Watching the World
Radioactive Tobacco?
● Doctors from the University of Massachusetts report that radioactive substances are “highly concentrated” on particles in tobacco smoke. These include polonium-210 (from phosphate fertilizers used in tobacco growing) and lead-210. Their report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, states that those who smoke a pack and a half a day receive a radiation dose each year equal to 300 chest X rays.
Whose Interests at Heart?
● Under the heading “Doctor Criticizes Official View on Tobacco,” the Estado de S. Paulo reported from Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, that Professor Mário Rigatto of the University of Rio Grande do Sul had censured the official attitude toward smoking. Authorities, according to Professor Rigatto, “still have the idea that the taxes received from the production and sale of tobacco outweigh the sickness and death caused by these products on a large part of the population.” Professor Rigatto quoted German authorities who have shown that taxes collected by the Federal Republic of Germany from the sale of tobacco represented only half the cost of medical treatment, hospitalization, absences from work, widow’s pensions and fires that are related to smoking and its consequences.
More “State” in Swedish Church
● At a recent meeting of the Swedish State Church Council, a government proposal was approved, giving parliament the right, at least in part, to establish Church law. Some think that the effect will be that the Church will be even more bound to the State. Commented an editorial in the daily Svenska Dagbladet: “As a State organization, the Swedish Church will just have to submit even if, for example, parliament makes laws governing the teachings or rituals of the Church.”
Caught in the “Crossfire”
● A cross about twenty-six feet (8 m) high was erected alongside an autobahn near Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland, shortly before the new roadway was dedicated. According to the Swiss publication Touring, hundreds of signatures were collected by a “Committee for the Separation of Church and Autobahn.” The petition demanded the immediate removal of all church signs along the autobahn. It was reasoned that the presence of the cross could distract drivers, thus making their driving dangerous. Besides, every other kind of advertising is forbidden along the autobahn, they pointed out.
More Than Mere Mumbling?
● Sherryl Goodman, assistant professor of psychology at Emory University, recently studied thirty-eight children, from three years of age to five, while they were working on a jigsaw puzzle. Most of the children talked to themselves, using expressions such as, “I can’t do this” and, “This goes here.” Did the talking help the youngsters? Yes, says the psychologist; those who gave instructions to themselves solved the puzzle faster. Reports Family Weekly: “Goodman believes self-verbalization helps kids reinforce thoughts they already have but aren’t fully formed, and adds that older children and adults could benefit from the technique. ‘It seems thinking aloud gets socialized away by age 5,’ she notes, ‘because when kids go to school, they’re told to be quiet.’”
Herbs in the News
● From mainland China comes news that Dr. Guo Juling and colleagues at Tianjin Hospital have successfully treated rheumatoid arthritis with a traditional herb, the root of the yellow vine. Dr. Guo says that the herb has “therapeutic efficacy inferior only to the steroids.” The doctor gave ninety-five rheumatoid arthritis patients a daily dosage of the root, together with antacids and vitamin B tablets. Said the Medical Tribune: “Treatment for two months to two years produced relief of joint pain to varying degrees in 98%. . . . The preparation is highly toxic and its numerous side effects include skin blisters, mild hair loss, digestive disturbances, menstrual irregularity, and pyogenic [pus-producing] infections.” But Dr. Guo maintains that the side effects are not so serious as those associated with many other antirheumatics.
Tiny Mouse Grounds Jumbo Jet
● Recently, a Kuwait Airlines jumbo jet on a flight to Madrid had to return to Kuwait because the pilot felt there was “something wrong” with one of the plane’s engines. The newspaper Al-Rai Al-Am said that mechanics could not pinpoint the trouble, so an expert was called in at a cost of $35,000 (US). The news item explained: “The expert said in his report that the disorder was caused by a mouse that had succeeded in infiltrating the engine room, and the Jumbo was back in service after the stowaway was expelled.”
Zoo Costs Soar
● “Zoos all over the country are finding it hard economically,” reports Joan Embery, a zoologist at the San Diego Zoo. Food costs have especially skyrocketed. The San Diego Zoo’s food bill is now $430,000 a year, up almost 50 percent since 1978. The price of hay has gone away up during the past decade, so that Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo pays $2,700 for an adult elephant’s yearly hay ration. The zoo’s operating costs have doubled in the past ten years. Obtaining animals for any zoo is one of the big expenses. A gorilla may cost from $50,000 to $100,000—ten times the cost a decade ago. Other expenses soar. The San Diego Zoo reports that an outside dental consultant may charge $500 for a day’s work doing root-canal surgery for a lion.
‘Greatest Challenge of His Life’
● The immense Amazon Basin is one of the last great areas to give up its secrets to scientists. This is because of the many problems confronting scientific expeditions in that area: tropical heat, insects, solid rain forests, venomous snakes, flesh-eating piranha fish, to name just a few. Despite all of this, the noted ecologist and motion-picture producer Jacques Yves Cousteau recently set out from Belém, Brazil, on what he considers the ‘greatest challenge of his life’—to explore the Amazon Basin. For ten months he reportedly will study and film the relationship between aquatic life and the forest, making a series of documentary motion pictures for television programs in 117 countries. One of the expedition’s first problems was choosing lenses in order to film in the dim Amazon light filtering through the dense forest.
Driving at Night
● The US National Safety Council has published a twelve-page pamphlet How to Drive After Dark. It reports that one’s chances of being killed in an automobile accident are three times higher at night than during the day.
No One Missed Him
● Many Germans were shocked recently when newspapers reported that an old-age pensioner born in 1907 had been found dead in his one-room apartment in Munich—after lying there for seven years! “The social behavior of the people in the world in which he lived is beyond comprehension,” commented a policeman, manifestly shaken by the fact that the pensioner’s death had gone undetected for such a long time. Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung commented: “As long as we need headlines like this before we are shocked, then our horror is shown up to be nothing more than a shabby reaction without any real consequence or impulse for change. Let us not fool ourselves: We may well report a similar incident again next week on this very page. As long as this possibility exists, we must tackle this problem of the isolation of the individual. A dead man gone undiscovered for seven years? Let us pay attention to the many living persons around us who likewise are going undiscovered!”
Dogs to Help the Deaf
● The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has instituted a program of training dogs to help the deaf. It is called the Hearing Dog Program. Dogs are trained to alert their owners to the ringing of a telephone, a crying baby or the noise of a burglar on the prowl. Over one hundred Hearing Dog placements have already been made.
Cattails for Sewage Treatment
● Environment Ontario’s publication Legacy reports some success in using marshland cattails for effective treatment of sewage. In an experimental program for a community of 5,000 people it was said that “the cattail is as effective as a conventional sewage treatment plant in treating certain aspects of sewage effluent at a much lower cost.” Though more studies will be needed to determine the costs of a feasible marsh system, it is felt that “the findings so far suggest that the marsh approach . . . may be more feasible and less costly than mechanical or other forms of treatment.” Men continue to learn that things in the world around us are there by design for our good and often more effective than human inventions for the same purpose.
Crime in Sweden
● The Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics has reported that the 1980 crime rate in that country was 111 per 1,000 inhabitants. This represents a fourfold increase since 1950.
Greeks Drill for Oil
● Greece is speeding up efforts to discover oil in areas of the Ionian and Aegean Sea islands. Drilling is especially being done in the area of Thasos Island, in the northern Aegean. Concerning drilling in this area, the Athens News said: “According to announcements from the Northern Greece Petroleum Company, tests have proved that the oil from the new drilling proved to be of excellent quality. . . . The only thing left to find out is how large are the oil deposits.” Time will tell whether Greece will be among the oil-producing countries.
Drug Traffic Accelerating
● “The plague of drug abuse continues,” stated C. E. Bourgonniere, the director of the Vienna UN office to delegates from thirty nations assembled in Vienna at a United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. “Availability and trafficking . . . are on the increase, with their hazardous effects on public health and socio-economic stability.”
These facts emerged from the commission: the amount of seized cocaine has more than doubled between 1978 and 1980 and reached almost 12 tons in 1980; annually 6,000 tons of cannabis (marijuana) and over 1,050 tons of cannabis resin are confiscated; more than 2.5 tons of depressant drugs were seized in 1980; 600 tons of opium from Southeast Asia, triple the 1980 amount, is due to reach the black market this year; and countries previously unreached by unlawful opiate traffic are now affected. Growing fear that terrorist groups and international crime organizations are tapping profits from illicit drug traffic to finance their sinister operations punctuated the commission’s report.