Watching the World
Widespread Malnutrition
According to the latest World Bank study, the number of acutely undernourished people increased by 14 percent during the decade from 1970 to 1980. Some 340 million people in 87 developing nations of Africa, Latin America, and Asia—excluding China for lack of data—were found to be acutely malnourished, subsisting on a diet that seriously jeopardizes their health and stunts their growth. An additional 390 million people lacked sufficient food to lead active working lives. The problem, says the Bank, is not global food shortage, rising prices, or population outstripping production. “The growth of global food production has been faster than the unprecedented population growth of the past 40 years. Prices of cereals on world markets have even been falling.” Then why do these countries and their people not share in this abundance? Because they are too poor to purchase the needed food, and “because of the widely held misperception that food shortages are the root of the problem,” says the Bank.
Longest-Reigning Monarch
Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, now 85 years old, is the world’s longest-ruling and oldest sovereign. This year, birthday ceremonies were combined with government-sponsored celebrations marking the 60 years of Hirohito’s reign. “The worst memories for me over the past 60 years are events related to the second world war,” said the emperor, who prior to the war was regarded as a god. A record crowd estimated to number 56,000 poured into the Imperial Palace grounds to congratulate the emperor. Security precautions were tight, as there has been an upsurge of violence in Japan in recent years.
Endometriosis and Exercise
Strenuous exercise appears to reduce the risk to women of contracting a disease that can cause infertility and tumor growth—endometriosis. In the United States an estimated 10 to 15 percent of premenopausal women are affected by this disorder, which causes abnormal growth of uterine-lining tissue and is usually associated with agonizing premenstrual cramps. Rigorous exercise has “been recommended by a number of doctors,” Dr. Cramer of the Harvard Medical School said in The New York Times. “You don’t have to be a professional athlete to get a benefit from it, just a few hours a week can have a protective effect.”
Mapping by Satellite
By use of radar from orbiting satellites, scientists are now making precise, detailed maps of the ocean’s floor. Actually, it is the ocean’s surface that is measured. Although not discerned by humans on ships, the surface of the sea is not even. Because of gravity, the water is pulled into depressions or piled up on top of mountains and can vary by 50 feet (15 m) or more. “The latest computations,” says U.S.News & World Report, “are so precise that differences in water surface as small as 10 centimeters [4 in.] can be traced to specific features on the sea floor.” Even greater detail is expected to be provided by future satellites. “From the topography of the ocean floor, geophysicists can study how so-called tectonic plates in the earth’s crust interact to produce earthquakes and other subterranean stresses,” says the article.
Distinction Made
“Technology in 1986 seems to have suffered a devastating one-two punch,” says The New York Times. “The first blow was to rocketry as a space shuttle blew up, followed by reverberating explosions of an Air Force Titan rocket and a Delta carrying a weather satellite; the second blow was to nuclear power, as a reactor failed catastrophically in the Ukraine.” How have people reacted to these incidents? The shuttle accident was accepted as one of the risks of living in a modern technological society. In similar situations in the past, demands were made to redesign and make things safer, but basic changes were not sought. “Though manifestly imperfect, the technologies have been accepted because their benefits seem to have outweighed the risks,” says the Times. But in regard to the nuclear-power-reactor failure in the Ukraine, “public response worldwide seems to have been significantly different. The level of intensity and emotion suggests that this is one technology that provokes more doubt and fear than acceptability.”
New Identification Method
Identifying lost or kidnapped children, disoriented elderly persons, injured individuals, or even the retarded can now be made easier. Identification numbers, such as Social Security numbers, are put on a microdisk and bonded to a rear molar. The numbers are filed in a computer registry, along with identifying information and a medical history of the individual. The service is offered by six different firms at present. “To avoid confusion, the American Dental Association is now working on one centralized system,” notes American Health magazine.
Cash at the Dump
One Friday evening a German bank cashier in Saarlouis was unable to explain the loss of DM20,000 ($9,000, U.S.). The following Monday, a garbageman at the city dump made a discovery that was embarrassing to the bank. Among empty tin cans, wastepaper, and eggshells, he found several bank notes. A team searched through the piles of rubbish and found more than DM7,000. What had happened? “Balancing the month-end accounts last Friday, January 31, kept us terribly rushed,” explained a bank spokesman in the German newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. “The bundles of bank notes must have accidentally slipped from a cashbox into the wastepaper basket,” going from the wastebasket to the central dump.
Superior Load-Bearers
Many African women transport heavy loads, such as buckets of water, bundles of firewood, bags of cement, and suitcases, on their heads. According to scientific studies measuring energy costs, an African woman carrying a load of 70 percent of her body weight increased her intake of oxygen by 50 percent. Army recruits, carrying similar loads in backpacks, registered an increase of 100 percent in oxygen consumption. With smaller loads of up to 20 percent of body weight, the African women registered no increase in energy consumption. “The army recruits,” reports the journal Nature, “were not able to carry small loads without metabolic cost.” Scientists suggest that this phenomenon is the result of early training and involves posture and gait. Walking requires energy mostly because of up-and-down body movements. “African women put all their energy into moving forward,” states Discover magazine. “While most people bounce along like wagons on egg-shaped wheels, African women move like wagons on round wheels.”
Still Extinct
Called the largest animal that ever flew, the giant pterodactyl has long been extinct. The fossilized remains of one found in Texas in 1972 disclosed a 36-foot (11 m) wingspan, an estimated weight of 150 pounds (68 kg), and a possible standing height of 12 feet (3.7 m). A plan to build a full-scale replica was scrapped in favor of a half-size working model with an 18-foot (5.5 m) wingspan. With computers controlling its flapping wings, the $700,000 model actually flew for short periods earlier in the year, reacting to air currents on its own. The successful acrobatic flights were filmed by the Smithsonian Institution for a movie on natural and mechanical flight. But the model had to be propelled into the air, as the movement of the feet could not be duplicated, and because of the weight, it could not ascend. There were disappointments and successes, but at its final showing, a public demonstration near Washington, D.C., it quickly plunged to the ground and severed its head. “Now we know why pterosaurs are extinct,” said its builder, Paul MacCready.
“World’s Heaviest”
“Albert Pernitsch, an Austrian citizen, claims to be the world’s heaviest person,” states Japan Air Lines Newsletter. “A big eater and drinker, Pernitsch reportedly once downed 80 mugs of beer, more than eight quarts [7.6 L] of wine and 14 chickens in one sitting.” He weighed over 13 pounds (5.9 kg) at birth, 400 pounds (180 kg) at age 15, and now the 29-year-old man tops the scales at 876 pounds (397 kg). He was taken to Japan by the airline “to exhibit his girth at a Tokyo fair.” Six seats in the first-class cabin of the 747 plane had to be removed and a special seat and safety belt installed to accommodate him, along with reinforced flooring and a larger bathroom. He was placed aboard the aircraft in a cushioned cargo container.
Upgrading Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge’s 1,088 vertical suspender cables that support its roadway and the 400 diagonal stays are going to be replaced. “The restringing of the bridge is a key part of a 15-year, $153 million rehabilitation that engineers believe will take the bridge through its second century,” says The New York Times. The bridge opened in 1883. The original wire-rope supplier delivered defective wire that had been rejected by city inspectors at his factory. However, the bridge had been designed to compensate for such, and the rope held up well. Replacement is now being made because of age. Two cables snapped in 1981, one killing a pedestrian on the bridge walkway. After the cables are replaced, their tension will be adjusted by engineers to equalize the stress. The four main cables of the bridge will not be replaced.