Watching the World
1986—Year of Peace?
Last year was proclaimed by the United Nations as an International Year of Peace. Yet, in 1986 there were more armed conflicts worldwide than at any time since World War II. This conclusion was reached by a university team in Hamburg that has registered post-1945 wars and their causes. According to the German newspaper Schwäbische Zeitung, the researchers counted 37 wars during 1986—some of which have been raging for 20 years.
Cold News
You only “catch” a cold virus once. After that you are immune to it. But there are some 200 viruses that can cause the common cold. That is why, by age 60, most people get only one cold a year, if any, while children have from six to eight a year. How are cold viruses spread? Rarely through the air by a cough or a sneeze, doctors say. Touching is now thought to be the principal means of transmission. The sufferer touches his nose and spreads the germs with his hands to any object he touches. “They can survive for several hours on the hands, on hard surfaces and in cloth handkerchiefs,” says Dr. Sheldon L. Spector, a clinical professor of medicine at U.C.L.A. “Healthy people pick up a virus with their hands and infect themselves by touching their noses and eyes.” Frequent hand washing and use of disinfectants is seen as the best way to prevent spreading or catching a cold.
Programmed for Siestas?
Man is said to possess a kind of internal clock that keeps track of his sleeping capacity, reports El Universal, a Mexico newspaper. The researchers, Juergen Zullev and Scot Campbell of the Max Planck Psychiatric Institute in Munich, Germany, claim that the human is physiologically programmed for three daily siestas in addition to his normal nighttime sleep period. However, according to the study, man has suppressed his need for siestas through work and coffee drinking.
New Marian Year
A special year dedicated to the Virgin Mary has been declared by Pope John Paul II. It will begin in June and is the first Marian year to be celebrated by Catholics since 1953-54. That year was declared to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Immaculate Conception dogma, which asserts that Mary was born free of inherited sin. The new Marian year, the pope said, will be celebrated in preparation “for the third millennium of the Christian age.” He concluded his homily by saying: “May 1987 be a year in which humanity finally puts aside the divisions of the past, a year in which, in development and solidarity, each heart seeks peace.”
Religious Reawakening
Is religion making a comeback in the United States? Yes, says U.S.News & World Report. “The God-is-dead philosophy is itself dead,” the magazine notes. “Science hasn’t provided all of life’s answers.” Religiously inclined individuals are now said to feel confident about expressing their beliefs. Parents, looking for stable values they feel the church supplies, are giving their children religious education. Even many prominent political figures have openly pronounced religion to be a significant force in their lives. Polls show that religion is gaining in importance in society. “The practice of religion is respectable once more,” states theologian Martin Marty. But he adds: “There are also good reasons to fear religion: People kill in the name of God, or by passage of laws they coerce minority disbelievers or ‘other-believers.’”
Twisted Values
While 800 million people in the developing world “live in absolute poverty and deprivation,” says The Courier, “more than $1.5 million per minute” is being used worldwide on military expenditures. The UNESCO publication further states: “For every soldier the average world military expenditure is $20,000. For every school-age child the average public education expenditure is $380. For every 100,000 people in the world there are 556 soldiers, but only 85 doctors. Just one fifth of annual arms expenditures could abolish world hunger by the year 2000.”
Sleepy Pilots
In spite of safety rules, “commercial airline pilots . . . sometimes . . . fall asleep while flying planes on long overnight trips,” reports The Mexico City News. “Occasionally, everyone in the cockpit nods off at the same time while the plane flies on automatic pilot,” claims one researcher. Dr. Martin C. Moore-Ede, an expert on work scheduling and sleep, blames the problem on “boredom and erratic schedules that force pilots to work odd hours without time for their bodies to adjust.” Moore-Ede based his conclusions on a study conducted for one airline as well as interviews with cockpit crews. In one transcontinental flight to Los Angeles, the plane flew 100 miles (160 km) out over the Pacific Ocean before ground crews roused the sleeping crew by triggering chimes in the cockpit. “When you are in the cabin and your head is rolling over and you can’t stay awake,” says Dr. Moore-Ede, “just remember that the guy up front is human, too.”
“Light” Snack
A three-foot-long (1 m) snake was brought to the University of Florida’s veterinary hospital for diagnosis. An X ray of the serpent revealed that it had swallowed two 15-watt light bulbs. An unusual diet for a snake, you say? Not if they had been hen’s eggs, claim the vets, who believe that this is what the snake may have thought the bulbs were. Whatever the reason for its change of diet, the bulbs have been surgically removed, reports New Scientist. Elliot Jacobson, the veterinarian who performed the operation, hoped that the snake would recover fully to be returned to the wild.
Disposable Telephones
Telephones can ease your stay in a hospital or make it worse. The reason is that telephones can harbor many types of bacteria and are difficult to disinfect. In the United States some two million patients a year become infected while they are in the hospital—many through use of the telephone. A study by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in Atlanta shows that from 20,000 to 30,000 of them will die. Now, as a preventive measure, some hospitals give their patients sanitized, prepackaged, plastic phones that they can either dispose of or take home after the hospital stay. The disposable phones cost from $5 to $15 each and are guaranteed for a year. Use of them has also helped the hospitals to cut down on stolen or damaged phones.
Witnesses Exempted
Any who can prove “a serious and credible membership to the religious association of Jehovah’s Witnesses” will be exempted from military service. This is the decision rendered by the Federal Administration Tribunal of Berlin, says the German newspaper Tagesspiegel. According to the opinion of the judges, confession of the Witnesses’ religious doctrine will now be accepted as valid proof of conscientious objection to military service.
Hotel Rooms for Nonsmokers
Restaurants and airlines are no longer alone in offering customers accommodations for nonsmokers. “Belatedly, hotels too are capitalizing on the anti-smoking fervor sweeping the U.S.,” says The Wall Street Journal. Starting with just a few rooms sanitized and set aside for customers who hated the lingering cigar and cigarette odors, some chains now allocate up to 15 percent of their rooms as no-smoking rooms and are beginning to promote the service. Not only has it proved to be extremely popular with customers but it also benefits the hotels, as it takes 26 percent less time to clean the smoke-free rooms.