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NEXT@CNN
Concorde Makes Its Final Voyage; A Look At Next Generation Hand Held Computers; A Look At High-Tech Clothes That Could Save Your Life
Aired October 25, 2003 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, I'm Erica Hill. Today on NEXT@CNN it's the end of an era as the Concorde makes its final commercial flight. Coming up next, we'll tell you about that and visit some folks who traveled to Heathrow to say a found farewell.
Then after the half-hour, we'll show you futuristic devices that someday may help you negotiate unfamiliar cities or even tell you about the people you meet.
And with Halloween coming up at the end of our program, we'll take a look at some flying animals who are in need of a good PR agency. All that and more and more on Next.
The world's only supersonic airliner is now just a part of aviation history. The last commercial flight of the Concorde ended at Heathrow Airport on Friday after a three and a half hour trip from New York's JFK Airport.
The economic down turn forced British Airways to retire its Concorde fleet. Air France, the only other airline to use the Concorde stopped its flights earlier this year. The final touchdown drew a huge crowd, but Concorde fans have been flocking to Heathrow all week as Diana Muriel reports.
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just what is it that has brought this crowd to the outskirts of Europe's busiest airport to wait for up to five hours in the chilled wind of an English Autumn day? The answer, Concorde. On final approach before she dips her nose cone for the last time on October the 24th. Concorde enthusiasts it seems, come in all shames and sizes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concorde is the best.
FIONA SUMNER, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: I come out here for a lot with my little boy who's got Asperger's syndrome, and he gets to be taken to the airports, and so we come out here quite a lot. But, knowing that it's the last week the Concorde flying, we've seen it once this morning and we're back out here this after noon to see it land.
MURIEL: Matt and Tony are making a 260 mile round trip from the English Midlands to see the plane. And say, they'll be back.
TONY MARCH, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: It's only really Concorde that's brought me out of the house. I'll be back down on Thursday and Friday to see the final.
MURIEL: And this is what it's all about. A shared sense of wonder at an extraordinary aircraft.
MATT CLARKE, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: Where else can you have tea and see the sunsetting and then go over to New York and see it all over again when you walk around Manhattan. It's amazing really.
PATRICIA BAILEY, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: I think it's so terribly sad that it's going, I really do. I think it's very sad for the country. I just love it. Unfortunately I've never been on it, but I love it.
MURIEL: But others, like mother of two, Kinga Petrusewicz, Concorde is a part of her life. She first saw Concorde when she was five.
KINGA PETRUSEWICZ, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: It's peaceful and I've loved it ever since, because it comes over our house every day and I wanted these two to come and see the plane as well.
HILL: The Concorde may be history, but other long distance jets are still on the horizon. Andrew Brown reports on a couple of new planes that will be able to fly from Singapore to New York nonstop.
ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Soon airbus planes like this one will be able to fly from Singapore, in the heart of south east Asia, to Los Angeles and New York without stopping. The aircraft will bypass airports in Asia where previously they touched down to refuel and change aircrews. Boeing has also entered the long distance race, Recently unveiling the GE-90 jet engine which will be used to power Boeing's own ultimate long haul aircraft.
MARC BIRTEL, BOEING: These are the newest and most powerful jet engines in the world. And they have proven to be very capable.
BROWN: Two planes are set to push the limits of long haul travel. The airbus A-340-500 which is designed to carry 313 passengers, 16,450 kilometers. And Boeing's 777-200 LR which promises to fly 301 passengers nearly 17,000 kilometers. On paper Boeing will be able to fly 533 kilometers further, but the company can't deliver 200 LR till 2006. While the first airbus A-340-500s will begin operating this year.
(on camera): So what does this mean for the humble customer? Well, bear in mind, some of the most modern aircraft currently in service can fly for 16 hours nonstop. Now, the next generation of ultra long haul planes, they could extend flight time to 19 hours.
(voice-over): That sounds daunting, particularly if you're sitting in coach, where space is limited. Airlines have already begun beefing up lumbar supports in seats, improving foot rests and entertainment systems, and on this Cathay Pacific Airbus which can stay aloft for 15 hours they've also reduced the passenger payload.
ROBERT CUTLER, CATHAY PACIFIC: It normally carries about 280 passengers. We've configured it to only carry 288 (sic).
BROWN: And even though long haul flights are tiring, airline analysts say passengers far prefer nonstop travel. The other side of the world has never been closer.
HILL: Something else that shows what a small world this is, the spy satellite. A lot of companies offer ways to spy from the sky. David Ensor has more now from New Orleans and the largest ever trade fair of unclassified satellite imagery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Able to meet diverse threats around the world.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a classic high-tech trade fair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anywhere a satellite can see or an airline fly, we will provide the data for.
ENSOR: But there's a catch. Companies are hawking their wares in New Orleans mostly to just one customer, the U.S. government. And most of the work they hope to get is secret.
Does that mean that the CIA's using this technology?
DAVID RIDLEY, VP, METACARTA: I can't comment on that, unfortunately.
ENSOR: Having failed, thus far, to find Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. intelligence community knows it needs all the help it can get. So does the Bush administration.
STEPHEN CAMBONE, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We need to know something about everything all the time.
ENSOR: Most of what's on offer here is software designed to mine the vast quantities of top secret satellite pictures and intercepts gathered by U.S. spy satellites or aircraft, manned and unmanned.
A key new factor, too, are the new private satellite companies that are now getting permission to take pictures of ever better resolution. Which makes all the difference.
AL LEAGUE, MIMA OFFICIAL: This is six-inch resolution imagery versus one meter resolution imagery.
ENSOR: Dramatically different.
LEAGUE: It is. It creates an entirely new perspective to decision makers to war fighters.
LT. GEN. JAMES CLAPPER, (RET). MIMA DIRECTOR: We were heavily dependant on our industrial colleagues to do a lot of our work. And that trend will continue. ENSOR (on camera): This is an example of an item that might actually be in use soon by military and intelligence officers, perhaps in the next phase in the war on terrorism. It's e-mail, it's a cell phone, it will be on the market soon. But if you are that intelligence officer, it's much more than that, you can key in to satellite pictures of what could be your target that night.
UNIDENTIIFIED MALE: Boeing is developing intelligent software.
ENSOR (voice-over): The big private industry players and many more are gearing up for billions of dollars in government contracts that are so secret in many cases the companies will never know how their products will be used.
HILL: Of course satellites also do a lot of less than secret stuff. Coming up next, NASA satellites reveal an alarming loss of ice in the arctic.
And later, hand helds are getting handier. They'll do anything from take a picture to play a song. We'll take a look at some of the latest models to hit the market.
(COMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: Temperature in the Arctic have gone up in the past 20 years, causing ice to melt and water to get warmer. And the effects of warming at the top of the world may soon be felt all over. Natalie Paweski has the story.
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty years of satellite data helped NASA scientists get their best look yet at changes in Arctic ice. From 1981-2001, you see a lot less ice, a lot more open water at the top of the Earth. Ice that survives year round called sea ice is melting at a rate of 9 percent per decade.
WALEED ABDALATI, NASA: In the last few hundred years, about 400 years, the temperatures we're seeing now are really unprecedented.
PAWELSKI: Not only are the average temperatures getting warmer, but they are staying warm for more days of the year.
ABDALATI: There can be winners and there can be losers in that change, but the best way to try and come out a winner is to understand what's happening.
PAWELSKI: Should the warming continue, it could lead to changes from everything to where the polar bears play to when cargo ships set sail. Routes usually clogged by ice could be replaced open by water.
DAVID RIND, NASA: If ice really does continue to disappear in the Artic, then trade between Eastern Asia and Europe and North America will become much easier.
PAWELSKI: But a warmer Arctic could also threaten a way of life for native people. MIKE STEELE, OCEANOGRAPHER: Hunting of marine animals tends to occur on sea ice, using sea ice as a platform. When that sea ice retreats it affects the communities up there.
PAWELSKI: Communities further south could be affected too. Shifting weather patterns could change what farmers can plant and when. Scientists are not sure if the arctic warming is simply a natural occurrence, or if it's triggered by man made greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere. Either way they say, people will need to find ways of adapt.
ABDALATI: As to who should perk up at that, a lot of people. There are many aspects of this change that are of importance to other scientific disciplines, ocean biologists. It's so far-reaching that it really, I think, deserves attention from people at all interested in the Earth's system in its entirety or various components of it.
ANNOUNCER: Still to come on NEXT@CNN, you don't have to be mistro to make music with the wave of an arm. We'll give you a digital music lesson.
And later, a crew change for the International Space Station.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Three cloned mules. Three cloned mules. See how they'll run. See how they'll run. Cloned from the stock of champion mules, they're the first equine clones to be trained and schooled to run races against all the other mules, they're three cloned mules.
Researchers at the University of Idaho and Utah State University say these cloned mules, months apart in age, are genetically identical. All born this summer healthy doing fine.
The president of the Mule Racing Association funded this clone procedure. Researchers will now track the mules' progress as they're prepped for racing.
It's undecided yet if they'll be trained and treated differently than each other as a way to study whether breeding versus nurture determines a winner.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they're off!
KELLAN: Two of their older brothers, not clones, are champions. One just won this race. Will these clones be able to keep up the pace? And will cloning be determined a good tool to make other champion mules? And should these three in the same race vie because they're the same? Will it end in a tie? Three cloned mules. Ann Kellen, CNN, Atlanta.
HILL: A flood of next generation hand held computers is hitting the market just in time for the holidays. And these PDAs do a heck of a lot more than just organize. Technology correspondent Daniel Seeburg is here to help us decide if it's time to upgrade to some more entertaining handhelds.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Just organizing, that's so 1997.
HILL: Isn't it?
SIEBERG: Yes.
HILL: So old school.
SIEBERG: Now it's not just three in one, it's 10 in one. It's just about everything you can imagine in a PDA. And they are multimedia PDAs. And if you don't feel like you need something like that, well, you might be right with what you've got.
Let's start, first of all, with one thing people are familiar with PDAs and that's the Palm. They've put out a number of different new letters, this is the Tungsten E. It's sort of a step up from the number of Palms that are out there, some other Tungstens that are out there. It allows you to play some multimedia files, store things on there, little bit admonish memory. So, it's a higher end Palm product that's out there.
HILL: At the higher end of their range, it's going to be more expense This one you said was about, $300?
SIEBERG: Yes. About $200 for this one.
HILL: OK. So, it's something to keep in mind.
Moving down the line, Hand Spring which is going to be moving back with Palm, they have an interesting history the two companies. This is they're latest version of the Trio which first came out a couple years ago. This is a much slimmer version, much more manageable.
SIEBERG: More manageable, but a lot of stuff packed into this. They put just about everything they can imagine in there. You can see there's a digital camera in it, there's the ability to play multimedia files, there's more memory. This little keyboard down here. It's also a phone. Remember the last one had a flip top on it, they tried to make this one look more like a phone and less like a large organizer with the flip top.
So, that's the two. But again higher end, about $600, upgrade prices and service prices as well.
HILL: Okay. Moving on, this one, not a phone, but it does have gaming capabilities. This is the Zodiac. I'll give this to you.
SIEBERG: Right, this is the Zodiac from a from a company called Tap Wave, which is a startup company that formed a couple years ago. They're really trying to compete with Nintendo's Gameboy, although it is more expensive. Gameboy $100, this one $300.
You can see here, it actualy runs on the Palm operating system. It operates with bluetooth, so if you want to play games with somebody near by, you can do that. There's also all of these different organizing features. And they're trying to offer you the gaming experience, that's really the key with this. A little bit bigger screen than the Gameboy as well.
HILL: So if you want to game and organize...
SIEBERG: Game and organize...
HILL: ...might be a good idea.
SIEBERG: No phone, but again, all those features involved.
HILL: But one that does have the phone, the Nokia Ngage. And this one came out recently. I'll give this one to you.
SIEBERG: Yes, this is Nokia's Ngage and they are also trying to compete with Gameboy on the same level, but again, a little bit more expensive. This one has the phone features as well as the gaming features.
Now they part engineered with software companies, like Eidos, theyr're offering Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. That's part of their -- they want to get the name recognition out there. Bluetooth as well so you can play nearby and play anybody in the world.
Some of the complaints, though, change the games takes a little bit of work, cumbersome. That's one of the complaints. If you don't feel like you need all these features, you might be all right with what you've got.
HILL: Good to look at them. Thank you, Daniel Seeburg, our technology correspondent. One thing these handhelds can't do yet anway, is compose music out of the thin air. But there is some technology that may be able to do that. Kristie Lu Stout tunes in.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One part Tai Chi, one part air guitar. This is the Body Brush, technology that creates art by tracking the body's movements.
(on camera): Thee last time I visited the Body Brush Project was about two years ago, but it's evolved to not only include visual elements but sound as well.
Whoa there it is. Tell me, what is what you call the Body Baton? Tell me about how does it works and what it is?
PROF. HORACE IP, CITY UNIVERSITY: The Body Baton is a technology that generates sound in music based on your body movement and gesture.
STOUT: So, if I wave my hands up here, I create sound and here as well. But how is this effect produced?
IP: OK. So in this room here, we have two cameras, one on the ceiling, and one on the side of the room, and a bank of infrared lamps that shines on you. The sysmtem will pick up your body gesture and your body movement and translates it into sound.
STOUT: In fact, height and width control two different elements of music, doesn't it?
IP: That's right. If you raise your hand up, you'll have a high frequency sound. f you open up your arms, the volume of the sound will increase. And if you close your body the volume of the sound will decrease.
STOUT: And when will this technology be ready to leave the lab?
IP: The technology's ready now. We have a dancer and a musician and hope to bring this technology to create new performance.
STOUT: Now, would you mind if I cut loose myself and try to experiment right now?
IP: Sure.
STOUT: Okay, I'll give it a shot.
(SOUNDS)
ANNOUNCER: Let's lots more in our next half-hour, including computerized wearable gadgets that could someday make life easier for all of us.
And later, new meaning for the phrase by the seat of your pants.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. When you think of an electronic device do you picture something you carry around in your hand or maybe hook to your belts? My friends, that is so last year. There's a new generation of gadgets out there made to be worn. Ann Kellan has the story.
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ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Put this on and go for a nature walk with a cartoon character. How about surfing the web on your belt buckle?
PAUL LUKOWICZ, WEARABLE COMPUTING LAB, ETH ZURICH: And, we put the whole computer onto the belt buck and we use the belt and chassis for connectors and battery and some of the cables.
KELLAN: Just some of the latest in wearable computer fashion featured at this annual show in New York.
ANDREW BEHAR, VIVOMETRICS: The LifeShirt is basically an intensive care unit in a shirt.
KELLAN: This vest monitors and records your every breath, and much more.
BEHAR: All of it's displayed here, on the screen. These wave forms are actually a breath. Each one of these, this bottom would be where your -- you're inhaling, and then you exhale.
KELLAN: Even if you can afford the $10,000 price tag, you still need a doctor to prescribe this vest. But, less expensive version for everyone should be available in a couple of years.
This computer from Charmed is designed to wear.
WILLIAM RACHELSON, CHARMED: It's about the same as a laptop, but you can carry it around with you.
KELLAN (on camera): How heavy is it?
RACHELSON: It's about 1.5 pounds. The monitor's is actually a small eyepiece that you that you can wear, snaps on your glasses. The image is overlaid on your left eye.
KELLAN (voice-over): And type commends with one hand.
RACHELSON: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and then you chord to get I, J, K.
KELLAN: Other lightweight computers are going head to head with pocket PC's. This one, by TIQIT, packs the power of a low end laptop with a pocket PC interface.
VAUGHAN PHATT, TIQIT: And, the value of this is greatest outdoors where it's so inconvenient to lug a big laptop around.
KELLAN: The MetaPad from IBM has no interface.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not constrained by one shape, like a laptop or a desktop.
KELLAN: It can be inserted in everything from portable devices to a full blown system, available in the next couple of months.
Most of the gadgets here aren't ready for primetime. This computer in a watch by IBM runs the Linux operation system. It's still in available.
(on camera): And, what's this on your ear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a Metrophone (PH) which can detectS both that I'm speaking or, other kind of ambience properties.
KELLAN: Carnegie Mellon is developing a smart cell phone connected to sensors that you wear on your arm. It will track whether you're running, walking, or driving the car. When the phone rings it will alert a caller that you're too busy and to call back if it's an emergency. Some gizmos will take years to develop while others will never make their way out of the virtual woods.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, we'll show you why a Kentucky town thinks spree spending tourists will come to see a hole in the ground.
JOSHUA MACHT, MANAGING EDITOR, TIME.COM: As more and more folks want to get online with high-speed connections, one of the options available to them is WiFi. And, what that is, really simply, is a wireless connection to the internet. The basic things you need to setup a WiFi network are the WiFi antennas for your laptop or your PC's and you're also going to need to purchase a wireless router so that your PC's or laptops can communicate or get online.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: The EPA has decided not to monitor a common fertilizer for some chemicals that may cause cancer. The fertilizer is sewage sludge, the suspected carcinogen is dioxin. But, the government says the risk is so low, it doesn't need monitoring.
Peter Viles has the story.
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PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Industry groups like to call it bio-solids, but it is sewage sludge and under EPA guidelines more than 3 million metric tons is spread on farmland every year, but the EPA will no longer monitor sludge for dioxins, highly toxic chemicals that seep into sewage from various industrial uses. Environmental groups have been fighting the EPA's sludge policies since the 1980s and criticized the decision on dioxins.
NANCY STONER, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: The current cancer risk is estimated to be about one in 10,000. EPA usually regulates at one in a million. So, we already have 100 times too much cancer risk from dioxin. The dioxin in sewage sludge is the second largest source of dioxin in the United States.
VILES: In its ruling the EPA said levels of dioxins in sludge have declined since the late 80's. And even in the highest risk groups, farm families, that use sewage sludge to fertilize their fields, and eat a diet mainly of their own crops, the dioxins in sludge would cause one new cancer death in 300 years.
GEOFFREY GRUBBS, EPA: In the final analysis we don't regulate for regulations sake. We need to look at what the real risk to people is. And in this case, as we look at the new cancer cases that could be caused by this particular source, if it were to be isolated, they are extremely small.
VILES: The EPA still requires monitoring of levels of heavy metals in sewage sludge, including lead, arsenic, and mercury. But remember, the federal government doesn't pay for that monitoring, your local government does.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HILL: A new crew is setting up shop on the International Space Station. The current crew will board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for fiery a ride home on Monday. In May, when the last crew came home, they came in steeper than expected, landing 300 miles short of their target, and for two hours no one heard from them. Fortunately, it was in fact a happy, though tense, landing.
Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien spoke with the current crew and one of their successors.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Gentlemen, thanks very much for joining us. There on board the Destiny Science Laboratory. Ed Lu, you're headed back, I asked you a few questions last time we chatted about what you'd missed and so forth, just curious, one more time, about your thoughts on the descent in the Soyuz module. Any lingering concerns you might have given what happened to Sox and Pettit on the last go around.
ED LU, ASTRONAUT: It's quite unlikely that it's going to happen again, but even though it is unlikely, the rescue forces are prepared to wait for us in both locations. So, even if it does happen, we think it will be fairly quick before they pick us up.
O'BRIEN: All right. Yuri Malenchenko, one little thing that happened to you during the six-month stint among many notable things is you got married.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yuri, if you will, for me. Repeat after me.
O'BRIEN: Tell me about your plans, once you get on the ground, with your new bride. Will you have a chance to see her and what are the honeymoon plans?
YURI MALENCHENKO, ASTRONAUT (through translator): We'll start living together like a family, and after the landing, we will have quite a few things to do. Pretty much all over the world, and then after that we'll see. I'm sure that it will be wonderful.
O'BRIEN: All right. Pass it on over to Mike Foale. What are you drinking right now, is it happy hour up there?
MIKE FOALE, ASTRONAUT: Oh, if you will forgive my informality, I am drinking tea, as most people who grew up in Great Britain would be wanting to do at about this time of our day. And so, as I talk to you I'm enjoying Earl Gray tea out of a packet that is full of bubbles and a tea bags and some sugar. No milk of course, but that's not so bad, I got used to that in Russia.
O'BRIEN: When you came into the International Space Station, your previous space station experience, of course, was on MIR, did it feel and smell and sound alike in some ways or is it drastically different?
FOALE: This station is not like MIR, it is far more complicated and advanced. Because of the partnership that's been used to create it.
O'BRIEN: Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us from the Destiny Science Module. We appreciate your time. And Mike Foale, good luck on your six-month odyssey that lies ahead, Yuri and Ed have a good trip home, and we'll see you soon, we hope.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: Back home, 300 million years ago, a meteor slammed into what's now Kentucky making a crater four miles across. Well, whatever creatures lived there at the time it was obviously a bad thing. But, the people who live in the area now are working to turn it into a positive.
Bruce Burkhardt reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILLIAM WATSON, LAWYER: It is a wide, green valley shaped by a meteor eons ago.
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): William Watson, lawyer in Middlesboro, Kentucky, was inspired to write a poem.
Judy Barton was inspired to promote tourism for this mining town that'd better days.
JUDY BARTON, DIR. BELL COUNTY TOURISM COMMISSION: I doubt that they've ever been to a town with a crater, have you?
BURKHARDT: Well, most around here have known it, for some time, it was just recently made official by geologists, Middlesboro, Kentucky, is built inside a meteor crater, believed to be the only town in the country with such an honor.
TOM SHATTUCK, TOUR GUIDE: It is fascinating, isn't it?
BURKHARDT: Tom Shattuck, gives tours through the historic Cumberland gap, right next door to Middlesboro. It's the passageway to the West blazed by Daniel Boone and other early pioneers.
SHATTUCK: Really a historical spot. And just think, a meteorite right next to it, how about that?
BURKHARDT: 300 million years ago, we can only imagine what it must have been like, well, and do a low budget recreation. Well, that's one way of looking at it. This might be a better way. Geologist Keith Milam demonstrates using a paintball gun, a tray full of flour, and coffee grounds on top.
KEITH MILAM, GEOLOGIST: OK. So, here you can see we've got an excavated crater and you also that we have the white stuff, the flour being thrown up from below.
BURKHARDT: The geologists figure the center of the impact was here at the golf course. A 1500-foot wide rock making a cosmic hole in one.
MILAM: These are called shatter cones. They're little cones that are formed by the shock wave passing through the rock.
BURKHARDT: And across town...
MILAM: And you can see a really good example of folded rock right here.
BURKHARDT (on camera): Which speaks to an explosion and collapsing rock.
MILAM: Right, absolutely. And, you need something very big, very powerful to create this.
BURKHARDT: Big meteor.
MILAM: Absolutely. Exactly.
BURKHARDT: Boom!
BURKHARDT (voice-over): Now that it's been officially established, Middlesboro, town in crater, life will never be the same.
(on camera): How is life different for you now that you know you're in a crater?
SHATTUCK: No different.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): All right, so maybe it will be the same. But at least now, it would seem, the town is meteor-proof. I mean, what are the odds that another meteor would hit the same spot?
Do you ever worry about another meteor hitting here?
BARTON: I hope not while I'm here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Just ahead a child prodigy you might call a real life Dougy Houser M.D.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: Nylon has certainly become an indispensable part of society. Now, there's invention that one designer says will also change the way we live. It's a pair of trousers with built in seat. Wherever you are, if you're tired of standing, you just sit down. The designer, a graduate of London's Royal College of Art won't say how the pants work, but he says he made the first pair in just three hours. He says he's negotiating to develop the idea commercially.
Another unusual creation, this one in Brazil. Plastic bottles make up the walls and furniture of this house. It all started several years ago when the homeowner began cleaning up bottles from a nearby beach in Rio de Janeiro. He soon recruited neighborhood children in his recycling effort in exchange for food, clothes, shelter, and a lesson in good citizenship.
There are lots of brilliant people in the world. Some study hard to make the grade, others are just born that way. CNN's Kitty Pilgrim has a story of one of these prodigies, a medical student who is just 12 years old.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Sho Yano. Yes, he is a musical prodigy, but that is not the full story. He was reading at the age of two. His preschool IQ test was beyond measure. His mother and father met in the United States when they were students. His mother, Kyung, is Korean, his father, Katsura, is Japanese. Sho was born in Oregon, and as a toddler he was reading anything he could get his hands on, including science. Schools couldn't keep up with him so his mother devoted her days to home schooling him with his sister, Sayuri. But soon his mom couldn't keep up.
KYUNG YANO, SHO'S MOTHER: Algebra one and Algebra two, like it's crazy, I was telling Sho, "Show, slow down" because I needed time to prepare.
PILGRIM: But, as a true genius, Sho could not explain why it came so easily.
KYUNG YANO: I always tried to solve the questions and he would watch and he said "mom, you know, I have a better idea" and he already could have solve it. So, "Hey, how did you find out?" He said, "I don't know, just I know it, just some kind of idea popped." so I said, "Ohh, that's wonderful."
PILGRIM: Sho went to college when most children are finishing grade school. Then on to medical school, age 12. But there's more.
(on camera): Here at the University of Chicago, Sho is in the medical program. But, has also started his PhD.
(voice-over): He's combining the four year medical program with a PhD in medical research. He thinks he wants to pursue cancer research. The average age of medical students in this country, 24 years old.
SHO YANO, PRODIGY: I know I'm different from the rest of the kids and I feel it and they feel it, too. But, we're just fine and when we're studying, we can ignore the age difference. When we're not studying, it doesn't really bother us.
PILGRIM: When other students will go on next year to work with patients, Sho will not, not because he doesn't have the skill, but he looks so young. So, he thinks he will continue his PhD studies until he looks a little older. His mother will stay with him every step of the way. After all, he is a child.
KYUNG YANO: Do you feel cold?
SHO YANO: Oh, yeah.
PILGRIM: Sho's little sister is in the eighth grade, Sayuri is also a musical prodigy in piano and violin. But, they don't know which direction she will take. Sho is philosophical about her deciding on the career.
SHO YANO: It takes a long time to decide what you want to do in anyone.
PILGRIM: 12 years?
SHO YANO: Yeah.
PILGRIM: Sho says even now he still loves music; he still would like to squeeze in a class in musical composition. Somehow, we see him doing it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, bats, why some people are trying to save them while others are scared to death of them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: Bats may give you the creeps, especially with Halloween coming up, but experts will tell you, these timid creatures are getting a bum rap. Some researchers are trying to change people's perceptions of the flying mammals and are working to preserve bat habitats across the country. Natalie Pawelski explains.
NATALIE PAWELSKI CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As animals go, bats have a pretty scary image.
GABBY CALL, NATURE CONSERVANCY: I think that bats elicit the same kind of response in people as snakes do.
PAWELSKI: An image that's taken a beating in pop culture. On the big screen in movies like "Dracula" where the villainous vampire becomes a bat. And, on the small screen where they add cartoon creepiness on shows like "Scooby-Doo."
CALL: The Dracula myth does not help and the sucking blood thing doesn't help either.
PAWELSKI: To set the record straight, researchers say, vampire bats, which don't live in the United States, usually sip blood from livestock, not people. And, while we're myth busting, bats don't carry rabies any more than any other species of mammal. They're not blind as a bat, and they don't make a habit of getting tangled in people's hair. Thanks to their sonar-like navigation system, which helps them steer clear of obstacles.
HEATHER GARLAND, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: Some bats are pretty clumsy and they'll just fly around and not pay a whole lot of attention to what they're doing and then suddenly there's something in their way that they're detecting and fly very quickly to get out of the way.
PAWELSKI (on camera): Despite their frightening reputation, bats are a lot less dangerous to people than people are to bats. Half of America's bat species are in decline, largely because of habitat loss and human interference.
CALL: People will go into a cave and will actually kill the bats on purpose, using blow torches, chunks of mud, throwing rocks at them.
PAWELSKI (voice-over): So, conservation groups have installed protective bat gates at hundreds of caves across the country, one of the biggest blocks in entrance to Hubbard's Cave in Tennessee, a key wintering spot for endangered gray bats. People can visit the cave during the summer months and that's when research goes on here, too. But starting in September, when the bats get ready to hibernate, the cave is closed. That keeps the bats from waking up and using up energy at a time of year when there aren't any insects around for them to eat.
GARLAND: You can wake up a whole colony, they can literally starve to death during hibornation.
PAWELSKI: Since the Nature Conservancy gated Hubbard's Cave its bat population has risen from about 20,000 to about 120,000. One small success story for an animal whose reputation is much worse than its bite.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: A graveyard at midnight is usually a dark and gloomy place, but that could soon change. An Austria company is selling glow in the dark gravestones. Now, the graves look normal during day, but glows during the night running on solar power. The headstones come with a digital display that relatives can program with messages. Two of the graves have already been sold, the standard single version costs about $6,000. Kind of expensive and a little creepy.
That's going to do it for this week, here's a look at what's coming up next weekend.
The violent reality of Special Forces in action becomes a video game fantasy world, begins a recruiting tool for the military and the latest version is about to be released. That's coming up on NEXT.
Until then, let us hear from you. You can e-mail us at next@cnn.com, and don't forget to check out our website cnn.com/next. Thanks so much for joining us this week. For all of us, I'm Eric Hill, see you NEXT time.
END
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