Watching the World
Hunger Amid Plenty
Because of technical and scientific advances in agriculture, more food is now actually being harvested than the world needs. Yet, the number of hungry people in the world increased to 512 million in 1985. “The increase in hunger is coming at a time when the world is awash with cheap surplus food,” reports The New York Times.
Children suffer the most. According to the United Nations World Food Council, an estimated 40,000 children die every day from hunger-related causes. Two thirds of those undernourished are found in Asian countries, some of which now export food that increasing numbers of their people cannot afford to buy. “Today hunger is less the result of absolute food shortages than of political situations and policy decisions,” says the Times.
Fear of War by Accident
Soviet and United States scientists have recently warned that the ever more sophisticated technology being used in nuclear defense systems actually heightens rather than lowers the risk of accidental nuclear war. According to the Sunday Times of London, the scientists concluded at a joint meeting in California “that there was a significant probability that a nuclear war could start by accident unless there was a change in the technology that governed the systems.” So far, all errors that might have led to launching some of the world’s 50,000 nuclear warheads have been spotted. But, say the scientists, this will not always be the case. “If we keep going along the present path, we’re going to blow ourselves up,” predicts Dr. Martin Hellman of Stanford University.
Unhealthy Fillings?
“Contrary to popular belief, so-called ‘silver’ amalgam fillings are really composed of nearly 50 percent mercury—a known toxin,” states Your Health. Dr. Hal Huggins, a dental researcher in Colorado, claims that trace amounts of the element seep into the body and can cause symptoms such as chronic fatigue, severe depression and anxiety, numbing of extremities, and facial tics. He also points to epilepsy patients who improved when their mercury fillings were removed. Dr. Huggins estimates that some 10,000 of the 130,000 dentists in the United States have stopped using mercury and now use other compounds available.
An Added Benefit
Researchers have now added something new to the list of benefits from breast-feeding—straighter teeth. According to a study at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, growth patterns in the mouth caused by breast-feeding differ from those caused by bottle-feeding. This is because the infants must use their tongues and mouths differently. In bottle-feeding, the tongue is moved forward to stop milk flow from the nipple during swallowing. In breast-feeding, that forward thrust is unnecessary, and infants must use their mouth muscles more vigorously. Children breast-fed for more than a year had the fewest problems with tooth alignment.
Topping Five Billion
Matej Gaspar, a baby boy born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in mid-July, has been named the world’s five billionth human, although, of course, no one knows for sure who the five billionth person was or where he was born. Zagreb was chosen as the place of birth, since UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar was in that city at the time specified by demographers. “In a speech marking the occasion,” says Time magazine, “Pérez de Cuéllar drew attention to the fact that 90% of this year’s 120 million births will occur in countries where food, health services and education are inadequate.” The earth’s population hit four billion in 1974.
Japanese “Threat”
Japan’s “defense agency is proposing for the first time to build its own jet fighters instead of buying American-made aircraft,” reports the New York newspaper Newsday. “[Defense] analysts see the proposed Japanese plane as a threat to U.S. domination of the aerospace market in Southeast Asia.” While Japanese companies have been working along with American firms in producing helicopters and trainer airplanes, a home-built fighter would be a first for them in the post-World War II world. Says David Smith, editor of the trade publication Journal of Defense and Diplomacy: “Knowing what the Japanese did with cars, the last thing the U.S. aerospace industry wants them to do is make airplanes.”
Eye Security
Eye prints have taken over from fingerprints as the method of foolproof security. “Fingerprints can be copied by someone using specially-designed plastic gloves,” says Chuck Fargo, representing the company marketing the new system. As reported in The Times of London, identification is made by a microprocessor that scans the pattern of blood vessels in the eye and compares it with the pattern on file in a data base. As with fingerprints, each individual’s eye pattern is said to be unique. The advantage of eye patterns is that they cannot be predicted, copied, or changed.
Another Cause for Divorce
“Failed marriages are not always the result of incompatibility or self-generated problems,” says The German Tribune. “Breakdown can be caused by one partner not keeping a distance from his or her parents.” The article, based on the findings of four years of research by Göttingen University, shows that the difficulties are due to an imbalance that develops “when a partner is too much the parents’ child and not enough the wife or husband.” It is mental dependence on parents, often deeply rooted and unconsciously adopted, that precipitates the divorce. Persons who are “married more with their parents than they are with their spouse” will also often accept parental criticism of their mate.
Airport Bird Patrol
Travelers landing at New York’s Kennedy Airport are usually unaware of a potential accident threat: birds. Hit by planes or sucked into jet engines, birds cause from $25 million to $40 million in damage to commercial aircraft each year. Because of its close proximity to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and the Edgemere garbage dump—both of which attract hordes of birds—Kennedy Airport has more problems with birds than other airports have. Gulls are the worst problem at Kennedy, accounting for up to 90 percent of all bird strikes. An eight-member bird patrol has the job of scaring the birds away from the runways, using exploding projectiles and tape-recorded gull distress calls. Birds are killed by the patrol only as a last resort.
Rock Addiction
Heavy rock music “has a very strong narcotic effect,” claims Dr. G. A. Aminev of Bashkiria University in the U.S.S.R. As reported in the Belfast News Letter, rock fans who do not get a regular fix of heavy rock music develop the characteristic withdrawal symptoms of drug addiction. “If you completely isolate them for a week from such music,” says the Soviet psychologist, “they feel worse, their irritability rises, their hands start to tremble and their pulse is unstable.” Some who were tested could not last even three days without their music before the symptoms appeared. Dr. Aminev also found that heavy-rock fans were only 50 percent as productive in work as those who did not listen to rock music.