Tape script 1 (Chapter 1)

Do-It-Yourself: Compost for the Garden

Compost is a dark, rich material added to soil to improve it.
Compost is produced when bacteria and fungi break down organic matter,
aided by insects, earthworms and other organisms. This natural recycling
returns nutrients to the soil. Some experts advise adding five centimeters of
compost for every fifteen centimeters of turned soil.
More and more people are making their own compost at home. Composting
can reduce the amount of garden and cooking waste that would otherwise go
into public landfills.
Monica David from the University of Illinois Extension oversees the master
gardeners program in her state. She explains that you can make a compost
pile or dig a pit or use a waste container with holes cut in the side.
There are different methods of composting. Some take more work. Others
take almost no work but may require waiting up to a year.
Advice about composting can be found from extension services, at garden
centers, in books and on the Internet.
For example, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
lists some dos and don'ts of composting on its Web site.
Do add lime, small amounts of wood ashes or crushed eggshells to the
compost pile. This will neutralize acids which may form and cause a bad
smell.
Do mix grass cuttings with other wastes to loosen them up. And do keep the
compost pile damp, especially during dry periods.
Do not use unfinished compost. It will rob plants of nitrogen instead of acting
as a fertilizer.

Do not compost weedy plants with lots of seeds. Some seeds will not be
killed during the natural heating process in composting.
Do not add meat, fish bones or fatty food wastes to the compost mixture.
Protein materials do not readily decompose and they will bring animals.
And, finally, do not add diseased vegetable plants to the pile if the compost
will be used on a vegetable garden. Disease organisms may reappear if you
do.
Compost differs from mulch but it can be used as mulch. Mulch is placed on
top of soil to protect it. Mulch is generally used to a height of about ten
centimeters. But finer materials such as compost should only be two and a
half to seven and a half centimeters high. Too much mulch can restrict
oxygen and water flow.

Tape script 2(Chapter 2)

Growing Trees in the Desert, With the Aid of a 'Waterboxx'

Pieter Hoff used to export lilies and tulips from the Netherlands. He retired
from the flower export business seven years ago. Now, he is trying to help
people grow trees and plants in the desert and save water. In many
places, much of the freshwater supply is used for irrigation. Yet most of that
water may be lost through evaporation into the air. So Pieter Hoff has
invented a simple plastic device called the Groasis Waterboxx. He says he
got the idea from nature. He says if you look at the Rocky Mountains in the
United States, you find trees all over the mountains. So trees are able to
grow on rocks. They have very strong roots. Mr. Hoff says the trick is that
nature does not dig a hole like we humans do to plant seeds. Nature plants
the seeds through birds or animals on top of the soil. Their waste then acts
as a cover. It prevents the humidity in the soil from evaporating. The Dutch
inventor says he is simply copying that system. The Waterboxx is a round
device about the size of a motorcycle tire. It sits flat on the ground with the
bottom open to the earth. Seeds or a young planting grow out of a hole in
the center. Some people call the Waterboxx a water battery because of its

ability to collect and store water.The cover has deep ridges. These collect
rainwater. But the device is designed to collect water even when there is no
rain. The cover gets cold during the night and creates condensation. The
water is collected through two holes. There is a siphon in the holes to carry
the water to the soil. Pieter Hoff says the nice thing about the siphons is that,
once collected, the water is not able to evaporate anymore. The roots of the
plant may have to grow several meters deep to reach groundwater. Once
growth is established, the box can be removed and used to start another
planting. The company also makes a version for one-time use. Researchers
at Mohammed the First University in Oujda, Morocco, tested the Waterboxx
for three years in the Sahara desert. They said close to ninety percent of the
trees planted with the device survived. Without it, they said, only about ten
percent survived. Pieter Hoff says he is now doing experiments with twenty
thousand Waterboxxes in countries including Pakistan, Ecuador and the
United States. The reusable box now sells for about fifteen dollars. And thats
the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Tape script 3 (Chapter 3)
Earthworms
What can you do with earthworms? Some people use the creepy crawlers to
catch fish. But others put worms to work making compost. Compost looks
and feels like good soil. Gardeners and farmers add it to soil to make plants
grow better.
You can make compost from food waste at home with or without the help of
worms. How the worms help is by first eating and processing the food. It
comes out the other end of the worm as rich compost.
Kim Gabel from the University of Florida Extension service in Key West
suggests using red worms known as red wigglers.
KIM GABEL: "The red wigglers are the best varieties for doing it because they
are more of a surface feeder. Because different worms live in different strata,
or portions of the earth."
You need a container to hold the waste and the worms. The size of the
composting bin depends on how much compost you want to make. You need
about a kilogram of worms for each half a kilogram of daily food waste that
you add.
Kim Gabel says the bin needs holes so the worms can get air.

KIM GABEL: "The worms do breathe. So that is a very important factor, along
with they also like to be in the dark."
So cover the bin to keep out the light.
One thing worms do not like is very high temperatures. Kim Gabel lives in the
warm climate of southern Florida. She keeps her worm bin indoors.
Unpleasant smells can be prevented by controlling the amount of food waste
added to the bin and avoiding meat or bones.
For composting with worms, you need bedding that is moist but not too wet.
The amount of water you add will depend on the bedding material you use.
Kim Gabel uses newspaper cut into strips about two and a half centimeters
wide. Add two handfuls of soil for every half square meter of bedding
material and mix well.
Spread the worms over the bedding. The worms will start to wiggle their way
down. Remove any worms that remain on top of the bedding after two hours.
When you feed the worms, place the food about two and a half centimeters
below the surface of the bedding and cover it.
The worm's waste, or castings, should be ready to use as compost within two
to six months.
To remove the compost, you can push it all to one side of the bin. Place new
bedding and food on the other side. Within a few weeks the worms will move
to the new bedding. Now you can remove the compost and fill the empty
space with new bedding.

Tape script 4 (Chapter 4)

Growing Plants and Thinking Inside the Box
Blake Whisenant and his family are farmers. They live in the American state
of Florida. For nearly a hundred years, Mr. Whisenants family has grown
fruits and vegetables, and sold them to businesses around the world. The
warm weather in central Florida is good for growing crops, especially
tomatoes. That is what he grows the most of on his eight hundred hectares
of land.
In nineteen ninety-two, Mr. Whisenant had some bad luck.

It began to rain. And it rained. And it rained some more. Nearly fifty
centimeters of rain destroyed the tomato crop that year.
Blake Whisenant was not a happy farmer.
BLAKE WHISENANT: I just thought theres got to be a better way!
So, he began looking to find a way to make sure this never happened again.
He wanted to develop a system that would provide water to the plants from
below. He thought some kind of cover would keep rain away and the soil
warm. He wanted the plants to be grown in a box that would take up little
space. He became obsessed with the idea and thought about it day and
night.
BLAKE WHISENANT: And I told my wife, before I die I wanted to see if I could
build me a box above the ground that I could grow tomatoes in.
And after years of work, he knew what to do. He found a company in
Pennsylvania that agreed to make the box. It would be made of thick plastic,
and would be about one meter long and half a meter deep. Inside the box
would be a plastic tube to pour the water in, and a plastic screen with many
holes in it.
Something like peat moss, but not soil, would be placed in the box on top of
the screen, which would hold it above the water in the bottom of the box. A
thin plastic cover would fit over the top of the box to keep out rain and
harmful insects. Blake called it the Earthbox.

Tape script 5 (Chapter 5)

Growing Plants and Thinking Inside the Box
Europe's deadly outbreak of a rare form of E. coli bacteria has brought new attention to food safety issues. One
of the problems when people get sick from food is that the simplest question is often difficult or even impossible
to answer. Just what did the people eat that made them sick?
Of course, one way to avoid these medical mysteries is to keep dangerous organisms out of the food supply.
This is easier said than done, but scientists keep looking for new ways.
Scientists in the United States have developed an experimental system that uses a high-tech optical scanner.
The inspection system is meant for packing houses where produce is sorted for market.
The system is designed to identify the presence of contaminants like soil or animal waste on fresh produce.
These can be sources of Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli. E. coli bacteria naturally live in the intestines
of humans and many animals. Most kinds of E. coli are harmless but some can make people sick.

The new scanner can also show damage and imperfections that might make the produce unappealing to
shoppers.
Scientists designed the system at a Department of Agriculture research center in Beltsville, Maryland. Moon
Kim of the Agricultural Research Service led the team.
MOON KIM: "We were requested, we were asked, to develop a method to detect contamination in produce. So
we started with the apple as the model sample."
The scanner uses a high-speed camera placed over the conveyer belt that moves the produce along. As the
apples move along the belt, the scanner captures images of each piece of fruit.
The system is equipped with an ultraviolet lamp and a halogen lamp that produces near-infrared light. A
spectrograph device can use the near-infrared light bouncing off an apple to show evidence of damage. The
ultraviolet light can show contaminants.
Moon Kim says the team hopes the system will be available before long.
MOON KIM: "We are targeting for development in commercial plants for the next several years."
The scanner can direct a sorting machine to separate the bad apples from the good ones. The system is
currently able to show the surface of only half the apple as it speeds by. The inventers hope to improve the
process so it can show the whole surface.

Tape script 6 (Chapter 6)

Many Animal Populations Facing Threats
VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Barbara Klein. This week, we will tell about mammal populations in danger of disappearing. We
will also tell about one kind of animal that disappeared long ago. And, we will examine some traditional
beliefs about the viruses that cause influenza and the common cold.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
A worldwide study has found that almost twenty-five percent of wild mammals are in danger of
permanently disappearing. Scientific researchers considered all known mammal populations. The
researchers say permanent disappearance threatens at least one thousand one hundred forty-one
species or groups of animals. Mammals are the closest relatives to human beings.
The researchers are blaming loss of habitat, or living space, and hunting for threatened land mammals.
They say water mammals suffer more from pollution, being hit by ships and caught in fishing nets.
VOICE TWO:

One thousand seven hundred experts worked on the study. They are from one hundred thirty countries.
Their findings were reported at the World Conservation Conference of the International Union for
Conservation of Nature in Barcelona, Spain.
The report was presented in connection with the Red List of Threatened Species. The World
Conservation Conference announces the Red List each year. The list contains almost forty five thousand
animals and plants. Of those, almost seventeen thousand, or about thirty eight percent, are threatened
with extinction.
Some scientists say the report provides evidence that Earth's wildlife is going through widespread
extinction. The last such period may have taken place millions of years ago, when dinosaurs became
extinct.

How to Strike Oil (From Seeds,

Tape script 7 (Chapter 7)
From the beginning of human history, people have used oils from seeds and nuts. Most of the time these
oils are used as food, especially in cooking. But sometimes they have other uses. For example, oils are
used in paint and in cleaning products like soap.
Oil is separated from seeds by using pressure. A machine called a press is often used. Sometimes it is
surprising to learn how much oil the seeds contain. Sesame, cotton and sunflower seeds, for example, all
contain at least fifty percent oil.
Soybean is an important seed around the world, but it is only twenty percent oil. So chemicals are needed
to release oil from soybeans.
The first step in pressing the oil from seeds is to crush the seeds between two stones. The crushed seeds
are then put into a cloth bag and the bag is hung up. Some of the oil will flow out of the bag and can be
collected.
But some oil will remain in the crushed seeds inside the bag. The easiest way to get the rest of the oil out
is to place heavy rocks on the crushed material.
Another method is to place several cloth bags on top of each other in a box. Then a long wooden stick is
used to slowly push a heavy cover down on the bags. Great pressure is produced in this way. Much
greater pressure can be produced by using a machine, a hydraulic jack. The greater the pressure, the
more oil will be produced.
Oil can also be collected with small, hand-operated machines. Small presses are important in areas
where electricity or gasoline cannot be used. They are also a good way to test if a local market for oil
exists.
Small batch presses can be made of local materials. Their cost is low. They are not difficult to operate.
And they are easy to repair. The small presses produce good quality oil. But the work is hard. And getting
all the oil from the seeds can be difficult.
If there is a large supply of seeds, then hand-operated presses may not be enough to support a business.
Large, powered presses that can operate all day are needed.