Watching the World
“Best-Known Religious Magazine”
In an effort to determine the religious magazine best known by the Finnish people, a survey was sponsored by Kotimaa, the main newspaper of the Lutheran Church of Finland. The results of that survey were featured in the front-page article entitled “The Watchtower is the best-known religious magazine.” Commenting on the success of The Watchtower as compared with other religious magazines, an editorial in the same issue explained: “The reason [The Watchtower] is best known is the faithful and untiring work on the part of its distributors; everybody recognizes the magazine sellers on their street corners, staying at their post come rain or shine.”
Effects of Space
Yuri Romanenko, a Soviet cosmonaut, spent 326 days in the space station Mir. How did the record time spent in space and the prolonged exposure to weightlessness affect his body? According to the French magazine L’Express, Romanenko has become one or two inches taller, his muscles have weakened, his bones have become brittle, and his blood volume has decreased by 25 percent. His calf muscles shriveled even though he tried to keep in shape by use of an exercise bicycle and a treadmill. Romanenko jokingly suggested that future cosmonauts have “a bald head to avoid haircuts, big arms—six would be better—and slim legs or just one with grips, to keep steady.”
A Cold Victory
British authorities have decided to shut down their National Institute for Medical Research on the Common Cold, located in Wiltshire, southern England. The institute, founded about 40 years ago, had devoted its research to finding an efficient means of fighting the common cold. However, “in the absence of results,” notes the French newspaper Le Monde, “they [the authorities] considered that the institute’s annual grant of £500,000 would be better spent elsewhere.” According to the institute’s director, David Tyrell, a “hot bath” is still the best way to treat a cold or a chill.
Polite Police
The Japanese National Police Agency launched an “Improve the Public Image Campaign” following the release of a government survey of its agencies. According to the report, the police gave the worst impressions. Fearing that such impressions may hamper civil cooperation in criminal investigation, the agency’s vice-commissioner general told police to improve their public image. One chief of police enlisted help from an airline company. The airline sent two specialists in courteous behavior to teach the police “the ABCs of dealing with people.” The entire staff at the police station has now been trained to handle their “customers” politely.
Gum and Driving
Chewing gum may be more of a stimulant to sleepy drivers than coffee, cold towels, or singing, reports the Asahi Evening News, a Japanese newspaper. Researchers conducted tests on veteran drivers in their 30’s and 40’s and found that chewing gum raised the brain-wave count of sleepy drivers to 50 percent of normal, and ten minutes later, the waves were holding at 25 percent above the dozing-off rate. Coffee, on the other hand, raised their brain-wave pulses to just 40 percent above dozing-off status, and within ten minutes, all effects had worn off. Cold towels and singing usually produced only momentary effects. The report notes, however, that researchers say that “stopping the car, shutting off the engine and taking a short rest remains the best advice for drivers to avoid falling asleep on the road.”
Never Too Old
Learning a foreign language is always a challenge. But researchers working at different Max Planck Institutes in the Federal Republic of Germany contest the belief that learning ability declines with age. According to The Times of London, Professor Wolfgang Klein says that there is “no scientific evidence that adults who wanted to become proficient in a foreign language faced a greater difficulty than children.” Although adults generally find acquiring a good accent more of a problem, they outstrip youngsters in their ability to master a larger vocabulary. In fact, according to Professor Paul Baltes of the Education Research Institute, “many people of advanced years possess considerable memory reserves, which could be used to study and think.” Another researcher, says The Times, observed that presumed loss of intellectual capacity of people “in advanced years could be due to their lifestyle and not their potential: in many cases they simply did not use the brain power at their disposal.”
Expensive Waste
In the United States, stockbrokers, companies, and direct mailers each year spend more than $100 billion to produce and distribute some 30 billion documents. What happens to all of them? For every dollar needed to print the forms, “a further $20 to $80 is spent on processing, distributing, storing, and eventually, destroying them,” reports The Times of London.
Collar Squeeze
A recent study at Cornell University has revealed that white-collar workers may be better described as “tight-collar” workers. In a sampling of 94 white-collar workers, the investigators found that “67 percent of them were wearing shirt collars that were too tight,” reports Prevention magazine. “When the group was given a vision test, it was found that the ability of their retinas to make rapid adjustments to changes in light was being impaired.” Researchers suspect that the senses of smell, hearing, and taste, and even clear thinking ability may also be affected because the tight collars restrict blood flow to the head.
New Nuclear Fear
As trade in commercial nuclear materials between nations increases, a new fear has emerged that terrorists will hijack the materials as they are being transported. “Opportunities for terrorist acts, including attempts to steal plutonium, will increase substantially as a result of the increased commercial use of plutonium,” says a U.S. Defense Department report. Plutonium is the main material used in nuclear weapons. It is also a by-product of nuclear power plant operation and is shipped to fuel other reactors. The government fears that terrorists will steal the plutonium for “fabrication into an explosive device” or “to create a radiological hazard.”
Doublespeak
“In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes,” wrote U.S. statesman Benjamin Franklin in 1789. Today, says English professor William Lutz, he might have written: “Nothing is certain except negative patient care outcome and revenue enhancement.” The problem is doublespeak, “the academic word for double-talk and all forms of deceptive language, including goobledygook and officialese,” says Parade Magazine. Some government officials seem to have mastered it in an effort to conceal or obscure information. Rather than tell a lie, one “misleads” or “withholds information.” A pencil has been identified as a “portable hand-held communications inscriber” and a bullet hole as a “ballistically induced aperture in the subcutaneous environment.” The poor are “fiscal underachievers,” and someone who is scared is “philosophically disillusioned.” Doublespeak is also prevalent in the field of medicine, where death becomes a “terminal episode” and malpractice a “therapeutic misadventure.”