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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Shirley Griffith.

BOB DOUGHTY: And I'm Bob Doughty. Winter has brought cold weather to many areas in Earth’s northern hemisphere. With the cold comes a danger as old as man’s knowledge of fire -- death or injury by carbon monoxide poisoning. Today, we tell about this ancient and continuing danger.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: A sixty-six year old man and his twenty-nine year old son died last month from carbon monoxide poisoning. The two men shared an apartment home in Queens, New York. Investigators who arrived at the home reported extremely high levels of the gas.

Two weeks earlier, carbon monoxide poisoning was blamed for the death of a fifty year old woman in Hammond, Louisiana. Officials found gasoline cans and an electrical generator working in her home. The house had no electricity.

BOB DOUGHTY: These are just two of the cases of carbon monoxide poisoning that have been reported this winter.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says carbon monoxide kills more than five hundred Americans every year. The CDC has found that the average number of carbon monoxide deaths in the United States is greatest in January. It notes that carbon monoxide poisoning can happen outdoors in fresh air. But the gas also has been linked with electrical generating equipment and engines on houseboats.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for protecting Americans from unreasonable risks of death or injury from thousands of products. Last month, the commission reported information about deaths linked to carbon monoxide poisoning. It estimated the number of deaths that could be linked with products under the commission’s supervision. There were an estimated one hundred eighty-nine such deaths in two thousand eight – the most recent year for which information is available. The report says forty-nine percent of the deaths involved engine-driven tools. Heating systems were blamed for thirty-seven percent of the deaths. (MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Carbon monoxide poisoning is not only a problem in the United States. It causes many deaths and injuries to people and animals around the world. The gas has been a problem since people first began burning fuels to cook food or to create heat. It is a problem in all parts of the world that experience cold weather.

Carbon monoxide is called the silent killer because people do not know it is in the air. The gas has no color. It has no taste. It has no smell. It does not cause burning eyes. And it does not cause people to cough. But it is very deadly. It robs the body of its ability to use oxygen.

BOB DOUGHTY: Carbon monoxide decreases the ability of the blood to carry oxygen to body tissues. It does this by linking with the blood. When the gas links with the blood, the blood is no longer able to carry oxygen to the tissues that need it.

Damage to the body can begin very quickly from large amounts of carbon monoxide. How quickly this happens depends on the length of time a person is breathing the gas and the amount of the gas he or she breathes in. Another consideration is how much alcohol the person might have to drink.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Carbon monoxide poisoning has warning signs. But people have to be awake to recognize them. Small amounts of the gas will cause a person’s head to hurt. He or she may begin to feel tired. The person may feel sick. The room may appear to be turning around. The person may have trouble thinking clearly.

People develop severe head pain as the amount of gas continues to enter their blood. They will begin to feel very tired and sleepy. They may have terrible stomach pains.

BOB DOUGHTY: Carbon monoxide is measured in parts per million in a normal atmosphere. Breathing in two hundred parts per million of carbon monoxide will cause the first signs of poisoning. It will result in head pain, stomach problems and a feeling of tiredness after two to three hours.

A level of eight hundred parts per million will cause a person to lose consciousness. Victims will not know what is taking place around them. This will happen within two hours of breathing in this amount of carbon monoxide. Twelve thousand parts per million of the gas will cause death in one to three minutes.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Medical experts say carbon monoxide affects people differently. For example, a small child will experience health problems or die much quicker than an adult will. The general health of the person or his or her age can also be important.

An older adult with health problems may suffer the effects of carbon monoxide more quickly than a younger person with no health problems. People with heart disease may suffer chest pains. They may begin to have trouble breathing.

Carbon monoxide does not always cause death. But it can cause many medical problems.  Breathing low amounts of the gas for long periods of time can lead to permanent damage in the heart, lungs or brain. Experts say small amounts of carbon monoxide over a long period of time can greatly harm an unborn baby.

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BOB DOUGHTY: What causes carbon monoxide gas? Any device that burns fuels like coal, gasoline, kerosene, oil or wood can create the gas. Water heaters that burn natural gas create carbon monoxide. Fireplaces and stoves that burn wood create the gas. Natural gas stoves and gas dryers or charcoal grills also create carbon monoxide. Automobiles create it.

Experts say the leading cause of carbon monoxide poisoning is damaged or misused equipment that burns these fossil fuels. Many people die or are injured by the gas because they do not use these devices correctly. Any device used to heat a home should be inspected to make sure it is working correctly. And, cooking equipment like a charcoal grill should never be used to heat an enclosed area.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Fuel-burning devices can create carbon monoxide gas because not all of the fuel is burned. Most devices used for home heating have a way to expel the gas from the home. For example, a fireplace has a chimney. Natural-gas stoves or gas water heaters are usually connected to a device that safely expels the gas from the home. Automobiles also have a system for releasing unburned fuel.

Anyone who uses a device that burns fossil fuel must inspect the equipment carefully to reduce chances of carbon monoxide escaping. Companies that produce the devices usually provide directions about using the device correctly. These directions should be read and understood before using any equipment that burns fuel inside a home.

A small, portable electric generator can be dangerous. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that such a device can kill within minutes when not used correctly.

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BOB DOUGHTY: You can do a number of things to protect yourself from the effects of carbon monoxide. First, immediately leave the area if you recognize the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning in yourself or others. Seek emergency medical services after you leave the area where you suspect the gas might be. Usually, the treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning involves breathing in large amounts of oxygen. However, a doctor will know the best method to treat the effects of such poisoning.

Carbon monoxide does not quickly leave the body, even after treatment has begun. It can take several hours before the gas disappears. If you suspect carbon monoxide is a problem in your home, call your local fire department. Many firefighters have the necessary equipment to find or identify the gas.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In many countries, it is possible to buy and use a special device that will warn when harmful levels of carbon monoxide are in the area. These devices can be linked to a home’s electric system. Others are battery-powered.  Experts say these devices should be placed near sleeping areas in the home and they should be tested at least twice a year.

The most important weapon against carbon monoxide poisoning is the safe use of materials to heat any enclosed area. Safety directions that come with heating equipment must be followed. Older equipment powered by fossil fuels should be inspected every year to make sure it continues to be safe. Knowledge about the dangers of carbon monoxide could be the most important information you ever learn.

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BOB DOUGHTY: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Christopher Cruise and June Simms, who was also our producer. I’m Bob Doughty.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: And I’m Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

People have been growing chrysanthemums for more than two thousand years. Mums make bright and colorful gardens. People in China and other Asian cultures make tea with the flowers. Giacomo Puccini, the great Italian composer, even named one of his works after chrysanthemums, "Crisantemi."

(MUSIC: Manhattan String Quartet)

One basic kind of mum is the hardy or garden mum. The other basic kind is the florist mum. The garden mum is better able to handle different growing conditions.

There are many varieties of mums. The decorative mum is often seen in gardens. Another popular type, the quill mum, has long, straight petals like a tube or needle.

Chrysanthemum blooms can be white, yellow, gold, red or other colors. The plants often grow one meter high.

The soil for chrysanthemums should be kept moist but well drained so it does not get too wet.

Newly planted mums should be watered two or three times a week, depending on conditions. Plants established in the ground may do well just with normal rainfall.

Mums grow best in full sunshine. They produce colorful blooms when days get shorter and nights get longer. The life cycle of the plant depends on the amount of daylight. This is why experts advise against placing mums near nightlights or streetlights. The light may interfere with their normal growth cycle. The plants may develop buds too soon.

In climates where temperatures fall below freezing, plant mums at least six weeks before the first frost is expected. That way, the plants will be well established for cold weather.

Placing mulch around the plants can protect them from the cold. Consider using straw or shredded leaves for the mulch. The material will also add nutrients to the soil.

Some gardeners say the most beautiful presentation comes from planting mums close together. But be sure to leave enough space to let air flow between the plants. If not, there may be a greater chance of disease.

To get more blooms, gardeners pinch back the branches when new growth has reached fifteen centimeters. Squeeze about five to seven centimeters off each branch. Pinch it again when a branch grows another twelve to fifteen centimeters. Stop the pinching about one hundred days before you want the plants to bloom.

And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. I’m Jim Tedder.

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This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

Google is preparing for changes in its privacy policy beginning March first. The company says it plans to replace more than sixty separate policies for different products with one main policy.

Privacy activists criticized last month's announcement. They are concerned that the new policy will make it easier to track the activities of users across Google's many products -- from Gmail to YouTube.

Marc Rotenberg heads the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. He says Google's aim is to create a single unified profile of its users.

MARC ROTENBERG: "We believe that not only is that a threat to privacy, we actually believe it is illegal, because last year Google entered into an agreement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in which they said they would not engage in that kind of data sharing without the explicit permission of their users."

Google says its new policy will make it simpler for users to share information across services like Google Search, Gmail and Google Calendar. And it says the new policy will help personalize each user’s experience. Over time, it says, users can expect to see better search results, fewer unwanted advertisements and more content targeted to their interests.

But Marc Rotenberg says in return, people who choose to use Google will lose control over the information they share.

MARC ROTENBERG: "The type of information you might provide for an e-mail service, for example, such as your address book, which contains private information, is different from the type of information that you might provide for a social network service where people purposely make information publicly available to their friends."  Mr. Rotenberg says these two kinds of services should be kept separate.

MARC ROTENBERG: "By trying to combine these two services, in our view, Google is actually undermining a very well established expectation of privacy, particularly for popular Internet services like electronic mail."

Critics also see a bigger problem with Google's new policy. The plan would not give users a choice to "opt-out" of the data sharing.

MARC ROTENBERG: "In our view, if people want to make their personal information available, they certainly should have the right to do that. What we’re objecting to is the effort by the company to take away from the users that choice that they should have. That just seems unfair."

Google says it will not be collecting any more data than it does now. And it says users will still be able to control many privacy settings. For example, they can disable their search history and set Gmail chat to "off the record."

European Union officials have asked the company to delay the new policy to make sure it would not violate any E.U. data protection laws. Marc Rotenberg thinks the Federal Trade Commission in Washington might also try to block the new policy.

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Shirley Griffith.

JUNE SIMMS: And I'm June Simms. This week on our program, we visit a new exhibit of work by photographer Annie Leibovitz. Then, we tell you about a collection of works by women performing traditional American music. And, later, we go under the streets of New York City to hear the work of subway musicians.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Annie Leibovitz has been a photographer for forty years. She is famous for her photographs of people, especially famous people. She says she will continue doing portraits of people, but also wants to take other kinds of photos.

A new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington shows a different side to her work. She spent two years taking pictures without any people in them. Many are photos of places in the United States where famous people lived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are photos of homes and personal items that belonged to people including artists, scientists, photographers and a president. The exhibit is called "Pilgrimage."

Ms. Leibovitz explains that from two thousand nine to two thousand eleven, she took photos of places that moved her emotionally. She says the collection represents a renewal of her spirit. Her lover, the author Susan Sontag, died of cancer at the end of two thousand four. Ms. Leibovitz had financial troubles and almost lost control of her photo archives.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ: "There's some searching going on. I discovered some things about myself which were really comforting."

Ms. Leibovitz says she was inspired by Georgia O'Keefe, the twentieth century artist. She traveled to New Mexico to photograph the houses where O'Keeffe lived and a box of handmade pastels that she drew with.

Ms. Leibovitz also captured images of items that belonged to President Abraham Lincoln. These include his hat and gloves from when he was assassinated in eighteen-sixty-five.

Andy Grundberg curated the exhibit for the museum.

ANDY GRUNDBERG: "What she's really trying to do is evoke the presence of people, in a way, despite their absence."

He calls the exhibit "a portrait of Leibovitz."

ANDY GRUNDBERG: "This is a way of understanding how Annie Leibovitz thinks about the world through the pictures that she's taken of people and places that are important to her."

Annie Leibovitz told reporters that she had not planned to focus on people from the past.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ: "What really drew me to them, I think that they stand out. I thrive on history. I love it."

One person she focused on was Annie Oakley. Annie Oakley was famous in the late eighteen hundreds for her shooting skills. She appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Annie Leibovitz photographed Annie Oakley's boots and one of her shooting targets.

She also went to Graceland, Elvis Presley's home in Tennessee. There, she took a picture of his motorcycle. The rock and roll great died in nineteen seventy-seven.

To honor Ansel Adams, the famous landscape photographer, Ms. Leibovitz took a picture of his darkroom. Ansel Adams was known for his photography of the wilderness in the American West. He was also a leader in the nature conservation movement. He died in nineteen eighty-four.

Annie Leibovitz also took photos similar to his pictures of Yosemite Valley in California.

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ: "The best homage you can make was photographing that valley that he saved."

The "Pilgrimage" exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum continues through May twentieth.

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JUNE SIMMS: American roots music is the collective name for traditional forms like old-time country, blues and folk music. Some of the best-remembered roots musicians include men like Lead Belly, Muddy Waters and Doc Watson. Now, a woman in the Pacific Northwest is trying to get people to think more about female roots musicians.

On a recent day, Dyann Arthur and her husband, Rick, were at the Old-Time Music Gathering in Portland, Oregon. She walked around the performance hall and compared the numbers of male and female players in different groups.

DYANN ARTHUR: "This one's pretty well integrated, and then there are some of them that are primarily the guys."

Ms. Arthur plays piano and guitar but earned her living from mortgage loan banking. She recently retired. So did her husband, a pilot. They talked a lot about what they would do in their retirement. They wanted something meaningful that combined music and travel.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The result was a trip through thirty of the fifty states. They recorded performances of women making traditional music. And, says Rick Arthur, they also asked the women about their histories as musicians.

RICK ARTHUR: "They don't have mentors. They don't have an image to see themselves in that position. Early on we took that as kind of a philosophical goal to produce those types of images that women could identify with."

The work developed into the MusicBox Project. So far this nonprofit effort has collected material on more than eighty American roots musicians.

DYANN ARTHUR: "All forms of music. We like to say A to Z, Appalachian to Zydeco."

One of the artists is vocalist and guitarist Lauren Sheehan of Portland.

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Ms. Sheehan trained as a classical musician in the late nineteen seventies. Then, one day, she borrowed some vinyl records of folk music from her college library.

LAUREN SHEEHAN: "When I heard that breadth, I sought out folk festivals even more. That was because there was an archived piece of real music that spoke to me."

The music included recordings from the nineteen thirties, collected by the Library of Congress.

Now, through the MusicBox Project, Lauren Sheehan's own music is in the American Folklife collection at the Library of Congress. The Arthurs donated a copy of their collection to the library.

LAUREN SHEEHAN: "I am only a little drop in the bucket of oral tradition, but I am a drop in the bucket, and wonderful players have passed stuff on to me who have now died. All this being in the Library of Congress is so cool because other people can hear that."

Dyann Arthur, the co-founder of the MusicBox Project, says part of her mission is to present examples for future generations of women.

DYANN ARTHUR: "With the educational piece that we hope to do as this thing goes forward -- I would say three to five years out -- is going to be allowed to go into the schools in a format that says, 'Look at that saxophone player. There's another one. I can do that, too.'"

The Arthurs also have a YouTube channel with more than three hundred performances. You can find a link at voaspecialenglish.com. Dyann Arthur is currently editing some of that material into a documentary.

(MUSIC: Allison Krauss)

JUNE SIMMS: The New York subway system is one of the largest public transportation systems in the world. Each week more than eight million people travel around the city on the subway. But riders can find more than just transportation below the streets of New York. Many subway stations are like free concert halls, with almost every kind of music competing with the noise of the trains.

Rawl Mitchell is an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago. He began playing the steel drums in the subway in the middle of the nineteen nineties.

RAWL MITCHELL: "The people do appreciate the music. They stand around listening to the music and if it pleases them, they applaud and put their money in the case or whatever. They usually clap and say, 'You know, it's nice’."

A singer and songwriter named Rosateresa has been performing in the subway almost as long.

ROSATERESA: "My mission is to sing like the jilguero. The jilguero is a Puerto Rican bird -- I'm Puerto Rican -- that wakes up the sun."

Players like Rawl Mitchell and Rosateresa perform on their own. They are not part of the transit system's official "Music Under New York" program. That program offers one hundred fifty weekly performances, including American bluegrass and African kora music.

The only money the musicians earn is whatever the people listening choose to give them.

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On this day, Patricia Vital and Tom McNichols are finding a small but supportive audience. They are members of a group called Opera Collective. They say they love performing opera in the subway, even though they do not earn much.

TOM McNICHOLS: "Music in general is not for the money, and music under New York is definitely more about making opera more accessible than it is about making a living."

Folk singer Wendy Sayvetz has performed in train stations for more than twenty years. She has also performed at the White House. She says people who think subway musicians do not like being subway musicians are wrong.

WENDY SAYVETZ: "What they don't get is that we actually love this gig."

In fact, Ms. Sayvetz and a partner are developing a musical play about subway musicians.

WENDY SAYVETZ: "It's not about 'Oh, we don't have to play in the subway anymore.' We want people to go, 'Oh, subway music is the best thing!'"

You can watch a video about subway musicians at voaspecialenglish.com.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Our program was produced by Brianna Blake and June Simms with reporting by Deborah Block, Tom Banse and Carolyn Weaver. I'm Shirley Griffith.

JUNE SIMMS: And I'm June Simms. You can find transcripts and MP3s of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. And, while you're there, check out the new relationship advice blog for English learners -- where you give the advice. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: PEOPLE IN AMERICA -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

Each week at this time, we bring you a story about people who were important in the history of the United States. Today, Doug Johnson and Larry West begin the story of Stephen Vincent Benet.

He was one of the most popular American writers of the first part of the nineteen hundreds.

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LARRY WEST: A young woman once asked Stephen Vincent Benet for his advice on writing. This is what he said:

"I spent my childhood on a series of army bases. If I were writing stories about that, I would have to explain a few things about the army. I would have to give you a sense of being in a world of your own that children have. I would have to show you that it is as natural for an army child to move to a different base every few years, as for a civilian child to grow up in one town."

It was natural for Benet to talk about writing -- and his childhood -- at the same time. For his family and early surroundings shaped his life as a writer perhaps more than usual.

DOUG JOHNSON: Stephen Vincent Benet was born in eighteen-ninety-eight in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was named in memory of his grandfather, who had been a general in the United States army.

General Benet attended the military academy at west point and was an expert on military law. He served in the army before, during and after the Civil War. Stephen's father also was an army officer. Colonel James Benet worked on questions of military supply and artillery. Stephen was born while his father was on duty at the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, iron factory.

LARRY WEST: Stephen Vincent Benet was born into a world of history, poetry and laughter. His parents loved to read. So did his brother and sister, who were much older than he.

The Benet house was filled with books. Stephen's mother and brother wrote poems. His sister supervised his studies. And his father talked to him about history, philosophy and literature.

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Colonel Benet always could find a kind word to say or a joke to tell. Many years later, Stephen wrote:

My father was interested in everything. And he was the finest critic of poetry I have ever known. He taught me many things about writing, and understanding of others, and independence, and the desire to know things.

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DOUG JOHNSON: Stephen's childhood was almost completely happy. He had suffered an illness when he was very young and this left him with a weak heart. But he played tennis and football, and loved to take long walks. His family members were his team players and close friends. Colonel Benet earned enough money to provide the family with everything they needed.

By the time Stephen was eight years old, his brother and sister were studying at universities. They introduced Stephen to their friends, some of whom would become famous writers and artists. These young people took an interest in Stephen, for he was an intelligent boy who spoke well. They began to send him things to

Read: books, and some of their own writings.

LARRY WEST: Colonel Benet's work took him to different places. So while Stephen was still a boy, he lived in the states of Pennsylvania, New York, California and Georgia. He was happy to be able to see some of the places he had read about, places that were famous in American history. In the West, there were the mountains, rivers and towns with Spanish names. In the North and South, there were the battlefields of the civil war.

DOUG JOHNSON: Stephen especially liked the army base in Georgia where he and his parents lived. The base was almost two hundred years old. All around the buildings, inside and out, were the cannons and other equipment of past battles.

Best of all, Stephen was able to visit the great farms and small towns where little had changed since the civil war had ended in eighteen sixty-five. He listened to the talk of old southern women who remembered very clearly the years before the war. More than forty years had passed. But the old women and the others made the past come alive for the boy. He thought about writing history.

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LARRY WEST: By the time Stephen was fifteen, he was writing almost every day. The summer before he entered Yale University, at the age of seventeen, he published his first book of poems. The poems were political and philosophical. They expressed his thoughts on democracy and freedom.

At Yale, Stephen made loyal friends. He was truly interested in people. He was a quiet young man with little color in his face. He wore round eyeglasses and did not care much about his clothing. His friends tried to improve his appearance. And they tried to show him things that interested wealthy young men at that time. But Stephen liked simple things, and did not change.

DOUG JOHNSON: Stephen worked hard at the university. He became editor of the Yale literary magazine, which the students published. The literary magazine was popular with students and writers at other schools, too. Stephen wrote poems and articles for the magazine, and for a number of other publications. He did this in addition to his school work.

Stephen learned to write very quickly. Often, he would write while attending classes or sitting in noisy coffee houses. This method did not always produce the best writing. But it made it possible for Stephen to produce a great deal of writing. Before he finished his four years of study at Yale, many people had read his poems and stories.

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LARRY WEST: Stephen was almost twenty-one years old when he left Yale. He no longer wanted to take money from his father, who would soon retire with a wife and daughter to support. Stephens' brother, William, was a successful writer and editor. Yet he did not earn much money. So Stephen went to New York City. In the next two years, he worked briefly in an office. Then he returned to Yale.

The university helped him win an award of money to travel and write. The money gave him the chance to write whatever he wanted...wherever he wanted. Stephen decided to go to Paris.

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DOUG JOHNSON: In those years -- the early nineteen twenties -- many young American writers lived in Paris. Among them were Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Stephen fell in love with the city, and with an American woman he met there. The woman was Rosemary Carr. She was a writer for a newspaper in the American city of Chicago. Stephen and Rosemary returned to Chicago to be married.

The Benets decided to make their home in New York. Stephen had written two books and a great many poems when he was in Paris.

He would spend the next five years writing stories for popular magazines. The stories were not about serious people or ideas. They were stories of the moment, not meant to be remembered.

LARRY WEST: Stephen often took long walks through the streets of New York. He did not like the life he saw there. He did not like the politics. He did not like the methods people used to succeed. And he did not like what he saw in many of the people's faces: a sense of hopelessness and need.

Stephen began to think back to his childhood...to the way he saw America as a boy. He thought about the history of America, and about its heroes. He decided to stop writing foolish things. He wanted to use his stories and poems to show Americans what was good and valuable in their culture. He wanted to give them something to believe in.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: You have been listening to the Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Your narrators were Doug Johnson and Larry West. Our program was written by Barbara Dash. The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week at this same time when we will complete our story of the life of writer Stephen Vincent Benet.

For VOA Special English, this is Shirley Griffith.

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

Today we tell about the expression apple pie order. It means in perfect order, very well organized.

Nobody is sure where and when the expression apple pie order began. Some say that Scottish and English writers used the expression a long time ago. Others say it first was used in the northeastern American states known as New England.

The housewives of New England cut their apples in even slices. Then they filled pie pans with them in an organized way, row upon row. As one writer said, the women of New England loved to have everything in its place. This perhaps explains why it generally is believed that the expression apple-pie order began in New England.

Another old expression describes the opposite condition – wild disorder. That expression is apple of discord. It comes from ancient mythology.

The myth says that all the gods and goddesses were sitting around the table to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus. One of the goddesses, Discord, was a troublemaker. She threw a golden apple on the table to be given as a prize to the most beautiful goddess.

It was not an easy decision to make. How could they choose among Juno, Minerva and Venus. Paris was given the task of deciding. He decided to give the golden apple to Venus. Juno and Minerva were very angry and threatened him. This, the myth says, began the long Trojan war.

At one time, the tomato was called a love apple. That was a mistake. This is how the mistake happened.

In the sixteenth century, Spain imported the tomato from South America after Spanish explorers had landed there. Spain then exported the tomato to Morocco. Italian traders carried it on to Italy. The Italian name for the tomato was pomo di Moro – apple of the Moors.

When French growers imported it from Italy, they thought di Moro meant d'amour, the French word for love. And so pomo di Moro became the apple of love.

People believe many things about the apple. One belief is that it has great powers of keeping people healthy. A very common expression is "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."

Another belief is based on fact. The expression is "One rotten apple spoils the barrel." When an apple begins to go bad, it ruins all the other apples around it in the container. The expression has come to mean that one bad person in a group can cause everyone to act bad.

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You have been listening to the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES. I'm Warren Scheer.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

This week, the United Nations declared an official end to the famine in southern Somalia. Recent rains, an improved harvest and a major humanitarian aid effort during the past six months helped reduce the threat of starvation.

But the new head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says millions of people are still at risk. Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva says conditions could again worsen unless the aid continues during the next one hundred days.

JOSE GRAZIANO DA SILVA: "If we do not keep in support, especially those three months that we have in drought season until came the rain season in April, those people will not survive. We will have famine back."

Mr. da Silva traveled this week to southern Somalia. On Friday he told reporters in Kenya that no more areas of Somalia are under famine conditions. But in his words, "good news does not mean that the crisis is over."

JOSE GRAZIANO DA SILVA: “We still have a huge problem in the region particularly in Somalia and also in the other countries that you know are facing similar situation like the Sahel region in particular the South Sudan.''

United Nations officials now list the situation in Somalia as a "humanitarian emergency" instead of a famine. "Famine" means two adults or four children per ten thousand people die of hunger each day and a third of children are severely malnourished.

The FAO and the Famine Early Warning Network say more than two million people still need emergency assistance. That is almost one-third of Somalia's population.

The United Nations says tens of thousand of people have died since the famine was first declared in parts of southern Somalia in July. Now, refugees have started slowly returning after a good harvest in the recent rainy season.

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled to camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in search of food and water. Part of the problem: the militant group al-Shabab has restricted international aid in the areas it controls.

In any conflict area, helping those in need can require complex negotiations and compromise. The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders works in many conflict areas, including Somalia. The group is also known as MSF, for Medecins Sans Frontieres in French. The group has published a book called "Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience."

In recent years, medical and humanitarian workers have been increasingly in danger.

MICHAEL NEUMAN: "We got ourselves five workers killed in Afghanistan in two thousand four. We got three workers killed in Somalia, expulsion in Niger and in Sudan."

Michael Neuman is director of the MSF research center in Paris and co-author of the book. He says there is no way to avoid negotiation if medical treatment is to be provided in conflict areas. Negotiations center on a search for common interests between different sides and opposing groups. In the end, he says, "you fight for what you believe in to the maximum, but know that you may not achieve it all."

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

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Contributing: Joe De Capua and Gabe Joselow

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FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I’m Faith Lapidus. Today, we report all about the Super Bowl, the national championship for American professional football.

(MUSIC)

Superbowl XLVI

UPDATE: From VOA News: New York Wins Close Super Bowl Over New England

FAITH LAPIDUS: Sunday is a big day for sports lovers in America. That is when the National Football League holds its forty-sixth Super Bowl game. This year, the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will battle for the championship at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. Christopher Cruise has more on the teams, the tensions and the halftime show at Super Bowl forty-six.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The New England Patriots won thirteen of their sixteen games in the regular season. This Sunday marks their seventh Super Bowl. Only two other teams have taken part in more. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys have gone to the Super Bowl eight times each.

The Patriots have won three Super Bowls and lost three. But, a win in this championship game could be especially sweet. The Patriots lost in their most recent Super Bowl appearance to the very team they will meet Sunday, the New York Giants.

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->For the Giants, this will be Super Bowl number five. Their record is three wins and one loss. But the Giants are one of the most winning teams in the history of the NFL. They have been around a lot longer than either the Super Bowl or the Patriots.

The Giants were one of the first teams to join the newly formed National Football League in nineteen twenty-five. They won their first NFL championship in nineteen twenty-seven and three more before the Super Bowl even existed.

The current New York Giants team is led by quarterback Eli Manning. He comes from a football family. His older brother Peyton Manning is a Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. His father, Archie Manning, also played in the NFL.

Eli Manning won his first Super Bowl in the two thousand eight. He was named most valuable player of that game.

Quarterback Tom Brady leads the Patriots. He has had an extremely successful career in the NFL. In his ten years as New England’s top quarterback, he has taken the team to the Super Bowl five times. He is one of two quarterbacks in history to win the Super Bowl and the NFL most valuable player awards more than once. He also holds many NFL records, including most touchdown passes in a season.

<!--IMAGE-RIGHT-->Manning and Brady faced each other at the Super Bowl in two thousand eight. The Giants victory came as a huge surprise. The team had entered the NFL playoffs as a wild card. In other words, New York did not win its division championship. But, it did well enough during the season that the team was chosen to compete in the playoffs.

Four years ago, the Patriots had not lost a game during the season. They were expected to defeat the Giants by more than twelve points. But, in the end, the Giants beat the Patriots by three points, seventeen to fourteen. New York became the first wild card team in its football conference to win a Super Bowl.

The Giants did win their division this time. They finished the regular season with nine wins. One of those wins was against -- you guessed it -- the New England Patriots.

Commercials: $3 Million and Up

FAITH LAPIDUS: The Super Bowl is the most watched television program of any in the history of TV. Last year, more than one hundred million people watched the game. This represents big business for advertisers. Shirley Griffith tells us about some of the commercials and halftime entertainment for Sunday’s game.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Super Bowl ads are famously funny, inventive and artistic. And they cost a lot. Thirty seconds of television advertising during the game costs more than three million dollars. Super Bowl forty-six broadcaster NBC expects to receive up to three hundred million dollars from advertisers. Several of the ads have already been released on the Internet.

Car commercials take a major share of the advertising action. In one, an overweight dog spends months exercising so he can chase a new Volkswagen successfully. Another commercial shows an Eskimo leaving his home on a sled pulled by dogs. He returns with a new automobile, a Suzuki, with his dogs enjoying the ride.

Some of the advertising this year is filled with sexy images. Actor John Stamos and a beautiful woman fight over yogurt in one ad. In another, race car driver Danika Patrick and fitness trainer Jillian Michaels team up to paint the body of a supermodel. And you can see soccer star David Beckham -- a lot of him -- in an underwear ad for a clothing store.

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->But what will Madonna wear, is the question on many people’s minds. The singer will perform during the game’s halftime show. Madonna has said she is nervous about the performance. She told talk show host Anderson Cooper that the Super Bowl is the “holy of the holies.” She said “I have to put on the greatest show on earth in the middle of the greatest show on earth.”

Anderson asked her for details on what she would be doing. “I’ll be singing,” she said.

(MUSIC)

Madonna will share the halftime show with Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. The two pop stars performed on Madonna’s album “M.D.N.A,” which is expected to be released next month.

Madonna praised Minaj and M.I.A. for their independence and spirit. This week, M.I.A. released a new single called “Bad Girls.”

(MUSIC)

Madonna has not said which songs she will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. But many reports say one of her most famous songs, “Vogue,” will be among them.

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: This week we launched a new relationship advice blog for English learners. So who gives the advice? You do. Our blog combines writing practice with crowd sourcing -- having a large group of people work on a solution together.

Our new blog is a way for people to improve their English and help others solve a relationship problem. It could be a personal or professional relationship. In some cases we also plan to get advice from experts about how they would deal with the situation.

The blog is divided into sections about dating, marriage, family, friends, work and school.

In the dating section, for example, an eighteen-year-old woman in Russia has been getting a lot of advice. She wrote that she is "disappointed in love and guys" after a bad experience.

In the family section, a medical chemistry student in South Korea is having a problem with his mother back home in China. The son is twenty-five and in a graduate study program. His mother is threatening to stop supporting him if his girlfriend from back home joins him at his university. Some of you have been advising him to respect his mother's wishes. Others are suggesting ways to get her to change her mind. Still others think he should lie to his mother -- or marry his girlfriend. You can read his problem for yourself and offer your own advice.

In the family section, an eighteen-year-old woman from Kyrgyzstan would like some ideas about how to improve her relationship with her younger sister. And in the work section, one of the problems is from a forty-year-old man in Iran. He wants to know how to build effective relationships at work so he can get a promotion.

Every few weeks we plan to read some of the blog postings here on our program. So we need you to keep sending us your problems. Think of this as a way to ask others for advice without everyone you know having to see it on your Facebook page.

Send your problem to mosaic@voanews.com and type "Relationship" in the subject line.  We will not use your name on the air or on our blog, but please tell us your age, gender and country.

To read the blog and offer advice, go to voaspecialenglish.com and click on the link that says "Relationship Advice: What Would You Do?"

(MUSIC)

FAITH LAPIDUS: I’m ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Faith Lapidus. This program was written and produced by Caty Weaver. Join us again next week for music and more on AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Investors soon will be able to own shares of Facebook stock. The world’s biggest social media network presented documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday. The documents are required before the company can make its initial public offering, or IPO. A date for the stock sale has yet to be announced.

Experts say Facebook could raise about five billion dollars. That would be one of the biggest IPO sales ever. And it would be much bigger than Google’s first public stock sale in two thousand four. At that time, the Internet search company raised almost two billion dollars.

Facebook has eight hundred million users around the world. It is the second most visited website after Google. Now, experts say the social media network is in a position to become one of the most valuable Internet companies.

Stock expert Anupam Palit at Greencrest Capital says that among social media sites, Facebook is in a class by itself.

ANUPAM PALIT: "It is the biggest company in this space and we believe what makes it very unique from every other company that went public last year in this space is that it is very, very profitable."

Early estimates place the total value of the social network between seventy-five and one hundred billion dollars. That includes earlier investments by other companies. David Kirkpatrick wrote the book “The Facebook Effect.” He says Facebook’s IPO will be historic.

DAVID KIRKPATRICK: "Will Facebook's IPO be the biggest IPO in American history, probably not, but it will certainly be by far the biggest Internet or technology IPO we've ever seen."

The stock sale also could make Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg one of the world's youngest billionaires. He is only twenty-seven.

Investment companies are likely to buy Facebook stock first. But investment manager Jim O'Shaugnessy says that is not so bad. He says the price of some IPO stocks are too high and fall not long after they first go on sale.

JIM O'SHAUGHNESSY: "Many IPO's come out being very, very overvalued because they get so hyped up and investors are so taken in by the story that they're willing to pay any amount just to be able to get into the stock. That generally translates to being very overvalued. So we generally tell investors that they should wait, probably a good full year before they look at buying stock that was recently IPO'd."

Recently, share prices of some Internet businesses have fallen after their stock was first offered. For example, stock of LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga, dropped in price by as much as twenty-five percent after going public.

There were similar questions eight years ago when Google first sold stock to the public. Today, Google is one of the world’s most valuable technology companies.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report. Visit us at voaspecialenglish.com. And find teaching and learning activities in The Classroom at VOA Learning English. I’m Mario Ritter.

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Contributing: Mil Arcega

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STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

This week in our series, we look at the presidential election of nineteen eighty-eight.

(MUSIC)

Ronald Reagan was finishing his second term. He was America's fortieth president and one of the most popular. During his eight years in office, many Americans did well financially. Many felt more secure about the future of the nation and the world. The possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union did not seem as great a threat as it had in the past.

The Constitution limits presidents to two terms. So, in nineteen eighty-eight, the country prepared to elect a new chief executive.

There were three main candidates for the Republican Party nomination. They were George Herbert Walker Bush, Bob Dole and Pat Robertson. Bush had just served eight years as Reagan's vice president. Dole was the top Republican in the Senate. Robertson was a conservative Christian who had his own television program.

Ronald Reagan's popularity helped George Bush gain the Republican nomination. Neither Dole nor Robertson won enough votes in the primary election season to be a threat. Bush was nominated on the first vote at the party convention. The delegates accepted his choice

Eight candidates competed for the nomination of the Democratic Party. One of the candidates was Jesse Jackson, a black minister and political activist. He won about twenty-five percent of the delegates. He had also sought the nomination four years earlier.

The Democrats chose Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts. His running mate was Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas.

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->In public opinion surveys Dukakis looked like a strong candidate after the party conventions. But then he began to lose popularity. Many observers said he had waited too long to launch a nationwide campaign.

The candidates heavily attacked each other through campaign advertising on television.

Dukakis also came under attack from the Bush campaign, targeting his record as a governor. Campaign ads said Dukakis had not been tough enough with criminals.

ANNOUNCER: “Bush and Dukakis on Crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty – he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willy Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him nineteen times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received ten weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes – Dukakis on crime.”

Ads by the Bush campaign also said Dukakis would weaken America’s military power. And they accused him of not protecting the environment by seeking a permit to dump sewage from Massachusetts off the coast of New Jersey.

ANNOUNCER: “The Environmental Protection Agency called Boston Harbor one of the dirtiest harbors in America. But not long ago, Governor Dukakis proposed a way to help clean it up – by dumping Massachusetts sewage sludge off the New Jersey shore, just one hundred and six miles from New York. Now, Michael Dukakis says he wants to do for America, what he’s done for Massachusetts. New Jersey can’t afford to take that risk.”

MICHAEL DUKAKIS: “I’m fed up with it -- never seen anything like it in twenty-five years of public life.”

Dukakis fought back.

MICHAEL DUKAKIS: “George Bush’s negative TV ads distorting my record -- full of lies, and he knows it.”

Dukakis accused Bush of not telling the truth about his part in the secret sales of arms to Iran to finance contra rebels in Nicaragua. He also criticized Bush for being part of an administration that reduced social programs.

DUKAKIS: “I must have been living through a different eight years from the ones the vice president’s been living through, because this administration has cut and slashed, and cut and slashed programs for children, for nutrition, for the kinds of things that can help these youngsters to live better lives.

“It’s cut federal aid to education, has cut Pell Grants and loans, to close the door to college opportunity on youngsters all over this country. And that, too, is a major difference between the vice president and me.”

(MUSIC)

In the end, Bush's campaign succeeded in making Dukakis look weak on crime and defense. Dukakis did not help himself with a commercial in which he was looking out of a moving tank while wearing a large helmet. Many people made fun of the ad.

On Election Day in November, Bush defeated Dukakis by almost seven million votes.

George Bush was sworn into office on January twentieth, nineteen eighty-nine.

GEORGE BUSH: "No president, no government can teach us to remember what is best in what we are. But if the man you have chosen to lead this government can help make a difference, if he can celebrate the quieter, deeper successes that are made -- not of gold and silk, but of better hearts and finer souls -- if he can do these things, then he must. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world. My friends, we have work to do."

(MUSIC)

George Bush was the son of a United States senator and had led a life of public service. He joined the Navy when America entered World War Two. He flew attack planes. He was just eighteen years old -- at that time, the youngest pilot the Navy ever had. He flew many bombing raids against the Japanese in the Pacific. He was shot down once and rescued by an American submarine.

George Bush came home from the war as a hero. He became a university student and got married. He and his wife, Barbara, then moved to Texas where he worked in the oil business. He ran for the United States Senate in nineteen sixty-four, and lost. Two years later, he was elected to the House of Representatives.

He ran for the Senate again in nineteen seventy, and lost again. But by that time, he had gained wider recognition. Over the next eight years, he was appointed to a series of government positions. He was ambassador to the United Nations. He was chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was America's representative in China before the two countries had diplomatic relations. And he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In nineteen eighty, Bush ran against Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination for president. Bush lost but became Reagan's running mate.

After two terms as vice president, he felt ready to lead the nation himself.

The new president took seven foreign trips during his first year in office. In Europe, Bush met with the other leaders of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He proposed a major agreement on reducing troops and non-nuclear weapons in Europe. The Soviet Union considered his proposal an important step in the right direction.

(MUSIC)

In June of nineteen eighty-nine, the Chinese government sent tanks and troops to crush pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of demonstrators were killed. President Bush took some steps against China, but many critics felt the sanctions were not strong enough.

In central and eastern Europe, communist governments also faced protests. Since nineteen eighty-seven, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had let countries in the Warsaw Pact experiment with political and economic reforms.

But those reforms were not enough to stop the fall of communist governments in one country after another.

In the summer of nineteen eighty-nine, President Bush visited Hungary and Poland. Both nations were trying to develop free-market economies. Both were suffering as they moved away from central control.

(SOUND: Polish Solidarity demonstrators singing)

In Poland the leader of the Solidary trade union, Lech Walesa, led the push for reform.

(SOUND: Lech Walesa)

He would later become president of a democratic Poland.

(SOUND: West German Tagesschau television)

November of nineteen eighty-nine brought a dramatic expression of the changes taking place in eastern Europe.

On November ninth, East Germany opened the wall that had divided it from the West since nineteen sixty-one.

ANNOUNCER: “From ABC, this is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, reporting tonight from Berlin.”

PETER JENNINGS: “From the Berlin Wall specifically. Take a look at them. They’ve been there since last night. They are here in the thousands; they are here in the tens of thousands. Occasionally they shout ‘Die Mauer muss weg!’ – the wall must go!

“Thousands and thousands of West Germans come to make the point that the wall has suddenly become irrelevant. Something, as you can see, almost to party on. How do you measure such an astonishing moment in history?

“The East German government said tonight they were going to make more openings in the wall, at least a dozen more, put bulldozers right through the wall, so that more people could cross to the West. The East German communist leadership tonight said there’d be a new election law guaranteeing secret elections which the rest of the world could monitor.

“And only twenty-four hours after East Germans were told they could go anywhere, anytime, the Soviet Union said – that was a sensible move!”

Within days, citizens and soldiers began tearing the wall down as the world watched with hope for a new era of peace.

(MUSIC: “Freiheit,” Freedom)

PETER JENNINGS: “What’s it feel like to be standing on top of the Wall?”

YOUNG GERMAN MEN: “Incredible. For me, it’s -- I can’t describe really my feelings. It’s something unreal for me.” “If there is someone who sleeps for eight weeks, and you told him what happened here, he thinks you are crazy. It’s unthinkable.”

(MUSIC)

The fall of the Berlin Wall pointed to the end of the Soviet Union, the end of Communist rule in most of the countries in the former Soviet Bloc – and the end of more than 40 years of the Cold War between the East and West.

The presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush will be remembered as the time during which these world changing events took place, as well as the beginning of the Persian Gulf War with Iraq, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. We’ll look at those and other events in the Bush presidency, both at home and abroad, next week.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember, inviting you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

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Contributing: Jerilyn Watson

This was program #226. For earlier programs, type "Making of a Nation" in quotation marks in the search box at the top of the page.

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Electronic books have changed the way many people read for pleasure. Now online textbooks are changing the way some students learn and some teachers teach.

More than one hundred seventy-five thousand students attend the public schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, outside Washington. Last year, the school system used digital books in fifteen schools. This school year, middle schools and high schools changed from printed to electronic textbooks in their social studies classes.

<!--IMAGE-RIGHT-->Luke Rosa is a history teacher at Falls Church High School. His students work on school laptop computers. He explains the idea to them this way.

LUKE ROSA: "I mean, it's just like a regular textbook, except it's got it all online."

Peter Noonan, an assistant superintendent of schools, says with electronic textbooks, publishers can quickly update the content with the latest information.

PETER NOONAN: "The world's changing consistently. And the online textbooks can change right along with the events that are happening."

Digital books also cost less than printed textbooks, he says.

PETER NOONAN: "Usually it's in the neighborhood of between fifty and seventy dollars to buy a textbook for each student, which adds up to roughly eight million dollars for all of our students in Fairfax County. We actually have purchased all of the online textbooks for our students for just under six million dollars."

So what do students think?

MELANIE REUTER: "I don't have to carry a textbook around, so that's nice."

MARIA STEPHANY: "I don't like it because the Internet sometimes, it's like, doesn't work."

BRIAN TRAN: "You can highlight your work. You can leave notes on your work and it'll all be saved onto your account. It's a lot better than a regular textbook."

Social studies teacher Michael Bambara says the e-book he uses in his government class is better than a printed textbook. He likes the way it has materials for students with different levels of reading skills.

MICHAEL BAMBARA: "Particularly this book, that I use in government has differentiated reading levels. So a person can individualize their learning and I can individualize their instruction."

But the students also need access to the Internet when they are not at school. About ten percent of students in Fairfax County do not have a computer or online access at home. Stephen Castillo is one of them.

STEPHEN CASTILLO: "Pretty much I go to, like, the library, I guess, or go to a friend's house."

Public libraries in the county have free Internet. There are also after-school computer labs as well as computer clubhouses supported by the county. Middle school student Slieman Hakim is happy about that. He says his family has to share a single computer at home.

SLIEMAN HAKIM: "All of my family works on a computer, my sister and me both do our homework on it. So I come here to do my homework. It's good."

Other school systems in the area are also considering online textbooks. In Prince George's County, Maryland, a survey showed that sixty percent of students have computer access at home. Curriculum Director Gladys Whitehead says an e-book test project is being planned.

GLADYS WHITEHEAD: "Next year we'll just have a pilot with probably one classroom and one subject area, so that we can see, you know, what issues will come up with complete online access."

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. We have a related video at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Christopher Cruise.

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Contributing: June Soh

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

In December, doctors in Mumbai, India, reported about a group of patients with what they called "totally drug-resistant" tuberculosis. Indian health officials have been investigating these cases. But there have been reports of untreatable cases of TB in the past. Doctors reported fifteen patients in Iran in two thousand nine and two patients in Italy in two thousand seven.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease that usually targets the lungs. It causes an estimated five thousand deaths each day, or about two million a year.

TB can be spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes or even speaks.

Some forms of TB bacteria no longer react to one or more of the antibiotics commonly used to cure the disease. These are known as drug-resistant strains. Some resist even more drugs. The World Health Organization says sixty-nine countries have reported cases of "extensively drug-resistant" tuberculosis. The WHO says at least twenty-five thousand such cases are reported worldwide every year.

The agency's director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, is concerned about the spread of drug-resistant TB.

MARGARET CHAN: "Call it what you may, a time bomb or a powder keg. Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation."

Officials say drug-resistant TB has been a growing problem in countries like India and China. In many cases, doctors misdiagnose patients or give them the wrong treatment or not enough treatment. Misuse of these antibiotics increases the danger that the bacteria will develop resistance to them.

Neeraj Mistry is a public health doctor. He says surveys show that very few Indian doctors are treating TB patients with the right drugs for the right length of time. Another problem is that patients may not take all of their medicine.

NEERAJ MISTRY: "The emergence of totally-resistant TB is a result of failed public health intervention strategies. When we deliver ineffective treatment regimens and when we don't have full adherence and compliance to treatment, it enables the emergence of resistance within the individual."

The WHO says new, stronger TB drugs could be available by the end of this year or early twenty-thirteen.

Researchers are also working on vaccines to prevent the disease. Dr. Ann Ginsberg works at the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation. She says the development process takes a long time, partly because people often do not get sick for years after getting infected with TB.

ANN GINSBERG: "So when you do a vaccine trial, you have to vaccinate people and watch them for years."

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. I'm Bob Doughty.

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Contributing: Vidushi Sinha

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JUNE SIMMS: I’m June Simms.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And I’m Christopher Cruise with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today, we talk about a game that many people love, but few have heard of. It is the sport of ultimate Frisbee.

(MUSIC)

JUNE SIMMS: Ultimate Frisbee combines many of the skills and strategic thinking of basketball, American football, and soccer. But players do not move a ball down the field. Instead, they throw and catch a Frisbee -- that disc-shaped object that floats through the air.

Maybe there is something special about playing with a Frisbee. Although the game is similar to other sports, ultimate Frisbee -- usually just called ultimate -- has an unusual culture. For one thing, players are not firm about enforcing rules. Take DC Pickup. This group plays on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Every workday, anybody who wants to play meets on the Mall near the carousel.

An ultimate field is a little longer and a little narrower than a soccer field. But DC Pickup does not have that much space. So instead, one of the players uses cones to mark a field about half the size.

In a few minutes, more people start arriving. A lot of them are on bicycles. One woman brings her dog and ties her along the sidelines.

(SOUND: Barking dog)

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The aim of the game is to get a teammate to catch the Frisbee in the other team’s goal area. Each goal is one point. The first team to get twenty-one points wins. Or fifteen points. Or whatever number of points the teams agree to. DC Pickup does not even play to a set number. The players stop when it is time to go back to work.

The official number of players for an ultimate game is fourteen. Sometimes DC Pickup plays with fewer. And if more people come, they just start a new game.

PLAYER: “Hey everybody, we’re up to seven on seven …”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Everyone brings a dark shirt and a light shirt, so they can change teams if they need to. Shana Wallace has been playing ultimate since nineteen eighty-two. She says the lack of equipment makes ultimate one of the easiest sports to organize.

SHANA WALLACE: “All you need is a pair of cleats, a Frisbee, and some cones. You don’t even need the cones.”

JUNE SIMMS: There is one other thing you do not need: referees. Ultimate is self-officiated. That means players make all the calls. And if the players disagree, they must settle the problem themselves.

SHANA WALLACE: “If one person says foul, the other person says contest. If it’s contested, it goes back to the thrower.”

JUNE SIMMS: In fact, playing fair -- more than playing to win -- is really the only rule in ultimate that cannot be changed. Players call the trust between players to do what is right, the “Spirit of the Game.”

SHANA WALLACE: “I mean, one of the cool things about ultimate is that that is in the rules, the Spirit of the Game, and the ability to self-officiate. It’s written into the rules. And if you can’t abide by that, you really shouldn’t be playing the sport.”

(MUSIC)

<!--IMAGE-RIGHT-->CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Dan Roddick was one of the first ultimate players, back in the nineteen seventies. He was so tall, the other players called him “the Stork.” He says that ultimate, like other disc sports, has always been kind of unusual. What does that mean? First, a lot of ultimate teams have unusual names. Examples include Karmakazee or Gravity Tractor. Dan “The Stork” Roddick says many teams also wear unusual costumes.

THE STORK: “Berkeley Flying Circus was one of the greatest. And they played in full clown gear. Just, I mean, the rubber noses, the fright wigs, everything.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: “The Stork” says one reason the sport of ultimate is unusual might be because of the Frisbee itself. He says the first Frisbee, called “the Pluto Platter,” had a message written on the back.

THE STORK: “The old Pluto Platter, the first disc that came out in the late 50s, it said ‘Play Catch, Invent Games.’”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The disc even looked like something out of people’s imaginations.

THE STORK: “It was like a little spaceship. It had little windows ‘round the top, and then the planets were engraved on the outer edge of the disc.”

JUNE SIMMS: Because Frisbees urged people to create games, “The Stork” says lots of children invented Frisbee sports. One of those children was Joel Silver. As a boy, he played a game that he called ultimate Frisbee. When Joel was sixteen-years-old, he suggested that his school start an ultimate Frisbee team. He and his friends wrote down the rules and taught other kids to play.

In nineteen seventy, Joel’s high school played the first ultimate game against another high school. Two years later, two college teams played against each other for the first time in a game of ultimate. The colleges were Princeton University and Rutgers University.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Dan “the Stork” Roddick was a player for the Rutgers team. He was twenty-five-years old and a graduate student in sociology. His team had been playing together for only two months. But other students had heard about the game.

Reporters also heard about it. So when “The Stork” looked up from the field, he saw a thousand people watching.

THE STORK: “They were super into it. I mean, they kind of treated it like football. They ‘whooooooaa’ on every time there was a throw-off, and that noise drew even more crowd.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The first college ultimate game was exciting because the sport was new. And it repeated history. Rutgers and Princeton played the first college football game on exactly the same day more than a century earlier. And in eighteen sixty-nine, as in nineteen seventy-two, Rutgers won.

THE STORK: “There were lots of really, really weird things that went down that day, and we were just reeling at the end of that. We thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is, it’s going to be Monday Night Ultimate on major stations by the end of the month,’ you know. It was wild.”

JUNE SIMMS: Ultimate never became as popular as Monday Night Football in the United States. Instead, it mostly remains what the Stork calls “alternative.” In other words, ultimate does not try to be like other sports. And it welcomes a lot of different kinds of players. In that way, ultimate is a product of the culture of the nineteen sixties, when it was invented.

At that time, many Americans were protesting the country’s involvement in the war in Vietnam. They wanted Americans to work together peacefully. They also wanted to have fun.

JUNE SIMMS: So ultimate became a friendly sport without any officials telling players what to do. But that does not mean the players are not serious competitors. Here is “The Stork,” talking about one team in California.

THE STORK: “You see these guys come out and you think, ‘Oh wow, this is going to be just completely light-hearted.’ And the fact of the matter is that they were fantastic athletes. And they were playing with as much dedication and commitment to winning that game as you would have seen in an NCAA football game.”

JUNE SIMMS: Shana Wallace, one of the people playing on the National Mall, agrees.
SHANA WALLACE: “You’re sprinting and then jogging, and then sprinting and then jogging. You burn a lot of calories, I know that.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Ultimate players run several kilometers in a single game. And they can play three games back to back in a competition. That easily adds up to twenty or twenty-five kilometers. But Shana, at least, thinks running to catch a disc almost does not seem like exercise at all.

SHANA WALLACE: “I used to run miles and miles a day, and I didn’t look forward to it. And this I look forward to every day, and it’s, it’s great.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The game of ultimate may not be as popular as American football. But “The Stork” says ultimate teams can now be found in many high schools and almost all colleges in the United States. And the game is played around the world.

THE STORK: “Scandinavian teams are very strong. The Swedish team has won many world championships. The Japanese program is very strong. Australia is strong. Almost all of the European countries have strong programs that participate in world championships.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Ultimate is also an event at the twenty thirteen World Games in Cali, Colombia. But as the sport becomes more competitive, it can be harder for people to remember the Spirit of the Game.

THE STORK: “There have been people who’ve played and have been jerks. And it’s required observers to come in and essentially take over the game and that’s a disappointment to everybody.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: But bringing in observers is the exception. Most players seem to trust each other. And players say that trust, and the culture that it creates, turns ultimate into more than just a sport.

THE STORK: “Someone said that ultimate doesn’t build character, it reveals it.”

SHANA WALLACE: “It’s just a lot of fun, it’s really good exercise, and the Spirit of the Game aspect of it teaches good character traits at the same time, and so it’s just a win-win.”

(MUSIC)

JUNE SIMMS: This program was written and produced by Kelly Nuxoll. I’m June Simms.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And I’m Christopher Cruise. Have you ever played ultimate Frisbee? If so, we would like to hear from you. Please share your comments on our website: voaspecialenglish.com. You also can find us on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for more EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

___

Contributing: David Branick, who plays and organizes ultimate games in Washington, provided research assistance.

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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Aquaponics is the idea of producing vegetables and fish in the same closed system. It combines aquaculture, or fish farming, with hydroponics, a way to grow plants without soil. Supporters see aquaponics as a way to increase world food supplies and reduce climate change, groundwater pollution and overfishing.

Sylvia Bernstein says the idea is as old as nature.

SYLVIA BERNSTEIN: "Aquaponics is really a recirculating wetland system, so it's happening right on the banks of our lakes."

Ms. Bernstein grew plants in water with a chemical fertilizer for years. Then she discovered she could use wastewater from fish to grow organic vegetables and fruit.

<!--IMAGE-RIGHT-->SYLVIA BERNSTEIN: "Honestly, I was very skeptical and just couldn't believe that something as simple as fish waste could become a complete fertilizer. So I had to actually see a system that was in a friend's basement. But when I did, it changed my life."

That was three years ago. Ms. Bernstein built her first system with her son outside her home in Boulder, Colorado. Today she raises tilapia and trout. She feeds them once a day. Her plants grow in containers. There are no weeds in her aquaponics garden, and no need to worry about watering.

SYLVIA BERNSTEIN: "I, just this morning, pulled four radishes and some lettuce for lunch. In my greenhouse right now, I grow all sorts of herbs, tomatoes, peppers."

Ms. Bernstein started her own business called the Aquaponics Source. She has a YouTube channel, teaches aquaponics at the Denver Botanic Gardens and recently published a book.

Aquaponics farmer James Godsil says the Internet is helping many aquaponic gardeners connect and learn from one another. Three years ago, Mr. Godsil helped create an aquaponics farm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, called Sweet Water Organics. In twenty-ten, he helped establish a foundation.

JAMES GODSIL: "The Sweet Water Foundation was dedicated to democratizing and globalizing the information and the methodologies required to advance this very Earth-friendly food production system, which, by the way, only uses about ten percent of the water normal farming does, and uses no pesticides. It's all natural."

Mr. Godsil is traveling to other countries to teach aquaponics.

JAMES GODSIL: "I was asked to go to Venezuela this March. And I'm working with people who have a project in Ecuador. I'm working with people in the Congo and Uganda and Tanzania."

Subra Mukherjee is with a group in Kolkata, India, called the Society for Appropriate Rural Technology for Sustainability. The group is working with the foundation to develop aquaponics in a community in West Bengal with poor soil conditions for growing food.

SUBRA MUKHERJEE: "So I believe technologies like aquaponics are ideal for these kinds of situations. We can actually bring it right into the middle of slums in the cities. So it becomes a very good model for urban and village-based communities."

And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. Have you ever worked with aquaponics? Tell us about it at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Jim Tedder.

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Contributing: Faiza Elmasry

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I’m Shirley Griffith.

MARIO RITTER: And I’m Mario Ritter. Today, we tell about an American study of heart attack survivors. We tell about a scientist recognized for his work in plate tectonics. And we tell how modern-day musicians rated some of the most famous instruments ever made.

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Learning about the death of a loved one can be among life’s most stressful events. A recent study showed that the risk of heart attack increases in the days and hours after getting news of such a death. Researchers studied nearly two thousand heart attack survivors. The subjects were asked whether someone close to them had died in the six months before their heart attack.

Elizabeth Mostofsky is with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

ELIZABETH MOSTOFSKY: “We found that the risk of having a heart attack was twenty-one times higher in the day following the loss of a loved one, compared to other times. And that risk remained elevated in the subsequent days and weeks.”

MARIO RITTER: Elizabeth Mostofsky says earlier research explored the risk of dying from any cause over a year or more after the death of a husband, wife or child. The earlier research did not include the death of other close family members or friends.

Ms. Mostofsky and her team studied information from the days immediately after receiving the news. She says several things could explain why the intense feelings after the death of a loved one could lead to a heart attack.

ELIZABETH MOSTOFSKY: “Grief causes feeling of depression, anger, and anxiety, and several studies have shown that these emotions can cause increased heart rate, higher blood pressure, and blood clotting. And those in turn, can increase the chances of having a heart attack.”

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Ms. Mostofsky says the family and friends of those mourning for a loved one should know about the increased risk of heart attack.

ELIZABETH MOSTOFSKY: “People should be making sure that the bereaved person is taking care of himself or herself, including taking regular medications, because they are at that heightened level of vulnerability at this time in their life.”

Her research paper was published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.

(MUSIC)

MARIO RITTER: A few weeks ago, we talked about the science of plate tectonics. Plate tectonics explains why the Earth’s surface moves. It also tells how those changes cause earthquakes and volcanic activity. Today, we tell about a scientist who helped prove the theory of continental drift. Walter C. Pitman, the third, is an adjunct professor of geophysics at Columbia University. Now in his eighties, he works at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: When Walter Pitman was a teenager, he enjoyed visiting his father’s workplace at Bell Labs research center. He remembers asking the researchers about their work.

WALTER PITMAN: “I worked there in the summertime sweeping floors but I was in amongst all these people. It was wonderful.”

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->Walter Pitman studied electrical engineering and physics in college. He then went to work for an electronics company. He was not excited about the work, until one project – doing research on submarines – fueled a love for oceanography.

Mister Pitman returned to school. For his doctoral studies, he went back to sea on a research vessel. He hoped to gather evidence that all the continents had once been joined. He thought they had been moving apart on large plates for hundreds of millions of years.

MARIO RITTER: Walter Pitman helped prove the idea that Earth’s continents move. He did this by recording and studying magnetic patterns at the bottom of the ocean.

WALTER PITMAN: “It was electrifying. I didn’t imagine ever being involved in anything so astonishing and so very, very important to the geologic sciences at such a young age in my career. I was very fortunate to be there when it all happened.”

The science of plate tectonics explains how the continents move around the oceans. It also explains how continents can strike each other and break apart, creating earthquakes and mountain chains.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Later, Mr. Pitman turned his attention to the surface of the ocean, and sea level changes. He and William Ryan, another Columbia University geophysicist, proposed what is known as the Black Sea Deluge Theory. They suggested that the Black Sea was once a landlocked freshwater lake. Then about seven thousand five hundred years ago, melting ice from glaciers raised water levels in the Mediterranean Sea.

WALTER PITMAN: “You’re talking about a huge mass of water coming in to fill a very small basin. And that water as it would come through the Bosporus is going to cut the Bosporus deeper. The deeper it cuts, the faster it flows. The faster it flows, the faster it cuts. There is a feedback mechanism. So soon you start with a trickle and within a very short period of time, it’s a roaring, raging flume of water and we’re very sure that’s what it [the biblical flood] was, you know.”

MARIO RITTER: Mr. Pitman and other researchers are currently studying the climate of the Arctic Ocean. And they are exploring its effects on water cycles over the past two million years. Their research could help scientists predict the effects of climate change, which is causing sea levels to rise.

WALTER PITMAN: “I’ve had an incredible, incredibly good time at this kind of endeavor. There are bad spots, of course there are bad spots. But the science is always fascinating. You might, you know, stop reading for the day or something like that and say, ‘Wow, that was so great. I learned something about how the Earth works.’ That is really pure pleasure.”

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This is the sound of the greatest violin ever made.

Or maybe it is this one.

It could be a Stradivarius, or an Amati, or a Guarneri made hundreds of years ago. But it might also have been made just last year by someone whose name is not nearly so famous. And that leads us to ask the following. Can you tell, just by listening, which is the best violin? If so, what makes it great?

MARIO RITTER: It all began over three hundred years ago in the town of Cremona in northern Italy. If you wanted to buy a really good musical instrument, you probably visited Antonio Stradivari, Girolamo Amati, or Andrea Guarneri. Many people said they made the best violins that money could buy. Today, many still think of those violins as the greatest of all time. Those that still exist can sell for millions of dollars.

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->For years, scientists and musicians have sought to discover the secrets of the master violin makers. They know that most of the time, spruce, willow or maple wood was used. Some people have thought that chemicals like borax were added to the wooden parts. Others have said that honey, or even the white of an egg was painted on the parts before they were put together.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Still other researchers say that a special kind of glue was used to connect the parts. Some think the secret is in the varnish, the nearly clear liquid that was used as a final cover to protect the wood. Or maybe the wood was special because it grew at a time when the weather was colder than it is today. In the end, no one knows for sure.

And some people say we should not spend a lot of time thinking about the materials and processes used long ago. They instead think that some modern violins sound just as good and cost a lot less. Claudia Fritz at the University of Paris is one of those people. She led a study that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

At a musical competition in Indiana, she asked twenty-one really good violin players to test six different instruments. She did not tell them that only three of the violins were very old and costly. Together, the three were worth about ten million dollars. The other three were made by modern luthiers, or instrument makers, and cost a hundred times less.

MARIO RITTER: Ms. Fritz asked each of the players to wear welders’ goggles, thick, dark eyeglasses, so they could not see the instruments very well while holding them. She thought that some people might be able to identify an old violin by its smell. So she put a little sweet-smelling perfume on the part of the instrument that fits under a player’s chin.

The test began in a hotel room. All the subjects in the experiment were permitted to play all six violins, and then say which one they would like to own. Then each player was given only two violins to test. One was very old. The other was modern. They were asked which of the two sounded better.  The results of the test led Ms. Fritz to believe that there is no secret to how the old, great violins were made.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Of the twenty-one players, only eight chose an old violin as the best. Even a recently made violin was judged to be much better sounding than the world famous Stradivarius. Ms. Fritz says the difference between the old and new instruments is only in the mind of the player. Modern luthiers were happy that she found what they believed.

But some professional musicians think the test had little value. One noted that violins are meant to be heard in a concert hall, not a hotel room.

MARIO RITTER:  Researchers have performed tests like this many times in the past.  But Ms. Fritz says those tests asked average listeners to try to predict which violin was made by a master. Her test was given to concert violinists who play at the highest level. They are the ones you would expect to have the best “ear” for great sound.

There is an old saying that, “beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” If that is true, then perhaps your opinion of how an instrument sounds to your ear is really what matters.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:  This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Brianna Blake and Jim Tedder. June Simms was our producer. I’m Shirley Griffith.

MARIO RITTER: And I’m Mario Ritter. Listen again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

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This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

The satellite-based Global Positioning System is a great way to locate places -- or people. But last week the United States Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement officials must get approval from a judge before placing a GPS device on a vehicle.

The case involved a suspected drug dealer in Washington. Police put a GPS device on his car and tracked his movements for almost a month. That led them to a house with nearly one hundred kilograms of cocaine and eight hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash.

Antoine Jones was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Law professor Christopher Slobogin at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, takes the story from there.

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->CHRISTOPHER SLOBOGIN: "Mr. Jones' argued that that evidence was obtained illegally because the police did not have a warrant. And his argument was in essence that use of the tracking device was an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that the government may not engage in unreasonable searches and seizures. Mr. Jones claimed that the absence of a warrant made this search unreasonable."

And, says Professor Slobogin, the high court agreed.

CHRISTOPHER SLOBOGIN: "All nine members of the court, conservative members as well as liberal members, decided that the Fourth Amendment was violated in this case."

But the ruling only dealt with the physical act of placing the GPS device on the vehicle and tracking Mr. Jones. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion. Justice Scalia said the case did not require the court to decide if electronic monitoring without trespassing onto someone's property is also a violation of privacy.

Law professor Renee Hutchins at the University of Maryland says that is a big question that remains to be answered. We spoke with her on Skype.

RENEE HUTCHINS: "Most people have smartphones. A lot of people have cars that have GPS pre-installed. So the government doesn't have to do the installation. The installation, which was the hook for Justice Scalia, is already accomplished. We do it voluntarily."

Justice Sonya Sotomayor suggested that modern technology may soon force us to reconsider expectations of privacy. Professor Hutchins explains.

RENEE HUTCHINS: "Justice Sotomayor, actually in talking about the modern society that we live in, said, you know, we really have to perhaps rethink what it means for things to be private in a world where we voluntarily give up so much information. In a world where there's Facebook and GPS on your cell phone and GPS in your car, how should the court be thinking about constitutional protections in a world like that?"

Four other justices, led by Samuel Alito, questioned the wisdom of limiting the ruling only to a trespass of private property. They said the more important issue is the use of GPS for the purpose of long-term tracking.

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.

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Correction attached

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Shirley Griffith.

STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember. This week on our program, we hear from the author of a book about the makings of innovation. Then, we learn how a Native American is bringing back the art and culture of his tribe from Alaska. And later we tell you about an American naturalist and the results of his work in Africa.

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Simply put, innovation is doing something new that works. Steven Johnson has written a new book called "The Innovator's Cookbook." Mr. Johnson says all progress depends on innovation and creativity.

STEVEN JOHNSON: "There is no kind of occupation that can't be improved with innovative thinking."

Are there secrets to innovation? Mr. Johnson talked to a group of innovative people. They included businesspeople, software designers, artists and musicians. Among them was composer Brian Eno.

STEVEN JOHNSON: "One of the great things that he does is that when he sits down in the studio to start working on an album, he often has the band switch up their instruments."

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->So think of the drummer playing guitar and the keyboardist playing violin. How does it sound? Pretty bad at first, Mr. Eno admits. But he told Mr. Johnson that the process is liberating.

STEVEN JOHNSON: "They end up generating new sounds, new ways of playing together they wouldn't have gotten to otherwise. That's a great metaphor for what you want to do in your own life. Go and try things that you haven't tried before, and don't worry about sounding bad because what may happen is you're taken to some new place."

STEVE EMBER: Being open to new things also helped IDO, a design and innovation company in California, to expand around the world. Mr. Johnson talked with IDO co-founder Tom Kelley for his book. Mr. Kelley described a weekly meeting, held every Monday morning, for the company's top managers.

STEVEN JOHNSON: "That meeting, for twenty years, has started with show and tell. People are asked to present interesting things they stumbled across that weekend. Someone would say, 'Hey, I went to see a movie with my kids last night' or 'You guys seen this new game my kids are playing?' or 'I went to an art gallery the other day and it's really interesting.' Tom said it ends up triggering all these new associations and there is something unpredictable about it that leads to new ideas for their actual business."

Steven Johnson shares his interviews in "The Innovator's Cookbook." It also includes nine essays written by business researchers. These essays explore the conditions that can either allow creativity to grow, or kill it.

One of those essays is by Teresa Amabile, a Harvard Business School professor and co-author of the book "The Progress Principle."

TERESA AMABILE: "It is absolutely possible to kill creativity. In fact, it seems to be more common inside most workplaces for the work environment to undermine creativity, to kill it, rather than to stimulate it and keep it alive."

In her essay, Professor Amabile offers guidelines for supporting innovation in the workplace.

TERESA AMABILE: "First of all, people need to feel that they have some degree of autonomy in what they are doing. They also need to feel personally involved in what they are doing, that they find it in some way interesting, satisfying, enjoyable and personally challenging. When people are in that mindset, they're much more likely to come up with new and useful ideas. People also need to feel, across the organization, they have encouragement for coming up with new ideas."

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Innovator's Cookbook" author Steven Johnson says creative minds also need to work together, to collaborate.

STEVEN JOHNSON: "You think about Apple, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founding that company. Very different people; a brilliant engineer and a brilliant visionary and salesman, two totally different kinds of minds, and they needed each other."

True. But author Susan Cain wrote recently that "If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done -- the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing -- he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself." Ms. Cain, writing in the New York Times, noted Mr. Wozniak's own words to would-be inventors: "I'm going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone."

Susan Cain has just published a book called "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." She wrote in the Times: "Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

"But there's a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption."

In other words, there can be too many cooks in the innovator's kitchen.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: David Boxley is a member of the Tsimshian tribe. The tribe's home state is Alaska. Mr. Boxley is a dancer, songwriter and wood carver. He is also an ambassador for Tsimshian culture and heritage.

DAVID BOXLEY: "We call it art now, but it was a way for people to say, this is how I am. This belongs to me, or this is my clan, this is my crest, this is my family history, carved and painted in wood."

Mr. Boxley was raised by his grandparents. He says the influence of Christian missionaries was strong while he was young, so he learned little about his native culture.

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->After college, he went to work as a teacher. He also began to research Tsimshian wood carving in museums and other cultural collections. In nineteen eighty-six, he left teaching to spend his time on wood carving and bringing attention to Tsimshian art and culture.

DAVID BOXLEY: "I guess I came along at the right time. Our people really needed a shot in the arm. Our culture wasn't very prominent after all that missionary influence, and years and years of not having anybody be in that kind of position to guide."

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: That was almost thirty years ago. Since then Mr. Boxley has created seventy totem poles. Totem poles tell a story. Several months ago he began carving his most recent totem pole from a seven-meter-long piece of red cedar.

DAVID BOXLEY: "We don't use sandpaper. We use the knives and the chisels to get it as smooth as possible. Get the lines clean."

He worked on it at his home near Seattle, in the northwestern state of Washington. Then the totem pole was shipped by truck across the country to the other Washington. It will stand in the permanent collection at the National Museum of the American Indian.

DAVID BOXLEY: "The title is Eagle and the Young Chief."

The totem pole tells the story of a young chief who rescued an eagle caught in a fishing net. Years later, when the chief's village was starving, the eagle repaid the chief for his kindness.

DAVID BOXLEY: "A live salmon fell out of the sky, and he looked up and he saw the eagle flying away. And every day for days and days, the eagle brought salmon to feed the village."

STEVE EMBER: David Boxley has other wood carvings in the permanent collection at the museum. His dance group of family and friends performed for a crowd on the day the totem pole was presented to the public.

(SOUND)

Mr. Boxley says a totem pole that he carved in honor of his grandfather is closest to his heart. But this new one, at the museum, is a close second.

DAVID BOXLEY: "This one is going to be seen by millions over the next hundred years. And it is not just me and my son; it is all of my people that are proud. My tribe."

We have a video about David Boxley and his work at voaspecialenglish.com.

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Mike Fay calls himself a "nature boy." Mr. Fay is a naturalist and explorer. His work has been supported by organizations like National Geographic and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

In nineteen ninety-nine, Mr. Fay began a fifteen-month project called the MegaTransect. He walked more than three thousand kilometers across the Congo basin to study plants and wildlife. Mr. Fay and a team of Pygmy guides crossed the dense tropical forests of the Congo and Gabon.

MIKE FAY: "You know, we were [on] like an epic voyage out there. Every day you have to find food for thirteen people, you have to keep everyone healthy, you have to be the mother, the father, the coach, everybody, for all these guys."

<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->Mr. Fay was gathering information about the plants and animals of the last untouched forests in west-central Africa. He says he wanted to bring international attention to the rich biology that was being threatened by the logging industry. But he admits that the local guides on his team did not really know what they were getting involved in.

At one point, they stopped at a small village. Mr. Fay warned his group not to drink the water because of the risk of disease.

MIKE FAY: "And sure enough, one of the Pygmies gets hepatitis like probably two or three weeks later. And the first reaction of those guys to something like that is to scarify them with razor blades and bleed them, you know, to get the bad blood out. And so here you've got this highly infectious guy, who all of a sudden everybody's touching his blood, and I just had these nightmares of the whole crew getting hepatitis."

He says it took about a week to carry the sick man to a river. Then they used a dugout canoe to transport him to safety.

STEVE EMBER: Mr. Fay documented his experiences on the MegaTransect. He used a satellite-based positioning system, digital cameras and a laptop computer. He and his guides cut through dense vegetation and crossed rivers and deep, muddy swamps. Along the way, they saw elephants, aardvarks, gorillas and other wildlife. They also saw roads and machinery that logging companies were using to remove trees.

MIKE FAY: "It was hard. But we didn't lose a single person, and it was an expedition of a lifetime, for sure."

The knowledge that came out of the trip, and the attention it received, helped lead Gabon to create thirteen national parks. These placed more than four million hectares of forest under protection.

Mr. Fay moved to Washington to write his findings after he finished the MegaTransect in two thousand. But he says he had a difficult time re-entering city life after sleeping outdoors in the forest for so long.

Mike Fay is now in his fifties. Since the MegaTransect he has completed other surveys of biodiversity. His latest trip was in two thousand seven. He hiked three thousand kilometers through California's redwood forests. But wherever he is, he says, he still tries to avoid sleeping inside.

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Our program was produced by Brianna Blake, with reporting by Faiza Elmasry, Jeff Swicord and Veronique LaCapra. I'm Shirley Griffith.

STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember. You can find texts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, along with English teaching activities, at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

Correction: The caption below a picture of inventors Thomas Edison and Charles Steinmetz has been changed to remove an incorrect time reference. (The photo could not have been taken "during the Great Depression," as Steinmetz died in 1923.)

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JUNE SIMMS: This is PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about award-winning actor Cliff Robertson. He appeared in movies, television shows, and plays for more than half a century. Here is Jim Tedder.

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JIM TEDDER: Cliff Robertson died of natural causes in Long Island, New York on September tenth, two thousand eleven. He died a day after his eighty-eighth birthday. Cliff Robertson was born in California, not far from Hollywood. But he did not live there and often was critical of the motion picture industry.

As a young man, Robertson never thought he would be an actor, and he did not take acting seriously. Robertson said he always thought he would be a reporter. In fact, he wrote for a small newspaper in Ohio when he attended college. But, he began accepting small acting parts. Over time, those roles got bigger, and soon he was making a living as an actor.

Clifford Parker Robertson the third was born on September ninth, nineteen twenty-three. His mother died when he was only two and a half years old. He was raised by his grandmother. He said his father was married several times.

Most young people know very little about Cliff Robertson. But at one time he was one of the best-known actors in the United States. Years ago, Look magazine, an influential publication of the time, called Robertson "one of the finest young actors in America today." He became a big star on television and was often praised by critics. Yet he was never a movie star.

Robertson said he did not make it into what he called "that golden circle of three or five stars in Hollywood who can pick and choose" their parts in movies.  In nineteen sixty-seven, he said, "I take what's left over … They all know me as a utility player. 'Good old Cliff,' they say. Someday I'd like to be in there as the starting pitcher."

In two thousand five, Robertson spoke about his life for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation.

CLIFF ROBERTSON: "I began to feel like they finally recognized who I was - as a kind of a good, not a big, not a huge, not a star, but a good infield shortstop. I could be depended on."

JIM TEDDER: Cliff Robertson may never have reached the highest levels in Hollywood, but he had what actors call "steady work" for many years. One writer said Robertson did not become truly interesting until he aged into character roles.

CLIFF ROBERTSON: "I think as a kind of more of a young character actor than a young leading man. Cause, see all these characters had an edge to them. I wasn't a pretty boy that's for sure."

JIM TEDDER: Robertson won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his work as a mentally-disabled cleaning worker in the movie "Charly." The film was based on the book "Flowers for Algernon".

CLIFF ROBERTSON: "I had such an empathy for the character when I read it. And I thought, 'I think I can do this rather well.'"

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JIM TEDDER: Robertson was in more than sixty movies. His career began in the nineteen fifties and continued into the twenty-first century.

In nineteen sixty-three, he starred as Lieutenant John F. Kennedy in the naval war film "P.T. 109." The film told about the military days of a young man who would become president of the United States. Robertson said President Kennedy personally approved of him playing the part.

In nineteen sixty-six, Robertson won an Emmy award for his work in the television movie "The Game." Before and after winning the Emmy, he had parts in films with actresses like Kim Novak, Jane Powell, Joan Crawford and Sandra Dee. He also worked with actors like Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Stewart, Lee J. Cobb and Spencer Tracy.

Robertson acted in films through the nineteen nineties. In two thousand two, he became known to younger movie-goers as Uncle Ben in "Spiderman."

Cliff Robertson from "Spiderman" movie: "These are the years when a man changes into the man he's going to become the rest of his life. Just be careful who you change into. With great power comes great responsibility."

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JIM TEDDER: Many critics praised Robertson for his performances on television and in Broadway plays. But many times those roles were given to others when the movie version was made.

For example, he starred as an alcoholic in the nineteen fifty-eight television movie "Days of Wine and Roses." But Jack Lemmon was given the part when the story was made into a theatrical movie in nineteen sixty-two. Robertson's role in the television movie "The Hustler" was given to Paul Newman in the theatrical movie. Robertson also starred in the Tennessee Williams play "Orpheus Descending" on Broadway.  But his part was given to Marlon Brando when the film version of the play was made.

Robertson wanted to make sure that kind of thing would not happen to him again. In nineteen sixty-one, he starred in the television movie "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon." In the movie, he played a loveable man with the mental ability of a five-year-old. He takes part in a medical experiment that makes him extremely intelligent. But the medicine only works for a short time, and soon he becomes mentally-disabled again.

Robertson was nominated for an Emmy Award for the television movie. While preparing for the movie, he bought the rights to make a Hollywood film about the story. He worked for almost eight years to persuade a movie studio to make it into a theatrical film with him in the lead role.

Finally, Robertson found a willing studio. And, in nineteen sixty-nine, he won the Oscar for best actor for "Charly."

CLIFF ROBERTSON (IN "CHARLY"):  "I beat him."

JIM TEDDER: Cliff Robertson's life was not without difficulty. In the nineteen seventies, he proved that the head of a large Hollywood studio had signed Robertson's name on a ten thousand dollar check. The case that resulted came to represent corruption in Hollywood. Major film studios refused to offer movie roles to Robertson for three and a half years. But he found work as a spokesman for a telephone company, and became well-known because of its advertisements. He said the case taught him that he had more bravery than brains, and he said he was proud of that.

Cliff Robertson was known as a critic of the movie industry. Robertson once said he went to Hollywood only to work and never to live. He told the New York Times in nineteen seventy-two that nobody had made more bad films than he had made.

In two thousand five, he was critical of Hollywood's "tendency to dramatize, inflate, romanticize and exaggerate." And he hated its interest in money.

CLIFF ROBERTSON: "And you buy bodies, you buy souls, you buy integrity. You think anything and everything and anyone can be bought – you're wrong."

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JIM TEDDER: Robertson was married two times. He married actress Cynthia Stone in nineteen fifty-seven. She was the former wife of Jack Lemmon. They had a daughter before ending their marriage in nineteen fifty-nine.

<!--IMAGE-RIGHT-->In nineteen sixty-six, Robertson married actress Dina Merrill. She was the daughter of the wealthy American businessman E.F. Hutton and his wife Marjorie Merriweather Post. Miz Post was one of the richest women in the world. Cliff Robertson and Dina Merrill had a daughter, named Heather. Their marriage ended after twenty-two years. Heather Robertson died of cancer in two thousand seven.

Cliff Robertson was also a pilot who began learning to fly at the age of fourteen. He said he fell in love with flying when he was only five years old. He said he loved to learn new things at an early age, and travelled the world when he was young. In later years, he bought a glider and airplanes from World War Two. He said he loved to fly, to "soar above all the nonsense."

Robertson said he considered himself lucky in many ways -- not just because he had a long acting career. Two times he was supposed to take a flight, but did not. Both times the flight crashed, killing everyone on the plane.

In two thousand five, Robertson was asked if he had any regrets. After thinking a few seconds, he had this answer.

CLIFF ROBERTSON: "Time, wasted time and there are swatches of it here and there – it's the most valuable thing in the world aside from love."

JIM TEDDER: Cliff Robertson never considered himself a great actor, although he was sure he could play many roles. He said "give me some … words, let me play with them, maybe come up with a surprise." But he never watched his performances. 'I do not enjoy seeing myself,' he said.

CLIFF ROBERTSON: "I've never really been satisfied with anything that I've ever done. It's a degree of dissatisfaction - I always feel like I could have done it better if circumstances were different. I think I'm mature enough to recognize now that maybe I've done as well as I could do under the circumstances, but there's that little voice underneath saying: 'You [could] do better.'"

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JUNE SIMMS: This Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA on the life of actor Cliff Robertson was written by Christopher Cruise. Jim Tedder was our announcer and producer. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm June Simms in Washington.

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

There are many American expressions that use parts of the body. These include the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and even the heart. Today we will tell you some expressions that use other body parts – the back, shoulders and chest.

When I am facing a lot of pressure at work, my back and neck will start to hurt. Sometimes, this tension is the result of too much work. I have too many things to do because my supervisor is on my back all the time. In other words, my employer is always telling me to do things.

Sometimes, I want my employer to get off my back! I want her to stop criticizing me and making too many demands on my time. I can not say this, however. I would never turn my back on her and refuse to help when there is a need. If I did refuse to help, my supervisor might say bad things about me behind my back. She might criticize me when I am not present. This would surely be a stab in the back. It is never kind to unfairly harm or say bad things about other people.

Sometimes, when I am very productive in my job, my employer gives me a pat on the back. She praises my work. She might even say "I will scratch your back if you will scratch mine." This means she will do something for me, if I do something helpful for her in exchange. Such an offer usually comes straight from the shoulder. My supervisor has a very direct, open and honest way of speaking.

I know that my employer carries a lot on her shoulders. She is responsible for many things at the office. And because she is so important, she sometimes gets to rub shoulders with the top officials. She gets to spend time with some very important people.

I believe the top official values my superior. He never gives her the cold shoulder. He is never unfriendly to her. He always treats her like she is an important part of the organization.

I also value my supervisor. In fact, I think she is very effective in her job. Of course, I could yell my opinion at the top of my lungs, or as loudly as I possibly could. It might even feel good to get my emotions off my chest. It is always helpful to tell people how you feel so that your emotions do not trouble you.

But it is not necessary for me to praise my superior. Most of my co-workers feel the exact same way about her. So, I think I will just save my breath. I will keep silent because talking or repeating myself will not do any good.

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WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, in VOA Special English, was written by Jill Moss. I’m Faith Lapidus.