A Look At Hot New Innovations Of 2003; Prescription Medications Could Cause Enviornmental Problems Through Sewer System; Iraq May Be Proving Grounds For Al Qaeda Training With Surface-to-Air Missiles
DANIEL SEIBERG, CNN ANCHOR: I'm daniel sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN, from a new kind of space craft to a DNA lab for your kids, we'll check out the hottest innovations of 2003. Also, medicines from Prozac to Zantac pass through people into the sewer system. A new study says the drugs could be causing environmental problems downstream. And the furthest man made object in space marks a milestone this week. All that and more on Next. This week, we're at New York's Grand Central Station taking a look at what "Popular Science" magazine calls the best of what's new. By the way, "Popular Science" magazine is owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner. The editors there chose their top 100 innovations of the year. And throughout the show, we'll show you some of the more interesting ones. Let's take a look. I'm joined by Suzanne Kantra, the technology editor at "Popular Science" magazine. Now, Suzanne, this is a real page turner, but it's not designed to help you read while you're in bed is it?</s>SUZANNE KANTRA, "POPULAR SCIENCE": It certainly isn't. The Curtis Book Scan (ph) is developed for putting more materials on the Web. It digitizes it automatically, unlike the other devices out there; 1200 pages per hour and it doesn't require an operator to be doing that manual page turning.</s>SIEBERG: All right, we're going to close the book on that one and move over here. People might be familiar with the chemistry sets when they were a kid, but this seems a little bit more high tech than that.</s>KANTRA: It's much more high tech. People are much more aware of DNA and what the implications of that are and now kids can get into the act. This has a centrifuge which spins out the sample. And then once you get that sample prepared it actually goes into this chamber here and pulls out the strand of DNA. It's called the DNA Explorer from Discovery Kids and it's under $100, so it's sort of a fun thing for your budding scientist.</s>SIEBERG: All right, we're going move on from that discovery over to one that allows you to purify water. Now, why would somebody need to use this?</s>KANTRA: There are a couple of reasons why you would want to use the Myax (ph) Purifier. One is, sometimes you get a boil water order when there's been a power outage or something like that. We're also seeing the purifier being used over in Afghanistan and abroad. It can kill off things like cryptosporidium. It can neutralize anthrax, nerve gas. So this is a very powerful device. And it works with just an electric charge, salt and water. Couldn't be simpler.</s>SIEBERG: Wow. And very portable, obviously, as well. Well Suzanne Kantra, technology editor of "Popular Science" magazine, thanks so much for joining us.</s>KANTRA: Thank you.</s>SIEBERG: We'll show you more of the best of what's new throughout the prog. First, though, some of the week's more serious news. U.S. military investigators still aren't sure who fired the surface-to-air missile that shot down a chinook helicopter last week end, killing 15. Now, certainly al Qaeda linked terrorists operating in Iraq are on the suspect list. Mike Boettcher examines al Qaeda's love affair with surface-to-air missiles and what it might mean for aircraft both inside and outside Iraq.</s>MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): April 11, special forces hunt for and find stashes of surface-to-air missiles in southern Iraq. The missiles are stacked and explosive charges are set. That cache of SAM 7 surface-to-air missiles is rendered useless. However, U.S. military sources say thousands of the lethal Iraqi weapons have never been found. U.S. forces in Iraq are concerned that they are in the hands of the Iraqi insurgery and al Qaeda backed jihadists who might use them outside of Iraq. The latter group concerns al Qaeda analysts like London based M.J. Gohel (ph).</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have a great deal of experience in using this particular weapon and with lethal effect.</s>BOETTCHER: al Qaeda's experience with SAM's is extensive. Guerrilla warriors the Arab Mujahadeen, the eventual core of al Qaeda, used U.S. supplied stinger missiles to turn the tide of the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Al Qaeda says it was between the 1993 shootdown of U.S. helicopters in Somalia, although that was with rocket propelled grenades. The videotape archives of al Qaeda, recovered by CNN last year, included a comprehensive instruction video in the use of surface-to- air missiles. Al Qaeda tested SAM's in Afghanistan. And al Qaeda's supported Chechen insurgents who have been using SAM's to shoot down Russian helicopters, are trying to stockpile the weapons, according to Gojel (ph).</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are trying to collect these weapons. And many are being used against the Russian forces in Chechnya and others are finding their way out into other countries.</s>BOETTCHER: One of the world's leading experts in improvised explosive devices who helped analyze CNN's al Qaeda tapes, fears that Iraq, like Chechnya, is becoming a weapons laboratory for al Qaeda.</s>TONY VILLA, EXPLOSIVES EXPERT: It's my feeling that they are using these areas as proving grounds to refine their tactics and bring that to the United States.</s>BOETTCHER: Although an immediate threat to U.S. forces in Iraq, surface-to-air missiles already have the attention of the world's airlines. Suspected al Qaeda terrorists narrowly missed shooting down an Israeli airliner a year ago in Kenya and tried to use another in Saudi Arabia. And al Qaeda adapts after failures.</s>VILLA: They have a propensity of going back to to the targets they failed to hit the first time or take out, and that those same targets are going to be revisited by al Qaeda.</s>BOETTCHER (on camera): The concern now among coalition counterterrorism officials is not just surface-to-air missiles in Iraq, but those in the hands of al Qaeda terrorists elsewhere in the world.</s>SIEBERG: Another concern for the U.S. military is the state of the country's spy satellites. Some experts question whether the next generation of satellites will be ready when they're needed. David Ensor has the story.</s>DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As U.S. intelligence showed off at a recent trade fair, America's spy satellites were crucial in Iraq and Afghanistan. Keeping and improving the strategic advantage they provide could be critical. But critics, including the Pentagon's own Defense Science Board, warn that the program to field the next generation of satellites is behind schedule, over budget and as the board said bluntly, quote, "not executable."</s>STEVEN AFTERGOOD, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: Not executable is a fancy way of saying it won't work. And, of course, that's a serious problem.</s>LOREN THOMPSON, LEXINGTON INSTITUTE: We're facing the possibility of a spy satellite gap. If our existing satellites stop working before the new ones are in orbit, then, of course, we're going to have a problem collecting this type of intelligence.</s>ENSOR: Knowledgeable sources say the program has suffered satellite failures, drastic cost overruns, launch failures, all of which would have been front page news if they had been public, but the estimated $25 billion program is top secret, and intelligence chiefs have worked hard to keep many of the problems out of the public eye.</s>KEITH HALL, V.P., BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON: I don't think there's much of a risk of the nation going blind.</s>ENSOR: Former National Reconnaissance Office director Keith Hall says there may be a reduction in spy satellite capability for a while, but he says there will still be enough. Hall headed the NRO back in the '90s, when Boeing's bid on the massive contract to build the next generation of satellites was accepted. All the pressure then, he says, was to cut costs.</s>HALL: In order to free up the funds to do the development work, we had to stop buying the older satellites.</s>ENSOR: The current NRO director and undersecretary of the Air Force, Peter Teets, was unavailable for an interview. But after scaling down and adding $4 billion to the budget of what is the most expensive intelligence program in history, he recently said that, quote, "I have reasonable confidence we're going to have a successful program."</s>SIEBERG: Microsoft and several law enforcement agencies are declaring war on cyber criminals. On Wednesday the company announced a $5 million program to help catch people to release viruses, worms and other malicious programs on the Internet. The first 2 awards are aimed at the creators of programs taht caused problems earlier this year.</s>BRAD SMITH, VP MICROSOFT: Microsoft is offering 1 reward of a quarter million dollars for information that results in the arrest and conviction of those responsible for launching the MS Blast-A worm. The blaster worm was designed to Attack microsoft's windows update dot com Web site, which provides fixes to protect computer users against attacks. And Microsoft is offering a second reward of a quarter million dollars for information that results in the arrest and conviction of those responsible for launching the Sobig Virus. This virus attacked individual machines and e-mailed itself to each e-mail address in a computer's contact list.</s>SIEBERG: Microsoft is working with the FBI, Secret Service and Interpol in the effort to bring the writers of malicious code to justice.</s>ANNOUNCER: Coming up, fish on Paxil. The fish may be happy. Who knows? But in the long run, it could be bad news for the entire eco system. And later in the show, cats have gone to the dogs. We'll introduce you to a new breed of kitty.