Are Bone Pieces From Pilot Amelia Earhart?

17 January 2011

Amelia Earhart disappeared with her navigator Fred Noonan in 1937 in a Lockheed Electra 10E while attempting a round-the-world flight. Scientists are studying bone fragments found on a South Pacific island.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Christopher Cruise.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. Today, we will tell about an effort to learn what happened to American pilot Amelia Earhart. We will tell about a group that studies developments in technology to predict the future. And we will tell about a complex health disorder called chronic fatigue syndrome.

(MUSIC)

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: American scientists are attempting to recover genetic material in bone fragments that could be from Amelia Earhart. The famous pilot disappeared while flying over the southwest Pacific Ocean more than seventy years ago.

The world has changed greatly since her airplane went missing on July second, nineteen thirty-seven. But public interest in her life and death remains high.

Small bone fragments may help answer continuing questions about her death. Scientists at the University of Oklahoma are performing genetic tests at the Molecular Anthropology Laboratories in Norman, Oklahoma.

FAITH LAPIDUS: When last heard from, Amelia Earhart was seeking to become the first female pilot to fly a plane around the world. Earhart was already internationally known at the time. She had been the first woman to fly a plane alone over the Atlantic Ocean. Still, she was not satisfied.