Watching the World
World Decay Confirmed
● A recent 637-page report by the United Nations Environment Program confirms that world conditions have indeed deteriorated. States the Toronto Globe and Mail: “The report, a 10-year review of the world environment, is not a collection of vague suspicions. It is a carefully documented catalogue of social and physical ills which gives the impression that the human race inhabits not so much a planet as a nightmare of its own making. . . . The report assembles a description of a diseased, crowded world whose neurotic inhabitants continue to foul the air and sully the water while devising more efficient methods to kill one another.”
Among the statistics of the report: Global expenditures for weapons are up to $1,000,000 (US) each minute; and nuclear detonations, poisoning land and atmosphere, have been averaging almost one a week. Only 15 percent of all the satellites launched are nonmilitary. During these ten years 450,000,000 people have been hungry and undernourished, 650,000,000 lacked adequate or clean drinking water and 800,000,000 remained illiterate. Eight million became refugees. An estimated 10,000,000 children under five years of age die annually from malnutrition. Air, land and water pollution increased steadily, so did drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and obesity in the developed nations. At the same time malnutrition and diseases, such as malaria, cholera, meningitis and dengue fever, spread in the developing nations.
There was one shred of good news in the report: Smallpox has been eradicated.
Space Pollution
● “Wherever man ventures, he leaves debris and waste in his wake,” says William D. Hibbard of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He adds: “Space is no exception. There’s a lot of junk flying around up there.” An estimated ten thousand to fifteen thousand large objects, and hundreds of millions of smaller particles are hurtling through space at present. The debris comes from explosions in space, defunct satellites, spent fuel tanks and rocket shells. The annual growth rate of 11 percent for space trash poses a threat to mankind. There is fear that space junk, particularly radioactive debris, may fall on earth. Collisions in space also seem inevitable, and there have already been a number of satellite failures that could not be explained otherwise. As objects travel in space at speeds of thousands of miles per hour, even the smallest fragment can puncture a space vehicle and cause damage, injury or even death. A solution for cleaning up space does not seem imminent.
Music and Pregnancy
● In recent months pregnant women have been warned about tobacco, alcohol and coffee. Now they are being cautioned in regard to loud music. “Keep off jazz, rock, pop or any other loud music in the interest of your unborn child,” says Dr. S. Kameswaran of the Post-Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in Taramani, India. Damage to the fetus could result, he said, if the mother was exposed to loud noise during the early months of pregnancy. According to a report in the newspaper The Hindu, the damaging effects of loud noise on unborn children have been substantiated by detailed investigations. In one laboratory study with pregnant mice, exposure to sound of eighty decibels at a frequency of 2,500 cycles per second for just ten minutes of each hour resulted in congenital defects in all the offspring. In addition to the unborn, noise is also damaging to grownups, says Dr. Kameswaran. A person who works all day where the noise level is ninety decibels or more is likely to become deaf in a few years.
Technology Aids Forgers
● Near-perfect fake bank notes are being produced with the aid of modern technology. According to a report in London’s Daily Telegraph, European police chiefs meeting in Paris “were warned that it was extremely difficult to identify forgeries produced by the new systems.” The latest method uncovered made use of lithographic plates produced by laser-beam color scanners. The bank note colors were found to be perfectly matched, and the forgeries were of high quality. While this method involved skill and special equipment, the use of a modern copying machine to produce fake bank notes did not. The new color-copying machine would accurately reproduce both sides of the bank notes simultaneously. Anyone having access to the copier and using the right paper could run off copies of the bank notes that would easily pass in shops, the police chiefs were told. While flaws could be detected in the English currency forgeries, it was more difficult in fake American dollars, which are all the same size and color. It is feared that if large quantities of the fake bank notes are produced, it could threaten the economy of the countries involved.
“Monster” Cloud
● A cloud of volcanic debris 13,000 miles (21,000 km) long and at least two miles (3 km) thick was discovered a few months ago. It stretched from Baja California across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to Saudi Arabia, and appeared shortly after the eruption of the El Chinchonal volcano in Mexico on March 29. Since it was over thirteen miles (21 km) high, it was beyond the reach of planes to inspect it. Scientists said it had the potential to alter the earth’s climate for five years, causing droughts or heat waves. Such a cloud, it was said, could cause temperatures to rise by preventing the earth’s heat from dissipating, or it could cause lower temperatures by reducing the sunlight reaching the earth.
Marijuana in Forests
● The forest lands may still be green, but more and more of the green is turning out to be cannabis—marijuana plants. The growing of marijuana on government lands has been rising steadily in both the United States and Canada, particularly in California and British Columbia. In remote forest clearings, marijuana plants are being carefully grown and tended just like any other commercial crop. Public lands are chosen because of their seclusion and inaccessibility, making ownership of the illegal crop hard to prove. The estimated value of last year’s crop was $128,000,000 (US) in British Columbia and $1,000,000,000 (US) in California, thus making marijuana a leading agricultural product. Says one government official: “Wherever you grow marijuana, the crime rate rises. There are holdups. Killings. Gangs fight among themselves.” As reported in The Wall Street Journal, crime in the United States national forests has tripled since 1969. Growers are now turning to new hybrid plants that are more difficult to spot and that give more potent yields.
China’s Superhighway
● If everything goes as planned, China will have its first modern superhighway by 1985. The highway will link Canton with Hong Kong and Macao. At present, due to primitive roads, cargo between Canton and Hong Kong must move by rail, boat or air. Travelers from Hong Kong to Macao may even find it easier and faster to go on the new highway through China than by the present method of hydrofoil ferry. The new highway will allow for speeds of sixty to ninety miles an hour, and will eventually be expanded from four lanes to six. Tolls are expected to recover the costs in ten years.
Birthing Chairs
● What is the healthiest, most efficient and natural way to give birth? According to many obstetricians, it is to sit or squat—because of the structure of the human pelvis. Until modern times, it was the method most widely used for giving birth. Various cultures used ‘birthing thrones,’ or stools, to aid in delivery. (See Exodus 1:16.) Recently a company produced an adjustable, modern birthing chair that allows the mother-to-be to assume the most comfortable position for giving birth to her child. Not only does it make for stronger and less painful labor contractions, but the new chair also allows the mother to assist in and see the birth of her own child. Since delivery is often so much faster, the manufacturer now installs a safety tray on the chairs to prevent infants from falling to the floor.
Highest IQ
● Which nation has the highest average IQ? The Japanese—according to a study by Dr. Richard Lynn of the New University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. The study shows the average Japanese IQ has sharply increased since World War II, and now is 111, compared to 100 for the United States. Says the Lynn study: “Since intelligence is a determinant of economic success . . . the Japanese IQ advantage may have been a significant factor in Japan’s outstandingly high rate of economic growth in the post-World War II period.” What accounts for such rapid growth in the Japanese IQ? The most likely explanation, the study says, is due to environmental improvements such as improved nutrition.
Supersniffers
● Keeping drugs and other contraband out of prisons has always posed a problem for prison officials, who have experimented with various means to do so. Their latest: a team of highly trained rodents called gerbils. “It’s the only known method we have researched that works with a degree of accuracy,” said a spokesman for the Correctional Services of Canada. The $60,000 experiment will be tried first at a federal prison in Ontario. The teams of gerbils, hidden inside a cabinet in the entranceway, will sniff visitors and prisoners as they enter the prison. If drugs are detected, they have been trained to push a lever that activates a red light. They can also detect a high flow of adrenaline and will activate the light for this as well, as it may indicate the person is trying to conceal something. The suspected carrier will then either be searched or be refused entry. Gerbils were favored over dogs, as their noses are more sensitive and they are less expensive to feed and train.
Making Themselves Extinct
● It is estimated that only twenty-five to thirty condors remain on earth. They may be helping to make themselves extinct, judging by the scenario unfolding in southern California. A pair of condors have a nest there, which has been carefully monitored by ornithologists. The huge birds had a domestic quarrel in March over who was to care for their egg. In the skirmish, the egg was knocked out of the nest and smashed. Scientists were dismayed, for eggs are normally laid only once every eighteen months. But, to their delight, a new egg was shortly produced. Then tragedy struck again. A raven landed on the condors’ nest. In repelling the intruder, the condors again knocked their egg out of the nest. It fell to the rocks below, where the raven ate it.