Watching the World
Newborn and Pain
Researchers at London’s University College have established that newborn babies feel pain more than adults and for longer periods of time. “It is only in the past 10 years that it has even been acknowledged that babies and infants felt pain,” states The Sunday Telegraph of London. Prior to that, premature babies were subjected to traumatic procedures and surgery without the use of pain-killing drugs. Doctors now believe that such treatment can have long-term consequences on pain behavior, possibly even beyond childhood. This is because the natural mechanism that ‘dampens down’ pain messages in older children and adults does not function properly in premature babies. Babies also feel pain over a greater area, and even a minor skin wound can make the affected area hypersensitive to touch long after the wound itself has healed, reports the newspaper.
Student’s Suggestion Leads to Discovery
Acting on a tip from a university astrophysics student, astronomers have added one more to the list of planets that orbit stars other than our sun. Kevin Apps, a student at the University of Sussex, England, suggested to astronomers Dr. Geoffrey W. Marcy and Dr. R. Paul Butler, between them responsible for discovering nine other such planets, that they search 30 overlooked sunlike stars. They did so and found a planet the size of Jupiter orbiting one of the stars. To select the stars he recommended for investigation, Apps “used the latest satellite data and sifted out the stars that would have the best likelihood of harboring planets,” said Dr. Marcy. This detection—plus an additional planet found by the two astronomers—brought to 12 the number of known planets outside the solar system, all discovered within a three-year period, reports The New York Times.
Old-Age Simulator
While many people seek to feel young and dynamic, equipment has been developed to make a person feel old and frail, reports German newspaper Die Zeit. A manufacturing consulting firm, together with medical doctors, developed the age simulator to help nurses and product designers to understand “how old people perceive the world.” The equipment includes bandages and seams to limit mobility, 30 pounds [14 kilos] of lead to give the impression of lost muscle strength, hard knobs inside a pair of gloves to stiffen the fingers, headphones to absorb high frequencies, and a screen to reduce the field of vision to half and to blur the sight. Die Zeit suggests: “Everyone under 60 should walk around in this outfit for a couple of hours, as a contribution to understanding between the generations.”
History Surfacing
“Two centuries after a historic battle destroyed Napoleon’s hopes of crushing the British empire, the French emperor’s fleet has been discovered in the shallow water of a Mediterranean bay,” reports The Toronto Star. In 1798 during the Battle of the Nile, the flagship L’Orient and the ships La Seriuse and La Artemise were sunk by the British Navy, led by Admiral Horatio Nelson. French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio found the fleet in 40 feet [11 m] of water a mile [2 km] off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. “This is where the fate of Europe was decided,” commented Goddio.
Traveling Birds Shed Excess Baggage
The kidneys, liver, and other internal organs of some birds shrink prior to long migration, reports New Scientist. Bar-tailed godwits, gull-size wading birds that migrate between Alaska and New Zealand, gorge themselves before their nonstop 7,000-mile [11,000 km] flight. Researchers Theunis Piersma, of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and Robert Gill, of the U.S. Geological Survey, found that the birds compensate for the weight they gain by reducing the size of their food-processing organs by as much as 25 percent. States Gill: “They keep just enough so that, when they land again, they can process food and rebuild their internal organs.”
Infants and Honey Warning
Honey contains vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, reports Science News. Generally, the darker the honey, the more antioxidants it contains. However, the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter offers this word of caution: “Never give honey to children less than a year old.” Dormant Clostridium botulinum spores reside in approximately 10 percent of honey and can cause infant botulism. “The severity can range from mild illness to severe paralysis and sudden death, if not treated,” states the Wellness Letter. For older children, however, honey is considered to be safe.
Smoking to Be Thin
The “drive to be thin” is compelling teenage girls to smoke, reports The Globe and Mail newspaper of Canada. In a survey of 832 Canadian and 1,936 British girls aged 10 to 17, many “listed smoking as a substitute for eating” and as an activity that curbs the appetite. Many teenage girls said they believed that “if they gave up smoking they would eat more and gain more weight.” The Globe noted that “reports suggest teen-aged girls now account for the greatest increases in overall teen-age smoking and offer insight into the climbing rate of lung cancer among women.”
Threatened Job May Equal Threatened Health
Insecurity regarding the future of your job may damage your health, reports Science News. Of the 10,000 British civil servants taking part in a long-term health survey, a group of more than 600 men and women heard rumors over a period of four years that their department was going to be sold to the private sector. In the meantime, on the average, the health of those in this group declined when compared with that of other study participants whose jobs were not at risk. Those in the threatened group experienced an increase in blood cholesterol concentrations and a 40- to 60-percent higher incidence of ischemic heart disease. Science News notes: “These workers also proved far more likely to forgo exercise, gain weight, sleep more than 9 hours, and divorce or separate from a spouse.”
Canine Concentration
What does it take for a dog to be a good drug detector? Among other things, an outstanding sense of smell and “unswerving concentration,” explains New Scientist magazine. “A good detector must be capable of focusing on the task of searching for drugs, despite the circus of distractions in any airport or dockside,” notes the report. And while a routine check of mail can take hours, “the dogs stay so focused that not even . . . 0.5 grams of heroin . . . hidden in a bulging sack of letters escapes detection.” In 1993 a dog-breeding program was set up that has met with a high rate of success; more than 50 percent of the dogs have qualified for service as drug detectors with the Australian Customs Service. Over generations of dogs, the breeders sought other traits, such as a love of praise, a strong hunting instinct, stamina, and fearlessness.
Oldest Map With Numbered Distances
Chinese archaeologists have found a 2,300-year-old engraved copper plate that is actually a map having distances indicated with numerals, reports Agence France-Presse. The map, which shows a small part of what is now northern Hopeh Province, in northern China, uses a scale of approximately 1:500. It includes a drawing of the royal mausoleums belonging to King Wang Cuo, who lived in the fourth century B.C.E. Du Naisong, a researcher with China’s Forbidden City, stated: “It is not only the oldest map ever found in China but the oldest map noted with numerals in the world.”
Six Billion in 1999
The world’s population will pass six billion sometime this year, reports the French daily Le Monde. However, the pace of population growth is slowing. Annual growth is 30 percent less than it was in the ’60’s. This slowdown is partly due to increased use of contraceptives and to greater education of girls. According to the report, youths between 15 and 24 years of age now number over one billion, while there are more than 578 million people over 60.