Study Sees Risk to California Plants From Climate Change

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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

California has more than two thousand kinds of plants that are not found anywhere else. A new study says climate change could severely affect these plants by the end of the century.

Many could move northward and toward the Pacific coast in reaction to rising temperatures and changes in rainfall. Others might climb up mountains to find the cooler climates they like.

But David Ackerly at the University of California, Berkeley, says the speed of climate change is greater than during ice ages in the past. He says plants that cannot move fast enough are in danger of getting killed off before they can relocate. Changes in plants could also affect animals that depend on the plants for food.

About forty percent of all native plants in California are endemic, meaning they are found only in that state. The new study says that for two out of three endemic plants, the areas where they are found could shrink by more than eighty percent. That, they say, is the worst possible case.

The researchers point out that there are many things they cannot be sure about. That includes how much warming to expect in the future from releases of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Also, they cannot be sure what will happen to individual species of plants.

Scientists say California's coastal redwoods are among plant species that could be affected by climate change

Still, they say California's coastal redwood trees, for example, could move farther north. California oak trees could disappear from the central part of the state. Professor Ackerly says established trees could survive, but seedlings would not grow. Oaks could move to cooler weather in the Klamath Mountains along the border with Oregon.

The Central Valley of California could become the new home for plants now found in the Sonoran desert of Mexico.

The study says people who protect or manage natural areas will need to plan for the possible movement of so-called refugee plants. The researchers identified places around California where large numbers of plants hit hardest by climate change are expected to relocate.

But they say many of these areas are already under increasing pressure from development. They say it is not too early to prepare for helping plants re-establish themselves in new areas.

The Berkeley study also involved researchers from Duke University and other schools. The findings can be read online in PLoS One, a journal published by the Public Library of Science.

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Bob Doughty.

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Desire to End Malaria Makes Sense, but Is It Realistic?

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VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Bob Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Faith Lapidus. Today we tell about malaria. The disease threatens people in more than one hundred countries.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

A young malaria patient waits for treatment at a refugee camp in South Dafur, Sudan, last year

The United States Centers for Disease Control says up to five hundred million people worldwide get malaria each year. The disease kills more than one million malaria patients every year. Many victims are young children in southern Africa.

Malaria also strikes parts of Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, Hispaniola and islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Early identification and treatment can shorten the sickness and prevent damage to the body’s organs. But many countries that report malaria cases do not have enough money to support campaigns against the disease. And malaria itself resists attempts to defeat it.

VOICE TWO:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given more than one billion dollars to fight malaria. Last year, Mister and Missus Gates said the international health community should attempt to permanently end the threat from the disease. The head of the World Health Organization supports the Gates’ goal. W.H.O. director general Doctor Margaret Chan has urged other experts to attempt to defeat the disease.

But only one communicable disease, smallpox, has ever completely disappeared. Some experts are not sure malaria should be attacked with the goal of destroying it. They say earlier such efforts led to unrealistic hopes, but then failed.

The head of the W.H.O.’s anti-malaria program says current methods could reduce malaria cases by ninety percent. Doctor Arata Kochi said this could happen if enough resources were available to fight the disease.

VOICE ONE:

Malaria is spread by the Anopheles mosquito

A common insect, the mosquito, spreads malaria. Thecarries the parasite that causes the disease. Very small parasites develop in the stomach of the mosquito. Parasites are organisms that live on or in another animal and get their food from that animal.

The general name for the malaria parasite is Plasmodium. Mosquitoes pass the parasites to people when they drink blood through the skin. However, only the female Anopheles mosquitoes drink blood. The males feed only on liquids from plants.

The female Anopheles mosquito drinks blood from people and animals by breaking through the skin with its long, tube-like feeding device. The parasites enter the blood of the victim.

VOICE TWO:

The blood carries the parasites to the victim's liver. From there they invade cells and reproduce. After nine to sixteen days, the parasites return to the blood and enter the red blood cells. Then they reproduce again. As they do this, they destroy the blood cells. In a short time, the victim develops a high body temperature. The victim becomes weak and is unable to carry out normal activities.

Other signs of malaria include pain in the muscles or head and shaking. Patients with severe malaria may develop liver and kidney failure, seizures and become unable to communicate.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Signs of malaria have been observed since the beginning of history. Scientists examining bodies of ancient Egyptians have found evidence of the disease in people who lived at least three thousand years ago. And scientists have found hardened remains of mosquitoes millions of years old.

At one time, it was believed that bad air caused malaria. People believed this bad air came from areas of water that were not deep and did not move. It seemed that malaria was most common near these swamps.

Ancient people suspected that mosquitoes were linked to malaria. The Greek historian Herodotus lived about two thousand four hundred years ago. He noted that in swampy areas of Egypt, some people slept in tall structures where mosquitoes could not go. Or they slept under nets that mosquitoes could not go through.

VOICE TWO:

In eighteen seventy-six, British scientist Patrick Manson discovered that mosquitoes were responsible for passing the disease to human beings. More exactly, he found that insects carry the parasites and pass them to humans.

In eighteen eighty, a French doctor, Alphonse Laveran, discovered that the Plasmodium parasite causes the disease. In eighteen ninety-seven, a British scientist, Ronald Ross, found the malaria parasite in the Anopheles mosquito.

For his discovery of the cause of malaria and other work, Doctor Laveran received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in nineteen-oh-seven. Five years earlier, Mister Ross received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on malaria.

The discoveries of the three scientists soon led to efforts to control malaria. Then, the discovery of the insect poison D-D-T led to efforts to destroy the disease.

VOICE ONE:

Between nineteen fifty-five and nineteen sixty-nine, the World Health Organization organized campaigns against the disease. The goal was to use chemicals to kill mosquitoes in homes around the world.

The effort was successful in large areas of North America, southern Europe, the former Soviet Union and some parts of Asia and South America. The spread of the disease in these areas was halted.

However, the disease remained in Central America, parts of South America, and some Asian countries. A W.H.O. campaign never was attempted in Africa. It was too difficult and costly for most African countries.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen sixty-eight, malaria suddenly spread in Sri Lanka, where it was believed the disease no longer existed. At the time, the island nation was known as Ceylon. Malaria also spread in Central America, in Southeast Asian nations, and in parts of Africa.

Efforts to destroy the disease throughout the world were suspended in nineteen sixty-nine.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

There are four different kinds of malaria. They are caused by four different kinds of parasites. Three of them cause victims to suffer high body temperatures every few days. But they do not cause death. However, the most common malaria parasite also is the most dangerous. This parasite causes infections that can lead to death.

The best way to prevent malaria is to stay away from the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasites. The female Anopheles mosquito takes blood from its victims mainly at night.

So, people can place material specially treated with insect poison over their beds while they sleep. People can also put anti-insect chemicals on their skin, on clothing and in sleeping areas. They can wear clothes that cover most of the body.

VOICE TWO:

If the mosquitoes get past barriers used to block them, early drug treatment is needed to be effective. Drugs can destroy the malaria parasite as soon as it enters the human body. This prevents the parasites from entering the red blood cells and dividing. Some drugs can prevent the parasite from establishing itself in the liver.

A recent study found that a protein could provide a way to block the parasite’s actions in the mosquito. The protein would act before the mosquito can infect a human victim. The Global Health Infectious Diseases Research Team at the University of Florida carried out the study.

VOICE ONE:

Before the fifteenth century, people in what is now Peru knew the covering or bark from the cinchona tree was effective in treating signs of malaria. In eighteen-twenty, two French scientists identified the substance in the bark as quinine. Until the twentieth century, quinine was the chief drug used to prevent and cure some forms of malaria. Today, manufactured drugs treat the disease. The World Health Organization says combination treatments are best for common malaria.

VOICE TWO:

A new drug meant for common malaria is now being launched in Latin America and Southeast Asia. The medicine, known as ASMQ, combines two existing drugs.

The Brazilian government and a not-for-profit organization are making the new drug available to public agencies. Bernard Pecoul heads the organization, The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. He says ASMQ reduces the number of pills the patient needs to remember to swallow. Doctor Pecoul says the treatment is safe, fast-acting and effective for children and adults.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Jerilyn Watson. Our producer was Brianna Blake. I’m Bob Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Faith Lapidus. Read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us at this time next week for more news about science on the Voice of America.

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'New Birth of Freedom' Guides New Museum of Gettysburg Battle

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Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. This week on our program, we visit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This small town in the Northeast is one of the most important places in American history.

(SOUND)

VOICE ONE:

Much of the area around Gettysburg still looks like it did in the eighteen sixties, during the Civil War. We arrive in the middle of farming country. All around are fields of wheat, corn and other crops. Cows chew on grass under a warm morning sun.

Roads that pass through town lead to Baltimore, Washington and other cities. But one hundred forty-five years ago this week, they served another purpose. They brought two opposing armies to Gettysburg.

VOICE TWO:

One was the United States Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George Gordon Meade. The other was the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee.

Lee and his troops had moved north into Pennsylvania from Virginia. There, they had won a series of battles. Now they were on the move to defeat Meade's army.

Lee believed that a Southern victory on Northern soil would force a negotiated settlement of the war. This would mean independence for the Confederate states that were attempting to leave the Union.

VOICE ONE:

The battle of Gettysburg began on July first, eighteen sixty-three. More than one hundred seventy thousand soldiers fought for three days. It was the largest battle ever fought in North America.

When it ended on July third, more than fifty thousand soldiers were dead, wounded or missing. Many more would die later from their wounds.

In the end, General Lee's army lost the battle. The Civil War would continue for two more years. But Confederate hopes for independence were never again as high as they had been at Gettysburg.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

President Lincoln's copy of the Gettysburg Address

Soon after the great battle, people began to visit Gettysburg to try to understand what happened there. One of those visitors, on November nineteenth, eighteen sixty-three, was President Abraham Lincoln. He was invited to help dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle.

Lincoln spoke for just two minutes. The speech began this way:

READER: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

VOICE ONE:

President Lincoln had never been satisfied with the reality of American life at that time. The Declaration of Independence in seventeen seventy-six had declared all men equal. Yet in the South, and earlier in the North as well, black men and women were held as slaves.

In his address at Gettysburg, Lincoln described a new future for a nation that would be reunited. Our reader is Jim Tedder.

READER: "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that for these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- "

VOICE TWO:

Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center

This idea, a new birth of freedom after the Civil War, guides the newly built Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center. It opened on April fourteenth at Gettysburg National Military Park.

April fourteenth, eighteen sixty-five, was the day Lincoln was shot. He was killed by John Wilkes Booth, an actor from Maryland, just days after a Confederate surrender ended the war.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Gettysburg National Military Park was established in eighteen ninety-five, thirty-two years after the battle. Gettysburg is the most visited of the Civil War battlefields. Every year about two million people visit the park from around the country and the world.

Park officials say the new museum will better prepare visitors to see the battlefield through the soldiers' eyes. The battlefield covers more than two thousand four hundred hectares.

Pennsylvania monument on the battlefield at Gettysburg

Visitors can find more than one thousand three hundred outdoor sculptures around the battlefield. These are monuments and memorials placed by soldiers' groups and state militias in areas where their troops fought.

VOICE TWO:

Volunteer guides explain what happened in each area of the battlefield. A guide at the high ground called "Little Round Top" describes an action involving Union troops led by a general named Daniel Sickles.

GUIDE: "He sent some Maine infantry and some U.S. sharpshooters over there into the trees to the right of that tower. And they were out there looking for troops, for possible threats. They found 'em. They got into a fight with Confederate troops, but not the same ones who were going to be marching down here, not the fourteen thousand under a general named James Longstreet."

VOICE ONE:

One part of the new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center will not open to the public until September: a complete cyclorama painting. This kind of artwork surrounds the people looking at it.

The painting shows the final attack in the Battle of Gettysburg: Pickett's Charge. George Pickett was a Confederate general. On July third, eighteen sixty-three, he led a charge against stronger Union forces. It was a disaster for the Confederate soldiers.

The painting is one hundred fourteen meters long. French painter Paul Philippoteaux and a team of twenty artists created it in eighteen eighty-four.

VOICE TWO:

An artist repairs part of the cyclorama at Gettysburg National Military Park

The cyclorama has always been one of the most popular parts of the Gettysburg experience. But the painting was in bad shape after all these years. So a restoration project began in two thousand three. The painting was cleaned and separated into its fourteen parts, and later moved into the new center.

There, the original canvas was sewn onto new cloth made in China. Park service officials say China was one of the few countries able to produce cloth in the sizes needed. Then each part was hung and sewn together.

A team of cyclorama experts from Poland has been working on the project in Gettysburg since two thousand seven.

Artists are now repairing the painting to make it look almost like new.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Katie Lawhon

Katie Lawhon, a spokeswoman for Gettysburg National Military Park, says the new museum and visitor center was built with four goals.

KATIE LAWHON: "One was to take better care of the artifacts and the archives of this park because Gettysburg has the largest publicly owned Civil War collection. We have over one million items, everything from soldiers' diaries and uniforms to original maps of the battlefield and the documentation of the creation of the national cemetery in the park.

"The second goal is to take better care of the cyclorama painting. Number three was improve the museum experience for our visitors.

"The fourth and final goal is one that a lot of people find very compelling, which is [that] our facilities were not big enough. They weren't wheelchair-accessible. We had a lot of problems with them. But one of the most serious problems we had with them is they were built on the Union army's battle line. Where we had two buildings and two parking lots there was major battle action and we know over nine hundred seventy soldiers were killed, wounded or captured where we had concrete asphalt and bricks. So this new building is two-thirds of a mile away and it's close to but not on the battle line. And it's going to allow us this fall to take out the old buildings and bring the battlefield back to the way it looked at the time of the fighting."

VOICE TWO:

Visits to the museum begin with a twenty-two minute film called "A New Birth of Freedom." It provides historic background for the war, the battle and its effects as a turning point in the Civil War.

The museum has eleven galleries designed around the words of the Gettysburg Address. One gallery is called "Now We Are Met on a Great Battlefield of That War." It explores what happened on each day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Another gallery, "The Brave Men Living and Dead," presents information about what happened after the fighting ended. It also tells about the effects of the battle on the town of Gettysburg.

The museum also has computers where visitors can research information about the battle.

VOICE ONE:

The new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center is a joint project of the Gettysburg Foundation and the National Park Service. The foundation, a nonprofit educational group, raised the one hundred seven million dollars that made it possible.

The foundation plans to own the center for twenty years, then donate the building and the land to the federal government.

VOICE TWO:

The president of the foundation, Robert Wilburn, says Gettysburg is a reminder that Americans can come together as a nation even after the most divisive of conflicts. He calls it the place where America was saved.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Barbara Klein. Transcripts and MP3s of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find programs from THE MAKING OF A NATION, a weekly series all about American history. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in

VOA Special English.

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Using Personal Computers to Solve Humanitarian Problems

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Anne McNeil (right) with IBM Corporate Community Relations, shows the World Community Grid to a student at Meredith College in North Carolina

A project called the World Community Grid has found a way for computers connected to the Internet to help solve humanitarian problems. The World Community Grid is making technology available to public and non-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research.

Scientists at the University of Washington, for example, are using the technology to study ways to improve the nutritional value of rice. Another research project supported by the World Community Grid is studying mathematical ways to design drugs to treat the disease AIDS. Other projects are studying cancer. And still others are studying climate change in Africa.

The success of the World Community Grid depends upon individuals collectively donating their extra computer power. This is based on the idea that most computers are inactive most of the time. During these times they are not used, they can help solve complex scientific or engineering problems.

The IBM corporation started the World Community Grid more than two years ago. The company continues to provide advice and support to the project. Stanley Litow heads community relations for IBM. He says anyone in the world with a computer connected to the Internet can join the project.

Volunteers download a program from the World Community Grid Web site. Every so often, the program uploads results or downloads more information to be processed. Individuals can also find out how much work their computer power has done on the Web site.

Currently, about one million personal computers in one hundred countries are involved in the World Community Grid. Mister Litow hopes that another million computers will join the project. Then, he says, the World Community Grid will become the world’s largest super computer able to do many projects a year.

Any researcher can sign up to use the grid’s super computing power. However, all findings from the studies must be made public. Mister Litow says not only is the technology free. But he says it will also lead to more knowledge and valuable scientific discoveries.

And that’s the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. You can find a link to the World Community Grid and transcripts of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.

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Fish Expressions: This All Sounds Very Fishy

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Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

(MUSIC)

Americans use many expressions about fish and fishing. For example, if something sounds fishy, it may not be true. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water when I go to a party and everyone but me is doing the latest dance. When I ask my friend if she likes my new dress, I would like her to say something nice. In other words, I am fishing for a compliment. You might tell someone to fish or cut bait if he repeatedly attempts to do something he is unable to do.

Sometimes a lawyer will ask a witness many questions in an effort to discover the facts of a court case. This is called going on a fishing expedition.

Some expressions involve different kinds of fish. Information that is used to draw attention away from the real facts of a situation is called a red herring. If you want to express a feeling of surprise, you might cry "holy mackerel!" although we do not know why a mackerel is holy.

Once I went to a county fair and tried my luck with a game of chance. It was so easy; it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Then I went on the fastest, highest and most frightening ride: the roller coaster. At the end of the ride, I did not feel so well. A friend said I looked green around the gills.

I grew up in a small town where everybody knew about my life. There were times when I thought I was living in a fishbowl. So I moved to Washington, where things were different.

Now I take the train to work every day during rush hour when many other people travel to their jobs. Sometimes the train is so crowded that we are packed in like sardines. Sardines are tiny fish that lie close to each other in cans.

One man who works in my office is a cold fish. He is unfriendly and does not like to join us at office parties. Another man in my office likes to enjoy alcoholic drinks at parties. In fact, you might say he drinks like a fish. We need to help him stop drinking.

Last week, my sister's car broke down as we were driving to a friend's marriage ceremony. "This is a fine kettle of fish," I said. "Now we will be late."

My sister attends a small college where she is one of the smartest students. She always wants to be a big fish in a small pond. Recently, my sister broke up with her boyfriend. I told her not to worry, she will find another one because there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm Faith Lapidus. You can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

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Ray Charles, 1930-2004: He Created a Sound That Had a Huge Influence on Popular Music

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VOICE ONE:

This is Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Doug Johnson with People In America in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Ray Charles

Last week, we began the story of a blind musician who had a huge influence on American popular music. He was famous for his recordings of jazz, rock-and-roll, blues and country music. His name was Ray Charles Robinson. But the world knew him better as Ray Charles.

(MUSIC: "Let''s Go Get Stoned")

VOICE TWO:

The name of that song is "Let's Go Get Stoned." It is an example of Ray Charles' own kind of music—his own sound. He worked hard for several years to create that sound. No one ever tried it before. He mixed black church music, blues and rock-and-roll. The sound was extremely successful. In the nineteen fifties, his records began to sell millions of copies.

At the same time, Ray Charles recorded jazz music. Those records sold well, too. Critics said they were new and exciting. Listen to his jazz song, "Sweet Sixteen Bars."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Ray Charles became famous because he could play blues, rock and jazz. He also liked other kinds of music. He told record company officials that he wanted to record an album of country-and-western music.

The president of the record company told him it would be a mistake. He said Ray's fans would not buy the album. Charles disagreed. He said he believed he would gain many new fans to replace the few he might lose. He produced the album and it was an immediate success.

The album was called "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music." Many of the songs were major hits. One of the most popular was "I Can't Stop Loving You." It is a country-and-western song with Ray Charles' sound of blues and black church music.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Ray Charles lived in a world of sound. For six months each year he traveled with his orchestra, performing in theaters. For the other six months, he worked in his recording studio in Los Angles, California. He did much of the recording work to produce his own albums.

Ray Charles would often say that sound and music were his life's blood. In fact, he said many times that he would not trade his musical ability for the ability to see again.

You begin to understand what sound meant to Ray Charles when you learn that he helped create and support the Robinson Foundation for Hearing Disorders. This organization helps people deal with the loss of their hearing.

You might think Ray Charles would have given his time and money to help the blind. He did not. He once said: "Being blind is my handicap. But ears are my opportunity." He said losing his hearing would have ended his life.

VOICE ONE:

Ray Charles lived a long life that included his share of problems. There was a time when he used illegal drugs. He was married and divorced several times. Yet the Ray Charles sound, and his success, continued.

Ray Charles performing ''Georgia on My Mind'' at the Georgia State Capitol in 1979

He received twelve Grammy Awards from the recording industry. He was one of the first musicians to be elected to the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame. Several universities honored him. So did the French and American governments. His home state of Georgia made his recording of "Georgia on My Mind" the official state song.

Several years ago, Ray Charles was asked to sing at a political convention. He performed the song "America the Beautiful." Many people thought his recording was the best ever made.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Ray Charles always said he owed most of his success to his mother. He said when he was a boy, she taught him a valuable lesson. She told him: "You can do anything you want to do. You cannot use your eyes. But you can work hard and use your brain."

Ray Charles died June tenth, two thousand four at the age of seventy-three. Music experts say he did more than anyone in the twentieth century to change American popular music.

VOICE ONE:

More than one hundred years ago, Alice Cary wrote a poem that could have been written for Ray Charles. She wrote:

My soul is full of whispered song, --

My blindness is my sight;

The shadows that I feared so long

Are full of life and light.

(MUSIC: "Seven Spanish Angels")

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by Lawan Davis. This is Doug Johnson.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program in VOA Special English.

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Officials Target Mortgage Mess in U.S.

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

American lawmakers and law enforcers are busy with the housing finance market.

Many of the recent problems were caused by subprime mortgages. These highly profitable loans were marketed to risky buyers and then sold to investors. But even homeowners with good credit are having trouble with other new kinds of loans.

A Senate bill could help some people get lower-cost loans. It would let the government guarantee three hundred billion dollars in new financing.

The first big sign of problems with mortgage investments, which led to a worldwide credit crisis, came last summer. Two funds of the Bear Stearns investment bank collapsed. They were heavily invested in risky home loans. Investors lost almost one and a half billion dollars.

Federal agents with Matthew Tannin, a former Bear Stearns hedge fund manager, after his arrest last week in New York

Last week, the Justice Department announced charges against the two men who led the hedge funds, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin. Officials say that by March of last year, the managers believed the funds were at risk of collapse, but lied to keep investors from leaving. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Separately, the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the results of Operation Malicious Mortgage. That investigation led to more than four hundred arrests in the last three months.

The people were charged with mortgage-related misrepresentations and other criminal abuses. The F.B.I. estimates that these mortgage fraud cases resulted in about one billion dollars in losses.

Officials said nineteen companies were being investigated in connection with subprime loans. They included mortgage lenders, investment banks, hedge funds, accounting companies and credit rating agencies.

This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed new rules for credit rating agencies. The aim is to reduce the dependence of money managers and investment banks on credit ratings as a measure of risk.

Critics say credit rating agencies seriously underestimated the risk of many mortgage-related securities.

And, shareholders in the nation's largest mortgage company, Countrywide, agreed Wednesday to sell the company to Bank of America. Countrywide has lost billions on bad loans, and its lending activities are the target of lawsuits. Also, there are accusations that some lawmakers in Congress got special treatment on loans through its chief, Angelo Mozilo.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter and online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Jim Tedder.

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What Is the Best Place to Visit in the United States? A Few Opinions

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HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I’m Doug Johnson.

Today we play music from performers at a jazz festival in New York City …

Answer a question about the best place to visit in the United States …

And celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”

(MUSIC)

''Take Me Out To The Ballgame''

HOST:

It is believed to be the third most popular song that Americans sing. It is one hundred years old. And people sing it at baseball games. Barbara Klein tells us what it is.

BARBARA KLEIN:

Experts say there are probably more than one thousand songs about baseball, America's national sport. "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is the most popular. Jack Norworth wrote the song in nineteen-oh-eight. He was a young actor who had never been to a Major League baseball game. But one day, he saw a sign about baseball in an underground subway train in New York City. He wrote the words to the song. When he got to work, his partner, Albert Von Tilzer, put the words to music. Von Tilzer had never been to a baseball game, either. This is the first recording of that song.

(MUSIC)

Tim Wiles is head of research at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. He is one of the writers of a new book, "Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ballgame." He says Jack Norworth wrote the song about a young woman who tells her boyfriend she does not want to go see a show on Broadway. She wants him to take her to a baseball game.

"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" became very popular in nineteen-oh-eight. And it has been played at American baseball games ever since. But it was not until the mid nineteen seventies that it became a popular sing-along tradition.

Near the end of the game everyone is tired of sitting on the hard seats. So at a special time, everyone stands up and stretches their legs. This tradition is called "the seventh inning stretch." At most baseball stadiums, everyone sings "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

(MUSIC)

Only two other songs are reportedly sung more often in the United States than "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." They are "Happy Birthday to You" and the national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Oh, the Place You Will Go

HOST:

Our listener question this week comes from Guatemala. Julio Rolando Pineda Cordón asks where to go for the best educational and cultural experience if you could only visit one place in the United States. We talked to people from different parts of the country to get their opinions.

Jenny Franchina is a mother and homemaker in Beverly Hills, California. It is an area of Los Angeles that has big houses, costly stores and many movie stars. But it is not the place Jenny suggests for your visit.

New York City

She says the answer to the question is three words --- New York City. She says New York has it all, including a mix of many cultures. Huge numbers of immigrants settled and continue to settle in different areas of the city. Chinatown is one example. You can find Chinese food, movies, bookstores, as well as special Chinese medicines, art and toys. Other great ethnic neighborhoods include Little Italy and Spanish Harlem.

There is also a major Greek community in Astoria, and a large South Asian population in Jackson Heights. You can find the food, music, art and other cultural treasures from many countries.

But New York is not the place Connie and Jim Birmingham would visit. They own a farm in Marion, Iowa. Jim is a cattleman. Connie is retired. They agree that a big city is a good choice. But, the Birminghams vote for Chicago, Illinois. Connie says it has all the culture you can find in New York. And, she thinks the building design in Chicago is even more exciting. She says Chicago’s skyline along the huge, blue Lake Michigan is one of the most beautiful sights in America.

Washington, D.C.

Rick Gulino lives in Wilmington, Delaware. He is a lawyer and father of two girls. He says the place to visit is Washington, D.C. He says it is especially interesting as the capital of the United States. He loves the many monuments and memorials. And he notes that the city is close to both mountains and ocean beaches. He also says he likes the people of Washington.

One note from us: The United States is not just a country of big cities. It offers great spots for nature lovers, too. There are deserts, canyons, volcanoes, rivers and swamps, just to list a few. Another program, perhaps?

JVC Jazz Fest

HOST:

The JVC Jazz Festival takes place in cities around the United States and Europe. The JVC electronics company has been organizing major jazz festivals since nineteen eighty-four. Faith Lapidus tells us about the one being held in New York city.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

Al Green

The JVC Jazz Festival New York opened June fifteenth. The shows are taking place at several theaters, clubs and music centers. This closing weekend includes a show Friday featuring Al Green and Dianne Reeves at Carnegie Hall. Here Reeves sings the title track of her latest album, “When You Know.”

(MUSIC)

Al Green will surely perform some songs from his just released album, “Lay It Down.” Here he sings “Take Your Time,” with British artist Corinne Bailey Rae.

(MUSIC)

Herbie Hancock

The great composer and pianist Herbie Hancock performed at Carnegie Hall last week. Here is his famous piece, “Watermelon Man.”

(MUSIC)

Some of the musicians at the JVC Jazz Festival New York are not as famous as others. For example, a three-member group called The Bad Plus has been performing for eight years. Critics say they are very popular with young jazz fans. We leave you with a song from their latest recording, “Prog.” Here is “Giant.”

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.

It was written by Shelley Gollust and Caty Weaver, who was also our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to voaspecialenglish.com.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

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Online Learning Grows, but Research Finds Mixed Results

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Forty-two of the fifty American states offered some kind of public online learning this past school year. One state, Michigan, now requires all students to have an online learning experience before they finish high school.

Jessica Miller, 14, demonstrates the process of a virtual school during an information meeting for parents in Columbia, South Carolina

Even the idea of a school has changed since the rise of the Internet in the nineteen nineties.

A new report from the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University says eighteen states have full-time virtual schools. There are no buildings. All classes are online.

Online learners might work at different times. But there might be set times for class discussions -- by text, voice or video -- and virtual office hours for teachers.

Florida started the first statewide public virtual school in the United States in nineteen ninety-seven.

Today, the Florida Virtual School offers more than ninety courses. Fifty-six thousand students were enrolled as of December. Almost sixty percent were female. The school’s Web site says each student was enrolled in an average of two classes.

Two-thirds were also enrolled in public or charter schools. Charter schools are privately operated with public money. Other students are home-schooled or in private school.

Florida Virtual School has now opened the Florida Virtual Global School. Students in other countries pay for classes. Janet Heiking teaches an English class. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her students live as far away as Africa and Japan.

She says they are taking her Advanced Placement class to prepare for attending an American college. They can earn college credits by passing the A.P. test.

So how good are virtual schools? Studies have shown mixed results, as that new report from Indiana University notes.

For example, students at Florida Virtual School earned higher grades than those taking the same courses the traditional way. And they scored higher on a statewide test.

But virtual school students in Kansas and Colorado had lower test scores or performed at a lower level than traditional learners.

Studies also find that virtual schools may not save much in operating costs.

Education experts say the mixed results suggest the need for more research to find the best ways to teach in virtual schools. Also, they say schools of education need to train more teachers to work in both physical and virtual classrooms.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. To learn more about computer-based learning, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.

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US History Series: A Supreme Court Justice Is Put on Trial in 1805

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Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

We talked last week about the presidential election of eighteen hundred and four. Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, was easily re-elected. He was head of the Democratic-Republican Party, known today as the Democratic Party. His political opponents were called Federalists.

Now, Doug Johnson and Richard Rael begin the story of his second term as president of the United States.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Jefferson had a very good record during his first term as president.

The Louisiana Purchase Treaty was signed in Paris on April 30, 1803

He ended many taxes. He paid government debts. And he gained possession of the huge Louisiana Territory from France without going to war. The Federalists were sure he would win the election of eighteen-oh-four. Still, they were surprised by the strength of his election victory.

VOICE ONE:

Jefferson won one hundred sixty-two electoral votes. His opponent, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, won just fourteen. The Federalists had expected Pinckney to get about forty.

Jefferson received support even in the Northeast. That is where the Federalists had their greatest strength. What was the explanation?

One man tried to explain the meaning of Jefferson's great victory. He was John Quincy Adams, son of former president John Adams. President Adams had been a firm Federalist. This is what his son said:

VOICE TWO:

"The power of Jefferson's administration rests on a strong majority of the American people. The president has great popular support. His re-election shows that the experiment of the Federalists has failed. It never can and never will be brought to life again. To try to bring it back would be foolish. It would be like trying to put life into a body that has been buried for years."

After the election of eighteen-oh-four, only seven Federalists remained in the United States Senate. Only twenty-five remained in the House of Representatives.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The Federalists no longer controlled the Congress, although they still controlled the courts. Many judges had been appointed during John Adams's last days as president. These judges opposed Thomas Jefferson. Some used the courtroom as a place to attack his policies. Judges were not supposed to make political speeches in court.

One of the most powerful anti-Jeffersonian judges was Samuel Chase. He was a member of the Supreme Court.

VOICE TWO:

Samuel Chase was from the state of Maryland. He was active in local and national politics for a long time. He had signed America's Declaration of Independence from Britain. He had served in the Continental Congresses that governed America during and after its Revolutionary War. Yet he did not agree with all parts of the United States Constitution. When the Maryland legislature voted to approve or reject the Constitution, he voted against it.

VOICE ONE:

Samuel Chase was not a republican: he believed that Americans should not have the same rights. For example, he believed that all citizens should not have the right to vote. He said this would lead to mob rule. He declared that great trouble would come to the government if common people had the same rights as educated people who owned property.

President Jefferson heard about Chase's statement. He told a member of Congress that he was concerned. Jefferson asked: "Should this judge's attack on the ideas of our Constitution go without punishment? The public will look to Congress to take the necessary action against him."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

During the last months of Jefferson's first term as president, the House of Representatives began discussing the possibility of removing Justice Chase from the Supreme Court.

A committee was named to investigate. The committee decided that there was enough evidence to bring him to trial before the Senate. The full House agreed. The impeachment trial was to begin in February, eighteen-oh-five.

VOICE ONE:

The impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase forced the Senate to explore the meaning of impeachable crimes

The judge in the trial was the chief officer of the Senate, Vice President Aaron Burr. Burr would decide what evidence could or could not be heard. His actions would have great influence over the final decision.

Both Federalists and Republicans watched Burr closely during the trial. Both groups looked for some sign of support. Burr gave none. No one found any reason to criticize his actions.

VOICE TWO:

The Senate heard testimony for a little more than three weeks. Then it voted on each of the eight charges against Justice Chase. A two-thirds vote was needed to declare him guilty. None of the charges received the necessary two-thirds vote. The impeachment had failed. Samuel Chase could not be removed from the Supreme Court.

President Jefferson had hoped that Chase would be found guilty. He did not get this wish. But, after the trial, Chase no longer used the courtroom for political purposes.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

A few days after the impeachment trial ended, Thomas Jefferson was to be sworn in as president for a second term. In those days, the inauguration of the American president was held in March, not January.

Aaron Burr would not be serving with Jefferson again. The Republican Party had not supported him for vice president. Instead, it chose George Clinton, who had been governor of New York state. Before leaving office, Burr decided to make one last speech to the Senate.

VOICE TWO:

The senators were very interested in what Burr had to say. Even his political opponents sat up and listened. Burr told his friends goodbye. He said he might never see them again. Yet he said they could still join together in defending freedom and social justice.

He spoke of the senators' great responsibility to protect liberty, the law, and the Constitution. "If the Constitution is ever destroyed," he said, "its final breaths will come on this floor."

VOICE ONE:

Aaron Burr by Jacques Jouvenal

Aaron Burr faced a future full of questions. He had lost all political power. He owed large amounts of money. He could not return to his home in the New York area. He would face criminal charges there as a result of his duel with Alexander Hamilton. Burr had shot and killed Hamilton in the duel.

At the end of March, eighteen-oh-five, Burr wrote to his daughter. "In ten or twelve days," he said, "I shall be on my way west. The trip may lead me to New Orleans, perhaps even farther."

He also wrote to his daughter's husband. He said he would not return home. "In New York," he wrote, "I would lose my freedom. In New Jersey, I would be hanged. So, for the present, I will not take a chance."

VOICE TWO:

What would Burr do instead? For more than a year, he had thought about a secret plan. Details are not clear, because he said different things to different people. But history experts say the plan involved an attempt to seize Mexico from Spain.

Burr could not keep his plan a secret from everyone. He needed help. He worked with two men. One was Jonathan Dayton, a former United States senator. The other was James Wilkinson, military governor of the Louisiana Territory.

VOICE ONE:

Burr also needed money. He got some from his daughter's husband. And he got some from a man in Ohio named Harman Blennerhassett. Mister Blennerhassett had become rich after coming to America from Ireland.

History experts say Burr tried to get help from Britain, too. Burr told the British ambassador in Washington that he wanted money and ships to create a new country. It would include Mexico and several western states. The states would be split away from the Union.

VOICE TWO:

The British ambassador liked Burr's plan. He told Burr that he would urge his government to support it. It would take at least four months, however, for the ambassador to communicate with his government in London. Burr decided not to wait for an answer. He began his trip to the West. That will be our story next week.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

Our program was written by Frank Beardsley and Christine Johnson. The narrators were Richard Rael and Doug Johnson. Join us each week for THE MAKING OF A NATION – an American history series in VOA Special English. Transcripts, podcasts and MP3s of our programs can be found at voaspecialenglish.com.

__

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Cancer Stem Cells Capture Attention of Scientists

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Some experts predict that doctors will someday use stem cells to treat many different diseases. Yet so far there has been less progress in stem cell therapies than many had hoped.

For years, scientists have studied stem-cell treatment of cancer. Doctors now use stem cells in therapies for several forms of the disease. But at the same time, researchers increasingly are examining a possible connection between stem cells and cancer.

A large number of researchers now point to stem cells as a possible cause of solid tumors. Studies have reported identifying cancer stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells

Stem cells can develop into any kind of cell, like skin, blood or brain cells. Embryos have more stem cells than adults. Embryonic stem cells can develop into all the many different tissues that form the body.

But there are stem cells that remain throughout a person's life to replace cells that become damaged. When a stem cell divides, one of the two cells remains a stem cell. The other becomes a specialized cell.

Many questions remain to be answered. But the general thinking seems to be that cancer stem cells represent a small population of the cells in a tumor. Some researchers think these cancer stem cells have the ability to divide and change into other types of cells. As a result, they think the stem cells help the cancer to metastasize, or spread to other organs.

The researchers also think cancer stem cells are able to repair and feed tumors so they continue to grow. They suspect that the cells are even able to repair damage from radiation treatment and form new tumors. This could explain why some cancers resist drug therapies.

Much of the research into cancer stem cells is being done in California and Canada. Last week, Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced joint efforts. Their governments agreed to provide one hundred million dollars each over the next three years for research into cancer stem cells.

A California company says it is close to tests in humans of a drug that would directly target cancer stem cells. Two scientists who led the discovery of cancer stem cells in solid tumors, Michael Clarke and Max Wicha, started OncoMed Pharmaceuticals four years ago. OncoMed has signed an agreement with a major drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, to work on the experimental treatment.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember.

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Would a Top Banana Run Around Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off?

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: English teacher Nina Weinstein explains some common idioms in American English. She likes teaching idioms in categories to help her students remember them.

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Often when you see an idiom book, the idioms are presented in alphabetical order, so you don't really have anything to hang on to."

RS: "You need a context, is what you're saying."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly."

RS: "So let's start off with animal idioms. Give us a few."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "OK, animal idioms. We've got to eat like a bird. So if we imagine how much a bird eats, how much can a bird eat?"

RS: "Very little."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Very little. To eat like a horse -- so now we've got a two thousand pound animal who's going to be eating a lot more. To quit something cold turkey is another idiom."

AA: "It means to stop suddenly, like to stop smoking suddenly."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly."

RS: "I love this one, to run around like a chicken with its head cut off."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Right, we can imagine how people kill chickens when they're going to eat chicken. They chop the head off and them I'm told -- I'm actually a vegetarian so I'll just have to trust this one. But I'm told that the chicken still runs around even though it doesn't have its head on. But you can imagine it doesn't have a lot of direction."

RS: "And just moving on from there, the food idioms seem to present a better picture of things. To be the top banana, that's a great one -- "

NINA WEINSTEIN: "That's a great one."

RS: "To be to top in your class, to be the best at something."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "And to be the boss. The top banana would be the boss."

AA: "And usually, you would hope that the top banana would be a smart cookie, would you not?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "You would. To be a smart cookie, that's another one where I don't really know what the story is."

RS: "It's funny, when you just isolate these things, they seem to be quite funny. To be a nut, we know someone who is crazy is referred to as a nut, it can be not clinically crazy -- especially not clinically crazy!"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly, exactly."

RS: "And if something is a piece of cake, it doesn't mean that you necessarily consume it."

NINA WEINSTEIN: " We have also a piece of pie -- or, I'm sorry, not a piece of pie but easy as pie, or a piece of cake. So they both mean easy. And I think that one is a little bit more obvious. If we think about how people make cakes, cakes can be very simple to make, and pies are even easier, and so it has that connotation of something easy to do."

RS: "Another category that you have down here are color idioms, and I know there's probably a gazillion of them, but let's just name a few."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "OK, we have to see red, and I think that one can come from the idea of your blood sort of going to your head when you become angry. People's faces turn red when they become angry. To be tickled pink ... [Laughter]"

RS: "Means you're very happy. Doesn't mean anything about tickling."

AA: "Versus feeling blue."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "You're feeling blue, OK, you don't have enough oxygen in your body so that's where you kind of get that negative -- "

AA: "Yeah, that term forever has been associated with sort of feeling down or feeling -- "

RS: "Sad."

AA: "Sad."

RS: "Well, the blues, the music the blues."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "The blues."

AA: "And so you can see red or feel blue or you can have a green thumb. What does that mean?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "A green thumb means that you're a good gardener, you're good with plants."

RS: "We might have a green thumb under a blue moon."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "We might."

RS: "What does once in a blue moon mean?"

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Once in a blue moon would be very infrequently."

AA: "Yeah, there's actually like, there's a technical definition of what that means that astronomers use, but basically in common use, when you say once in a blue it just means once -- kind of, you know, rarely."

RS: "There's a very popular song called 'Blue Moon.' Old song."

AA: "That's right."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "Will you sing some of it?"

RS: "Blue moon. I won't sing it, but maybe you will. We can find a recording of that."

AA: "That's right, that's right."

RS: "I saw you standing alone ... "

NINA WEINSTEIN and RS: "Without a love of my own."

RS: "Thank you for helping me out there."

NINA WEINSTEIN: "You are so welcome! I don't think anyone else is going to thank us, but we thanked each other."

RS: "OK."

AA: English teacher and author Nina Weinstein plans to reissue a book called "Crazy Idioms" in August through Amazon.com. Her other books include second editions of "Vocabulary Tools" and "Whaddaya Say: Guided Practice in Relaxed Speech."

And that's WORDMASTER for this week. Previous segments with Nina can be found at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

MUSIC: "Blue Moon"/The Marcels

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Some Political Terms From the Mouths of Presidents (or Their Speechwriters)

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: more political terms.

RS: New York Times language columnist William Safire is the editor of the newly updated Safire's Political Dictionary, and a former White House speechwriter.

AA: He spoke with VOA's Adam Phillips in New York. And we began today with some of the phrases used by the current occupant of the White House, who moves out in January.

WILLIAM SAFIRE: "Of course, one of the most famous is the Axis of Evil. That refers to the three nations that George Bush felt, and I think still feels, were the most dangerous -- Iran, Iraq and North Korea. And that was based on the World War Two, and preceding World War Two, the Axis Powers of German, Italy and Japan.

"Of course, War on Terror is associated with him. And he wouldn't like it, but waterboarding is now associated with this administration -- the torture by frightening someone into thinking they are drowning by pouring water over their face. That was a technique used in the Philippines by the American liberators. And a particularly nice one -- the soft bigotry of low expectations. That was a beautiful turn of phrase, I thought.

"Now misunderestimate was a goof that he made, a blunder, because it's obviously redundant. You either underestimate somebody or you don't. Every president goofs, comes up with bloopers or mistakes. Every president misspeaks. There's a new word, by the way, misspeak. It means, essentially, to say what you don't mean. That's what misspeaking is. It's like a typographical error in your speaking and it's used as an excuse.

"The passive construction is another excuse. You will see somebody saying 'Mistakes were made.' That's a trick. That's not saying 'I made a mistake.' That's suddenly diffusing the blame. That was done in a[n Abraham] Lincoln speech. He went though a speech he had to make at one point to the Congress, in eighteen sixty-three or four, in which he just changed all the 'I did this' to 'it was done.'

AP: Presidents, or their speechwriters, are often creative in their use of language. William Safire says that Franklin Roosevelt, who was president from 1933 during the Great Depression until his death in 1945, just before World War Two ended, was something of an aristocrat, but he knew how to convey a sense of warmth and approachability to everyday Americans.

WILLIAM SAFIRE: "For example, when he was running for an office in New York State as a young man, he heard another candidate use the words my friends as the introduction to a speech. And he remembered that. And when the time came for what he called fireside chats -- which were his first broadcasts over radio, which was then a new medium -- and he would begin it with 'My friends.' That took the onus of 'oh, I have to listen to a speech' off the audience and they could say 'well, this is a fireside chat.'

"Now today, if you listen to any interview with [Republican presidential candidate] John McCain, Senator McCain spices it with 'I'm saying this to you, my friends.' And he throws 'my friends' in almost every paragraph. And it's a warm way of making contact with an audience. And he got that from FDR.

AP: And that technique could still come in handy today when candidates give what Safire's Political Dictionary calls the speech.

WILLIAM SAFIRE: "Every candidate, in the course of a campaign, has to work out in his own mind what he will say if called upon to get up and talk for ten minutes to an audience or to a crowd outside. It's like walking around with some sourdough in your saddlebag, which you can mix in with whatever dough [is available] locally and you can make a bread out of it -- the speech.

AP: "Is that the same as stump speech? Where does that word come from?

WILLIAM SAFIRE: " A stump speech comes from standing on the stump of a tree in front of a crowd. That's two centuries old. And to go on the stump is to make these stump speeches, where you can stand up three foot taller than everybody else and harangue them."

AP That was 'the speech' of the old days?"

WILLIAM SAFIRE: "Exactly, right."

AA: New York Times language columnist, and former presidential speechwriter, William Safire is the editor of Safire's Political Dictionary, recently published in a revised and updated edition by Oxford University Press.

RS: The first part of his conversation with VOA's Adam Phillips can be found on our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster. And that's all for WORDMASTER this week. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

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Teaching With Technology in the Information Age

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we finish our three-part series about communications.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

In our first two programs we discussed the history and importance of communicating information. We talked about the development of the Internet. This has made it possible for almost anyone with a computer to share in what is called the Information Age.

Research shows that the Internet's World Wide Web is especially popular with young people. As a result, colleges and universities are recognizing the learning gains that can be made with Web-based instructional technology. For example, George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia offers its professors training in instructional technology. G.M.U. teachers can learn how to use the latest Web tools to improve their classes.

VOICE TWO:

Rick Reo

Rick Reo is an instructional designer at the university. He says the education profession has entered the Web 2.0 period. He says Web 2.0 is a marketing term that defines a renewal of the Web since the start of the twenty-first century. Any kind of Web-driven tool that is interesting, useful, easy to learn and free is Web 2.0, says Rick Reo.

VOICE ONE:

One such tool is a social networking service. This is a Web site that helps people find others like themselves, create personal identities, exchange resources and work together. Facebook and MySpace are two social networking Web sites popular in the United States and around the world.

Educause is a nonprofit organization that supports the use of information technology in education. The group says up to ninety percent of American college students have created Facebook Web sites. Social networking sites also provide teachers a way to reach their students outside of the classroom. Rick Reo says students use Facebook or MySpace as often as they check their university e-mail.

VOICE TWO:

Social bookmarking is another Web 2.0 technology that has many educational uses. Professors can use the tool when doing personal research. It can also add to classroom learning. When you save the address of a Web site that you want to visit again on your computer, you are bookmarking it. Social bookmarking sites let people store collections of bookmarks. These can be shared with other people or made private.

When you bookmark a Web site, you also tag the site with descriptive words. For example, you might tag the voaspecialenglish.com Web site with the words: English, teaching, learning, news and information. Tags help users organize their bookmarks. Users can also see how many other people have used a tag. And they can search for all resources that have been given that tag.

Rick Reo says social bookmarking is especially useful when creating a collection of resources to be shared with others. A biology teacher, for example, might ask her students to bookmark Web sites about flowers and plants. The students work collectively to create the list. When it is finished, the students have a group of resources that will help them finish their project.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Different versions of Apple's iPod

Podcasting is also a very popular instructional technology. The term was invented with the Apple company's iPod in mind. IPods are small digital audio players that permit users to download music from their computer directly to the device for listening later.

The term podcasting no longer relates only to the iPod. It involves any software and hardware combination that permits the user to download audio files and control when those files are heard. Anyone with a modern computer can create, make available and download a podcast from the Internet.

VOICE TWO:

Podcasting also makes education transportable. Teachers can make their talks, or lectures, available to students who miss the class. Podcasts also let students hear what other experts

Professor Suzan Harkness works with an iPod at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington. She can record lectures as podcasts.

have to say. Remember that biology teacher who asked her students to bookmark Web sites about flowers and plants? She might also ask her students to report about that collection of resources in a podcast.

Rick Reo says George Mason is one of many "iTunes universities" around the world. Apple has opened its iTunes store to universities. Podcasts created by the schools are stored on Apple's computer servers. Anyone can download the free educational material at Apple's iTunes store. Stanford, Yale, Duke, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are other universities offering audio and video downloads.

VOICE ONE:

Podcasts are fed to computers using a technology called RSS. Many creators of information on the Internet offer it directly to people using RSS feeds. Our biology teacher example might ask her students to register for RSS feeds from five popular science Web sites. To receive those feeds, students need to register for a free RSS reader, or aggregator. Google and MyYahoo both offer RSS readers.

Once the students register for a free RSS reader, a connection has to be made between the reader and the student's favorite science Web sites. Establishing these connections is called subscribing. It is easy to do. Just look for an RSS sign on the site.

Using RSS technology helps people easily get new material from Web sites that interest them. Did you know that Special English offers RSS feeds? You can find a link to RSS on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

VOICE TWO:

Wikis have also become a popular Web 2.0 technology in education. Let us go back to our biology class. Suppose the teacher decided to take her class on a camping trip to collect plants and flowers. The students would need to work collectively to decide what to bring on the trip. A wiki can help. A wiki is a Web site where anyone can create, edit or change information collected on the site. Audio, video and pictures can be added to a wiki as well.

VOICE ONE:

The most popular wiki on the Internet is Wikipedia. It is a free encyclopedia of information about people, places, things, events and ideas that anyone can write, add to or edit. Wikipedia was launched in two thousand one. Today, it includes more than ten million articles in more than two hundred fifty languages. More than two million articles are in English. Each article offers links to other Wikipedia articles or to other Web resources.

Educause reports that Wikipedia is the eighth most visited Web site in the United States. College students use it as a main research tool. However many schools look at the tool with a critical eye. That is because a person can put incorrect information on Wikipedia. The history school at Middlebury College, for example, has banned Wikipedia in student research. The ban was ordered after several students repeated the same wrong information from a Wikipedia article.

Other universities are using Wikipedia to teach students how to write without expressing an opinion. At Columbia University in New York City, professors have had their students create or edit Wikipedia articles to learn how to write in a neutral way.

VOICE TWO:

Eighth grader Eyck Freymann works on his political blog from his home in New York

Perhaps the best known form of Web 2.0 activity is the Web log, or blog for short. There are reportedly more than one hundred million blogs around the world. A blog is an online collection of personal comments and links to other Web sites. Anyone can create a blog using sites like blogger.com or wordpress.com. Bloggers often work together in small communities. They read each other's posts, link to them or report what other bloggers say.

Each individual post on a blog can become a discussion through comments left by readers. There are personal blogs, political blogs and entertainment blogs, just to name a few. In higher education, professors use blogs to communicate their opinions or to create a discussion with other educators. Students are also using blogs for personal expression or as part of their classes.

VOICE ONE:

There are many other ways that information technology can be used in education. We have only reported about a few of them. For example, there are virtual worlds and gaming, Web-based self-publishing and photo-sharing. When it comes to information technology in higher education, Rick Reo at George Mason University says the sky is the limit.

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VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Jill Moss. It was produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

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