through mud which contains all of those elements you mentioned, they can hose off, decontaminate, and switch out into fresh clothing, so they are not bringing any potential toxins or disease or any type of infectious agents back to their own families. that s an important part of the search effort out there, is the decontamination, getting the mud off, the big chunks off, and sort of a good scrub down before they leave. that s been happening with the dogs, too, as well. jennifer bjorklund, thank you. more than three weeks after malaysia air flight 370 vanished, officials are insisting today they are not scaling back on the search. 20 planes and ships today were scouring a massive area of the indian ocean, some 1,100 miles west of perth, australia, because the battery life on the plane s so-called black box pinger may be about to die.