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Troops in Afghanistan Fight to Stay Hydrated; Technology Helps Firefighters Map Out Hot Spots; Computers Help Keep Kids Off Streets
Aired July 06, 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@CNN. Troops in Afghanistan are fighting more than terrorism. They're fighting a constant battle to stay hydrated in a harsh and unforgiving climate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not all that fun getting down with dehydration.
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ANNOUNCER: We'll show you how soldiers are dealing with the lack of water in Afghanistan.
When fighting wildfires, hot spots, areas ready to burst into flame, are easy to miss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe you got hot spots outside your lines and you don't know about it. Major problem.
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ANNOUNCER: Find out how high-flying technology is helping firefighters cool down those hot spots.
And we'll see how computers are keeping some kids off the street.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember the hard times?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: All that and more, on NEXT.
NATALIE PAWELSKI, GUEST HOST: Hello, and welcome to NEXT@CNN, today from CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm Natalie Pawelski. James Hattori has some time off.
We begin our show with a visit to U.S. soldiers fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, where they are facing danger not only from al Qaeda, but from dehydration in a hot and dusty land. Nic Robertson reports on how the military is coping.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 11th and P Company tool up for a 12-hour patrol. Along with flak jackets and weapons, water is also a priority item in the war on terrorism they dare not leave without.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 100 degrees out here. If you're not hydrating, you pass out, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) complete your mission.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not all that fun getting down with dehydration. We have a couple of combat life service that will stick you with needles. I'm not a big fan of needles.
ROBERTSON (on camera): Water here is a serious matter. Rule number one in the Army safety book states, "consider water a tactical weapon."
With temperatures reaching 40 degrees centigrade, that's 110 Fahrenheit, soldiers face a constant battle to stay hydrated.
(voice-over): On the front line of that battle, Army medics.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's 122 down here, and that gives us our index.
ROBERTSON: Temperatures determine heat category, in turn specifying water intake and workload.
PFC. SAMANTHA HORNER, U.S. ARMY: You have your 50 minutes of work, 10 minutes of rest, 45 minutes of work, 15 minutes of rest, 40 minutes of work, 20 minutes of rest.
ROBERTSON: So great is the demand for drinking water, supplies imported by plane are positioned all over the camp.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Water is life. I mean, it is so hot out here, you'll shrivel up and die in a mater of hours, if you don't have it.
ROBERTSON: Consumption runs at three to four liters per person per day, and could mean a staggering 50,000 half-liter bottles are drunk every day by the 7,000 soldiers and air crews on base. And that's just drinking water.
Like the blazing sun, the swirling dust blown from the arid fields around the base puts more pressure on water resources. Whether it's cleaning out Black Hawk helicopters or just cleaning clothes, as much water as can be found, it seems, will be consumed battling the unrelenting environment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's incredible. There's no way to keep ahead of it. You know, our clothes are hanging out, and the dust just comes in and takes over. At least they smell good.
ROBERTSON: Eighty thousand gallons, or 350,000 liters of well water a day flow through this high-tech molecular level filter.
SPEC. ALLEN GROOMS: What we are doing here is a very important mission here, even though it's not drinking water. We all need to bathe, we all need to keep the hospital filled with water.
ROBERTSON: Although most of the filtered water ends up on the outside of soldiers, the bathing water is 10 times cleaner than the bottled drinking water, and may soon replace the expensive import.
In the battle against terrorism, nature appears to be the one enemy that's been licked so far.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: Firefighters in the western United States are also winning some battles against nature. They've been able to tame huge blazes in Arizona and Colorado. And as Jeff Flock reports, some high- flying technology was on the front lines.
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JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 1:40 a.m. Boise, Idaho. A U.S. Forest Service Cessna citation lands with precious cargo. Sheets of old-fashioned thermal paper, grinding out of a printer in the back of the plane.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's still a lot of concentrated heat in this.
FLOCK: Infrared technician Woody Smith (ph) shows us the latest heat map of the Missionary Ridge fire near Durango, Colorado, 619 miles away. With the naked eye, you can see the big flames, dramatic at night. But what about the hot spots? Fire that hasn't even started yet? Or so-called spot fires, too small to see? Showing up in black spots on the thermal paper, the infrared mapping picks them up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Down to about a four- to six-inch hot spot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you are actually doing is seeing a thermal imprint that's detecting hate.
FLOCK: The faint images are rushed to interpreters like Dick Bahr, who work out the exact location for fire crews on the ground. This was one of the fires in the Gallatin National Forest in Montana last year. This is the thermal imaging.
(on camera): What were you trying to find out?
DICK BAHR, INFRARED INTERPRETER: Our concern was, is there potential or is there still heat on the north side of the fire.
FLOCK (voice-over): Finding the spot fires fast and picking out hot spots ready to reignite can be impossible from the ground.
(on camera): This may have looked like it was out? BAHR: Yeah, we may never have seen it.
FLOCK (voice-over): The infrared missions are flown at night when it's cooler and easier to pick up the contrasts in heat. Technicians and pilots sometimes can only barely make out flames on the ground, but the infrared sees all.
PAUL BROYLES, FIRE INCIDENT MANAGER: Maybe you've got hot spots outside your lines, and you don't know about it. Major problem.
FLOCK: Though it's been improved, they've been using the same basic technology since the 1960s. And, even now, computers haven't found a way to transmit images to the ground and interpret them fast enough for fire crews.
BAHR: The old thermal imagery and the human is still faster than the computer is.
FLOCK: And often faster than the fire.
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PAWELSKI: A spectacular eruption on the sun this week. On Monday, a jet of glowing gas shot from the solar surface, as high as 40 Earth diameters. It's what astronomers call a prominence, where hot gas is trapped inside a loop of magnetic fields. The image of the eruption was captured by the Soho satellite operated by NASA and the European Space Agency. Scientists say an eruption like the one on Monday could cause electromagnetic disturbances on Earth if it were pointed in our direction. But, in this case, it wasn't.
A new spacecraft is on its way to check out a couple of comets.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two, one, main engine start, zero, and liftoff.
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PAWELSKI: It's called Contour, short for Comet Nucleus Tour, and it lifted off on a Delta rocket Wednesday. During its four-year mission, Contour will fly within 62 miles of the two comets. It will take pictures and analyze the chemical makeup of the comets' nuclei, as well as the surrounding gases and dust. One of the comets just went through a break-up, splitting into several pieces. If scientists find any new comets while the spacecraft is en route, Contour could detour and explore the new discoveries, too.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, the world's snow leopards may be a little less endangered, thanks to a Web site that sells mittens.
And later in the show, a bird's eye view of our planet shows the good, the bad and the ugly. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PAWELSKI: An ancient skull found in Eastern Europe has scientists rethinking their ideas about why early humans migrated out of Africa. The skull is one of three found in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Scientists think all three are from the species homo erectus, but one is much smaller than the others, not big enough to hold a large brain. The old theory was that humans began spreading beyond Africa once they got smart enough to adapt to new environments. But finding a small-brained homo erectus in Europe suggests there were other reasons, too. The study was published in the "Journal of Science."
An entire species of gorilla could go extinct in the next few decades. The biggest threats of the Western gorilla is not loss of habitat, but humans with the taste for bush meat. Gary Strieker reports.
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GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a common sight in the forests of Central Africa, a hunter with a dismembered carcass of a gorilla. Each year, thousands of wild gorillas are killed illegally by poachers for their meat, which is smoked and sold in city markets as a high-priced delicacy.
PETER WALSH: It's really a big commercial business. Powerful interests, powerful men in the city. And these poachers kill virtually every animal in the area, and then they ship it back to the city where it's sold for a large profit.
STRIEKER: In East Africa, mountain gorillas number only a few hundred, but they're now considered relatively safe in protected areas. Most of the world's gorillas, the Western species, are found in the forests of Central Africa, in six countries. And, according to scientists at a recent gathering of the world's top gorilla experts, the most immediate threat to Western gorillas is not destruction of habitat, but the intensity of widespread commercial poaching.
WALSH: There's two kinds of evidence. One is the very high incidence of gorilla meat in markets. The second kind of evidence is survey data showing that areas that used to have very large gorilla populations are now virtually empty of gorillas.
STRIEKER: A few years ago, the population of Western gorillas was estimated at more than 100,000. But most experts now agree that number was exaggerated, and that the population today is far less than that. They say large-scale commercial poaching has reached crisis levels, even in national parks, because of new logging roads that give hunters easy access deep into the forest, as well as civil unrest and mismanagement of protected areas.
(on camera): Existing conservation measures are not working. And experts say what is needed now is effective enforcement of anti- poaching laws, already on the books -- the kind of serious enforcement that has so far saved Eastern mountain gorillas.
(voice-over): Strict enforcement not only against poachers, but also against those who transport gorilla meat to the cities, and against anyone who sells it in markets or restaurants. Conservationists are calling for immediate global support for law enforcement measures to protect gorillas, including sustained financing to pay for it. If poaching continues, they warn, Western gorillas may go extinct in our lifetime.
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PAWELSKI: Another endangered species is getting some help on the World Wide Web. In Mongolia, villagers who once killed snow leopards now have reason not to, thanks to a Web site, as we'll see in this week's "Nothin' but Net."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): High in the mountains of Mongolia, the endangered snow leopard was once hunted, both for its precious fur and because it preyed on livestock. Now, the International Snow Leopard Trust has taken its effort to protect this species to cyber space, at Snowleopard.org.
Herders use this site to sell goods made from the wool of their sheep and camels. So, how does that protect the snow leopard?
TOM MCCARTHY, INTL. SNOW LEOPARD TRUST: Every herder family who wants to participate initially signs a contract agreeing that, in exchange for access to the markets with their handicrafts, they promise not to kill snow leopards. They also won't kill any of the snow leopard's food sources, the wild ibex and argali.
PAWELSKI: The trust provides the training and equipment so villagers in Mongolia can make and market handmade products.
MCCARTHY: You can buy everything from hats and gloves made out of camel wool to sheep felted mats. We've developed a lot of new products as well in the last year -- everything from tea cozies to keep your tea warm in the morning to felt juggling balls.
PAWELSKI: The site also has details about snow leopards, their physical features, habitats and why they are threatened. Of course, the trust invites readers to become members. And you can even adopt a snow leopard. More than 200 households in Mongolia sell their wares on the site. The trust hopes to expand.
MCCARTHY: We will be staring a program in Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and India, so we're going to have a lot of different types of handicrafts available to sell for these people in the next year.
PAWELSKI: For now, the Mongolian people are helping themselves, while helping make sure snow leopards survive and thrive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: You can find more about Snowleopard.org and other stories in our program on our Web site, cnn.com/next.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, snapping pictures and sending them to your friends is getting easier. We'll tell you why.
Also ahead, a new way to get a fast Internet connection. That and much more still to come on NEXT@CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAWELSKI: Everybody talks about fast Internet connections, but it's estimated that one-third of American households don't have access to cable or DSL. Well, a company born in a Silicon Valley garage is hoping to take advantage of that fact. James Hattori reports.
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JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Benjamin Allen moved to Oakland, California, to join the broadband revolution, using high-speed Internet access to build his Web development business. But the revolution has slowed. According to recent studies, less than 20 percent of Internet users in the U.S. have broadband.
BENJAMIN ALLEN, WEB DEVELOPER: People can't get high-speed Internet access, and if they are able to get it, they're overcharged for it.
HATTORI: That could change with newer, faster technologies. Allen used to rely on DSL service over a phone line. His new net plumbing runs through the bathroom.
ALLEN: Exactly, this is where all my data passes through.
HATTORI: Through a 10-inch square device mounted in a window above the bathtub.
ALLEN: This is the transceiver, and there's the building that I talk to with a transceiver on the opposite end.
HATTORI (on camera): And it took how long to set this up?
ALLEN: This was a 30-minute process, from start to finish.
HATTORI (voice-over): It's wireless, and according to the manufacturer, Etherlinx, compared to other services, it can be cheaper and quicker.
(on camera): This is going to change the face of broadband?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hope so.
HATTORI (voice-over): Etherlinx co-founder Layne Holt developed the units in his Silicon Valley garage, using custom software and off the shelf parts.
(on camera): This is the inventory here for your factory?
LAYNE HOLT, ETHERLINX: Right, this is the inventory boxes.
HATTORI: The company is banking on a technology called wi-fi, or wireless fidelity, normally used as a system within an office or a home, with a wireless access point, and these little PC cards that will slide into your laptop, or peripheral, so the two can communicate via radio waves -- no cables.
(voice-over): Etherlinx is applying that cheap, simple technology to access the high-speed Internet backbone. Primary units are installed on a tower at a backbone access point, or fat pipe. The signal, carrying high speed data, radiates to other units on homes, or commercial buildings. But each box also retransmits the signals, creating what's called a "cloud of coverage." Etherlinx claims it could saturate a small city with a few as 10 units.
HOLT: It blankets an area with RF, so anybody within that area can actually be on the Internet at very high speeds.
HATTORI: And, the company says, the system is easily expanded.
JOHN FURRIER, ETHERLINX: The innovation in the software allows us to use low-cost hardware to create more capacity.
HATTORI: After a couple of years in business, Etherlinx is getting inquiries from around the world, and down the street.
KEN DULANEY, WIRELESS ANALYST, GARTNER: It's likely that people like Etherlinx will serve areas where the cable and phone companies cannot go.
HATTORI: Hopeful and, perhaps, daunting times for a little company started in Layne Holt's garage.
(on camera): What does your gut say about all of this?
HOLT: What does my gut say? Roller coaster ride.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: It's also been a roller coaster ride for 3-G, or third generation wireless technology. 3-G is supposed to revolutionize how we use cell phones, but so far consumers are staying away in droves. As Kristie Lu Stout reports, some companies are hoping a new gadget will help 3-G cell phones to get back in the picture.
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KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The telecom biz desperately needs a pick-me-up. The market is losing momentum as consumers hold off buying new phones. But one gizmo could change all that.
PAUL JACOBS, WIRELESS GROUP PRES., QUALCOMM: The phone has a built-in camera right here in the hinge, and you can actually turn the top of the phone, so you can see the image, take your picture and then send it to your friends.
STOUT: The camera phone, which transmits images as data, could breathe new life into wireless. GREG TARR: Sending a picture from my phone to your phone -- you know, that's a very valuable application, because it appeals to the human need to communicate, especially if you are away from your wife, girlfriend or kids.
STOUT: Picture swapping works on existing mobile technology called 2.5-G, and it's already a popular pastime for Asia's mobile elite.
JACOBS: The camera application has already been a killer application in Japan. So people take pictures with the camera embedded on their phone and share them with their friends.
STOUT: Japan's J-Phone is chalking up strong sales of its camera phone, selling more than 100,000 hand seats a month. Its parent company Vodafone is certain pictures will overtake text as the biggest data revenue driver in the next five years.
Not to miss a bankable trend, the world's leading mobile maker Nokia is launching its first camera phone, the 7650. The service is expected to be a runaway hit, turning into a mass market phenomenon by the end of 2003, but before camera phones can take off, operators have to clear a major hurdle -- pricing the pictures.
TARR: I think that the pricing is really critical, and frankly, the operators have not worked out the pricing. When I speak to the operators in Japan and Korea, they are still very much in an experimental mode to see how much users are willing to pay.
STOUT: There is little time to play with the price tags when you could scare away new customers who need assurance that camera phones are reliable, affordable and not just another passing fad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: And now, camera work from on high. In Chicago, an exhibit of aerial photos is giving visitors a new look at life on Earth. Keith Oppenheim has more.
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YANN ARTHUS BERTRAND, PHOTOGRAPHER: I'm trying to bring knowledge through the photography.
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His name is Yann Arthus Bertrand, and his exhibit is called, "Earth From Above." It is a wide-angle view of life and land. In Ecuador, a shantytown. In Iceland, a blue lagoon. In Niger, a caravan of camels. In Florida, a look at tornado damage.
Bertrand's aerial photographs give a unique perspective of the world's humanity, its beauty, its despair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How man lives, what he's doing to the planet, what we need to reflect on and how to change things, and how to make some things better that we've done good. OPPENHEIM: There are 120 of these aerial pictures, selected from more than 100,000 images shot by Bertrand over the last 12 years.
BERTRAND: I want always to be outside with a free exhibition. For me, it's very important.
OPPENHEIM (on camera): Important, because Bertrand wants the viewer in the outdoor environment to think about the environment of the Earth. In fact, every image here is put in geographical context. This world map on the grounds of the display serves as a guide so that people can know where each shot was taken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wondered how he accomplished it. Was he up on a ladder? In a small airplane, or in a helicopter?
OPPENHEIM (voice-over): The answer is yes, to all of the above, and, sometimes, even from a hot air balloon. For Yann Arthus Bertrand, this form of photography has become a complete dedication.
BERTRAND: In fact, in the beginning, it was trying -- I'm thinking to do it for five years, and now I know I'm going to do it until the end of my life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: The "Earth From Above" exhibit runs through September 15, in Chicago's Millennium Park. We'll be right back after a break and a look at the latest headlines from the CNN newsroom.
ANNOUNCER: Still ahead in our second half-hour, using technology to give inner city kids a way out of the ghetto.
And we'll show you how major league baseball is using computers to keep their pitchers in top form. Those stories and more coming up. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAWELSKI: Welcome back. Learning to use computers can make a difference in kids' lives. Just ask the inner city youngsters in a project called the Clubhouse. Computers offer creative fun right now, and a chance at a brighter future. Ann Kellan has the story.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Name of my song is "Hard Times." It's about hard times in the ghetto. You know what I'm saying?
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They never rapped with each other, produced music or cut a CD before coming to the clubhouse. Now they're writing rap lyrics and producing their own sound.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember the hard times, hard times in the ghetto when you had... UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we first came down here, we didn't know nothing, we didn't know no equipment, we didn't know how to use it or nothing. So what we did just started tempering with stuff, and this guy Jeff that used to work here, he came and told us a little bit about how to work the machines and stuff. The basic stuff. So after that, I think it took us, what, 20 minutes to put together a beat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Life in the ghetto is just too hard.
KELLAN: Intel sponsors the clubhouse. It pays for the equipment, and local community groups provide the space.
With 63 clubhouses throughout the world, kids from 8 to 18 can join for free. Here, they get access to software they could never afford to buy, and have fun learning about computers. Want to create a decal for a T-shirt? Ashley did.
ASHLEY: I didn't know how to use the computers either when I came here. This is one of my drawings I had made, and it was an original drawing of a girl who had pigtails, but I kind of cut the pigtails out. It took me a lot of time to do it, but I know how to do it now, and it is very easy now.
KELLAN: How about learning to design and decorate a house? Derek is figuring it out.
DEREK: This one, this is the dining room.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go to search.
KELLAN: Elena Stevens is the clubhouse coordinator.
ELENA STEVENS, INTEL CLUBHOUSE COORDINATOR: I don't pressure the kids to work on a certain project, but I do encourage them to get on a computer. I do put limitations for our clubhouse. There is no Internet chatting. We only have three computers in here that will allow you to check your e-mail for 30 minutes. But really, I think it works because they can come in here and they can do what they please, in a sense -- not go crazy, but when they go on the computer, the sky is the limit creativity-wise.
KELLAN: Like acting out a fight in front of a digital camera and watching it out an a computer screen. More fun than a real street fight.
(on camera): So what's this? Where are we here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my old neighborhood.
KELLAN: This is your old neighborhood?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
KELLAN (voice-over): Which brings us back to the rap group.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We come from the ghetto. And we're kids. So we put it together, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
KELLAN (on camera): But are you really ghetto children?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're from the ghetto.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, we don't act like we're ghetto children. We just ghetto like we're from the ghetto and all that.
KELLAN (voice-over): What were they doing in their free time before the clubhouse?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically, we were just doing before we came in here, we were just on the streets, playing basketball and getting into trouble. Things we shouldn't be doing.
KELLAN: Now, they're off the street, writing and rapping about what they know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got no money, you know you be hungry and stuff, you like you got to wait until your mama gets paid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see like (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of drugs on the sidewalk when you're walking to school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (rapping): ... trying hard to survive, it's hard to maintain. Ghetto still living, so why should I complain about this harsh life living in the ghetto is a shame, being broke in the ghetto with everything, trying hard to survive, it's hard to maintain. Ghetto still living, so why should I complain about this harsh life living in the ghetto...
KELLAN: The clubhouse, they say, has provided a giant step out of the ghetto.
(on camera): OK, so what do you want to be when you grow up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to go to the Air Force.
KELLAN: You want to go in the Air Force? You want to be a pilot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be an artist, a gymnast. I want to work with computers. I want to be a computer technician.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to go to the NBA, or I want to be a rapper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be an architect. I want to be a lot of stuff. I want to go to the NBA. I want to go to college. I want to be a star. I like it all, really. Because everything's fun.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, preserving history, how restorers take care of the original flag that inspired the "Star-Spangled Banner."
And here is the wind-up and the pitch. Can a pitcher learn how to throw strikes in a lab?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAWELSKI: This Fourth of July weekend, the stars and stripes will be everywhere. But the original "Star-Spangled Banner" will not be flying. It's spending its fourth Fourth as the focus of a very big, very delicate restoration project. Kathleen Koch has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It survived the bombs bursting in air over Fort McHenry in 1814 inspiring Francis Scott Key to write "The National Anthem." But preservation work underway at the Smithsonian reveals time has taken a toll on the Star Spangled Banner.
SUZANNE THOMASSEN-KRAUFF, CONSERVATOR: There are very large lost areas in the flag. In fact, the 15th star is missing, and so that's a three-foot by five-foot area almost dead center in the flag.
KOCH: Workers discovered the extent of the damage after they painstakingly removed stitch by stitch a linen backing sewn on by flag restorer Amelia Fowler.
THOMASSEN-KRAUFF: But we can see a side of the flag that hasn't been seen since 1873. It's always been covered, and this is the first time the public's getting a chance to see this side.
KOCH: At this point in the $18 million conservation project, workers are cleaning the fragile but still vibrant flag.
MARILYN ZOIDIS, CURATOR, STAR SPANGLED BANNER PROJECT: We're doing this without any chemicals. We are taking sponges from a scientific lab and blotting as much of the dirt off as possible.
KOCH: Using a machine called a spectrophotometer, they check the color and analyze the dye to determine the change in the soiled woolen fabric.
ZOIDIS: Reading the density intensity of the color to be able to discern the difference before we clean the flag and after we clean the flag. Visibly you can see a difference.
KOCH: And workers can see a difference in public appreciation of the project since 9/11.
THOMASSEN-KRAUFF: They'll look up occasionally and they'll see somebody giving them the thumbs up or they'll walk out of the space and somebody will thank them for working on the project and saving the flag.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Glad to be American. Glad to be here. Glad that they're restoring it so other people can see it. It's just very inspiring.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a nation we're hurt and the flag is hurt as well. But the way our flag is being restored, our country's -- our country will be restored.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: How do you get to the major leagues? Practice, practice, practice -- and maybe a little help from technology. As baseball gets ready for the annual All-Star game, Renay San Miguel reports on a clinic that tries to help pitchers reach the big time.
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RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes a curve ball won't curve. A sinker won't sink. A fast ball loses a few miles per hour. When that happens to a pitcher, some of them come here, to the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama.
Brian West is a prospect with the Birmingham Bearers, the Chicago White Sox farm team. His pitching coach, former major leager Juan Nieves, brought him here to work with Glenn Fleisig and his team of assistants. Fleisig studies other sports, including golf, but it's his work with pitchers, like Cincinnati's Jose Rijo, that have him in demand.
We are going to put some reflective markers on your shoulders, knees, ankles and just film you going through your motion.
SAN MIGUEL: Nieves, who once through a no-hitter with the Milwaukee Brewers, is hoping West has the stamina and mechanics to make it to the big leagues.
JUAN NIEVES, PITCHING COACH: He has all the requirements that we are looking for to have a championship pitcher on the mound every five days.
BRIAN WEST, PITCHER: I'm hoping to get out and iron out a few flaws in my mechanics that I'm still working on. That this could show me, you know, what a regular video camera couldn't.
SAN MIGUEL: Reflective markers will help the computer create a digitized (UNINTELLIGIBLE) picture of Brian that allow Dr. Fleisig and his crew to thoroughly analyze his pitching motion. That and high- speed cameras that take 500 frames a second will let Fleisig determine if Brian is using all the force in his body the right way when he throws a curve or fast ball. Is he putting too much stress on his shoulder, his elbow? Can he get more power from his lower body? Should he adjust his motion?
GLENN FLEISIG, AMERICAN SPORTS MEDICINE INSTITUTE: Although a lot of pitchers who are successful look different, there are a lot of similarities. And when you measure them, there are some key aspects that all of the good pitchers do. There are really two reasons to do biomechanics. One is to improve performance, and one is to -- for injury prevention. The American Sports Medicine Institute is more focused on the injury side, trying to keep people healthy out on the field. But what we find out is if you make someone's pitching mechanics better, more efficient, they gain more velocity for less effort, and they're really getting two for the price of one.
SAN MIGUEL: Oakland A's pitching coach Rick Peterson has sent some of his younger pitchers, including 2002 All-Star Barry Zito to the institute, where their throwing motions have been mapped and analyzed.
BARRY ZITO, PITCHER: That helped me a great deal by letting me know that there are certain flaws in the delivery that you can't always see or feel when you're pitching at regular speed. You know, by slowing down the wind-up and looking at it from different angles.
SAN MIGUEL: The goal is to not only make good pitchers better, but to also extend their careers.
RICK PETERSON, PITCHING COACH: Z (ph) probably had the best comment of all. He said, this is unbelievable, this is prehab.
SAN MIGUEL (on camera): The American Sports Medicine Institute has been studying pitching for the last 12 years, but for the first time this year it is studying each style of pitch. How much stress a fast ball, a curve ball, a slider or a change-up can put on a pitcher's arm.
FLEISIG: One thing we look at and we measure how far back the arm is rotated when we measure the speed of it coming forward also.
SAN MIGUEL (voice-over): West marvels at how he has been reduced to a series of lines and dots on a computer screen.
WEST: Now, you know, in baseball, it's all about a numbers game now, you know, results, fast balls and strikes. And if you can perfect your mechanics, then the results of you throwing strikes in the play are going to be better, and in turn, get more hitters out. So this actually can turn out to be a very, very valuable experience.
SAN MIGUEL: West, who got hurt in high school, is hoping that better pitching mechanics can help him avoid further injury.
Fleisig is concerned that Little Leagers, who idolize high-heat hurlers like Roger Clemens or the big curve ball pitchers may try to emulate their heroes before they're ready.
FLEISIG: A boy shouldn't throw a curve ball until he can shave. It sounds unrelated, but what we're getting at is we really don't want you to throw a curve ball until your bone and your growth plates have started to seal up, and without looking at X-rays and really seeing -- the easiest way to tell if a young man is in puberty, he has some facial hair, then that's an early sign. So it sounds kind of silly, but there's some science to it that we tell boys not to throw curve balls until they can shave.
SAN MIGUEL: That advice and the data being collected at the institute could help younger pitchers go from wild-throwing rookies to major league all-stars.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: Another traditional American pastime, soap box derby racing. When we come back, you'll see how the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) are driving into the 21st century.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAWELSKI: The odyssey is over. Chicago millionaire Steve Fossett Thursday became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon. He landed the Spirit of Freedom safely in the Australian outback, about 900 miles northwest of Sydney. He had been off for nearly 15 days, but the trip itself had only taken 13 1/2 days. He had to spend the extra time waiting for winds to die down before he could land. This was Fossett's sixth attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
In a more down to earth hobby, hundreds of kids are getting ready for the 65th annual All American Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio later this month. Soap box cars have come a long way since they were made of materials like orange carts and baby buggy wheels. Kurt Mueller (ph) from Canada's CTV network has a case in point.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KURT MUELLER, CTV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Turney spends his days fixing trucks in Peterboro, Toronto, northeast of Toronto. He spends his nights in a shop behind his house -- drilling, sanding and perfecting a different kind of vehicle, soap box cars. It all began when he and his nephew entered a soap box derby three years ago.
BILL TURNEY, SOAPBOX MAKER: Just the thrill of racing. You know, it was like the Indianapolis 500 for us.
MUELLER: Turney had such a good time he decided to start his own soap box business. Now he sells more than 100 of his do-it-your-self car kits each car to clients all over the world, from New Zealand to Switzerland. Each car costs $175. Turney's creations were even featured on a Disney television show, "Lizzie McGuire."
While seeing his soap box cars on television was thrilling, Turney says real-life races are his rewards.
TURNEY: To see a kid use it and enjoy it, and the looks on their faces as they're ripping down the hill or something, it's great.
MUELLER: They may be children's toys, but there is nothing childlike about technology behind Turney's cars. He designs them on a computer. Each piece is then cut automatically to precise specifications -- quite a leap from early soap box construction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We used a real cardboard box with wheels on it. We used to pull them off the baby carriages.
MUELLER: The methods may have changed, but the appeal of soap box racers remains the same -- the simple pleasure of building and racing your own car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love it because you get to come out here and have fun.
MUELLER: Turney says he will keep building his cars as long as it's fun for him and for those racers of the future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, for some New York subway riders, the light is no longer just at the end of the tunnel. We'll be right back with that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAWELSKI: When you're riding the subway through a tunnel, there's never been much reason to look out the window -- until now. Technology barred from a children's toy is turning tunnel walls into movie screens. Jeanne Moos has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another boring ride in the subway, staring blankly at pitch black tunnel walls. Suddenly...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I glimpse and I look out, I said, "what is that?"
MOOS: Used to be they made movies about the subway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut up!
MOOS: But now there are movies in the subway. Actually, it's an ad for Target. The first such ad in New York, premiering on the path train that transports commuters between New York and New Jersey.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's amazing. It's really awesome. It's eye-catching.
MOOS: Of course, it doesn't take much to catch your eye in a subterranean dead zone -- virgin territory for a company called Submedia.
JOSHUA SPODEK, CEO, SUBMEDIA: You and I will see a little bit of slittiness.
MOOS: Each slit acts as a shutter. Behind each slit is a compressed image.
SPODEK: What you see here are the individual frames.
MOOS: Two-hundred back-lit boxes like this installed on the wall of a subway tunnel make for a 20-second ad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought, well, that's novel, somebody painted the wall. And then it moved, and it moved.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just came at me. It was a real shock, actually. But I thought it was neat, like one of those flip book things.
MOOS: An apt analogy, says Submedia's CEO, Joshua Spodek. Spodek has a Phd in astrophysics, but he was inspired by a toy known as a Zoetrope.
SPODEK: I could play with this forever.
MOOS: When you spin it and look through the slits, the images are animated.
SPODEK: I thought, is there any reason this wouldn't work if it was straight?
MOOS: It took three years to refine the technology. Now it's being used for bottled water ads in the Philadelphia and Atlanta subways. New York's first ad even got a smattering of applause from the hard to impress press.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a terrific idea. One place we could use more advertising, because the subway walls are -- the tunnels are ugly.
MOOS: Though the ads got rave reviews...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I give four stars.
MOOS: There's always a critic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They could have put something more creative, something more artistic, not just another ad to be bombarded.
MOOS: Pedestrians could be bombarded next. The technology can be adapted for slower speeds alongside moving walkways or escalators.
SPODEK: You can walk past and see the animation easily.
MOOS: The subway flick may be an ad, but it could end up being a hit a summer sleeper.
(on camera): You're missing the movie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
MOOS: The movie.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: And that's all the time we have for this week. But before we go, take a peek at what's coming up next time. Found a Web site offering an incredible investment opportunity? It could be a fake, set up to show potential scam victims what could have happened. Find out what who's behind the warning.
And activities for bored bears. One zoo adds water jets so the polar bears can go with the flow.
That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let us hear from you. You can e-mail us at next@cnn.com.
Thanks so much for joining us this week. For James Hattori and all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm Natalie Pawelski. See you next time.
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