Watching the World
Catholics Petition the Pope
In late 1995, German Catholics organized a petition demanding reform of the church, reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The petition, which was signed by about 1.6 million persons, called for the church to allow priests to marry, to open the priesthood to women, and to alter its stance on sexuality and birth control. “The person we are really addressing is the pope,” explained Christian Weisner, initiator of the petition. The newspaper stated that Karl Lehmann, chairman of the German Bishops Conference, had serious reservations about the petition, claiming it would lead to a polarization of conservative and reformist Catholics. Nevertheless, Lehmann traveled to the Vatican and presented the results of the petition to the pope.
“Leap Second” Added to 1995
The earth’s rotation, it seems, is not the most reliable timekeeper. According to The New York Times, scientists have a more accurate method of keeping time—the cesium atom. Used as the heartbeat of the atomic clock, the cesium atom vibrates at exactly 9,192,631,770 times a second. At this rate, the atomic clock boasts “an error rate of roughly one second in 370,000 years.” By comparison, the earth’s rotation is about a million times less accurate, which is why a “leap second” must be appended periodically. An international body of timekeepers decided to add such a “leap second” to the end of 1995. This allowed “the rotation of our planet and the march of time” to remain in sync. Scientists, though, can hardly take credit for this discovery. After all, “the motions of the clock’s subatomic particles mimic, in miniature, the grand order of planetary systems,” says the Times.
Tots and Technology
“More and more kids are becoming computer literate before they are literate,” reports The Globe and Mail of Canada. Some tots who have not yet learned to walk or talk are already using computers. Even babies who cannot sit up by themselves are being taught technological skills while sitting on their parent’s lap. The rush to introduce infants to computers often comes from parents who are eager for their children to excel in school. Additionally, many software companies tout their products as learning devices for children. Some parents, however, question the emphasis placed on interacting with machines rather than people, at such an early age. One mother said: “We don’t develop relationships with computers, or at least I don’t think we should.”
Cheap Way Out
In Japan the number of human cadavers offered for medical research has increased in recent years. According to The Daily Yomiuri, the Education Ministry says that “one body is needed for every two medical students and [one] for every four dental students, which brings the number of bodies needed throughout the country to 4,500 a year.” But why are there many more people who offer their bodies than the number that are actually needed? Shortage of land for graves and weakening of family bonds are among the reasons suggested.
AIDS Tops 500,000 in United States
For the first time, as of October 31, 1995, the total number of reported AIDS cases in the United States passed the half-million mark, says The Journal of the American Medical Association. Of this number, 311,381—62 percent—had already died from the disease. Another grim development was the steady growth of AIDS through heterosexual contact. The journal indicated that from 1981 to 1987, the proportion of AIDS cases among females was only 8 percent, yet from 1993 to 1995, that figure had risen to 18 percent.
On-line Addicts
The practice of computer networking over a phone line has given rise to a new affliction called “Internet Addiction Disorder.” According to New Scientist, “those suffering the online equivalent of alcoholism are turning in increasing numbers to support and therapy groups to treat their obsession.” Dr. Ivan Goldberg, a New York psychiatrist, has started the Internet Addiction Support Group to help those who are “struggling to get off” the information superhighway. Symptoms of the disorder include “a need to spend more and more time on the Internet to achieve satisfaction, and fantasies or dreams about the Net.” The magazine says Goldberg has received “more than 20 responses from people who say the Net has ruined their life.”
Sunlight Increases Morale
Bringing more natural light into a building results in “higher productivity” and “fewer days lost to absenteeism,” reports The Wall Street Journal. Originally introduced as a way to conserve energy, building architecture that draws sunlight into the workplace is paying big dividends in improved employee morale. For example, when the aerospace giant Lockheed Corporation opened a new office in Sunnyvale, California, its energy-efficient design “cut overall energy costs in half.” What Lockheed didn’t anticipate, however, was that employees would love their new surroundings so much that “absenteeism dropped” 15 percent. The advantages of allowing more sunshine into a building have not gone unnoticed among retailers either. One merchandiser found that sales were “significantly higher” in stores that use natural light over artificial light.
A Water-Watching World
“Wars of the next century will be over water,” warns Ismail Serageldin, environment vice president of the World Bank. According to Serageldin, 80 countries already have water shortages that threaten health and economies. But the problem is not that sufficient water is unavailable on earth. “The total quantity of fresh water on the Earth exceeds all conceivable needs of the human population,” says hydrologist Robert Ambroggi. Most crises are due to poor water management. Half the water used in irrigation seeps underground or evaporates. City water-supply systems leak from 30 to 50 percent of their water, and sometimes even more. “The time is coming,” says The Economist, “when water must be treated as a valuable resource, like oil, not a free one like air.”
Sleeping Without Pain
Certain over-the-counter pain medications may contribute to insomnia, reports Tufts University Diet & Nutrition Letter. “That’s because some of the top brands of pain relievers contain as much caffeine, or more, than a cup of coffee.” Caffeine—a mild stimulant—is often added to aspirin and other analgesics to boost their effectiveness. In fact, some popular brands contain up to 130 milligrams of caffeine for a two-tablet dose. That is “well above the 85 milligrams found in the average cup” of coffee. The newsletter therefore recommends checking a painkiller’s label for “active ingredients” to see whether it contains caffeine.
“TB Time Bomb”
New strains of tuberculosis (TB) resistant to multiple drugs are killing 10,000 people in India each week, reports the newspaper Indian Express. According to Kraig Klaudt of the World Health Organization, India is “sitting on a TB time bomb.” Worldwide, 1.75 billion people are infected with the tuberculosis bacterium. A group of experts, gathered from 40 countries for a meeting sponsored by the British medical journal The Lancet, say that drug companies are unwilling to invest the money necessary to bring new drugs to market because the vast majority of cases occur in the poorer developing countries.
Unpunished Thieves
According to 1994 statistics, in Italy “those who commit a robbery have a 94-percent chance of getting away with it,” and “those who commit a robbery with violence have an 80-percent probability of evading justice,” reports the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The figures were derived from reports that judicial authorities received from law-enforcement agencies. If the many thefts that go unreported were taken into account, the percentage of unpunished crimes would be even higher.
Italian Families Changing
According to a survey of the Italian family, more unmarried people are living together and more married couples are separating or divorcing, reports La Repubblica. Every year some 18,000 marriages are solemnized in which at least one of the spouses is remarrying. These new marital unions often create enlarged family units that include children from a previous marriage. This trend, together with the increase in single-parent families, is rapidly and drastically changing the structure of the traditional Italian family.