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This is Science in the News, in VOA Special English. I'm DougJohnson.

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And I'm Faith Lapidus. On our program this week: concerns aboutparticles of plastic waste in the oceans.

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A hot discovery near Antarctica.

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And, a visit to an American zoo to look at a very unusualdecision.

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Our first story is about two ofthe largest animals to walk the Earth. Their names are Wanda andWinky. They are Asian elephants. And they are not young anymore.Wanda is about forty-five years old. She has arthritis. Her jointshurt when she moves. Winky is fifty-one. She has foot problems.

Wanda and Winky live at the Detroit Zoo, in the state ofMichigan. Recently the zoo decided that they need a better home.Soon they will move to a wildlife refuge somewhere else in theUnited States.

A lot of people were surprised that zoo officials would do this.You see, Wanda and Winky are the last two elephants in the DetroitZoo. They are among the most popular animals in the collection.

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Yet their health problems are believed to be the result of thelimited space they have. Six years ago, the Detroit Zoo expandedtheir living area. The elephants now have about one-half of ahectare to move around. This is two times as much space as they hadbefore. Zoo Director Ron Kagan says this is still not nearly enoughspace. In the wild, elephants travel up to forty-eight kilometers aday.

Elephants come from Africa and parts of Asia. They come fromareas that are much warmer than places like Michigan. Winters therecan be severe.

Ron Kagan also notes that elephants are social animals. Theynormally live in groups and establish relationships. And he sayselephants need lots of physical and mental activity to be happy.

The Humane Society of the United States praised the Detroit Zoofor its decision to stop keeping elephants. The animal protectiongroup has asked other animal parks to do the same. Wayne Pacelle isthe chief of the Humane Society. He says even zoos with excellentconditions like the Detroit Zoo cannot provide a good home forelephants.

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The American Zoo and Aquarium Association has set newrequirements for its members. These include more open space andactivities to keep elephants from feeling depressed. But Ron Kaganat the Detroit Zoo notes that the new rules still permit severalcontrol methods. He says elephants can still be struck with a metaltool and, in some cases, electric shock devices.

Mister Kagan also says the new requirements do not bar very youngelephants from being separated from their mothers. In the wild,elephants stay with their mothers for years. Female elephants staywith their mothers all their lives.

Mister Kagan says zoo and circus elephants often live in smallergroups than the herds that exist in the wild. And he says elephantsreproduce with greater ease in the wild. He sees this as anothersign that elephants should not be kept in zoos or circuses.

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Animal rights activists welcome the idea of ending the use ofelephants for public show. But not everyone else does. Many peoplewould agree with the comments of a young mother in Encino,California. She says if zoos and circuses no longer have elephants,her children may never see one.

Many people enjoy circus performances by trained elephants. ButMister Kagan and other experts argue that these actions areunnatural for the animals. They say circus elephants are chained andsometimes treated badly. Some circus animals are said to travel upto fifty weeks a year.

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In the United States, millions of parents take their children tosee the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. RinglingBrothers has a center in Florida where Asian elephants are born andgo to retire. The Center for Elephant Conservation does research andworks to increase reproduction.

The circus says it takes excellent care of all its animals. Foryears, it had the famous animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams. Hegot elephants and tigers to perform together. Now his son works withthe animals.

In two-thousand-one, Mark Oliver Gebel was charged withmistreating an elephant. Ringling Brothers said the accusations weremade by extremist animal rights activists. A jury in San Jose,California, found Mister Gebel not guilty. But legal problems forthe circus did not end there. Three animal protection groups broughta civil action in two-thousand over its treatment of animals. Thegroups expect a federal court in Washington, D.C., to hear that casenext year.

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This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English.

Scientists have known for a long time that plastic is harmful toocean animals. But a new British study shows that plastic maycontinue to do harm even after it has broken into extremely smallparticles.

British scientists collected pieces of plastic on seventeenBritish beaches as well as deep in the Atlantic Ocean. The piecesare so small they can only be seen with a microscope. The scientistsfound that nine kinds of plastic were common. These included nylonand polyester.

The researchers also examined plankton, very small ocean animalsand plants. These had been collected off the British coast duringthe past forty years. The scientists found particles of plastic inthe plankton. They found three times more plastic in plankton fromthe nineteen-nineties than in plankton from the nineteen-sixties.

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Professor Richard Thompson of the University of Plymouth led thestudy. Professor Thompson says his team will investigate how plasticaffects the environment. For example, they want to learn if theplastic in plankton could poison fish and other sea life eaten byhumans.

The study appeared in the magazine Science.

A spokesman for the American Plastics Council says a lot of theinformation from the British study was old. But he says the groupwill re-examine it. He also says industry must educate people abouttheir responsibility to keep all waste out of oceans.

Professor Thompson agrees that humans need to be moreresponsible. Plastic is a popular substance for containers and otherobjects partly because it is not easily destroyed. The professorestimates that plastic lasts from a hundred to a thousand years.

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Scientists have found what they believe is an active volcano nearAntarctica. The volcano is outside an area known to have volcanicactivity.

Eugene Domack of Hamilton College in New York is the chiefscientist on the project. He says the volcano stands seven-hundredmeters above the sea bottom. It extends to within abouttwo-hundred-seventy-five meters of the surface.

The scientists first suspected the presence of the volcano inJanuary of two-thousand-two. They were in the area on a shipoperated by the National Science Foundation in the United States.

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The scientists mapped the sea floor with images made from soundwaves. These maps first suggested the presence of a volcano. Also,there had been reports in the past from sailors who saw discoloredwater in the area. Changes in water color are often a sign of anactive volcano.

The volcano is in Antarctic Sound, at the northern edge ofAntarctica. Mister Domack says there were no scientific records ofactive volcanoes in this area before.

In April, the researchers returned to the area. They recordedvideo images of the sides and top of the volcano. They said theseimages showed a surface heavily populated by organisms that live onthe sea bottom.

However, there are also areas of black rock and no life on theedges of the volcano. The scientists say these dark areas show thatlava, or liquid rock, has flowed from the volcano. This appears tohave happened recently. The scientists also found heated seawater,especially around the freshest rock.

The researchers are from five colleges in the United States andone in Canada. Their discovery was an unexpected part of a trip toinvestigate a huge area of ice that broke up several years ago.Mister Domack said more research was needed, since no one on theirship was an expert in volcanoes.

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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson and DoreenBaingana. Cynthia Kirk was our producer. This is Faith Lapidus.

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And this is Doug Johnson. Listen again next week for more newsabout science in Special English on the Voice of America.