't that be fun?

SALTZMAN: While you say that, you can import your own MP3s.

PAWELSKI: OK now. My desktop is full of stuff. What if I don't want to...

SALTZMAN: You don't want this -- right. Well, what you can do is there's going to be a few CDs that are going to released this summer that have a little sticker in the corner that says "mixable MP3 version." What allows you to do is not only can you pop it in your regular CD player and listen to it, but with the software that's included on this CD, it gives you the power to control to mix the music however you like. So it's similar to the DM Square, but it's just for the tracks on that album.

PAWELSKI: OK. Also in the house today, we have DJ Shorty and Faust.

Well, Marc, I guess this proves that sometimes it's better to have the real equipment rather than the digital...

SALTZMAN: As we walk away with our tail in between our legs. What are you going to do?

PAWELSKI: Dance away with our tail between our legs.

SALTZMAN: That's true. It's not bad for kids, though, and I mean, it's an affordable toy that will get your feet a little wet.

PAWELSKI: And if you're a big dance fan, it would be great.

SALTZMAN: Absolutely. You're no longer limited to listening to the way it was meant to be. You can re-create that music.

PAWELSKI: Well, thanks for giving me my first ever DJ lesson.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, no cows were harmed in the making of these shoes. Footwear without leather. When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: It's quirky animal story week here on NEXT. Our hard- working staff scoured the continents -- well, OK, they used the computer -- to find these items, compete with pictures to make you say, ah, or maybe yikes.

First up, a rare breed of shark washed up on a South African beach last weekend. It's call a megamouth shark, for obvious reasons. The species was completely unknown until about 25 years ago. It's no threat to humans. The megamouth lives on plankton.

Another shark, this one caught off Australia, was interesting not for its rarity but what was inside its stomach -- a human skull, arm and pelvis were inside the 10-foot tiger shark. Police determined that the remains were those of a fisherman who was swept into the ocean by waves on April 2. Not so easy to solve is the mystery of these footprints found in a golf course in the mountains near Seattle, Washington. Experts say they are definitely not made by any familiar animal. Could it be the legendary bigfoot or sasquatch (ph)? Or another possibility, could it be a prank? The golf pro is preserving the evidence, hoping someone will come up with an answer.

A Pennsylvania woman needed some answers when this creature showed up on her doorstep, wanting to fight with her dog. It's a binteron (ph), normally found in the treetops of Southeast Asian forests. So what was it doing in Western Pennsylvania? Turns out it was a neighbor's pet. The neighbor doesn't have a license to keep exotic animals, though, so the binteron (ph) will be sent to a facility that can take care of it properly.

Another Southeast Asian animal is doing just fine at the National Zoo. The seven-month-old Sumatran tiger cub made its first outdoor appearance on Wednesday. The cub and his mother were kept indoors until the weather got warm. Now it's time to let the cat out. Sumatran tigers are highly endangered and difficult to breed in zoos.

Finally this week, a lot of animal lovers give up eating meat and give up wearing fur, but wait, what about those shoes? Permanently kicking off their leather shoes may be the next symbolic statement for vegetarians. Jeanne Moos found a place where they can take that step.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seldom do your feet make you think about what you eat. Until you set foot in a vegetarian shoe store.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they have a vegetarian food store, and like the common question is, though, can you eat them?

MOOS: You'd need some strong teeth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Steel toe lasts forever.

MOOS: From combat boots to trendy bowling type shoes, from hemp to wood heel. What these shoes have in common is what they don't have. Moo/Shoes is New York's first totally non-leather shoe store, even less leather than Payless.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I just -- I don't eat cows, so I don't want to have to wear cows.

MOOS: It's enough to make a cow sing, like in the PETA commercial.

Strict vegetarians use their nose to avoid leather.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like you could always tell a vegetarian in a normal shoe store, because they're sitting there, smelling the shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I catch people sometimes coming in and smelling our shoes, just because they look so much like leather.

MOOS: Erica (ph) and Sarah Kavorsky (ph) are sisters who dreamed of opening a vegetarian shoe store, and now they've done it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you know, when you've been a vegan for 20 years, a place like this is really exciting.

MOOS: Vegan, a person who abstains from animal products.

(on camera): Were you one of those shoe sniffers, to see if it was leather or not?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God, you would not believe the tests that I have done.

MOOS: What did you do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scratching, feel the suede underneath.

MOOS (voice-over): This guy ended up buying a pair of fake suede shoes for $100.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, these shoes are so cool.

MOOS: The brand names here range from Ethical Wears to Vegan Wears to Vegetarian Shoes. Their motto, a treat for your feet if you don't eat meat. There are genuine non-leather belts, bags and jackets. Check out my leather-free biker look. There are also cow- friendly T-shirts with slogans like, "I am not a pair of shoes."

I wasn't the only person in the store with guilty feet.

(on camera): Now, what are you wearing now? Is that leather?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, a little bit.

MOOS (voice-over): He ended up buying a pair of hemp flip-flops. Some customers abandoned their leather shoes.

(on camera): What, they leave their shoes here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, they don't want anything to do with leather anymore. We're not saying that you have to do that.

MOOS (voice-over): Don't be surprised if you see a bovine ghost.

(on camera): Now, what used to be here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, this used to be a butcher shop, actually.

MOOS (voice-over): Holy cow!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Well, time for us to beat feet and get out of here. But first, here's a look at what's coming up next week. How do you get a salamander to change its spots? That's what researchers at Cornell University are wondering. Something that this golf course is giving these spotted salamanders an unintended makeover. And we'll take you to a home where triplets are king. These three youngsters inspired a Web site that any parent of multiples will want to check out, as will anyone who is nostalgic for the '80s.

That and a whole lot more coming up on NEXT. Until then, let us hear from you. You can e-mail us. Our address is next@cnn.com.

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Thanks to our friends here at San Francisco's Pier 39. For all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm James Hattori. See you next time.

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