Watching the World
Synthetic-Heroin Threat
● Add synthetic heroin to the roster of dangerous drugs now being widely distributed in some American cities. The drug is made from fentanyl, a legitimate surgical anesthetic, that has been restructured chemically. One variety is believed to be as much as 3,000 times more potent than heroin. A user needs less than a millionth of a gram to stay “high” for four to six hours. Says Robert Roberton, chief of the California Division of Drug Programs, “What we’re talking about is the drug of the future. It will replace heroin. . . . Why bother with growing and refining and smuggling heroin over the borders when you can make something just as good, if not better, so cheaply and quickly?” According to the New York Daily News, a small laboratory—with raw materials costing no more than $10,000 (U.S.)—can make enough synthetic heroin in a few weeks to supply New York City, if not the country, for years.
Pace of Life
● The Japanese walk faster, keep more accurate clocks, and sell stamps more quickly than Americans, Englishmen, Italians, Taiwanese, and Indonesians. That is the conclusion of a recent study of the “pace of life” by Robert Levine, professor of psychology at California State University at Fresno. The tests were conducted in six different countries. Americans ranked second overall. Levine says that in Japan and America “speed is frequently confused with progress.” But he adds: “We expect that future research will demonstrate that pace of life is related to rate of heart disease, hypertension, ulcers, suicide, alcoholism, divorce and other indicators of general psychological and physical well-being.”
Classical Whale Rescue
● In February, a Soviet icebreaker was dispatched to open a path for an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 beluga whales who were trapped behind heavy ice floes in the Senyavin Strait of Russia. But the whales—also known in Russia as polar dolphins—would not follow. “At last someone recalled that dolphins react acutely to music,” reports Izvestia. “And so music began to pour off the top deck. Popular, martial, classical. The classical proved most to the taste of the belugas.” In time, the whales became fully accustomed to the ship. “They hemmed it about from all sides,” continues the report. “They were happy as children, jumping, spreading out all over the ice field.” Finally, in late February, after ramming through 15 miles (24 km) of ice, the ship led the whales to open sea.
‘Always a Pig’
● Jewish scholars and scientists are disputing the claim, made by AID (the U.S. Agency for International Development), that the babirusa—a pig-like animal from Indonesia—chews the cud and might be acceptable as kosher food. (Leviticus 11:26 prohibited Jews from eating meat from a cloven-hoofed animal if it did not chew the cud.) Warren Thomas, director of the Los Angeles Zoo, maintains that the two babirusas in his zoo never chew the cud. “There’s no way to get a self-respecting rabbi to buy that this is a kosher pig,” he adds. Concludes The Wall Street Journal: “The final word may come from Rabbi J. David Bleich, . . . [an] authority on Jewish dietary law, who claims . . . that the babirusa is likely a ‘mutation of a swine,’” and is therefore unacceptable to Jews. ‘Once a pig, always a pig,’ is what the rabbi is saying—whether the babirusa chews the cud or not.
Up to 41,000 Lives Monthly
● Armed conflicts have taken as many as 21 million lives since World War II—an average of between 33,000 and 41,000 lives each month—says a recent report by the United Nations. Eighty percent of the total military expenditures in the world—more than $800 billion (U.S.) last year—was spent for weapons and conventional forces. The UN report notes that “the cost of a single new nuclear submarine equals the annual education budget of 23 developing countries with a total of 160 million school-age children.”
Vietnam Veterans
● Just how badly veterans were psychologically scarred by the Vietnam war was revealed in a recent study by the Ralph Bunche Institute of City University in New York City. The study rated current life quality with the level of combat experienced. The results? Roughly one quarter of veterans who saw heavy combat were unemployed—three times the rate of those who were in light combat. Also, 65 percent of those who had been in heavy combat have been divorced, and 21 percent have been arrested. This compares to 29 percent divorced and 15 percent arrested of those in light combat.
Better Teeth
● According to a CDC (Centers for Disease Control) study, in the years 1979 and 1980, 51 percent of nine-year-old children had teeth without cavities compared to only 29 percent in the years 1971-73. The dramatic improvement is attributed mainly to the fact that more Americans—presently 52 percent—drink fluoridated water. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says: “At an estimated cost of less than $1 [U.S.] per child per year, fluoridation remains society’s least expensive and most effective caries preventive measure.” However, many medical authorities oppose medicating water with fluoride—an enzyme poison—since it does not cut down cavities in adults and may have long-term health risks.
Where Would You Like Your Shot?
● The effectiveness of a vaccination may depend on where in the body the doctor injects it, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). That is the conclusion of two separate surveys by the CDC and a vaccine manufacturer that analyzed the rate of immunity induced by hepatitis B vaccinations. “In both surveys, vaccine response was significantly higher in hospitals using arm injection than in those using buttock injection,” says the CDC. Adds The New York Times: “Those who feel that it is more consonant with human dignity to be jabbed in the arm than in the seat, now have support from scientific studies.”
Light Up Your Life
● Bright light has “a marked antidepressant effect,” says a study conducted by researchers from NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health). According to the study, 10 out of 13 patients suffering from “winter depression”—brought on by short daylight hours and extended periods indoors—responded favorably to lights several times brighter than ordinary room light. The lights “caused a marked improvement in mood which was seen within a few days and lasted throughout the week of treatment,” said the study. “Removal of the light regularly caused relapse within a few days.”
Kissing Danger
● Dr. Hans Neumann is against what he calls the American “cocktail party kiss”—a casual kissing on the mouth that is popular with many people today when greeting acquaintances. “I have seen cases of strep throats and upper respiratory infections transmitted in this manner,” and “there also are some more remote infection hazards, such as herpes,” he writes in Connecticut Medicine. If acquaintances must kiss, Neumann advocates the European approach: Kiss on the cheek. Or follow the Oriental custom, he says. “Kissing is absolutely not done in public. It’s embarrassing.”
Infertility Rise
● According to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics, 27 percent of women of childbearing age in the United States cannot bear children. “Of 54 million married and unmarried women age 15 to 44, 9.4 million have been sterilized voluntarily for birth control, 1.2 million have been sterilized for other reasons, and 4.4 million have a physical problem that makes it impossible or difficult to conceive or carry a baby to term,” reports American Medical News in summarizing the study. The center notes that surgical sterilization has become the leading form of birth control in the country.
World’s Longest Tunnel
● After 21 years of digging from both ends, Japanese engineers have finally met in the 33.5-mile-long (53.9 km) Seikan tunnel, linking Honshū and Hokkaidō islands. The underwater section alone is 14.5 miles (23.3 km) in length, making this the longest underwater tunnel in the world. However, what some call “the greatest engineering accomplishment of the century” has an uncertain destiny. Originally, the tunnel was part of a plan to connect Tokyo and Sapporo, Hokkaidō’s capital, by bullet train. But now authorities admit that rail travel cannot compete with the airlines. To justify using the tunnel, JNR (Japan National Railways) plans to run an ordinary railway through it in 1987 at a loss of an estimated 34 million dollars (U.S.) a year.
Soil Erosion
● “Soil erosion is draining land of productivity on every continent,” writes editor Lester R. Brown in State of the World 1985. An estimated 25.4 thousand million tons of topsoil are being lost annually. Brown adds: “The ninefold increase in fertilizer use and the near-tripling of the world’s irrigated cropland since mid-century have masked the effects of soil erosion on crop productivity.” But the area of cropland per capita is shrinking. Concludes the book: “Some governments have failed to support soil conservation enthusiastically because they could not see the link between topsoil losses and land productivity.”
Avalanche Defense
● Up to March of this year, 26 people were reported killed by avalanches in the Swiss Alps. This is a significant decrease from the 98 killed in 1951. Nevertheless, there is concern about a man-made problem that could increase the threat of avalanches—acid rain that is killing forests. Authorities say that forests are the best defense against avalanches, preventing many of these from getting under way.
Kids Are Expensive
● According to the Institute of Family Studies in Australia, the annual minimum cost of rearing a two-year-old child is $861.12 ($603.91, U.S.) and for an 11-year-old child $1,450.80 ($1,017.46, U.S.), while it costs $2,156.96 ($1,512.70, U.S.) to rear a teenager. The study noted the heavy financial burden on parents who are supporting children in their late teens and early twenties. Says Kerry Lovering, who directed the study: “This extension of dependency, unique to the latter part of the 20th century, is having a major impact on all families in Australia.”