Watching the World
Soviet Drug Addiction
According to the magazine Sowjetunion heute, published by the Soviet embassy of Cologne, Germany, there are 46,000 registered drug abusers in the Soviet Union. A poll taken of addicts in Soviet Georgia revealed that 91.7 percent were men, 81.9 percent were between the ages of 20 and 34, and 49 percent were married. Factors cited as contributing to their addiction included (allowing for overlap) the search for happiness (68.3 percent), a desire to imitate others (25.3 percent), dissatisfaction with life and the desire to forget (7.5 percent), curiosity (2.3 percent), a psychological trauma (2.3 percent), and prescribed medicines that contain drugs (1.3 percent).
The Price of Fitness
“In Switzerland, growing enthusiasm for sports and a prolonged fitness boom have led to a rise in sports accidents,” reports the Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung. About 373,000 Swiss citizens were injured in 1986 in sports-related accidents. That represents over 10 percent of all persons active in some kind of sports. A fifth of these had to be hospitalized. Among the reasons cited for the accidents were “lack of concentration or poor fitness.” Inferior equipment was also mentioned as a contributing factor. The campaign to reduce sports accidents is placing considerable emphasis on an appeal for fair play.
Deep-Sea Weathermen
Whales that plunge to the ocean depths now help supply weather forecasters valuable information, reports The Sunday Times of London. Deep-diving mammals, such as the pilot, gray, and humpback whales, are being fitted with a 1.5 pound [700 g], soup-bowl-size transmitter that sends details of the water temperatures encountered at various depths. Since heat from the sea drives the earth’s winds and storms, such measuring of water temperatures aids accurate weather prediction. As the mammals roam vast ocean areas often inaccessible to ships, their transmitters broadcast the weather information to a satellite after surfacing from depths of half a mile [0.8 km] or more.
Threatening Clutter in Space
Scientists are taking a hard look at an increasing threat to their space endeavors: orbiting space debris. They estimate that there are already millions of tiny bits of junk in orbit, including flecks of paint from previous spacecraft. Why are such small objects of concern? “Experts say a fast-moving fragment the size of a pea could easily shatter a $100 million satellite,” notes The New York Times. “At worst, one fragmenting satellite might touch off other breakups in a cascade of destruction.” Some suspect that such accidents have already occurred. Orbiting junk has also been a nightmare for astronomers. Not only has it interfered with telescopes and distorted star photographs but it has also prompted a number of erroneous astronomical “discoveries.” Some 7,000 orbiting objects of baseball size or larger are currently being monitored.
A Global Language?
The Story of English, a book by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil, states that English is spoken throughout the world by about one billion people—350 million of whom speak it as their mother tongue. The great variety of spoken English with its fascinating accents is legion. There is Indian English, Jamaican English, American English, Australian English, South African English, as well as the British cockney and “shire” dialects added to the cherished Oxford and Cambridge English, not to mention Scottish, Welsh, and Irish. In their book, the authors tell us that the English language consists of approximately 500,000 words (not counting scientific, technical, or medical terms) compared with 185,000 German words and fewer than 100,000 French words. This is remarkable when one notes that English did not exist as a language when Julius Caesar landed in Britain only about 2,000 years ago.
Unwanted Honesty
The following appeared in The Times of London: “Warning to all business executives who occasionally tell little white lies—before you employ a new secretary, check her religion. A prominent City figure, called to the telephone to speak to someone he was trying to avoid, told his temporary secretary: ‘Tell him I’m busy and that I’ll call him back later.’ He couldn’t believe his ears when she replied, in all seriousness: ‘I can’t tell lies—I’m a Jehovah’s Witness.’”
Largest Galaxy
“Astronomers say they have discovered that a galaxy observed by astronomers for two decades is 13 times as big as the Milky Way,” reports The New York Times. “This would make the galaxy, Markarian 348, the largest known.” Located 300 million light-years from earth in the direction of the Andromeda constellation, the galaxy is said to measure 1.3 million light-years in diameter. (One light-year equals about six trillion miles [10 trillion km].) The Milky Way, of which our solar system is a part, has a diameter of about 100,000 light-years.
Rethinking Transfusions
The high risk of deadly AIDS infection is forcing doctors in countries where traditionally much blood is transfused to rethink the subject. For example, the German medical paper Ärztliche Praxis, published by specialists on hospital hygiene from Mainz University, recommends a procedure for disinfecting or destroying AIDS infected instruments to protect medical personnel. “Transfusion medicine has to proceed on the assumption that absolutely HIV-free blood no longer exists,” states the paper, referring to a virus that weakens immunity and causes AIDS. “Therefore symptoms indicating the need for a transfusion must be assessed very carefully.”
Smart Beds
In an effort to provide maximum care and protection for hospital patients who must remain bedridden while convalescing, an Indiana firm has produced a bed designed to “spy” on its user. If a patient tries to sneak out of bed though told not to, special sensor strips under the bedsheets will send a signal to another room where an attending nurse is alerted to check on the patient. The sensors can serve to protect a patient from injuries, as those who are elderly or who may be on medication could fall when getting out of bed without assistance. “The beds let us get to patients before they hurt themselves,” explains Mary Smith, a registered nurse. The special beds have already been installed in dozens of hospitals throughout the country, Health magazine reports.
Slaughter on Italy’s Roads
“Up at dawn, over four hours of driving to reach the Adriatic coast, sunning and bathing, a meal that is certainly not suitable for a driver, more sun, and then cooking again in the car on the way home.” So go many Sunday outings in Italy, says the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. These are the conditions under which the drivers function so as to get home and to bed as soon as possible to start another workweek the next day. The resulting drowsiness, lack of proper attention, and speed are the main causes of road accidents in Italy, according to Italy’s Ministry of the Interior. During the first 13 days of July 1987, in a total of 9,902 road accidents in Italy, 348 people lost their lives and 7,823 were injured.
A Bible in Every Home
This is the ambitious aim of the major Protestant churches in Australia during that country’s bicentennial year of 1988, according to The Sun-Herald newspaper. The proposed free distribution of Bibles is named: “Operation Good News ’88,” and is estimated to cost the participating churches more than three million Australian dollars. Special-edition Bibles are to be prepared, “designed to look interesting and inviting,” according to a spokesman. The Bible Society and the World Home Bible League will provide the Bibles. The director of the operation says that it will not be just a letter-box drop but that church members will visit every home on every street, going from door to door to deliver the free Bibles.