Watching the World

Human Rights Appeal

◆ At a meeting of the Council of Europe, an appeal was made by a number of concerned representatives on behalf of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Greece. Because of their conscientious objection to military service, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been subjected to repeated jail sentences there. The total jail terms were often several times as long as the length of military service, which is two and a half years. The appeal asked the Council’s Committee of Ministers “whether these punishments should not be considered violations of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, as the time spent in prison is not in proportion to the term set for military service . . . which is contrary to generally accepted principles of moral justice, whereby crime and punishment are proportional.”

Plain-Language Contracts

◆ Many persons have difficulty reading consumer contracts, such as loan agreements and apartment leases, because of their legalistic and complicated language. Now the state of New York has passed a law that is to take effect next year requiring such contracts to be written in clear, understandable, nontechnical language, in “words with common and everyday meanings.” The New York Times comments: “Suspicion also is high that lawyers favor impenetrable language to make sure a lawyer must be hired to translate. According to some estimates, as much as 20 percent of all litigation results from poorly worded contracts.”

Environment Affects Brain

◆ In a series of nine studies made over a period of eight years, it was found that rats placed in an “enriched” environment had greater brain development physically than those placed in a poor environment. Those in the enriched conditions were placed in large cages in groups of between six and twelve rats and all were supplied with a variety of objects designed to stimulate them mentally. Other rats were isolated in small, bare, individual cages. Careful analysis after the test periods revealed that the brains of the rats who had more social interchange and mental stimulation were better developed. Scientists involved in the tests feel that there are groups of brain cells​—neurons—​that will fully develop only in the presence of proper amounts of stimulation. It is thought that human brain development may be similarly affected.

Seawater for Crops?

◆ Many deserts would be productive if they had water. But most crops require freshwater, not salt water. Yet seawater is available in almost unlimited quantities in many arid coastal regions. However, University of California (at Davis) scientists have grown strains of barley by watering the seeds with solutions of up to 90 percent of the salinity of seawater. Some of the plants survived to produce seed. Their descendants were raised with 100-percent seawater. The most successful of the plants yielded nearly half the amount of barley as do plants grown with freshwater. It is hoped that further experiments could lead to barley and other crops becoming economically practical for seawater irrigation.

Saving Drowning Victims

◆ It has long been assumed that drowning victims submerged for four or five minutes suffer irreparable brain damage, and when found blue and breathless they are certainly dead. But these assumptions are being challenged, because victims submerged for longer periods, even twenty minutes or more, have survived when the water was cold and efforts to revive them began immediately after rescue. One youth was revived after being under water thirty-eight minutes. It is theorized that when the body is submerged in cold water it goes through a “diving reflex.” This is an involuntary response that delays suffocation by rerouting oxygen from the arteries, sending it to the heart, brain and lungs. Most of those revived after lengthy periods of submersion in colder water were children, since their “diving reflex” is apparently stronger than that of adults.

Indoor Pollution

◆ Two University of California (at Berkeley) scientists say that air pollution inside many homes is worse than air pollution outside. Their studies showed that levels of certain harmful pollutants in some houses were two or three times higher than the recommended air quality standards. Readings of one pollutant showed a level about a thousand times higher than what is found outdoors on a normal day. Physicist Gregory Traynor stated: “Our primary concern is gas appliances.” Due to improper design or poor servicing, they can release such pollutants as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Cigarette smoke in a closed room also was listed as a major pollutant.

Mystery Solved?

◆ In 1908 a gigantic fireball fell to the earth in the valley of the Stony Tunguska River in Siberia, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Lake Baikal. It disintegrated in a fierce explosion near the earth, producing a blast wave that knocked down trees like matchsticks for up to 30 kilometers (19 miles) around. Fire produced great devastation of the surrounding forest. It was at first thought that the blast had been caused by a gigantic iron meteorite like the one that produced Meteor Crater in Arizona. But no crater was ever found. Now, after many expeditions and tests of soil and trees, some Soviet scientists think that the phenomenon was a comet that disintegrated before it struck the earth.

Sahara Truck Route

◆ The Sahara desert has been an impassable barrier to commercial land traffic except by camel caravan. However, the Algerian National Road Transport Company now runs weekly convoys of five to ten trucks each from the port of Algiers all the way across the Sahara to the port of Lagos, Nigeria, helping to relieve the latter’s huge shipping backlog. Thus, the Mediterranean is linked to the Atlantic north to south across the Sahara. The route is 2,188 miles (3,520 kilometers) from Algiers to Lagos and the scheduled time of transit is nine days. More than half the distance is over rough desert trails. Each truck carries a mechanic in addition to the driver. A workshop truck carrying fuel and spare parts accompanies every convoy.

Preferred Pets

◆ Which domestic creatures do the British prefer as pets? The consumer magazine Which? rated fourteen domestic creatures by their price, cost of upkeep, maintenance, durability and owner enjoyment. In a poll of the magazine’s readers, dogs took first place. Horses and ponies came in second, and cats were rated third. The main consideration was the affection that the pet returned to its owner. For example, the lowest ranking was the tortoise because it “does not return love.”

Mussel “Glue”

◆ Scientists have noted with admiration the “glue” that the sea mussel uses to attach itself to wet rocks or pilings. The substance it uses is so powerful that it literally becomes part of whatever it attaches itself to. Scientists are studying the sea creature to try to unlock its secrets. The magazine Sea Frontiers recently noted that the strength and durability of the mussel “glue” have attracted the attention of dentists for possible use as a filler material in repairing teeth.

No More “Beetles”?

◆ The Volkswagen “Beetle,” the small German automobile, was at one time very popular in the United States. In 1968 a peak of 423,000 were sold there. However, rising prices and other factors caused lower sales in recent times. Thus, the company announced that, with the 1977 model, production is being ended on this type of vehicle for sale in the United States. However, it will continue to be sold in other parts of the world where the car is still very popular.

Successful Antiviral Drug

◆ Researchers claim to have made the first successful use of an antiviral drug against a fatal disease. Until now, attempts to cure other viral infections, including the common cold, with drugs have failed. The new drug, named adenine arabinoside, has been used to treat cases of herpes virus encephalitis, a disease that destroys the brain. The disease, transmitted by insects, kills about 70 percent of its victims. But when the new drug was used, the mortality rate dropped to 28 percent. The drug is derived from a type of sponge found in the waters off Florida and the Bahamas.

Bloodless Surgery

◆ Doctors at the Indiana University Medical Center have devised a new type of surgeon’s scalpel that could eliminate most bleeding in surgery. The “plasma scalpel” uses a tiny jet of superheated argon gas to cut and seal tissues simultaneously. It is reported that the most delicate operations can be performed “without shedding a drop of blood.”

Chew Your Meat

◆ About 3,500 Americans a year choke to death while eating meat. Often the victims are talking, drinking and eating at the same time. The choking usually occurs on a piece of improperly chewed meat. Adults over forty-five years of age and children under four are the most common victims. The older victims often have bad or missing teeth, or poorly fitting dentures, so they are prone to swallow larger pieces of food without sufficient chewing. Autopsies have revealed that many persons who first were thought to have died from heart attacks actually choked on food.

Library Books Decaying

◆ Tens of millions of older library books are destroying themselves because of the acids in their paper. A book restorer at Columbia University said that at least 1.5 million books in Columbia’s collection of five million are falling apart. At the Library of Congress an estimated six million books out of 18 million are decaying. And half of the New York Public Library’s research collection of five million is being disabled. A study of books that were produced between 1900 and 1939 concluded that 97 percent of them had a life-span of about fifty years, whereas present-day book paper has an estimated life expectancy of only thirty to thirty-five years because the paper is “as bad as any ever made in history.”

More British Oil

◆ Oil from the North Sea is flowing into Britain in ever-increasing quantities. After more than a decade of exploration and expenditures, the offshore oil fields are now supplying about one third of the oil Britain uses. It is expected that by 1980 Britain, once an importer of almost all its oil, will be completely self-sufficient in oil.

Largest Artificial Diamond

◆ Japanese scientists have made an artificial diamond weighing 20 carats, which they claim to be the largest of its kind in the world. The biggest such diamond previously formed is said to be just five carats. Scientists from Osaka University say that they created the diamond by compressing many tiny artificial diamonds at 60,000 times standard barometric pressure and heating them to 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,632 degrees Fahrenheit) for five minutes. The diamond is black and of industrial quality, unusable as a gem, but fine for such things as the teeth of tunnel boring equipment.

Radiation Effects

◆ The Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry states that “a far greater percentage of people who survived the atomic bombing suffer from diseases of various kinds than ordinary people.” A survey of 16,912 survivors, made thirty years after the atomic bombing of two Japanese cities, reveals that 59 percent of them had various diseases as compared to 29 percent of the general population.