GlobeNews 3/2000 | Spring Special | Vol.2, No.3 Global citizen! Keep on top of events worldwide: politics, travel, society, environment, technology. Not your nine o'clock news. GlobeNews by Kahl Consultants. STOP! Add a friend to the mailing list: subglobenews-@-kahl.net TABLE OF CONTENTS ---------------------------- ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT | COCHE NO, BICYCLETA SI! SAVE THE WHALES | SUNRISE SUNSET | HOT LAVA | WEB EXPLOSION USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC | PUSS IN ELECTRONIC BOOTS I WANT SPARKY BACK! | GONE HOG WILD | SAVE SNAKE RIVER SALMON GAS PRICES GOING UP ============== THE GOOD NEWS ============== ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT ------------------------------------- HONOLULU (Reuters) - The crew of the Hawaii voyaging canoe Hokule`a was home again on Feb. 27 after sailing more than 14,000 miles (22,400 kms) to Easter Island and back, her crew guided only by the stars and ocean currents. Hokule`a is a wood and fiberglass replica of canoes used by ancient Polynesians to settle the Pacific some 2000 years ago. The canoe left Hawaii June 15 and arrived at Easter Island (Rapa Nui) on Oct. 8. The crew was elated. "The fact that we're bringing Hokule`a home from a very long trip to Rapa Nui is one huge relief that we did it without any injuries," the master navigator said. The Hokule`a has been a potent symbol for Hawaiians since the mid-1970s when its crews proved that ancient Hawaiians could use the stars to navigate the Pacific. Its journeys to Tahiti, New Zealand and the Marquesas Islands revived the ancient art of star navigation and pride in Hawaiian culture. The voyage to Easter Island was considered the last leg in what the canoe's crews call "the Polynesian triangle." Polynesian voyaging was nearly lost in Hawaii before the Hokule`a was built. At the time, there were no Polynesian voyaging canoes and only one deep-sea navigator known to the voyaging society. Today, there are six voyaging canoes -- with more under construction -- and nine navigators. Courses in celestial navigation are taught at schools all over Hawaii. COCHE NO, BICYCLETA SI! ----------------------------------- BOGOTA (Reuters) - Residents of Bogota went to work on bicycles, roller-skates and even in horse-drawn carriages. The city observed a ONE-DAY BAN on the use of private cars as part of an environmental awareness program. The city's pot-holed streets were still clogged with more than 73,000 buses and taxis. And delivery trucks and other commercial vehicles were exempted from the ban, along with the ubiquitous bullet-proof limousines and all-terrain vehicles that diplomats and the wealthy elite use for travel in the Colombian capital. A festive atmosphere reigned as residents of the city -- where an average of nearly 1,100 people are killed in traffic every year -- celebrated the fact that some 665,000 private cars had been pulled off the streets. Most traffic fatalities in Bogota involve pedestrians, who are run down at a rate that would be considered intolerable in most cities around the globe. To show their support for the ban, many Bogotanos rejected motor-driven transport altogether and opted for bikes, in-line skates, skateboards and even horses to get to work or school. They packed dedicated cycle routes set up across the city, or wove in and out of traffic, where many of Bogota's ancient, lumbering buses appeared virtually empty. SAVE THE WHALES ------------------------- Yielding to pressure from environmental groups, Mitsubishi Corp. and the Mexican government are scrapping plans to build a salt works plant near a gray whale breeding area in Baja California. Mitsubishi first proposed the project in 1994. It would have been the largest such salt factory in the world. The decision is a victory to environmentalists worldwide who fought the project. The plant would have harmed one of the last pristine gray whale breeding areas in the world and would have "poisoned" habitat for sea lions, black sea turtles and prong-horned antelope ========== GLOBESITES ========== SUNRISE SUNSET ----------------------- You don't need to be a farmer to want to know when the sun rises and sets in your neighborhood. Here's a site that lets you compute these exact moments! - Sunrise - Sunset - Twilight And it will do it for anywhere in the world on any specified day. You just enter your city name or airport code or latitude. Gotta bookmark it: http://www.mindspring.com/~cavu/sunset.html HOME IMPROVEMENT - AMAZON STYLE ---------------------------------------------------- Amazon.com is now in the HOME IMPROVEMENT business. No more endless mazes and lines at Home Depot. Go online and get your tools (how about a handy leatherman as a gift?) and home renovation products (time to prepare your lawn & garden for summer?)! PLEASE SUPPORT GLOBENEWS by only using this link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/kahlconsultants ========= GlobeNews ========= HOT LAVA -------------- Ninety percent of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans. In 1993, scientists located the largest known concentration of active volcanoes on the sea floor in the South Pacific. This area, the size of New York state, hosts 1,133 volcanic cones and sea mounts. Two or three could erupt at any moment. [NASA] WEB EXPLOSION --------------------- At the beginning of the '90s, only 22 countries were connected to the Internet. By 1999, 217 were connected. Traffic on the Internet doubles every hundred days. In most countries access to the Internet is still a privilege enjoyed by relatively few. Dropping prices in hardware and internet access are changing that slowly but surely. The German city-state of Hamburg, population 1.7 million, announced that all of its citizens will receive free Internet access and an e-mail address ("first.last-@-hamburg.de") and a WWW home page. Citizens will pay no direct provider costs, only telephone costs. The services are expected to be available as of the middle of this year. USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC ------------------------------------ The US announced new federal standards for certifying organic foods, prohibiting the use of genetically modified organisms, irradiated products and sewage sludge as fertilizer. The new standards will replace a "hodgepodge" of state and private rules. They would also prohibit the use of antibiotics in livestock production and restrict the use of certain fertilizers, pesticides and food additives. Products that contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients would qualify for a seal that says "USDA Certified Organic." Products that are at least 50 percent organic would carry a label saying they are "made with" organic ingredients. Organic farmers, who support the new standards, hope Glickman's announcement will help open foreign markets to their products. The guidelines are also expected to boost business for small to medium-sized farms. ============= FUTURE IS NOW ============= PUSS IN ELECTRONIC BOOTS -------------------------------------- Robo-dog make way for robo-cat! Furry feline robot 'Tama' is Japanese company Omron's answer to the popular Sony robot dog Aibo which went on sale in 1999. Tama interacts with her owner, needs love and attention and will develop her own specific personality. Microphones embedded in the cat's head enable her to recognise her own name and react by turning her head and blinking coyly. The goal was to create as realistic a cat as possible so Tama doesn't respond to commands but to the tone of your voice. By measuring the volume of your words she can tell where you are and how happy or annoyed you feel. Pressure sensors - similar to those used in blood pressure machines - make up a central nervous system. The more she's stroked the happier she is, but a smack will meet with an angry hiss. Using real cat sounds Tama can display the six basic animal emotions of satisfaction, anger, uneasiness, dislike, fear and surprise. Tama's reactions are not just automatic responses. All the information she picks up is fed into a sophisticated computer program which stores knowledge gained in her long-term memory. Little by little her behaviour and emotions change and develop into a unique personality. But play with her too much and you'll wear her out - Tama's batteries only keep her going for one hour. Omron stress that while Sony's robot dog is marketed as a toy, Tama's interactive personality trait gears her towards uses such as pet therapy. Tama goes on sale in Japan in November and company officials say they hope to undercut Sony's hefty $2000 price tag. Omron has not yet decided whether to market Tama overseas. I WANT SPARKY BACK! ------------------------------- A multi-million dollar research project to clone a billionaire's dog has spawned a gene bank that hopes to clone household pets. Texas-based Genetic Savings and Clone last week opened its doors to pet lovers who want to store the DNA of a cherished animal companion in the hopes that one day they will be cloned. The company is a spin-off from the Missyplicity project, a two-year, $2.3 million effort by researchers at Texas A&M to clone an anonymous Bay Area billionaire's dog called Missy. The research effort expects to successfully clone Missy within a year. At least two dozen surrogate canine mothers have been implanted with clone embryos and the researchers are waiting to see which, if any, develop into pregnancies. For about $1,000, GSC will collect and cryogenically store cells from a family cat or dog. For $250,000, GSC will clone the animal. The company expects that high demand will halve the cost every year. BLATANT ADVERTISEMENT: If you are also interested in space, astronomy and extraterrestrial news, subscribe to ASTRONEWS, another free newsletter from Kahl Consultants. Visit us: http://www.kahl.net/astro Beam your request to: subastronews-@-kahl.net ============ !!GLOBALERT!! ============ GONE HOG WILD ---------------------- The folks that brought us Dolly the cloned sheep have produced the world's first cloned pigs. The five piglets were born in Blacksburg, Virginia and cloned from an adult sow using a technique similar to the one that produced Dolly, the first clone of an adult mammal. Scientists have studied pigs for several years as possible organ donors for humans. The cloning could herald advances that allow scientists to genetically engineer pigs so that their organs or cells would be more readily accepted by the human body, making them more easily transplantable. The idea of using animal organs for transplant, known as xenotransplantation, is controversial because some believe diseases could cross from pigs to humans. Ethical issues about animal-to-human transplants, mainly the risk of introducing new germs to humans, must be solved before new transplant procedures are used. ============= SAVE ON CALLS ============= Long Distance Tips --------------------- LIVING IN THE USA? Get the VoiceNet GOLD plan! ANY domestic US calls from ANY phone for only 6.9 cents/min! No more expensive calls! It's the best deal we could find! Check out this offer AND MANY MORE! Visit GlobalCom: http://www.kahl.net/global ====== NetTips ====== SAVE SNAKE RIVER SALMON -------------------------------------- American Rivers, a US national environmental group, has named the lower Snake River the most endangered waterway in the United States for the second consecutive year. Salmon trying to migrate to ancient spawning grounds are fighting a losing battle against a series of hydroelectric dams on the river. The fish are dying and time is running out, say activists with the group American Rivers. Measures have been taken to save the fish, including giving young salmon a lift on their journey from their freshwater nurseries to the ocean. But such efforts don't seem to work. Four dams on Washington's Lower Snake River must be removed to save this legendary fish. You can help! Visit the American Rivers website and send a free e-postcard to federal agencies. Thanks to all who wrote in. Send us your questions for the next edition of GlobeNews. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Email: globenews-@-kahl.net Add an email to the mailing list: subglobenews-@-kahl.net Unsubscribe: unsubglobenews-@-kahl.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE PLUG ======== How has your small business or organization been performing lately? Are you happy with your work? Let Kahl Consultants help you. Technology. Use it appropriately. Put it in our hands. Visit us: http://www.kahl.net If you got this far you obviously enjoyed GlobeNews. Pass it on! Please forward it to a handful of your friends. Remember, the best things in life are free. THE PUNCH LINE ============== [Thanks Lynda!] GAS PRICES GOING UP ----------------------------- So, you think a gallon of gasoline is expensive? Well, here are a few things that Auto week brought to our attention to compare. This is what it costs to buy a gallon of... Diet Snapple 16oz for $1.29 = $ 10.32 per gallon Lipton Ice Tea 16oz for $1.19 = $ 9.52 per gallon Gatorade 20oz for $1.59 = $ 10.17 per gallon Ocean Spray 16oz for $1.25 = $ 10.00 per gallon Quart of milk 16oz for $1.59 = $ 6.32 per gallon STP Brake Fluid 12oz for $3.15 = $ 33.60 per gallon Vick's Nyquil 6oz for $8.35 = $178.13 per gallon Pepto Bismol 4oz for $3.85 = $123.20 per gallon Whiteout 7oz for $1.39 = $254.17 per gallon Scope 1.5oz for $0.99 = $ 84.84 per gallon And this is the REAL KICKER...... Evian water 9oz for $1.49 = $ 21.19 per gallon $21.19 FOR WATER!!