technology is coming to the malawi countryside, and it is something to sing about. on a recent sunday in this village, a group has gotten together to sing, to gossip, and to make stoves. stove, and the name means environmental protection. those simple, it has radically reduce the amount of wood malawin households need for their energy. in the past, the three-stone fire like this one was the best technology available. the stove burns cleaner, for much longer, all less than half the wood. it is made from locally-source materials. linda explains how using this technology has changed life in her village. speaking foreign language] >> the technology is in the design. the materials and building techniques are local and important. an irish company concerned about deforestation and looking for ways to get africa involved in the carbon economy appreciated the difficulty of carbon trading through forestry. >> if we could get carbon credits here in malawi for reforesting, we would love to do it. but we know it is too complicated. we're better off focusing in on energy efficien

go to a village in malawi. go to a slum in a city somewhere in southern asia. see what it's like. what is i like to have to deliver? >> charlie: it was 2001 i think in a commencement speech at brown univerty. you know what's coming, don't you? >> i do remember that one. charlie: you talked about a general anesthesia of the soul. >> is that over the top? charlie: (laughing) you are over the top. that's good to go over the top. go ahead. tell me what you meant. >> you know, it's just... first of all, in training medical students and working with med students and young physicians they don't really have general anesthesia at all. >> charlie: what do they have? they have the difficty seeing theig picre outside of where it they are. it's not just doctors. but i was talking to people who that day would become doctors so what does that mean? if you're a surgeon you don't want him or her thinking about what's going on outside the o.r. we don't want that. and if you have a laboratory technician, you want him or her focused on their job but in none of us understands how all of it fits togeth

and using cell phones to make sure critical medicines are in stock for patients in rural malawi.wn. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: before we go tonight: we want to tell you about our upcoming report on the anniversary of the watergate hearings. and we'd like your input. >> good evening from washington. in a few moments, we're going to bring you the entire proceedings in the first day of the senate watergate hearings. >> we are doing this as an experiment, temporarily abandoning our ability to edit, to give you the whole story, wemany hours it may take. it's been 40 years since robert macneil and jim lehrer first teamed up to co-anchor public televisions gavel-to-gavel coverage of the senate watergate hearings-- all 250 hours worth-- in the summer of 1973. from that partnership came a news program that has gone through a variety of forms and lives on in what you're watching today. jim and robin share their look back in a special report we'll air later this month, covering watergate. but we also want to hear from you, our viewers, about the wa

english class, they read "the boy who harnessed the wind," the autobiography of william kamkwamba of malawi, africa. >> he managed to build a wind turbine, power his house, get all this stuff that he wouldn't have had if he hadn't tried, and he did it with, like, a book and some trash. >> and he went through this awful famine, and it was really shocking to me that he could go through all that and still have hope. >> that was a really big theme in the book-- that if you try and don't stop no matter what's in the way, you'll eventually get there. >> reporter: inspired by the book, students like liva pierce pushed ahead with their own model wind turbines. >> i had a lot of struggles with my turbine. and i said, "you know what? i'm going to make this generate more than a volt." so i made a whole new set of blades. but then i heard about other people, and it was like oh, he's getting six volts! so i was like argh, i've got to get more than that! >> reporter: after eight weeks and three new sets of blades, liva and her classmates wind turbines were finally ready. and king middle school staged ano

that was a study done in africa this year, him allowing -- in malawi. they looked at kids in the same households, with the same diet. one had a severe form of malnutrition and another did not. the kid who did not have the disease did fine, the other kid did not. he would do fine for a little while, at them and go back to being malnourished what they found was that if you manipulate the micro biome and give these kids the right microbes to digest the food, they have a much better chance of recovering from malnutrition. host: we are talking about microbe research with richard conniff, his piece in "smithsonian magazine," "the body eclectic." let's go to charlotte. caller: good morning. does curious as to, how the body pick up its microbes, and if we are constructed by dna, do we carry dna to make these microbes? thank you. guest: charlotte, we picked the microbes up from the world around us right from the start. one of the most interesting studies has to do with cesarean births. about 30% of kids in this country are born by cesarean, and they found that k

that was a study done in africa this year, him allowing -- in malawi.looked at kids in the same households, with the same diet. one had a severe form of malnutrition and another did not. the kid who did not have the disease did fine, the other kid did not. he would do fine for a little while, at them and go back to being malnourished what they found was that if you manipulate the micro biome and give these kids the right microbes to digest the food, they have a much better chance of recovering from malnutrition. host: we are talking about microbe research with richard conniff, his piece in "smithsonian magazine," "the body eclectic." let's go to charlotte. caller: good morning. i was curious as to, how does the body pick up its microbes, and if we are constructed by our dna, do we carry dna to make these microbes? thank you. we picked thete, microbes up from the world around us right from the start. one of the most interesting studies has to do with cesarean births. about 30% of kids in this country are born by cesarean, and they found that kids born th

the turbines are generating power in malawi, south africa, and the democratic republic of congo, the government has commissioned two that he is currently working on. the energy has powered payment systems like grain mailing for thousands of years. today, they believe it is is still one of the best hopes for removing our dependency on fossil fuels. >> if we could have thousands of micro hydros feeding into the national grid and shutting down our coal-fired power stations, that israel. real.t is