Watching the World
“No Tobacco Day”
April 7, 1988, has been proclaimed as the world’s first “No Tobacco Day” by WHO (World Health Organization). Dr. Halfdan Mahler, Director-General of WHO, claims that tobacco use brings untimely death to 2.5 million people every year—about the same death toll if 20 jumbo jets crashed every day for a year! Dr. Mahler hopes that if people stop smoking for a day it will be their first step toward cutting down or even quitting tobacco use for good. WHO practices what it preaches; it allows no smoking in any of its offices. “WHO has been a smoke-free organization since 1987,” Miss Kindermann, information officer at WHO, told Awake!
No-Tobacco Airlines
December 1, 1987, marked the day when all domestic airlines in Australia banned smoking throughout the aircraft. Airline companies will face large fines if they fail to enforce the total ban on smoking, and violators could be slapped with a stiff fine of up to $500 (Australian). According to The Canberra Times, the minister for transportation and communications said: “We’re acting in defence of the non-smoking travelling public who have been undoubtedly suffering a great deal of distress and discomfort—I can vouch for that, I’m one of them myself.”
TV-Fasting
German families are discovering the advantages of so-called TV-fasting. Reporting on the experience of 80 men, women, and children in Westphalia who decided to have “four weeks TV-free,” the German newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung says: “Afternoons and evenings have been changed completely. Spare time is now used in a more productive way, with more personal initiative than before.” The TV-free time has proved to be of lasting benefit. Most participants explained: “Our viewing habits are different now. We are more selective; we watch less and switch off more often.”
Brain Implants
Last September was the first time doctors transplanted fetal tissue into the brains of two adults suffering from Parkinson’s disease. A recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine reports that tissue from both the brain and adrenal gland of a spontaneously aborted 13-week-old fetus was used. The dramatic medical procedure took place in La Raza Medical Center, Mexico City. These experiments have moved the ethical questions surrounding the use of fetal tissue as a form of medical treatment out of the arena of theoretical debate and into actual therapy.
Mammoth Iceberg
An iceberg 1,000 feet [305 m] thick, 25 miles [40 km] wide, and approximately 100 miles [160 km] long broke off from Antarctica last October. The iceberg—about twice the size of the state of Rhode Island—is the largest iceberg spotted since 1963. Experts estimate that the iceberg will take a decade to work its way into the open sea. Scientists are studying icebergs to determine if pollution is warming up the earth’s atmosphere and creating a greenhouse effect. Such warmth could cause polar ice to melt, with the danger that a mere swell of just two feet [.6 m] in sea levels could inundate most major ports around the world.
Adolescent Ills
The use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs is having a substantial influence on youths in France aged 16 to 18. So finds a survey by the French Institute of Health and Medical Research. According to the survey, “40 percent of the boys and 28 percent of the girls smoke at least ten cigarettes a day,” reports the French daily Le Monde. “Fifty-two percent of the boys and 21 percent of the girls regularly drink alcohol. The same proportion get drunk three times a year.” Also, the survey revealed that “26 percent of the boys and 16 percent of the girls had tried illicit drugs.” Researchers at the institute have established a connection between alcohol dependence and the use of drugs by young people. They state that a “repeated desire to get drunk at an early age is an important sign that illicit drugs will be used later.”
Doctor Shortage in Africa
According to a WHO (World Health Organization) report, the number of doctors in Africa dropped to only one doctor for 10,000 people during the period of 1980-86. In contrast, the London-based Panoscope magazine notes that “in the industrialised world, too many medical staff are trained, and many are either unemployed or underemployed.” In Europe, for example, there are now 24 times more doctors, dentists, and pharmacists per 10,000 inhabitants than in Africa.
Forget-Me-Not
While celebrating some holiday, a Japanese may be shocked to receive a letter from a dead relative. The delivery, called Heavenly Mail Service, has nothing to do with the spirit world. For a fee, a company in Nagoya, Japan, accepts orders from old people who trust them to deliver special-day greetings, gifts, and messages after their death. The basic cost of a letter from “heaven” is 10,000 yen ($75, U.S.). For items to be delivered more than a year later, compound interest is charged at 18 percent a year. Therefore, a letter to be delivered ten years later would cost a hefty 55,442 yen ($414, U.S.). Is it worth it? The company’s president explains: “More and more people want to make sure they pass on their memories, as well as proof that they lived, to their children and grandchildren even after they die.”
“Dowry Deaths”
Of the daily reports in Indian newspapers of young women burned to death, says The Economist of London, “it is common knowledge that many, possibly most, are dowry deaths.” They result because of dissatisfaction by the husband’s family over the dowry paid. Sometimes the bride’s family cannot afford the amount agreed on, or more money is demanded after the wedding. This puts a great strain on the new wife and her father. Some wives are driven to suicide when the amounts cannot be paid, or they may be killed in hopes that more money will be brought in by the next wife. “Many fathers find themselves horribly in debt,” notes the report. “Small wonder that the man with five daughters and no sons feels he has been cursed.”
“Brown Dwarf”?
Scientists have discovered strong evidence of an apparent planetlike object orbiting a star less than 50 light-years from earth, reports the British journal Nature. If the finding is supported by additional research, it would be the first confirmed “brown dwarf,” a half-planet, half-star about which astronomers have theorized for decades but have never seen. The scientists, from the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Hawaii, describe the gaseous body as being larger than any of the nine planets in our solar system. The brown dwarf would also be the first planetlike object identified outside our solar system.
Quality at a Price
A bottle of German wine dating back to 1735—probably “the world’s oldest drinkable white wine”—was recently up for auction at the monastery in Eberbach, Germany. A few drops were sufficient to tease the taste buds of connoisseurs. “Aroma, bouquet and body are incomparable,” drooled expert Robert Englert, according to the German newspaper Schweinfurter Tagblatt. It was said that a drained wineglass continued to tinge the air with its fragrance for hours thereafter, endorsing the excellent quality of the 18th-century wine. A Canadian businessman purchased the bottle with its mellow vintage for 53,000 German marks ($33,390, U.S.).