Our listener question this week comes from Burundi. Josephine Uwangabe wants to know about the small iPod device made by the Apple computer company. The iPod is the most popular device made for storing and playing digital music. Because of its size, iPod users can enjoy listening to music while on the go.

In two thousand, Apple realized that digital music players were not selling because they were not well designed. Apple decided to change this. The company worked to develop a device that would have a fast computer connection so songs could go from a computer to the player quickly. The device also had to work well with Apple’s music program called iTunes, which permits users to easily organize thousands of songs. It had to be very easy to use. And it had to be good looking.

An advertising writer on Apple's team came up with the name iPod. He was influenced by the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” He saw the music device as a small “pod” that attached to a main spaceship, or, in this case, a computer. Apple released the first iPod in October, two thousand one.

Since then, Apple has developed several versions of the device. Some iPods are small enough to fit in your hand, while others can play videos, store photographs or connect to the Internet. They come in different colors, prices, and memory storage sizes. In October, Apple announced that it had sold one hundred and twenty million iPods.

Experts say these revolutionary devices are having a big effect on the music industry. Apple has sold over one billion digital songs from its iTunes program. This represents important income for many record companies that have been experiencing reduced album sales. Museums and schools are using iPods to play educational programs for visitors and students.

iPods have changed the way people listen to music. It would be hard to walk down a busy street or college campus in America without seeing several people with iPods and earphone devices. Music lovers can now hold thousands of songs in the palm of their hand.

The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare asked “What’s in a name?” The United States government has an answer.

The United States Census Bureau has released a report about family names. The information comes from the study of the American population in two thousand.

The report tells the most common last names of Americans and some information linked to them. It says people recognize others by their names, and that people can tell a lot about a person just from knowing his or her name.

Almost two hundred seventy million people provided information to the Census Bureau in two thousand. The researchers found six million different last names among them. One million or more people have one of seven names. The most common is Smith. More than two million people answer to that name.

The next most common names are Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Miller and Davis. More than one million people are called each of those names. Two hundred sixty-eight other family names are also fairly common. Each of those names is shared by more than one hundred thousand people.

The study also found that for the first time, two Hispanic names are among the top ten most common names in the country. They are Garcia and Rodriguez. Each name is shared by more than eight hundred thousand people. The report says more than ninety percent of all people with those names are Hispanic.

One newspaper report says it is probably the first time that any non-English sounding name has been listed among the most common. The presence of those names on the list shows that an increasing number of Hispanic people are living in the United States. The number grew by fifty-eight percent in the nineteen nineties to almost thirteen percent of the population.

Other Hispanic names appearing in the top twenty-five most common names are Martinez, Hernandez, Lopez and Gonzalez.

When we think of oil, the part of the world that comes to mind first may be the Middle East. But petroleum development takes place worldwide.

Nigeria, for example, is the largest oil producer in Africa and the eleventh largest producer in the world. Russia is the world's second largest exporter of oil and the top exporter of natural gas.

But the country that produces and exports more oil than any other is Saudi Arabia. The Saudis hold one-fourth of the world's proven oil reserves.

Last year, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries produced about twenty-eight percent of the world's oil supply. The United States Energy Department says they also held fifty-five percent of known reserves.

The other Gulf producers are Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Iran has ten percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Iraq is also estimated to have a large supply of oil, and unexplored areas may hold much more.

In nineteen sixty Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela formed the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Today OPEC has twelve members. The newest is Angola which joined this year.

High oil prices have brought new attention to OPEC. Its members produce about forty percent of the world's oil. But two of the world's top three oil exporters, Russia and Norway, are not OPEC members.

Its influence may have reached a high point during the oil crisis connected to the nineteen seventy-three Arab-Israeli war. Arab oil producers boycotted the United States, western Europe and Japan because of their support for Israel.

Since then, new discoveries and increased production in areas including countries of the former Soviet Union have provided more oil.

National oil companies are estimated to control about eighty percent of the world's oil supply. In recent years, rising oil prices have led more governments to act, either directly or indirectly, to take control of their oil industries.

President Hugo Chavez has moved to nationalize oil operations in Venezuela. And in Russia, a series of actions resulted in state-owned Rosneft gaining control of reserves held by Yukos. Yukos was Russia's largest private company, until the government said it owed billions of dollars in taxes and jailed its founder, Russia's richest man.

During the eighteenth century, Spain, France and Britain controlled land in North America. Spain controlled Florida. France was powerful in the northern and central areas. Britain controlled the east. All three nations knew they could not exist together peacefully in North America. The situation could only be settled by war.

The powerful European nations already were fighting each other for land and money all over the world. These small wars continued for more than one hundred years. They were called King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War and the French and Indian War.

The French and Indian War was fought to decide if Britain or France would be the strong power in North America. France and its colonists and Indian allies fought against Britain, its colonists and Indian allies.

The war began with conflicts about land. French explorers had been the first Europeans in the areas around the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. France had sent traders and trappers to these territories and had established trading centers there.

Britain claimed the same land. When the king gave land in North America to someone, the land was considered to extend from east coast to west coast, even though no one knew where the west coast was. The land along the east coast had become crowded, and settlers were moving west. White people were destroying the Indians' hunting areas. And Indians became worried that they would lose the use of their land.

The Indian tribes may have been able to resist the people moving west if they had been united. But their own conflicts kept the Indian groups apart. When Britain and France started fighting each other, some Indians helped the British. Others helped the French.

The French settlers lived mainly in what was called New France. Today it is part of Canada. Life there was different from life in the British colonies to the south. There was no religious freedom, for example. All settlers in French territories had to be French and belong to the Roman Catholic Church. So, many French people who belonged to Protestant churches settled in the British colonies.

France also did not like the fact that the British paid the Indians high prices for animal furs. France was more interested in the fur trade than in settling the land. The British hurt the French traders' business when they bought fur from the Indians.

One of the French trading forts was built in the area where the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is today. The French called it Fort Duquesne. The British claimed it was in Virginia and that the land belonged to them. In seventeen fifty-four, the governor of Virginia sent a twenty-one-year-old colonist named George Washington to tell the French to get out. This was the same George Washington who would later become the first President of the United States.

The French refused to leave Fort Duquesne. So Washington and one hundred fifty men tried to force them out. They attacked a group of Frenchmen and killed ten of them. The French and Indian War had begun.

British troops under the command of General Edward Braddock joined George Washington at Fort Duquesne. The British general expected to fight the way battles were fought in Europe. There, troops lined up on open fields and fired their weapons as they marched toward each other.

The French and Indians did not fight this way. They hid in the woods. They wore clothes that made them difficult to see. They shot at the British from behind trees. The British had more troops than the other side. But the French and Indians won the battle of Fort Duquesne. General Braddock was killed.

Most of the French and Indian War was fought along two lakes in an area of New York state near the border with Canada. One was Lake George. The other, Lake Champlain north of Lake George. It reaches almost all the way to the city of Montreal in Canada.

These lakes provided the best way to move troops and supplies during the French and Indian war. Few roads existed in North America at that time. The military force, which controlled the lakes and rivers, controlled much of North America.

The French had military bases in the cities of Quebec and Montreal. The British had military bases along New York's Hudson River. The area between them became the great battleground.

Fighting increased after the British defeated the French near Lake George in the last months of seventeen fifty-five. The French then built a new military base to control Lake Champlain and the surrounding area.

The French military base was at the southern end of Lake Champlain. They built a strong camp, the kind called a fort. They called it Fort Carillon.

The fort would control Lake Champlain and the area needed to reach the northern part of Lake George. The fort was designed to provide a strong defense against attack. The French built two big walls of logs, several meters apart. The area between the walls was filled with dirt. Later, a strong stone front was added. Troops inside the walls were well protected. The British built a similar fort at the southern end of Lake George. They called it Fort William Henry.

France sent one of its best military commanders to take command of its troops in America. His name was the Marquis de Montcalm. General Montcalm attacked several British forts in seventeen fifty-seven. One of these was Fort William Henry on Lake George. The British commander was forced to surrender.

General Montcalm promised that the British troops would be treated fairly if they surrendered. But the Indian allies of the French did not honor the surrender agreement. They began to kill British soldiers and settlers. No one is sure how many people died. It could have been more than one thousand.

In seventeen fifty-eight, a strong British force attacked Fort Carillon on Lake Champlain. General Montcalm was the French commander. Fort Carillon was strong enough that the smaller French force was able to defeat the bigger British force. The British withdrew, but attacked again the next year. This time the British commander was General Jeffery Amherst.

Amherst was successful. The British defeated the French. They changed the name of Fort Carillon to Fort Ticonderoga. It became an important military center in the French and Indian War. Fort Ticonderoga would also become important later, during America's war for independence.

The Battle for Quebec was the turning point in the war. Britain and France signed a treaty to end it in Paris in seventeen sixty-three. The British had won. They took control of the lands that had been claimed by France.

Britain now claimed all the land from the east coast of North America to the Mississippi River. Everything west of that river belonged to Spain. France gave all its western lands to Spain to keep the British out. Indians still controlled most of the western lands, except for some Spanish colonies in Texas and New Mexico.

Today, you can still visit the two forts that were so important in the French and Indian War. Little of the original buildings have survived. However, both have been re-built using the original designs. The area surrounding both forts is very beautiful, including the two lakes, Lake George and Lake Champlain.

Many people spend their holidays in this area enjoying the outdoors. The area includes one of America's national historical parks, Saratoga. It also includes the Lake George Beach State Park. Few people who visit the area stop to remember the terrible fighting that took place there two-hundred fifty years ago.

Voyager began as a quick drawing on a small piece of paper. Six years later, the drawing was a plane that made history.

Many people gave their time, energy and money to help make the flight happen. But three people had lead parts in the event: Dick Rutan, Burt Rutan and Jeana Yeager.

Dick Rutan was an experienced flier. He had been a pilot in the United States military during the war in Vietnam. After the war, he worked as a test pilot. He flew planes designed by his younger brother Burt.

Burt Rutan was well-known as a designer of experimental planes.

And Jeana Yeager held nine world flight records as a pilot.

One day in early nineteen eighty-one, Dick, Burt and Jeana were eating in a restaurant in Mojave, California. Burt turned to his brother and asked a wild question: "How would you like to be the first person to fly around the world without stopping to re-fuel?"

The three considered the idea. A non-stop flight around the world without re-fueling was the last flight record to be set.

The flight always had been considered impossible. No plane could carry enough fuel to fly that far: forty thousand kilometers.

But now there were new materials for planes. Burt thought he could build a plane that could make the voyage. Dick and Jeana thought they could fly it. No one could think of a good reason not to try.

Burt picked up a small piece of paper. He drew an airplane that looked like a giant wing, and not much more. That was the beginning.

Not since the days of Orville and Wilbur Wright had the people making a record flight designed and built their own aircraft. Dick, Burt and Jeana did. Some people thought their Voyager project was both impossible and foolish. Everyone knew it would be dangerous.

The Voyager crew worked on the plane in a small building at an airport in California's Mojave Desert. Dick, Burt and Jeana received no government money. Instead, they got small amounts of money from lots of different people.

As news of the project spread, more and more people offered to help. There were aviation engineers and workers from the space agency's experimental plane project. Several airplane companies offered equipment to be used in the plane. When Voyager was finished, it had two million dollars' worth of parts in it.

Burt Rutan had built light-weight planes before. He knew a normal plane made of aluminum metal could not make a trip around the world without adding fuel. So his solution was to build Voyager almost completely out of new materials. The materials were very light, but very strong. This meant Voyager could lift and carry many times its weight in fuel.

The finished plane weighed just nine hundred kilograms, about the weight of a small car. The full load of fuel weighed three times that much, about three thousand kilograms. Voyager was not built to be a fast plane. It flew about one hundred seventy-five kilometers an hour.

The main wing of the finished plane was more than thirty-three meters across. That is wider than the main wing on today's big passenger planes. The center part of the plane held the crew. And on either side of this body were two long fuel tanks.

In fact, almost all of the Voyager was a fuel tank. Seventeen separate containers were squeezed into every possible space. During the flight, the pilots had to move fuel from container to container to keep the plane balanced. One engine at each end of the body of the plane provided power.

The area for the two pilots was unbelievably small. It was just one meter wide by two-and-one-quarter meters long. The person flying the plane sat in the pilot's seat. The other person had to lie down at all times.

After many test flights, the Voyager was finally ready in December, nineteen eighty-six. The best weather for flying around the world is from June to August. That time was far past. But the pilots were tired of delays. They made the decision to take off, knowing the weather might be bad.

On December fourteenth, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager walked around the plane one more time. It looked like a giant white flying insect. They were going to be trusting their lives to this strange plane for the next nine days.

Dick climbed into the only seat. Jeana lay on the floor. They were ready to go. Flight controllers at Edwards Air Force Base in California cleared them for a trip no one had ever attempted before.

The long, thin wings of the plane were so loaded with fuel that they almost touched the ground. Voyager began to move down the runway, slowly. But something was wrong. The ends of the wings were not lifting.

Burt Rutan sent a radio message to his brother to lift the plane's nose. "Pull back on the stick!" he screamed. "Pull back!" But Dick did not hear the warning. And he did not see the wings. He was looking straight ahead.

Voyager was getting dangerously close to the end of the runway. It appeared about to crash. Finally, just in time, the long wings swept up. The plane leaped into the air.

Planes following Voyager could see that the ends of the wings were badly damaged. Dick turned the plane so the force of air currents would break off the broken ends. Then he aimed Voyager out over the Pacific Ocean.

Weight was the main consideration in designing the experimental plane. Not safety. Not comfort. Voyager did not have most of the normal safety equipment of modern planes. There were no special materials to block the noise of the engines. And space for the pilots was so tight they had great difficulty changing places.

Voyager's long wings moved up and down as the winds changed. It seemed to sail on waves of air, just like a sailboat on ocean waves. This motion meant the flight was extremely rough.

It was not an enjoyable trip. Dick and Jeana were always tense. At the end of the second day, the weather expert for the flight warned of trouble. Voyager was heading for an ocean storm. Dick was able to fly close to the storm and ride its winds.

On the third day, Voyager was in trouble again. It had to fly between huge thunderhead clouds on one side and Vietnam's airspace on the other. Dick was able to keep the plane safely in the middle.

Over Africa, the two pilots struggled with continuous stormy weather. Dick had flown almost all of the first sixty hours of the flight. Then he changed places with Jeana for short periods. Both were extremely tired.

Suddenly, a red warning light turned on. It was a signal that there was not enough oil in one engine. Dick and Jeana had been so busy trying to fly around bad weather and mountains that they had forgotten to watch the oil level. But luck stayed with them. They added the necessary oil. The engine was not damaged.

Once past the violent weather over Africa, Dick and Jeana began planning the way home. A computer confirmed that they had enough fuel left to make it. But as they flew up the coast of Mexico, the engine on the back of the plane failed. Fuel had stopped flowing to it.

The more powerful front engine already had been shut down earlier to save fuel. With neither engine working, Voyager quickly began to lose speed and height. The plane fell for five minutes. Dick finally got the front engine started again. Then fuel started flowing to the back engine, and it began to work again, too.

Nine days after take-off, Voyager landed smoothly at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It had completed a forty thousand kilometer flight around the world. It had not stopped. And it had not re-fueled.

Dick said after landing: "This was the last major event of atmospheric flight." Jeana added: "It was a lot more difficult than we ever imagined."

Burt Rutan's revolutionary plane design had worked. And, with it, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager had joined the list of the world's greatest fliers.

Scientists have discovered that stored blood loses a life-saving gas. This discovery may explain why a great number of people get sick after receiving stored blood.

In recent years, experts have wondered why patients who should survive sometimes die after receiving a blood transfusion. The cause of death is often a heart attack or stroke.

Jonathan Stamler is a professor of medicine at Duke University in North Carolina. He and other researchers found that stored blood has very low levels of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a gas found in red blood cells. The gas helps to keep blood passages open so that oxygen in the cells can reach the heart and other organs.

Professor Stamler and his team found that nitric oxide in blood begins to break down as soon as the blood is collected. Their findings were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Another team of Duke University scientists carried out a separate study. Professor Stamler says the second study found that the breakdown of nitric oxide begins within hours of blood collection.

He says the life-saving gas is partly lost after three hours. And about seventy percent of it is lost after just one day. As a result, he says, there is almost no time that stored blood has enough nitric oxide.

The researchers tested their findings on dogs. They found that low levels of nitric oxide reduced the flow of blood in the animals.

However, Professor Stamler says the scientists corrected the situation. They added nitric oxide to the stored blood given to the dogs. He says the extra nitric oxide repaired the ability of red blood cells to expand blood passages.

Professor Stamler says people who are in serious need of a blood transfusion should have one. But he says more studies are needed to show who would receive the most help from stored blood.

At the start of the twentieth century, the United States Army had a Yellow Fever Commission. The Army wanted medical experts to study yellow fever and find a way to stop the disease. One team went to Cuba to test the idea that mosquitoes spread yellow fever. The team was led by Walter Reed, the Army doctor and scientist noted for his work on infectious diseases.

In August of nineteen hundred, the researchers began to raise mosquitoes and infect them with the virus. Nine of the Americans let the infected insects bite them. Nothing happened. Then two more let the mosquitoes bite them. Both men developed yellow fever.

Jesse Lazear

A doctor named Jesse William Lazear recognized that the mosquitoes that bit the last two men had been older than the others. Doctor Lazear proved that mosquitoes did carry yellow fever.

Doctor Lazear himself was also bitten. No one is sure how it happened. He said it happened accidentally as he treated others. But some people said he placed the mosquito on his arm as part of the experiment. Medical historians say he may have reported the bite as an accident so his family would not be denied money from his life insurance policy.

Jesse Lazear died of yellow fever. His death shocked the others on the team in Cuba. But they continued their work.

More people let themselves be bitten by mosquitoes. Others were injected with blood from victims of yellow fever. Some people in this test group developed the disease, but all recovered to full health.

Members of the team praised the work by Jesse Lazear. They called it a sacrifice to research that led the way to one of the greatest medical discoveries of the century.

Clara Maass

The research answered the question of how yellow fever was spread. Now the question was how to protect people. The researchers had a theory. They thought that people who were bitten by infected mosquitoes, but recovered, were protected in the future.

To test this idea, the team in Cuba offered one hundred dollars to anyone who would agree to be bitten by infected mosquitoes. Nineteen people agreed. The only American was Clara Maass. She was a nurse who worked with yellow fever patients in Cuba.

Clara Maass was bitten by infected mosquitoes seven times between March and August of nineteen-oh-one. Only one of the nineteen people developed the disease -- until that August. Then seven people got yellow fever. Clara Maass died six days after she was bitten for the seventh time.

The experiment showed that the bite of an infected mosquito was not a safe way to protect people from yellow fever. Medical historians say the death of Clara Maass also created a public protest over the use of humans in yellow fever research. Such experiments ended.

Cuba and the United States both honored Clara Maass on postage stamps. And today a hospital in her home state of New Jersey is known as Clara Maass Medical Center.

Joseph Goldberger

Joseph Goldberger was a doctor for the United States Public Health Service. In nineteen twelve, he began to study a skin disease that was killing thousands of people in the South. The disease was pellagra.

Doctor Goldberger traveled to the state of Mississippi where many people suffered from pellagra. He studied the victims and their families. Most of the people were poor. The doctor came to believe that the disease was not infectious, but instead related to diet.

He received permission from the state governor to test this idea at a prison. Prisoners were offered pardons if they took part. One group of prisoners received their usual foods, mostly corn products. A second group ate meat, fresh vegetables and milk.

Members of the first group developed pellagra. The second group did not.

But some medical researchers refused to accept that a poor diet caused pellagra. For the South, pellagra was more than simply a medical problem. There were other issues involved, including Southern pride.

So Doctor Goldberger had himself injected with blood from a person with pellagra. He also took liquid from the nose and throat of a pellagra patient and put them into his own nose and throat. He even swallowed pills that contained skin from pellagra patients.

An assistant also took part in the experiments. So did Doctor Goldberger's wife. None of them got sick.

Later, the doctor discovered that a small amount of dried brewer's yeast each day could prevent pellagra.

Joseph Goldberger died of cancer in nineteen twenty-nine. He was fifty-five years old. Several years later, researchers discovered the exact cause of pellagra: a lack of the B vitamin known as niacin.

Matthew Lukwiya

Matthew Lukwiya was the medical administrator of Saint Mary’s Hospital in the Gulu District of northern Uganda. In two thousand, the hospital was the center of treatment for an outbreak of Ebola. The virus causes severe bleeding. No cure is known. Doctors can only hope that victims are strong enough to survive.

Doctor Lukwiya acted quickly to control the spread of infection. He kept the people with Ebola separate from the other patients. He ordered hospital workers to wear protective clothing and follow other safety measures.

One day he had to deal with a patient who was dying of Ebola. The man had been acting out of control. The doctor knew him well. The patient was a nurse who worked at the hospital. The man was coughing and bleeding. Doctor Lukwiya violated one of his own rules. He wore no protection over his eyes.

Matthew Lukwiya died from the virus in December of two thousand. He was forty-two years old. Ugandans mourned his death. He was an important influence in the community. Experts say his work during the outbreak helped stop the Ebola virus from spreading out of control.

Carlo Urbani

On February twenty-eighth, two thousand three, the Vietnam-France Hospital in Hanoi asked Carlo Urbani for help. The Italian doctor was an expert on communicable diseases. He was based in Vietnam for the World Health Organization.

The hospital asked Doctor Urbani to help identify an unusual infection. He recognized it as a new threat. He made sure other hospitals increased their infection-control measures.

On March eleventh, Doctor Urbani developed signs of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Four days later, the World Health Organization declared it a worldwide health threat.

Carlo Urbani was the first doctor to warn the world of the disease that became known as SARS. He died of it on March twenty-ninth, two thousand three. He was forty-six years old.

Anita Roberts

Our final medical hero is molecular biologist Anita Roberts. She was widely recognized by other researchers for her work with a protein called transforming growth factor-beta. TGF-beta can both heal wounds and make healthy cells cancerous.

In nineteen seventy-six, Anita Roberts joined the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in the United States. She worked for many years with another researcher, Michael Sporn.

They found that TGF-beta helps to heal wounds and is important in the body’s defense system against disease. At the same time, though, the two scientists found that the protein can also support the growth of cancer in some cells.

Between nineteen eighty-three and two thousand two, Anita Roberts published more than three hundred forty research papers. Many other scientists gave credit to her published work. In fact, the publication Science Watch listed her as the forty-ninth most-cited researcher in the world during that twenty-year period. She was the third most-cited female scientist.

But in two thousand four, after years of studying cancer, Anita Roberts learned that she herself had the disease. She died of gastric cancer in May of two thousand six. She was sixty-four years old.

Carrots are grown on farms and in family gardens throughout the world. Carrots are easy to raise and easy to harvest. They taste good. And they contain a lot of carotene, which the body makes into vitamin A.

When people think of carrots, they usually picture in their mind a vegetable that is long, thin and orange in color. But carrots come in many different sizes and shapes. And not all carrots are orange.

For example, Paris Market carrots are about five centimeters around. Imperator carrots are thin and about twenty-five centimeters long. And Belgian White carrots are, as their name suggests, white.

For the best results, carrots should be grown in sandy soil that does not hold water for a long time. The soil also should have no rocks.

To prepare your carrot garden, dig up the soil, loosen it and turn it over. Then, mix in some plant material or animal fertilizer.

Weather, soil conditions and age will affect the way carrots taste. Experts say warm days, cool nights and a medium soil temperature are the best conditions for growing carrots that taste great.

Carrots need time to develop their full sugar content. This gives them their taste. If they are harvested too early, they will not have enough sugar. But carrots loose their sweetness if you wait too long to pull them from the ground.

The best way to judge if a carrot is ready to be harvested is by its color. Usually, the brighter the color, the better the taste.

Most people do not know that carrots can be grown during the winter months. If the winter is not cold enough to freeze the ground, you can grow and harvest carrots the same way as during the summer months.

If the ground does freeze in your part of the world, simply cover your carrot garden with a thick layer of leaves or straw. This will prevent the ground from freezing. You can remove the ground cover and harvest the carrots as they are needed.

Carrots are prepared and eaten many different ways. They are cut in thin pieces and added to other vegetables. They are cooked by themselves or added to stews. Or, once they are washed, they are eaten just as they come out of the ground.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. is one of the official cultural centers of America. For the past thirty years, the center has presented awards honoring five artists for their lifetime of work.

These artists were chosen this year for the Kennedy Center Honors: The singers Diana Ross and Brian Wilson. The actor and writer Steve Martin. The pianist Leon Fleisher. And the film director Martin Scorsese. They will be honored this Sunday, December second.

Brian Wilson

"Good Vibrations" and the other songs Brian Wilson wrote for The Beach Boys remain as fresh and energizing today as they were forty years ago. Wilson started the band with his two brothers, a cousin and a friend in the early nineteen sixties. The Beach Boys made a new kind of American rock music popular. Their songs express the fun of being young, enjoying girls, driving cars and surfing the ocean in California.

Brian Wilson not only wrote The Beach Boys' songs. He also sang, played the bass guitar and keyboard, and produced the band’s records. Some experts believe that their album “Pet Sounds” was one of the most inventive and important records in rock music history.

The Beach Boys were also one of the most popular bands in America during a time when the British band The Beatles were capturing the attention of the world.

Steve Martin

Steve Martin is a popular writer, actor and comedian. He is also a skilled banjo player. Martin first started his career writing for funny television shows like “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” In the nineteen seventies he began performing his funny jokes and acts on the weekly television program “Saturday Night Live.”

Steve Martin: “You know, a lot of people ask me if Steve Martin is my real name. Have I changed it for show business or anything like that. And, now I am not ashamed to admit it. Because I did have a funny name when I was a kid, and I decided to change it for show business. But I think enough time has gone by and audiences are more sophisticated now that they won’t laugh at my real name. My real name is bybybuhbuh … So my parents had a sense of humor. My sister’s name is hurhurhurhr . And my mother would go out to call us for dinner and she’d go bybybuhbuh! Hrrhrhr bbrbrb! So, we had to move around a lot. But other than that I had a very normal childhood.”

He also won Grammy awards for the records of his live comedy performances, one of which you just heard.

Steve Martin has also made over thirty-five movies, many of which he helped write. These include “The Jerk”, “All of Me”, “Parenthood”, and, more recently, “Shopgirl.”

Martin has written articles, books and successful plays such as “Picasso at the Lapin Agile." He wrote a book about his years of performing as a comedian, “Born Standing Up,” that was released last week. His next movie will be “Pink Panther Deux.”

Leon Fleisher

Fleisher began studying the piano at the age of four. By the time he was sixteen, he was playing with the New York Philharmonic. Leon Fleisher traveled far and wide playing in the finest concert halls in the world and also recording music. In nineteen sixty-five, a neurological disorder called dystonia forced Fleisher to rethink his career. He lost the use of his right hand, but he did not let this stop him.

Leon Fleisher poured his energy into teaching and also conducting groups of musicians. He also began to specialize in performing piano music written for the left hand. In the nineteen nineties, doctors began to treat Fleisher’s damaged hand with Botox injections.

Over time, Leon Fleisher recovered and started playing piano works for both hands once again. He has said that if he could relive his life, he would not change what happened to his hand. He says his experience helped him become a much better musician and teacher.

Martin Scorsese

Many people consider him one of the greatest living American film directors. Scorsese is best known for his movies about characters linked to crime and violence. Many of his movies are about Italian-American characters. Still, over the years, he has made movies about many subjects. “Kundun” tells the story of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. “The Aviator” is about the American businessman Howard Hughes. Scorsese also brought to life periods from the American past in movies like “Gangs of New York” and “The Age of Innocence.”

His latest movie, “The Departed,” is about opposing groups of criminals and police officers. It won four Academy Awards last year, including best director and best movie. Martin Scorsese has also made documentary movies about musicians, including Bob Dylan. He will soon release a movie about the Rolling Stones.

Diana Ross

The Supremes were from Detroit, Michigan. They became one of the most popular female singing groups of the nineteen sixties. The Supremes mixed the sounds of popular music with the soulful music born in Detroit called Motown. By nineteen seventy, Diana Ross had left the band to sing on her own. She made many best-selling records including “Diana Ross”, “Surrender” and “diana."

Diana Ross also acted in television shows and movies. Her performance as Billie Holiday in the movie “Lady Sings the Blues” earned her an Academy Award nomination.

Over the years, Ross has won many American Music Awards. Billboard magazine named her the “Entertainer of the Century.” The Guinness Book of World Records called Diana Ross the Most Successful Recording Artist of All Time. Her most recent album “I Love You” came out earlier this year.

Humans have always depended on animals. From the beginning of human history, wild animals provided food, clothing and sometimes medicine.

We may not depend as much on wild animals now. But we hear about them every day. Americans use the names of animals in many ways.

Many companies use animals to make us want to buy their goods. Automobile companies, for example, love to show fast horses when they are trying to sell their cars. They also name their cars for other fast powerful animals.

Automobile manufacturers and gasoline companies especially like to use big cats to sell their products. They like lions, tigers and wildcats.

When Americans say wildcat, they usually mean a lynx, an ocelot or a bobcat. All these cats attack quickly and fiercely. So wildcats represent something fast and fierce.

What better way is there to sell a car than to say it is as fast as a wildcat. Or, what better way is there to sell gasoline than to say that using it is like putting a tiger in your tank.

An early American use of the word wildcat was quite different. It was used to describe members of Congress who declared war on Britain in eighteen twelve. A magazine of that year said the wildcat congressmen went home. It said they were unable to face the responsibility of having involved their country in an unnecessary war.

Wildcat also has been used as a name for money. It was used this way in the eighteen hundreds. At that time, some states permitted banks to make their own money. One bank in the state of Michigan offered paper money with a picture of a wildcat on it.

Some banks, however, did not have enough gold to support all the paper money they offered. So the money had little or no value. It was called a wildcat bill or a wildcat bank note. The banks who offered this money were called wildcat banks.

A newspaper of the time said those were the days of wildcat money. It said a man might be rich in the morning and poor by night.

Wildcat was used in another way in the eighteen hundreds. It was used for an oil well or gold mine that had almost no oil or gold in it. Dishonest developers would buy such property. Then they would sell it and leave town with the money. The buyers were left with worthless holes in the ground. Today, wildcat oil wells are in areas that are not known to have oil.

Yet another kind of wildcat is the wildcat strike. That is a strike called without official approval by a union. During World War Two, an American publication accused wildcat strikers of slowing government production.

A few degrees can make a big difference when it comes to food storage. Foods can go bad if they get too warm. But for many of the world's poor, finding a good way to keep food cool is difficult. Refrigerators are costly and they need electricity.

Yet spoiled food not only creates health risks but also economic losses. Farmers lose money when they have to throw away products that they cannot sell quickly.

But in nineteen ninety-five a teacher in northern Nigeria named Mohammed Bah Abba found a solution. He developed the "Pot-in-Pot Preservation/Cooling System." It uses two round containers made of clay. A smaller pot is placed inside a larger one.

The space between the two pots is filled with wet sand. The inner pot can be filled with fruit, vegetables or drinks. A wet cloth covers the whole cooling system.

Food stored in the smaller pot is kept from spoiling through a simple evaporation process. Water in the sand between the two pots evaporates through the surface of the larger pot, where drier outside air is moving.

The evaporation process creates a drop in temperature of several degrees. This cools the inner pot and helps keep food safe from harmful bacteria. Some foods can be kept fresh this way for several weeks.

People throughout Nigeria began using the invention. And it became popular with farmers in other African countries. Mohammed Bah Abba personally financed the first five thousand pot-in-pot systems for his own community and five villages nearby.

In two thousand, the Rolex Watch Company of Switzerland honored him with the Rolex Award for Enterprise. This award recognizes people trying to develop projects aimed at improving human knowledge and well-being.

A committee considers projects in science and medicine, technology, exploration and discovery, the environment and cultural history. Winners receive financial assistance to help develop and extend their projects.

The award is given every two years. The next one will be given in two thousand eight.

Many of the Dutch expressions heard in American English were first used in England in the seventeenth century. That was a time of fierce naval competition between England and The Netherlands. At that time, the British used Dutch as a word for something bad, or false or mistaken.

A Dutch agreement was one made between men who had drunk too much alcohol. Dutch courage was the false courage produced by the effects of drinking alcohol. And, Dutch leave was what a soldier took when he left his base without permission

Some of these old expressions are still used today, with a little different meaning.

Dutch treat is one example. Long ago, a Dutch treat was a dinner at which the invited guests were expected to pay for their own share of the food and drink. Now, Dutch treat means that when friends go out to have fun, each person pays his own share.

Another common expression heard a few years ago was in Dutch. If someone said to you, you were in Dutch they were telling you that you were in trouble. An important person – a parent or teacher, perhaps – was angry with you.

Some of the Dutch expressions heard in American English have nothing to do with the Dutch people at all.

In the seventeen hundreds, Germans who moved to the United States often were called Dutch. This happened because of mistakes in understanding and saying the word Deutsch, the German word for German. Families of these German people still live in the eastern United States, many in the state of Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

During the American Civil War, supporters of the Northern side in the central state of Missouri were called Dutch because many of them were German settlers. In California during the gold rush, the term Dutch was used to describe Germans, Swedes and Norwegians, as well as people from The Netherlands.

President Theodore Roosevelt once noted that anything foreign and non-English was called Dutch. One expression still in use – to talk to someone like a Dutch uncle did come from the Dutch. The Dutch were known for the firm way they raised their children. So if someone speaks to you like a Dutch uncle he is speaking in a very severe way. And you should listen to him carefully!

Baloney is a kind of sausage that many Americans eat often. The word also has another meaning in English. It is used to describe something – usually something someone says – that is false or wrong or foolish.

Baloney sausage comes from the name of the Italian city, Bologna. The city is famous for its sausage, a mixture of smoked, spiced meat from cows and pigs. But, boloney sausage does not taste the same as beef or pork alone.

Some language experts think this different taste is responsible for the birth of the expression baloney. Baloney is an idea or statement that is nothing like the truth…in the same way that baloney sausage tastes nothing like the meat that is used to make it.

Baloney is a word often used by politicians to describe the ideas of their opponents.

The expression has been used for years. Fifty years ago, a former governor of New York state, Alfred Smith, criticized some claims by President Franklin Roosevelt about the successes of the Roosevelt administration. Smith said, “No matter how thin you slice it, it is still baloney.”

A similar word has almost the same meaning as baloney. It even sounds almost the same. The word is blarney. It began in Ireland about sixteen hundred.

The lord of Blarney castle, near Cork, agreed to surrender the castle to British troops. But he kept making excuses for postponing the surrender. And, he made them sound like very good excuses, “this is just more of the same blarney.”

The Irish castle now is famous for its Blarney stone. Kissing the stone is thought to give a person special powers of speech. One who has kissed the Blarney stone, so the story goes, can speak words of praise so smoothly and sweetly that you believe them, even when you know they are false.

A former Roman Catholic bishop of New York City, Fulton Sheen, once explained, “Baloney is praise so thick it cannot be true. And blarney is praise so thin we like it.”

Another expression is pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. It means to make someone believe something that is not true. The expression goes back to the days when men wore false hair, or wigs, similar to those worn by judges today in British courts.

The word wool is a popular joking word for hair. If you pulled a man’s wig over his eyes, he could not see what was happening. Today, when you pull the wool over someone’s eyes, he cannot see the truth.

"You do not need to be a rocket scientist." Americans hear these words often. People say them in schools, offices and factories. Broadcasters on radio and television use them.

This is how you might hear the words used.

Workers in an office are afraid to try to use their new computer system. Their employer tells them not to be foolish. "You do not need to be a rocket scientist to learn this," he says.

Or, high school students cannot seem to understand something their teacher is explaining. "Come on," she says. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand this."

Or, a company that makes soap is trying to sell its product on television. "You do not need to be a rocket scientist to see that our soap cleans better," the company says.

These words send a strong message. They say that you do not need to be extremely intelligent to understand something.

How did the expression begin?

No one seems to know for sure. But an official of the American space agency, NASA, says the expression just grew. It grew, he says, because rocket scientists probably are the most intelligent people around.

Not everyone would agree.

Some people might be considered more intelligent than rocket scientists. For example, a person who speaks and reads fifteen languages, or a medical doctor who operates on the brain.

Still, many people would agree that there is something special about scientists who build rockets. Maybe it has to do with the mystery of space travel.

Moving pictures from before World War Two showed a man named Buck Rogers landing on the planet Mars. He was a hero who could defeat any enemy from outer space.

The rocket scientist is a different kind of hero. He or she makes space travel possible.

Rocket scientists, however, can have problems just like everyone else.

A Washington rocket scientist tells about a launch that was postponed many, many times. Finally, everything seemed right. Mechanical failures had been repaired. The weather was good.

The scientists had planned that part of the rocket would fall into the ocean after the launch. All ships and boats within many kilometers of the danger area had been warned. But in the last few seconds a small boat entered the area. Once again, the launch was postponed.

When the work goes well, most rocket scientists enjoy their jobs. One scientist said, "As a child I loved to build rockets. Now I am grown. I still love to build rockets. And now I get paid for it."

You probably know what fast food is. It is cooked food that is ready almost as soon as you enter a public eating place. It does not cost much. It is popular with most Americans and with many people around the world. Some experts say that at least twenty-five percent of American adults eat fast food every day. Most fast food restaurants offer ground beef sandwiches called hamburgers and potatoes cooked in hot oil called French fries. Other fast food places serve fried chicken, pizza or tacos.

You see fast food restaurants almost everywhere in the United States. The names and the designs of the buildings are easily recognized – Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and of course, McDonald’s. Most are chain restaurants. That means each one is part of a huge company.

Each restaurant in the chain has the same large, colorful sign that can be recognized from far away. Each offers its own carefully limited choice of foods. Each kind of hamburger or piece of chicken tastes the same at every restaurant in the chain.

The fast food industry began with two brothers in San Bernardino, California in the nineteen forties. Mac and Dick McDonald owned a small, but very successful restaurant. They sold only a few kinds of simple food, especially hamburgers.

People stood outside the restaurant at a window. They told the workers inside what they wanted to eat. They received and paid for their food very quickly. The food came in containers that could be thrown away. The system was so successful that the McDonald brothers discovered they could sell a lot of food and lower their prices.

Ray Kroc sold restaurant supplies. He recognized the importance of the McDonald brothers’ idea. He saw that food sales could be organized for mass production -- almost like a factory. Mister Kroc paid the McDonald brothers for permission to open several restaurants similar to theirs. He opened the first McDonald’s restaurant near Chicago, Illinois, in nineteen fifty-five. Soon, more McDonald’s were opening all across the United States. Other people copied the idea and more fast food restaurants followed.

Raymond Albert Kroc was a very wealthy businessman when he died in nineteen eighty-four. But he had not always been successful. Ray was born in Illinois in nineteen-oh-two. His parents were not rich. He attended school in Oak Park, near Chicago. Ray never completed high school, however. He left school to become a driver for the Red Cross in World War One. He lied about his age to be accepted. He was only fifteen. The war ended before he could be sent to Europe.

After the war, Ray became a jazz piano player. He played with famous music groups. He got married when he was twenty. Then he began working for the Lily Tulip Cup Company, selling paper cups. He kept trying new things, however. He attempted to sell land in the southern state of Florida. That business failed. Ray Kroc remembered driving to Chicago from Florida after his business failed. He said: “I will never forget that drive as long as I live. The streets were covered with ice, and I did not have winter clothing. When I arrived home I was very cold and had no money.”

Ray Kroc went back to being a salesman for the Lily Tulip Cup Company. He was responsible for product sales in the central United States. His life improved when he started a small business that sold restaurant supplies. He sold a machine that could mix five milkshakes at one time.

In nineteen fifty-four, he discovered a small restaurant that was using eight of his machines. He went there and found that the owners of the restaurant had a good business selling only hamburgers, French fries and drinks.

At first, Mister Kroc saw only the possibility for increasing the sales of his mixers to more restaurants. Then he proposed an agreement with the McDonald brothers to start a number of restaurants. Under the agreement, the McDonald brothers would get a percentage of all sales.

The first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, in nineteen fifty-five. Ray Kroc was fifty-two years old -- an age when many people start thinking about retirement. He opened two restaurants. Soon he began to understand that the real profits were made in selling hamburgers, not the mixers. He quickly sold the mixer company and invested the money in the growing chain of McDonald’s restaurants.

In nineteen-sixty, Mister Kroc bought the legal rights to the restaurants from the McDonald brothers. By then, the chain had more than two hundred restaurants.

Fast food restaurants spread quickly in the United States because of franchising. Franchising means selling the legal right to operate a store in a company’s chain to an independent business person. If the company approves, the business person may buy or lease the store for a period of years.

Many people want to own a McDonald’s restaurant, but only a few are approved. Each restaurant buys its supplies at a low cost from the parent company. Each restaurant also gives the company about ten percent of the money it earns in sales. Today, about seventy percent of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent businessmen and women.

Ray Kroc was good at identifying what the public wanted. He knew that many American families wanted to eat in a restaurant sometimes. He gave people a simple eating place with popular food, low prices, friendly service and no waiting. And all McDonald’s restaurants sold the same food in every restaurant across the country.

Ray Kroc established rules for how McDonald’s restaurants were to operate. He demanded that every restaurant offer “quality, service and cleanliness.” People lucky enough to get a franchise must complete a program at a training center called Hamburger University. They learn how to cook and serve the food, and how to keep the building clean. More than sixty-five thousand people have completed this training.

McDonald’s began to expand around the world in nineteen sixty-seven. Ray Kroc’s business ability made McDonald’s the largest restaurant company in the world. There are now more than thirty thousand McDonald’s restaurants on six continents.

The company operates in about one hundred twenty countries. Every day, McDonald’s restaurants around the world serve about fifty million people.

In later years, Ray Kroc established the Kroc Foundation, a private organization that gives money to help others. He also established a number of centers that offer support to families of children who have cancer. They are called Ronald McDonald houses.

Many people praised Ray Kroc for his company’s success and good works. But other people sharply criticized him for the way McDonald’s treated young employees. Many of the workers were paid the lowest wage permitted by American law. Health experts still criticize McDonald’s food for containing too much fat and salt.

In the nineteen seventies, Ray Kroc turned his energy from hamburgers to sports. He bought a professional baseball team in California, the San Diego Padres. He died in nineteen eighty-four. He was eighty-one years old.

That first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, was torn down. It was replaced by a store and visitors center that attempts to copy what was in the original building. Another museum in nearby Oak Park describes the life of Ray Kroc. Ray Kroc’s story remains an important part of McDonald’s history. And his way of doing business continues to influence fast food restaurants that feed people around the world.

Azoun was amazed. She saw her husband stood beside the fire, singing a song. The song was good and his voice was sweet. The audience danced around him and they fell asleep gradually. Adeck fell asleep too. Only Azoun opened her eyes widely because of surprise. She gently came to him and led him through the forest and to their house.

When they were quite far from the place where the festival was taken, Azoun blamed him for abandoning her:
-Why did you abandon me? Oh, my dear! We have had a happy life. We have had a child. I don't understand why you could leave me so easily.

Toad was very surpprised. He said softly:
-Why did you say that? You and I always go side by side like water and fish , like wind and cloud, like a couple of birds.

Azoun remembered. When her husband was singing, her sister was next to him. Maybe she had cheated Azoun. Toad remembered too, just after he began to sing, the girl came with him fell asleep.
-Oh! My god!

Then Toad and his wife said goodbye to their parents, went to a very far place to work and bring up their child.

Time passed. The child, whose name was Bodac, grew quickly. When he was only six, he could go hunting. When he was twelve, he could go to the forest himself and carry home some dead large animals. He was very hard-working. he never stayed and let his parents do. When he didn't go hunting, he went to the stream to fish. Or he fetched the water and poured it into barrels. The barrels in front of his house were always full of water.

One day, he hurried to his home and told his parents:
-Mom! Dad! I Have just seen a strange man. He told me he was looking for
groom Toad.
He winked his eyes, asked:
-Then who is groom Toad?

His father smiled. He said, calmly:
-Groom Toad is no more a toad now. It's me, my son.

Bodac was surprised. He asked his father, with a voice of disbelief:
-You are groom Toad?

His father laughed. At that moment, a strange man came into his house.
His father came to greet him warmly:
-Oh! What on earth that lead you here? We haven't seen each other for a long time. Please come in and have a talk.

The visitor was Anha's closest servant. He was hurried. He told Toad:
-Oh! A wise bird choose a high branch. A wise person choose a crowded
place. You must hurry. There are a lot of creatures which came to Anha's village and destroy things. We must help us. They are destroying our life. A lot of people will die.

Toad was indesicive. His child said:
-Dad! The creatures are like a hungry tiger in the forest, a hungry crocodile in the river, aren't they?

Toad said yes. He suddenly saw his perfect bow and arrows hung on the wall. Bodac saw his arrows. There was only few arrows for him.
He told his father:
-May I go and sharpen more arrows, dad?

The visitor didn't agree. He didn't want Bodac to do such a dangerous work. He said;
-No! My boy! This is our work. You are only a child. Please stay home and help your mother.

Bodac was disappointed. His father undersrood. He said:
-My boy! We can go and help us.

The visitor smiled.

* * * * * * * * *

The next morning, Bodac and Toad said goodbye to Azoun. They were on the way to kill the creatures, to make a better life for people.

Bodac knew he was going to have an important appointment. He practised everyday. Every morning he practised shooting. He was goot at shooting. He also carried some enormous stones. His father told him how to throw javelin. He was good at throwing javelin too.

Some days passed. Bodac and Toad came to Anha's village. Seeing the village was badly damaged, he said:
-They have destroyed everything.

Bodac saw the scene and heard what his father said. He asked:
-Where are the creatures? I want to kill all of them.

Suddenly, there were strange noises. Stones fell of the mountain in front of them. Leaves flew over and over. Something sounded like a group of wolves are surrounding their enemies.

Toad held Bodac's hand tightly. He said:
-It is here.

Bodac said, determined:
-Let me kill them.

Toad told his son:
-My son! Sharp axes cut down hard trees. Sharp javelins kill tigers. Go! And kill them! God will help you!

Bodac held his javelin tightly. He jumped into a round of creatures. he shouted angrily:
-Your wicked creatures! How you dare to destroy my village, to kill my people? I'll kill all of you.

The creatures began to attack. Bodac held his bow and arrows up and shot. The craetures arond him died. The survivors, to scared to attack again, ran and ran. He followed them. Suddenly, he heard his father calling:
-Stop! Bodac, stop!

Only when he stopped, did he see the largest creature. It looked at him for a long time. Then it said:
-Silly boy! You are the boy of Toad, aren't you? Let me see him.

Bodac threw his javelin. The creature caught it as it caught chopsticks.

Bodac didn't know what to do. The craeture laughed bitterly. It came nearer and nearer.
-You are going to die, silly boy! Pray God!

The creature reached out his hands to catch Bodac. He closed his eyes tightly. He tried not to cry.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise. Bodac felt like he was being threw into the air. Then he felt he was standing on something soft. Dust flew everywhere.

Then he saw everything. He was standing on the tummy of the creature. It
was dead because of a javelin through his heart. The javelin was made by silver and gold. It was Toad's javelin. The loud noise was made when Toad threw his javelin to the creature.

The creatures were all killed. Toad and Bodac looked for the people. They saw Anha and villagers were kept in a cave. There also a lot of
invaluable things in the cave.

Villagers were grateful to meet them. The hugged and laughed and cried.

Anha was happy. He told his servants to fetch his little girl. He also had a party. The party lasted for three days.

Toad and Bodac brought things they found in the cave for everyone. Everyone loved him very much. Anha let his son-in-law and his grandson be the leader of his village.

What about Adeck? She had gone, never came back to the village where her sister lived happily with her husband, her son and her parents.