Watching the World
China’s Catholicism
◆ Only a few Roman Catholic priests still function in the People’s Republic of China, according to the Washington Post. And the few existing Catholic Church congregations “are made up of a dwindling number of elderly believers.” Priest Fu Tin-shan of Peking said that Peking’s Catholic clergy approve of divorce and abortion and believe that the Vatican “has always been a tool of imperialism.” According to the Washington Post, Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party “scored more points than God” in Fu’s explanation of Chinese Catholic theology.
Telling Them Apart
◆ In some lands, boy and girl students dress so much alike that, at a glance, some find it difficult to tell them apart. American psychologist Mary Jenni and her zoologist husband Donald say that there is a simple method of telling the students apart: It is how they carry their schoolbooks. It was noted that beyond the lower grades, girls usually wrap one or both arms around their books and either rest them on their hips or clasp them against their chests. Male students invariably carry books in one hand at the side of the body. While the reason may be cultural, it was thought that the wider hips of girls make it easier to rest books in that area, since trying to carry them at the side would extend the arm outward at an awkward angle. The existence of a “genetic predisposition for females to assume more closed positions than males” was not ruled out. The same book-carrying pattern was noted in a number of different countries of North and South America. However, is this the case elsewhere? How do they carry their books in your land?
What Were the Flashes?
◆ During some of the Apollo moon missions, astronauts saw peculiar, unexplained flashes of light while in deep space. Recent experiments in New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have led scientists there to the conclusion that the flashes were the results of cosmic rays passing through the astronauts’ eyes. Each particle created an “electromagnetic shock wave” resulting in crescent-shaped flashes in their vision. Thus, outside the protective envelope of earth’s atmosphere, cosmic rays could be a real threat to man.
Viewer Saves Lives
◆ A heat-sensitive infrared viewer was used to save lives in the flash flood that overwhelmed campers along a river canyon in Colorado last year. The viewer, which can identify heat patterns, was used by helicopter police to scan the canyon for survivors. It located people who were stranded in heavily wooded areas or were clinging to canyon walls. Use of the device brought much quicker rescue than would searching the canyon on foot.
Fresh Water Under Ocean
◆ A zone of fresh water has been found under the Atlantic Ocean’s floor. It is beneath the Continental Shelf and extends as much as sixty miles (about 100 kilometers) from the United States coast. One view is that the fresh water entered the sediments of the Continental Shelf thousands of years ago when the ocean level was hundreds of feet lower than it is today, and when the shelf was exposed to rainwater.
Talking to Computers
◆ Attempts are being made to design computers that can “understand” human speech and respond to questions. Of course, answers can be only those programmed into the computers. However, even with the use of a very limited vocabulary, small variations in voice sounds have disorganized the computers. For instance, the difference between “ice cream” and “I scream” proves far too complicated for the computer. Yet, the human ear can distinguish between hundreds of thousands of sounds and differences of meaning.
New Life in Thames
◆ A sea horse was the most recent find among fish that have returned to the section of the Thames River that passes through London. The sea horse, along with the eighty-six other species that have now returned, had once disappeared due to pollution. By 1957, sewage, industrial waste and detergents had virtually killed all fish in that section of the river. But now they have begun to come back, the result of a successful antipollution campaign.
Paying New Fathers
◆ Sweden is experimenting with a system of paid paternity leave. Under the plan, a father can stay home with his newborn child for up to seven months while collecting 95 percent of his salary. If the mother also works, the parents can split the seven-month period between them in any way they want. So far only about 7 percent of Sweden’s new fathers have taken advantage of the program, but the number has quadrupled since 1974 and is expected to increase.
Paris to Saigon
◆ It is now possible to travel by train about 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) from Paris to Saigon, the longest rail route in the world. The last link was completed when the government of Vietnam announced that reconstruction work had been finished on the 1,050 miles (1,690 kilometers) of track linking Hanoi in the north to Saigon in the south. It is said that agreements have been reached on the servicing of international passenger trains.
More in Less
◆ Continuing development of electronic devices has resulted in more and more being put in less and less space. This is particularly true of computer semiconductor memory units whose circuitry is embedded in flat “chips” of silicon. In 1971, a memory unit was able to store 1,000 “bits” of information. In 1974, 4,000-bit units were developed. This year, computer manufacturers are introducing 16,000-bit memory chips. They are contained in an area about one eighth of an inch long and one quarter of an inch wide (three tenths by six tenths of a centimeter).
Four Millionth Invention
◆ The Patent Office in Washington, D.C., announced the issuing of patent number four million. Since the office was founded in 1790, it took 121 years, to 1911, for the first million patents. But the last million came in only fifteen years, since 1961. The Wall Street Journal commented: “While only a few of those 4 million inventions have proved to be dramatically important to mankind, the total represents an enormous collection of human creativity.”
“Free” World Shrinking
◆ The number of nations regarded as “free” continues to shrink. These are countries where liberties such as freedom of the press, religion and assembly are enjoyed. At the close of 1976, fewer than 20 percent of the world’s four billion people lived in such “free” nations. That is the lowest proportion since the surveys began in 1952.
Expanding Deserts
◆ According to Egyptian professor Mohammed Kassas, each year the Sahara desert consumes an area twice the size of Cyprus. Much of the loss is due to man’s abuse of the land. He warned that any hope that the underdeveloped nations could open up large areas of desert to agriculture was a “dream.” Without regular rainfall, or dependable irrigation systems, deserts can support only limited agriculture. He added: “All over the world, when you go out into the desert and use modern intensive agriculture, the system fails.” Under present conditions, he said, traditional and simpler agricultural techniques based on existing natural cycles are all that will succeed in the desert.
New VD Strain Spreads
◆ Various countries have reported a new strain of gonorrhea that is completely resistant to penicillin. It is thought to have originated in Asia and Africa. Now Canada also reports occurrence of the disease. And as others have already noted, the Toronto Star observed: “Penicillin is normally used to treat venereal diseases but researchers have found the new strain may even thrive on it.”
Painless Dentistry
◆A new method of removing tooth decay has been developed at the Tufts University Dental School in Massachusetts. A chemical spray removes the decay. Dentists use a needle to squirt the chemical onto the cavity. Within minutes the decayed material breaks up. Some preliminary drilling may be required to expose the cavity enough for the chemical to work. Afterward, only a small amount of drilling is needed to give the hole its proper shape for filling. While the method has been tested on human patients, any general application is thought to be years away.
Sexually Abused Children
◆ Los Angeles police estimate that about 30,000 children are sexually abused there each year. Of that number, some 25,000 young boys from fourteen to seventeen years of age are used by approximately 15,000 adult males for homosexual acts. Often, these youngsters are runaways who allow such abuse to make money. A police official said: “This is not just a Los Angeles problem, although it is becoming more prevalent here. It’s like a contagious disease, similar to the contagion of narcotics abuse, and it’s spreading all over the country.”
Overnutrition “Plague”
◆ The lack of an adequate diet causes more deaths in many countries than any other factor except old age. However, researchers of the Worldwatch Institute state: “The number of people afflicted by the modern plague of overnutrition is approaching the number suffering malnutrition.” Persons with an affluent diet consume large amounts of animal fats, refined products and sugar, as well as other commercially processed and chemically preserved foods. This diet has been linked to six of the ten leading causes of death. The condition is most common in North America, but has taken hold in western Europe, Japan and the Soviet Union.
Main Cause of Hunger
◆ Economists of the World Bank have concluded that world hunger is more of a distribution problem than a matter of how much food is produced. In most underdeveloped nations the wealthier people who can afford the food eat well. But, according to Science magazine, “even if incomes in underdeveloped countries increase as projected, the poor will not be able to buy themselves a substantially better diet for the foreseeable future.” These economists estimate that 75 percent of the populations of underdeveloped countries have inadequate diets.
Call Your Own Bus
◆ The city of Angers in northwestern France uses a novel system of bus transportation. The service consists of a small fleet of deluxe “mini” buses that run along an established route. Subscribers to the system pay from eight to twenty-five cents a ride, depending upon usage, and also $4 a year for a magnetic card that is inserted into a signal box at any one of a number of posts along the line. When the card is inserted, a signal indicating the passenger’s position is sent to the central control office. Within five minutes a bus comes by to pick him up. Some buses run at regular twenty-minute intervals, while others are held in reserve. If a signal is from a point more than five minutes away from a regular bus, the controller radios for a reserve bus.
Were Funds Misspent?
◆ Mayor Ella Stack of Darwin, Australia, a city ravaged by a cyclone on December 25, 1974, said recently that much of the money raised internationally for the victims of that disaster had been misspent. Dr. Stack had been deputy director of the defunct Cyclone Tracey Relief Fund, and was quoted as saying: “The trust fund spent $8.5 million of its $10 million in direct grants and a vast proportion of that money was wasted—much of it either bet away or spent on drink.”
“Handsomer” Buddha
◆A 13-meter (43-foot) “great image of Buddha in Tokyo” was recently erected at the city’s Jorenji temple. The giant figure is just the third largest in the nation. But, reports the Daily Yomiuri, “the temple claims that the bronze image . . . is handsomer than” the largest one in Nara, Japan.