A Look at Military Uniform of the Future
WHITFIELD: A dramatic scene off the coast of Oregon today: A charter vessel capsized, killing at least nine people. One person is missing. Seven other people were treated and released, and an aide remains hospitalized. The boat capsized in 10- to 15-foot swells near Oregon's Tillamook Bay. A U.S. military official tells CNN today that the coalition's Operation Peninsula Strike has netted 2,300 Iraqis. The operation is targeting loyalists to Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party. Also at this hour, another member of the deck of cards of the most wanted Hussein loyalists is in custody. Monkeypox may have spread to the state of Missouri. Health officials there say the victim is a 38-year-old man who bought a prairie dog at Phil's Pocket Pet Store in Villa Park, Illinois. Several infected prairie dogs were sold at that Illinois store. The Missouri man began showing symptoms of monkeypox after his prairie dog became ill and died. More top stories at the top of the hour. Now back to NEXT@CNN. Well, today it's Flag Day, a national holiday, since President Harry Truman designated it so in 1949, the original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that flew over Fort Mahenry -- McHenry and inspired the National Anthem is still intact, but quite fragile. The flag is undergoing a painstaking conservation process at the National Museum of American History. The curator of that project is Marilyn Zoidis and she joins us, now, from a day full of Flag Day festivities in Washington. Good to see you.</s>MARILYN ZOIDIS, CURATOR: Hi. Welcome to the National Museum of American history.</s>WHITFIELD: Well, thanks for letting us get a peek. I see that there are people -- what appear to be, laying down behind you, and they are taking part in this painstaking process of conserving or preserving the flag?</s>ZOIDIS: Yes. Those are members of our conservation team our, Star-Spangled Banner Conservation Team; they are working to save the Star-Spangled Banner for future generations of Americans. As you said, the flag is in fragile condition and it is our job here, at the Smithsonian to make sure that America's treasures are saved for future generations.</s>WHITFIELD: Well, you how are you doing that, because wasn't there an effort already made before to try and preserve this flag, but come to find out, those very efforts were helping to deteriorate the flag?</s>ZOIDIS: Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way. 1914 the Smithsonian embarked on a major preservation effort for the flag, it was state-of-the-art for the time. It was to sew a linen backing to the flag to give it support, the backing was attached to the flag was 1.7 million stitches, the work was done labor-intensively by a group 10 seamstresses and a woman named Amelia Fowler, who resuscitated flags all over the United States, including 172 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.</s>WHITFIELD: Wow.</s>ZOIDIS: The process was very intense, and worked for many, many years. As our understanding of textile conservation has increased over the years, and the flag has become more fragile, just with age, we decided here at the National Museum of American History that we needed to take another look at preserving the Star-Spangled Banner. In 1998, we began the process of taking off the 1914 Fowler treatment, that is some of the work that the conservators were doing, as much in the position you now see them, behind me. Laying on their stomachs, they lean over the flag and remove the 1.7 million stitches on the front side of the flag, they then turn the flag over, took the 1.7 million stitches off the other side of the flag, and then very carefully peeled away the linen backing.</s>WHITFIELD: So Marilyn, while it appears as though the two pair of legs that we see behind you, while those people are actually laying on the flag, they're not really laying directly on the flag, are they? Can you explain exactly how they're doing this?</s>ZOIDIS: No, they're not laying on the flag, that's correct. They're actually mattresses on the gantry, and the conservators are on their stomachs laying over the flag or on their knees, depending on the work they're doing. You can imagine how tiring it is to remain in one position that long over the flag, so they change their positions, so either on their knees or on their stomachs, as they work over the flag.</s>WHITFIELD: And so Marilyn, the objective is not to make this flag look like new again, but you really want to preserve it in its state, and then it will eventually be on display for everyone to enjoy at the Smithsonian, right?</s>ZOIDIS: That's exactly right. We will not make the flag look new, that's not our aim. We don't restore the flag to look as it did when Francis Scott Key saw it on that glorious morning, but we will stabilize the flag so that it will not deteriorate further. We will keep it in a safe room environment, much like it is now, where we control for the light, temperature, and humidity. Then the American people will be able to see their flag for many, many years to come.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, the flag being treated as a jewel that it is. Marilyn Zoidis, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Thanks for the explanation, and hope...</s>ZOIDIS: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: ...with those folks in the back -- get a little break.</s>ZOIDIS: Thank you. Come and see the flag.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Can't wait to see that. All right. Well, scientists say three skulls discovered in Ethiopia are the oldest humans ever found, they say it's a new branch to the human family tree, a significant find and early humans looked and acted a lot like us. Science correspondent, Ann Kellan has the story.</s>ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what many researchers now think our newest and oldest ancestor looked like, based on this 160,000-year-old skull discovered near a small village in Eastern Ethiopia by an international team of researchers led by University of California biologist, Tim White. The most intact fossil found was the skull of a 20 to 30-year-old man. a second adult skull was found in pieces, as was the skull of a 6 or 7-year-old child.</s>TIM WHITE, U.C. BERKELEY: Cleaning those specimens, putting them together, took years, but as the face emerged from the sediment, during this process, we came to see the face of an ancestor.</s>KELLAN: According to White, these skulls belonged to a newly created subspecies called Homo sapiens idaltu, meaning "old man." It's a Homo sapiens, but with a slightly larger skull and braincase and large longer face than modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.</s>WHITE: Very, very large robust male, prominent brow ridges, prominent cheek bones, and this canine fossa, very strong neck muscle attachments on the cranium. These are features only seen in modern humans.</s>KELLAN: The skulls came from decapitated bodies.</s>WHITE: They were keeping the skulls of the dead around and modifying them, long after death, so it's some kind of an earlier ritual behavior that we've come across in these early African populations.</s>KELLAN: Near the skulls, white's group also uncovered tools, some he says used to hunt large game.</s>WHITE: We know from their implements that they were very sophisticated people making large cutting tools that they used to butcher things like hippos. It's opened a window on a time period that we previously had no knowledge in.</s>KELLAN: Ann Kellan, CNN.</s>WHITFIELD: When we come back, panhandling in cyberspace, it's a new way to ask complete strangers for money and help. We'll find out if it works at all.