Whats New
TECHNOLOGY
Smog alert via pager
LOS ANGELES - Move over Weather Channel. People in smoggy southern California can now check their pagers and cellphones to see whether it's safe to venture outdoors.
At least two competing companies, Outspoken and PageNet, are working to provide subscribers with five daily updates and a beep when a smog alert is issued.
The data, which both companies receive free from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, also includes weather forecasts, ultraviolet indexes, and pollen counts.
TECHNOLOGY
DNA test tracks wild cats
MADRID - Spanish scientists trying to save the Iberian lynx from extinction are using the latest DNA technology to track the cat by its scat.
The scientists want to put several healthy cats in a captive breeding center in the Donana National Park in southern Spain. But the lynx - a nocturnal animal that lives in scattered, isolated pockets - are proving hard to find, let alone catch.
DNA testing on carnivore feces, or scat, collected in the wild indicate exactly where the animals live. The testing is 99 percent accurate in separating lynx feces from that of other carnivores living in Spain's forests.
SOCIAL ISSUES
Annual Gallup poll rates US institutions
PRINCETON, N.J. - The nation's military continues to score highest in the Gallup Poll's annual ratings of confidence in institutions, as it has since 1986, followed by organized religion, the police, and the US Supreme Court. At the other end of the spectrum, HMOs suffer from the lowest level of public confidence, below two other low-scoring institutions: Congress and the criminal justice system. To view the full release see: www.gallup.com/poll-/releases/pr000710.asp
(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society
