Watching the World
‘World in Danger’
◆ “At the beginning of the 1980s the world community faces much greater dangers than at any time since the Second World War,” says a recent report by Europe’s Independent Commission on International Development Issues. The commission, headed by former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Willy Brandt, also said that “it is clear that the world economy is now functioning so badly that it damages both the immediate and longer-run interests of all nations.” The Guardian of London observed that the report’s language “is not far from panic,” and also notes that “in face of the real perils approaching the only answer has been patchwork and postponement.” It then warns: “Brandt’s changes need to be immediate. Is there time?”
Sun Power from Ponds
◆ Israel recently began operating a new electrical generating system based on a shallow pool of water. Located at a small community near the south shore of the Dead Sea, the pond develops high temperatures at its bottom as the sun’s rays penetrate the water. Instead of the hot water rising, as it would normally, salt dissolved near the bottom forms a heavy layer that resists convection. Lighter, fresh surface waters insulate the hot, salty water below, which reaches temperatures as high as 80 degrees C (176° F) at this location. The hot water heats a liquid that boils at low temperature to power a turbine-driven generator. The pilot project produces 150 kilowatts of power day and night from a pool only 7,000 square m (1.7 acres) in area and 2.5 m (8 feet) deep. The system is said to be economical and environmentally harmless.
Conservation Caution
◆ In their efforts to conserve precious energy, many homeowners are insulating every wall and ceiling and plugging up every crack to make their homes airtight. However, one such tightly sealed experimental home, whose builders claimed it could be heated with a hair dryer, had a problem. “Without the drafts of fresh outside air typical in most homes,” says the report in Science 80 magazine, “the indoor air went bad.” There were “high levels of formaldehyde gas throughout the house,” and indoor radioactivity was “more than 100 times the natural outdoor background level.” The article also discussed a Scandinavian heat-exchange device that may allow for air exchange with minimal loss of heat in such homes.
Gambling on Lives
◆ Las Vegas, Nevada, has long been known for gambling. Now some charge that the gambling fever may have moved from the casinos to some employees at a local hospital. “They were alleged to have made bets on how long critically ill patients would live,” says the report in the New York Times, “and, in some instances, may have acted to hasten the deaths of some of them.” An investigation by the district attorney was said to have found evidence of tampering with some patient life-support systems.
Pluto’s Proportions
◆ Using a new technique, astronomers recently measured the planet Pluto’s diameter for the first time. Pictures taken by the Hale Observatories’ 200-inch (5 m) telescope with special enhancement devices indicate that Pluto is from 3,000 to 3,600 km (1,900 to 2,200 miles) across. This is about the size of earth’s moon, which is 3,476 km (2,160 miles) in diameter. The report in Britain’s New Scientist magazine also says that the density of Pluto “turns out to be half that of water (strictly speaking, in the range 0.3 to 0.8—far below the density of 3 expected for solid rock).”
Nasty Habit
◆ A psychological profile of British schoolchildren indicates that “smoking children are naughty children,” according to New Scientist magazine. Child smokers who took a standard junior personality questionnaire had a “personality pattern typically found in non-conforming or naughty children, and it resembles that of juvenile delinquents and adult criminals,” says the report. “Smoking children’s personality traits indicate that they are attracted by risks, and are already potentially anti-social. . . . It appears to be just one facet of a delinquent personality.”
Earthquake Preparations
◆ Japan’s undertakers have asked the government to pay for storage of 200,000 coffins in preparation for a possible great earthquake in Tokyo. The report in The Daily Yomiuri notes that “some scholars are actually predicting that if an earthquake as severe as the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake struck Tokyo about 500,000 persons would perish.” The undertakers point out that in 1923 about 100,000 persons died, and many bodies had to be burned for lack of coffins. About 2,000 “collapsible” coffins have already been stored by the undertakers’ group for this purpose.
Costly Remedy
◆ Surgeons sometimes give blood transfusions to their patients as a form of “safety” insurance. From this standpoint, it is of interest to consider these statistics from Family Health magazine: In Japan, “the probability of getting hepatitis along with a blood transfusion is 80 percent. And although the problem is not quite that severe in the United States, Americans still spend $86 million each year curing themselves of hepatitis contracted through blood transfusions.”
Aging? Keep Active!
◆ Those who retire run an 80 percent higher risk of heart attack than those who stay on the job, according to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health. After completing their study of 568 men, a spokesman for the scientists said their findings indicate that “retirement constitutes an independent risk factor for coronary mortality.”
‘Divorce by Another Name’
◆ In the 10 years from 1968 to 1978, marriage annulments granted annually by American Catholic religious judges grew from 338 to 27,670. Annulments are so common now that “they are sometimes called ‘Catholic divorce,’” remarks Time magazine. And such separated Catholics remain in good standing in the church. But Pope John Paul recently told the Vatican’s marriage tribunal that the psychological pretexts now being accepted by the judges as grounds for annulment apparently “allow divorce, under another name, to be tolerated.” A crackdown is expected.
Body Value Up
◆ The minerals in the human body have grown in value by 643 percent during the past 10 years, according to the Health Insurance Institute in the United States. From $.98, inflation has driven up the price of the body’s elementary minerals to $7.28. However, the value of compounds made from these minerals as they actually appear in the body—such as hemoglobin, hormones, and enzymes—is estimated to be over $6 million. (See The Watchtower 7/15/76, p. 427.)
Back to Biblical Money?
◆ Israel recently issued new money bearing the same name as funds Abraham used almost 4,000 years ago. He paid “four hundred silver shekels current with the merchants” to buy a burial site for his wife. (Gen. 23:15-19) The new shekel’s 25-cent value (U.S.) probably makes it worth a lot less than its ancient counterpart, even though it is worth 10 times as much as the old Israeli pound. With annual inflation running well over 100 percent, the pound had become worth only about 2.5 cents. Though the government had hoped for more confidence in the Biblically named currency, Israelis were “fearful that the new shekels would depreciate as rapidly as the old pounds,” reports Time magazine. So they “converged on Arab money-changers in Israel to convert the new currency into American dollars, British sterling and even Jordanian dinars.”
Smoking Growth Slows
◆ A campaign by the Ministry of Social Services to halt the growth of tobacco use in Greece has had some success. Tobacco consumption in 1979 reportedly increased only about .07 percent, compared to a growth rate of 5 percent in 1977 and 1978. The campaign uses a two-pronged approach: First, it warns people of the dangers of tobacco, and second, it tries to reduce the hazards to nonsmokers from public smoking by others. Smoking is prohibited in public transportation facilities, hospitals and clinics.
Ancient Crete’s Human Sacrifices
◆ Archaeological excavations in Crete near the Temple of Acharnae uncovered the skeleton of a young man said to be the victim of human sacrifice over 3,000 years ago. “This constitutes the first scientific proof of the religious custom of holding human sacrifices in the region of the pre-historic Aegean,” claims the Athens Daily Post. The skeleton of the youth “was crouching on an altar as if he had just been sacrificed,” the report continues. “And what is even more important is the discovery of a brass knife, the knife used for the sacrifice, lying also next to the skeleton.”
British Morals Down
◆ Premarital sex in Britain has rapidly become the norm, according to a recent government study. Just 35 percent of women married between 20 and 25 years ago reported having intercourse before marriage. But, of women married after 1971, more than twice as many (75 percent) admitted they had. Also, 62 percent of unmarried British women now in their forties claim to be virgins, while only 15 percent of single girls aged 23 to 24 could say they had not engaged in sexual relations.
Surgery for Sight
◆ Nearsighted persons who have long worn glasses may be able someday to throw them away if they have a new kind of surgery pioneered in the Soviet Union. There have been 2,000 such operations in the U.S.S.R., with a claimed 94-percent success rate. One of the first Americans to get the same treatment “shouted for joy and kissed and hugged ophthalmologist Norman Stahl when the doctor removed the bandage from his left eye,” reports the New York Post. In Moscow, Soviet surgeon Svyatoslav Fyodorov had trained Doctor Stahl and a few American colleagues to make 16 precision cuts in the eye’s cornea, which flattens it, refocusing the eye. The operation is said to cost about $1,500 per eye in the United States.
Best Calculator?
◆ Shi Fengshou of the People’s Republic of China reportedly is able to multiply two 10-digit numbers in his head in eight to nine seconds. According to China Reconstructs magazine, as a youth Shi Fengshou kept searching for rules that would allow him to do rapid calculations mentally. Now 24, “he can add, subtract, multiply and divide figures with any number of digits and compute fractions, powers, roots, logarithms and trigonometric functions with only the help of his fingers,” claims the magazine. His method is said to enable him often to give the answer to problems before the digits can be entered in an electronic calculator. A recently published book describing his methods may be helpful to Chinese business because, says China Reconstructs, “it will be a long time before there will be [an electronic] calculator for widespread use in China.”