Watching the World
Nuclear Winter Possible
● To the known dangers of radioactivity and destruction of the ozone layer as deadly consequences of nuclear war, add another one—nuclear winter. A report by the United States National Academy of Sciences indicates that a severe nuclear winter could possibly follow a major nuclear war. According to The New York Times, the Academy’s report stated that “drops in temperature of 18 to 45 degrees [Celsius] might last for months in the North Temperate Zone, with near total loss of light over much of the Northern Hemisphere.” Tens of millions of tons of soot and smoke would be propelled into the atmosphere from nuclear explosions and fire, thereby blocking sunlight. Even the southern hemisphere would be affected if dust and soot clouds drifted across the equator. The theory that such a man-made disaster is possible, first postulated in 1983 by a small group of scientists working outside the U.S. government, is no longer “dismissed by some critics as alarmist conjecture,” says the Times.
New Planet Discovered?
● A United States astronomical research team from the University of Arizona and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories has discovered a planetlike object nearly the same size as Jupiter outside our solar system. They believe that this huge, gaseous object that is orbiting a distant star in the constellation Ophiuchus is a planet—the first ever seen outside our system of planets. Other astronomers, however, disagree. They say the body is not a planet, nor is it a true star. Rather, it could be the first evidence of a whole new class of objects called brown dwarfs. Whatever the case may be, both sides concur that the discovery is remarkable and exciting. The newly sighted object is 21 light-years—about 123 trillion miles (198 trillion km)—from Earth.
Famine’s Toll on Youth
● One million of Ethiopia’s children under four years of age are starving, and probably about one half of them will suffer some permanent disability due to famine, reports The New York Times. “Clearly there will be a generation of Ethiopian children who will be stunted, both physically and mentally, by the drought they are going through,” says the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund. Emergency airlifts of food and medicine can only provide temporary relief. A UN report grimly predicts: “There is no end in sight for the silent suffering of what is undeniably the worst human disaster in the recent history of Africa.”
Blood Transfusion Risk
● Blood transfusions are a health risk to cancer patients, warn several Japanese medical studies. According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, surveys by the Juntendo University’s Main Surgery and Blood Transfusion Laboratory found that “colon cancer patients not receiving blood transfusions have a higher rate of survival” than do those who had transfusions. The National Fukuoka Central Hospital found similar results in their study of uterine cancer patients. It appears that blood transfusions lower the body’s immune system, allowing cancer to spread more easily. Shozo Murakami, president of the Japan Blood Transfusion Society, said: “An American report affirms that the survival rate for breast cancer and lung cancer is reduced with blood transfusions. However, there are many persons among the doctors who use blood transfusions for treatment not taking into consideration the fact that immunity is weakened by transfusions.”
Europe’s Highest Crime Rate
● Out of 14 European countries, Britain reported the highest overall crime rate according to a recent Gallup poll. The survey, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph of London, questioned about a thousand people in each country about break-ins, robberies, and personal assaults during the past five years. The poll found that France had the most break-ins, 17 percent; Holland led Europe in robberies, with 30 percent; and Spain ranked first with assaults, 6 percent. In each of the three categories, Britain was placed second and thereby led Western Europe in overall crime.
Your Money or Your Life?
● A new study done by two researchers at the University of Chicago advises: Do not resist if you are the victim of a robbery. Resistance drastically increases your risk of being killed. Their report, “Victim Injury and Death in Urban Robbery,” analyzed about a thousand robberies reported to police over a one-year period in the city of Chicago. “The victim’s refusal to cooperate with the offender generates a contest of wills,” says the report. In a robbery, the researchers conclude, “the correct answer to the implicit question of your money or your life is, provide the money.”
Profits Versus People
● Industrial accidents at fuel and chemical sites have rocked three developing nations, last year killing more than 3,000 people. In each disaster, people—packed into teeming slums and living too close to industrial plants—were the victims. Firestorms caused by a leaking gasoline pipe in Cubatao, Brazil, and exploding liquid petroleum gas tanks in Mexico City, Mexico, claimed the lives of about a thousand poor people. And central India witnessed the worst chemical-industry disaster in history. Poisonous gas seeping from a pesticide factory became a white cloud of death for at least 2,000 people camped near the plant.
Some of the developing nations either do not have zoning laws separating industrial and residential areas or are lax in enforcing them. “And governments are not in a position to tighten regulations since in many areas the industry involved is the main source of income,” said the editor of Hazardous Materials Intelligence Report to the Associated Press. Poorer nations with lower standards of safety than developed nations “could well become international dustbins,” stated a United Nations report. It appears that in the profits-versus-people battle, the poor are usually the losers.
Electronic Bibles
● First it was on stone, then papyrus, sheepskin, paper, and now, computer chips. The Word of God has entered the electronic world of computers. Until recently, only major universities used computers as tools for Bible study and research. “But sophisticated programs are becoming available now on personal computers” for home use as the number of computer programs for religious education and Bible study grows, notes The Wall Street Journal. “A number of companies,” the report continues, “have put the King James version on computer diskettes and developed programs that let users search for particular words and print out surrounding passages.” Other home computer programs now on the market are a side-by-side comparison of scriptures from different parts of the Bible on the video screen, a Greek concordance of the “New Testament,” and Bible quizzes and text games.
. . . And Talmud
● Both the 36-volume Babylonian Talmud, an authoritative collection of Jewish law and tradition, and 248 major collections of responsa, written interpretations and answers to 47,000 novel questions on the Talmud, have been computerized at Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv. The use of God’s name in computerized text, though, raised a serious problem in this massive endeavor. Jewish traditional law forbids the erasing of God’s name. “We had to go to the rabbis,” the director of the project told The New York Times, “and ask if the name of God written on magnetic computer tape and disks or even on the video screen could be erased. Fortunately, they said a magnetic tape was not considered writing and that it was O.K. to erase it.”
Lightning Safety
● According to a team of Singapore scientists meeting in Oxford, England, people are most likely to be killed by lightning when on golf courses, football fields, in small boats, bus shelters, or, as is well known, when they stand under a tree. When thunderstorms occur, what is the best thing to do? Seek shelter in a well-grounded building and keep away from metal objects, pipes, or wet walls. Reported The Daily Telegraph: “If caught on the open ground with nowhere for shelter, crouch down in the lowest point or depression. It is better to get wet than killed.”
Noise Solution
● City dwellers often complain about noisy neighbors. What can be done about them? Professor Kazuo Yamamoto of Tokyo’s Keio University may have a solution. “According to his survey,” reports the Mainichi Daily News, “when neighbors have not met each other, about 65 percent of them feel the sounds irritating. The figure is down to 35 percent when the neighbors are on nodding terms and further down to 20 percent when they know each other well enough to have a little chat on the street.” So, says the professor, get to know your neighbors.
M.D.’s Use Nature Cures
● Although looked at with dubious eyes by the medical profession in some countries, nature cures are seen effective by most doctors in Germany. “More than 60 per cent of the 67,000 general medical practitioners in the Federal Republic of Germany occasionally use nature cures,” says The German Tribune. “Twenty per cent regularly prescribe herbal drugs and between 5 and 10 per cent use nothing else.” According to Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Dr. Veronika Carstens, an advocate of pluralism in science, said: “Doctors today ought to be keen to combine the absolutely indispensable achievements of modern medicine and the gentle, harmless and often extremely effective nature cure techniques.”
Alcohol-Powered Vehicles
● Brazilian officials say that total sales of alcohol-powered vehicles topped one million by the end of 1983 and that about 90 percent of all vehicles sold in the country now have engines that burn alcohol. At the same time, the nation’s alcohol program, PROÁLCOOL, has helped to substitute 35 percent of the gasoline consumption with alcohol, reducing oil imports by 100,000 barrels a day and creating 360,000 jobs in the process. The government booklet The National Alcohol Program PROÁLCOOL notes that alcohol production cannot compete with the price of diesel oil yet, but alcohol does burn cleaner and produces less air pollution.