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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Daniel Zalewski
Aired December 15, 2002 - 08:51 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.
CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: You heard the ambulance homicide theory? It's just one of the 97 ideas selected by the "New York Times" magazine in its "The Year In Ideas." The list includes goodies like the crying baby translator and a cell phone tower anthrax detection network. How about a skyscraper escape device? That's an idea that's taken on new importance since 9/11.
Let's go to New York for more from Daniel Zalewski, who's with the "New York Times" magazine. And he's got a look at this list. You really have some interesting ideas on what you had in ideas this year.
Thanks for joining us.
DANIEL ZALEWSKI, NEW YORK TIMES" MAGAZINE: Thank you.
MOLINEAUX: What really stood out?
ZALEWSKI: Well, basically what this issue is is a compendium of new ideas that emerged this year, some of them serious like the Bush administration's doctrine of preemption, and some of them very silly, like botox parties and...
MOLINEAUX: Well, let's look at something that's serious and utterly fascinating, a potential bombshell, this ambulance homicide theory, the notion that actually murder rates aren't going down, ambulance crews are just getting better at their job?
ZALEWSKI: Yes, that's a study that appeared in the "Journal of Homicide Studies" in May, revealed that it's not that our society is getting less violent. In fact, the number of attempted murders has doubled or tripled in recent decades. But ambulances get to victims faster and emergency care services are much better. And as a result, less people are dying. And so our previous notions that say it was better policing that was lowering the murder rate might not be true.
MOLINEAUX: Which would also potentially explain why some neighborhoods have more murders?
ZALEWSKI: Yes. I mean, if you think about this, what it might mean is that a person who attempts a murder in a neighborhood with good hospital care might not succeed and therefore might not become a murderer the way that somebody who tries to stab somebody in a poor neighborhood. So it really, it makes you reevaluate the entire way we think about murder and crime.
MOLINEAUX: Nothing like statistics throwing you off. ZALEWSKI: Yes.
MOLINEAUX: Let's take a look at something that is, that looks almost frivolous and probably sounded pretty crazy until September 11, skyscraper escape devices. We actually had one company passing out fliers to everybody above the 40th floor in the Empire State Building?
ZALEWSKI: Yes, that's true. After every event, a new industry is born, and after 9/11 there was, there have been at least three companies that have come up with ways to let people evacuate from buildings from a tall height in a hurry. One of them involves personal parachutes. Another one involves descent from an airline strength cable. And another one involves the ejection of a chute from a high up floor that allows people to descend almost as if they were sliding down through a Slinky.
MOLINEAUX: Let's take a look at another one perhaps a little less serious, a little more fun, but, well, actually, the featherless chicken. As a child I think I had a nightmare in which something that looked an awful lot like this was chasing me. This comes from a genetics professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Why?
ZALEWSKI: That's a good question. Well, he has some answers. If you remove through cross breeding feathers from chickens, not only do you have something that looks like it's just ready to jump into your stockpot and is ready to be shrink wrapped, but it has less fat because a chicken, in order to have feathers, needs the subcutaneous layer of fat and it's also cheaper because you don't need to feed it as much because it doesn't need to grow the feathers. So cheaper, leaner, also really freaky looking.
MOLINEAUX: And now another item that you've got on this list could actually be a problem for us at CNN because we put lots of information on your screen now. But ambient information, nice, soft and easy, fuzzy information coming to you with colors? Explain that.
ZALEWSKI: Well, basically there's a new device called the ambient orb, which is a gizmo that allows you to get certain information just through a sidelong glance. There's a little ball that you place on your desk that, say, can track what the stock market is doing. And rather than having to constantly go to a screen and check well, what is the stock market going up or down, the ball will either glow green to convey that something is going really well or red to say that it's tanking.
So just with a little glance you can say well, the room is glowing red, I guess I, the stock market's tanking.
MOLINEAUX: OK, Daniel Zalewski, we've got the self-cleaning dinner table. We're a tad short on time, but that sounds like something right out of the '40s.
ZALEWSKI: Yes, it does. Basically, the idea is you can sit at your dinner table and then lift up the table and plunk your dirty dishes right in the table. And it keeps everyone together instead of breaking everyone up so that people can do their dishes. It's a pretty weird idea. It's not...
MOLINEAUX: The Jetsons' dinner table.
ZALEWSKI: Yes, it's the Jetsons' dinner table. You've got it.
MOLINEAUX: All right, Daniel Zalewski with the "New York Times."
Thank you very much.
Good to have you with us this morning.
ZALEWSKI: Thank you. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 15, 2002 - 08:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: You heard the ambulance homicide theory? It's just one of the 97 ideas selected by the "New York Times" magazine in its "The Year In Ideas." The list includes goodies like the crying baby translator and a cell phone tower anthrax detection network. How about a skyscraper escape device? That's an idea that's taken on new importance since 9/11.
Let's go to New York for more from Daniel Zalewski, who's with the "New York Times" magazine. And he's got a look at this list. You really have some interesting ideas on what you had in ideas this year.
Thanks for joining us.
DANIEL ZALEWSKI, NEW YORK TIMES" MAGAZINE: Thank you.
MOLINEAUX: What really stood out?
ZALEWSKI: Well, basically what this issue is is a compendium of new ideas that emerged this year, some of them serious like the Bush administration's doctrine of preemption, and some of them very silly, like botox parties and...
MOLINEAUX: Well, let's look at something that's serious and utterly fascinating, a potential bombshell, this ambulance homicide theory, the notion that actually murder rates aren't going down, ambulance crews are just getting better at their job?
ZALEWSKI: Yes, that's a study that appeared in the "Journal of Homicide Studies" in May, revealed that it's not that our society is getting less violent. In fact, the number of attempted murders has doubled or tripled in recent decades. But ambulances get to victims faster and emergency care services are much better. And as a result, less people are dying. And so our previous notions that say it was better policing that was lowering the murder rate might not be true.
MOLINEAUX: Which would also potentially explain why some neighborhoods have more murders?
ZALEWSKI: Yes. I mean, if you think about this, what it might mean is that a person who attempts a murder in a neighborhood with good hospital care might not succeed and therefore might not become a murderer the way that somebody who tries to stab somebody in a poor neighborhood. So it really, it makes you reevaluate the entire way we think about murder and crime.
MOLINEAUX: Nothing like statistics throwing you off. ZALEWSKI: Yes.
MOLINEAUX: Let's take a look at something that is, that looks almost frivolous and probably sounded pretty crazy until September 11, skyscraper escape devices. We actually had one company passing out fliers to everybody above the 40th floor in the Empire State Building?
ZALEWSKI: Yes, that's true. After every event, a new industry is born, and after 9/11 there was, there have been at least three companies that have come up with ways to let people evacuate from buildings from a tall height in a hurry. One of them involves personal parachutes. Another one involves descent from an airline strength cable. And another one involves the ejection of a chute from a high up floor that allows people to descend almost as if they were sliding down through a Slinky.
MOLINEAUX: Let's take a look at another one perhaps a little less serious, a little more fun, but, well, actually, the featherless chicken. As a child I think I had a nightmare in which something that looked an awful lot like this was chasing me. This comes from a genetics professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Why?
ZALEWSKI: That's a good question. Well, he has some answers. If you remove through cross breeding feathers from chickens, not only do you have something that looks like it's just ready to jump into your stockpot and is ready to be shrink wrapped, but it has less fat because a chicken, in order to have feathers, needs the subcutaneous layer of fat and it's also cheaper because you don't need to feed it as much because it doesn't need to grow the feathers. So cheaper, leaner, also really freaky looking.
MOLINEAUX: And now another item that you've got on this list could actually be a problem for us at CNN because we put lots of information on your screen now. But ambient information, nice, soft and easy, fuzzy information coming to you with colors? Explain that.
ZALEWSKI: Well, basically there's a new device called the ambient orb, which is a gizmo that allows you to get certain information just through a sidelong glance. There's a little ball that you place on your desk that, say, can track what the stock market is doing. And rather than having to constantly go to a screen and check well, what is the stock market going up or down, the ball will either glow green to convey that something is going really well or red to say that it's tanking.
So just with a little glance you can say well, the room is glowing red, I guess I, the stock market's tanking.
MOLINEAUX: OK, Daniel Zalewski, we've got the self-cleaning dinner table. We're a tad short on time, but that sounds like something right out of the '40s.
ZALEWSKI: Yes, it does. Basically, the idea is you can sit at your dinner table and then lift up the table and plunk your dirty dishes right in the table. And it keeps everyone together instead of breaking everyone up so that people can do their dishes. It's a pretty weird idea. It's not...
MOLINEAUX: The Jetsons' dinner table.
ZALEWSKI: Yes, it's the Jetsons' dinner table. You've got it.
MOLINEAUX: All right, Daniel Zalewski with the "New York Times."
Thank you very much.
Good to have you with us this morning.
ZALEWSKI: Thank you. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
