Watching the World
Early Awareness
● “A child at the end of the second trimester [six months] really is a sensing, feeling, aware and remembering human,” says Dr. Thomas Verny, a leading authority on the unborn child. “It can no longer be doubted that the unborn child is more highly developed than ever thought before.” Recent technological developments enable scientists to peer inside the womb without harming the fetus. “At four months, when the fetus is about 2 1⁄2 inches long, we can see it move its tiny hands toward its eyes to shield them from the bright light,” said Verny, and at six months “all systems are go,” when, as tests show, the child’s hearing system is almost completely developed.
“There’s no reason to believe what is said or what the mother does has no effect on the unborn child,” he said. Singing and playing music particularly seem to have an important effect, and they “don’t like music that’s loud, or rock ’n’ roll, or big, orchestrated pieces like Beethoven.” To illustrate how unborn babies will “kick and move a great deal if they don’t like something,” he cites the case of a pregnant woman who had to leave a rock concert when her baby kicked so hard that it broke one of her ribs. And if the abdomen is repetitively, but gently, poked or stroked, the fetus will often “play” by poking back, Dr. Verny said.
“No Incompatibility”
● “Many voodoo priests revere the pope as a repository of power that can be passed on to them,” states the New Jersey Herald. So it was not surprising that they took keen interest in the pope’s actions on his recent visit to Haiti. In a country where “people interchange Catholic saints with voodoo spirits and praying with church priests while paying homage to the houngans [voodoo priests],” the pope’s ritual was said to coincide with voodoo practice. “It was so close to us, we were so happily surprised and delighted,” said one houngan, a biochemical engineer. “I see no incompatibility in any of the dogmas or doctrines, no incompatibility at all.” The pope had made a ten-hour stop in Haiti following his Central American tour.
‘Most Death-Dealing Drug’
● Cigarette smoking is responsible for “more illness and death than all other drugs,” says the U.S. Public Health Service. As reported in American Medical News, the agency “compared cigaret smoking to other forms of drug abuse and said it caused more illness and death than alcohol, marijuana, and even heroin.” It also warned against relying on the tar and nicotine figures printed in advertisements, which are obtained from cigarette-smoking machines. “A heavy smoker,” it said, “can take in 15 to 20 milligrams of tar from a cigaret stated as being in the 1 to 5 milligram range.” Also noted was the fact that cigarette smokers spend more time “administering” to their habit than do any other drug addicts. “A two-pack-per-day smoker spends three to four hours a day smoking, taking about 400 puffs, and inhaling up to 1,000 milligrams of tar,” the article stated.
Tobacco for Food
● “Tobacco could, by the end of the century, become one of the world’s leading food crops,” states an article in the Roanoke Times & World-News. According to the article, scientists have developed a method of “grinding up young tobacco leaves to squeeze out valuable proteins that are not only nutritious, free of tar and nicotine but also tasteless” and can be used to enrich foods “without anyone noticing.” They envision the tobacco protein, which “whips up just like egg whites,” becoming a “favorite hospital food, especially for kidney dialysis patients and others who have trouble getting enough proteins on their restricted diets,” and replacing animal proteins that are added to many foods to “keep the product from falling apart.” They say that even the residue, “a starchy, mealy green glop that makes a good chicken and hog feed,” is useful. Why do they claim that eating tobacco is healthy, but that smoking it is not? “The key is that scientists harvest the plant when it’s young, green and full of proteins,” says the Times & World-News. “The tar and nicotine that gives cigarettes their flavor [and prompts the health warnings] don’t start accumulating until after the plant blooms and its proteins have dried up.”
Seat Belts Work
● That seat belts do indeed save lives has been proved in Britain, where use of seat belts while driving became compulsory by law earlier this year. Officials and doctors now report that there has been a dramatic drop in the number of passengers injured in car crashes since the law became effective at the beginning of February. Particularly noted was the decrease in facial, eye and head injuries that occur when passengers hit the windscreen, or windshield.
India’s Child Labor
● “India has the largest child labour force in the world,” states the magazine India Today. While precise figures do not exist, the “National Sample Survey [1972-73] cites a figure of 16.3 million child labourers in the age group 5-15,” it says. The average child works 280 days a year and earns about half the adult wage. According to the article, the child labor laws lack uniformity, differing from “state to state and industry to industry.” Children are often taken advantage of and work-induced diseases, such as asthma, tuberculosis and “serious eye diseases” are common among the children employed in some industries.
Happy Victim
● Most persons whose stolen cars are returned find them damaged or stripped. Not so with the stolen 1976 BMW belonging to a New York attorney. When his car was returned after 12 days, he found it greatly improved. Apparently wanting it for themselves, the thieves had reupholstered the interior and added racing seats, a stereo, matching padded steering wheel and gearshift, fog lights and wire wheels—worth between $2,000 and $3,000. “Who knows?” said the lawyer. “Another week and I might have had a TV in the back seat.”
Battery Warning
● A strong warning has been issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Capital Poison Center that miniature batteries, such as those used in watches, calculators, cameras, games and hearing aids, “can be swallowed and may result in internal burns and sometimes death.” An estimated 500 to 800 such batteries are swallowed each year in the United States. The following precautions are advised: Keep batteries out of reach—don’t allow children to play with them. Never put a miniature battery in your mouth for any reason. Check all medications before swallowing such. Batteries that have been mistaken for medication have been swallowed. And, if a battery is swallowed, contact your physician or a poison-control center right away.
Preserving Books
● Most books produced in the last century turn brittle and will likely crumble in use after 25 to 100 years because they are printed on acidic wood-pulp paper. Now, by using a vacuum chamber that was formerly used to test space-flight equipment, the U.S. Library of Congress has come up with a method to preserve the books so that they will last for 500 years. As air is pumped out of the chamber, water that is in the books from manufacture and atmospheric humidity comes out with it. Then diethyl zinc, a gas that would burst into flame on contact with air or water, is pumped into the chamber to permeate the books and neutralize the acid in the paper. After the leftover gas is pumped out, air is readmitted and the books are removed.
Computer Matchmaker
● A lonely English widower now has a former Welsh widow for his mate, thanks to a computer. What is different about this successful computer match is that both parties are swans, whose protectors have taken advantage of a new computer service in which most of the rare species of animals and birds in captivity are listed. “Our computer dating is probably more successful than the human version: at least we know the facts are true—and none of the animals is listed as ‘handsome,’” said a zoo expert.
Most Carnivorous
● New Zealanders now head the meat-eating list, each person consuming an average of 103.9 kilograms (229.1 lb) of meat last year. Second was the United States with 100.8 kilograms (222.2 lb) per person, followed by Canada, 96.9 kilograms (213.6 lb); Australia, 96.3 kilograms (212.3 lb) and Britain, 70 kilograms (154.3 lb). It is not that New Zealanders have greatly increased their consumption of red meat, says the report, but that there has been a drop in the amount of red meat consumed in other countries, particularly the United States and Australia. Included in the survey were beef, veal, pork, mutton, lamb and poultry—but not fish.
Soviet Crackdown
● When the present Soviet leadership came into power, reports the International Herald Tribune, it mounted “a law-and-order campaign on a scale not seen here since the days of Stalin.” To curb absenteeism, vigilantes (“Communist Party members deputized for limited duties and assured of police support”) were sent to “virtually every major public establishment, from movie theaters to public baths, to search for those who had improperly taken time off from work.” According to the report, one midday raid on a bath netted “hundreds of persons, including some high-ranking bureaucrats, who were unable to provide a convincing explanation for absence from their desks.” The names of those caught were forwarded to their superiors. “Since absenteeism has become a risky business,” says the article, “long food lines have become noticeably shorter, barber shops are not crowded at midmorning, and it has even become pleasant to take a ride on a Moscow city bus.”
Plants Fight Back
● Some of the world’s plant life is not as defenseless as previously thought, researchers say. They have found, for instance, that the omphalea vine in Central America has a way of fighting back against the urania moth that lays its eggs on it. The emerging caterpillars will eat only the leaves of this vine. But when the damage becomes too severe the plant generates a poison within its sap, forcing the insects to migrate to friendlier territory. When the moths return about five years later, the poison is gone.
Similarly, when grasses on the Serengeti plains in Africa are heavily grazed, they produce increased amounts of silica. This makes the grass much harder to chew, and the animals head for new pastures.