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Watching the World

Think Young

◆ Japanese researchers believe they have evidence that the brains of many people actually shrink because they are not getting enough “exercise.” Using a computer scanning device, Professor Taiju Matsuzawa and his colleagues at Tohoku National University measured the brain volumes of a variety of people. They found that the sections of the brain where intellect and emotion lie begin to shrink earlier with people in certain occupations. For example, the brains of some workers such as farmers, bus drivers and white-collar workers with routine jobs were said to begin contracting as early as at 30 years of age. On the other hand, many lawyers, university professors and doctors seemed to retain full brain size into their 60’s and 70’s. No doubt this is also true of farmers and bus drivers who keep mentally active, for example, those who spend time in spiritual pursuits. The report by Robert Whymant of London’s Sunday Times observes: “Matsuzawa concluded from his tests that there is a simple remedy to the [brain] contraction normally associated with age: Using the head.”

Egypt’s Eleventh Plague?

◆ During the summer, millions of large, aggressive rats reportedly invaded Egypt, gobbling up crops and assaulting cattle, poultry and some humans. When the rats reached the suburbs of Cairo, one local Council meeting was told that rodents were “bothering adults, attacking children and chasing away cats.” In mid-July, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture declared a state of emergency in two Delta provinces where the rats were said to have destroyed 78,000 feddan (98,000 acres) of crops. Describing the scene, the Times of Zambia reported: “A new plague has hit Egypt which was never listed in the Old Testament of the Bible​—drunken rats.” The Times explained that the rats, which had destroyed thousands of hectares of wheat and vegetables, had gone on to get “drunk on sugarcane juice in the Nile delta region.”

Dauntless Gamblers

◆ Even as an extortioners’ bomb wrecked Harvey’s Resort Hotel-Casino in Nevada, reports an Associated Press dispatch, “operations at all the casinos near Harvey’s continued.” A reporter at Caesars Palace said “players at the one-armed bandits [slot machines] did pause for an instant at the moment of the blast to exclaim things like, ‘Oh, Wow!’ before giving their money away again.” Gambling fever held their attention despite the force of the explosion, which tore off great pieces of the large building and hurled debris for blocks. The extortionists had demanded $3 million to stop the bomb.

Curing Mental Illness

◆ A seven-year study by the World Health Organization has revealed that the cure rate for severe mental illness is much higher in less-developed countries than in industrialized nations. According to Science 80 magazine, 58 percent of Nigerian patients in the study and 51 percent of Indian patients “had but a single psychotic episode, then were judged cured.” On the other hand, said the report, “in the more technologically advanced countries, the prognosis was far worse: The proportion of patients who recovered after one episode ranged from only six percent in Denmark to 27 percent in China.” Science 80 also noted that, while “a relatively fast and complete recovery from major psychoses” was likely in developing nations, “in the United States and other industrialized countries, nearly half who suffer psychotic breakdowns never recover.”

Sun Powers Flight

◆ On August 7, an aircraft piloted by Janice Brown, 31, stayed aloft entirely by sun power for 14 minutes and 21 seconds except for one touchdown. Said to be the world’s first solar-powered aircraft, the 68-pound (31-kg) “Gossamer Penguin” flew a few feet above the ground for 2.1 miles (3.4 km) in California. Its design is similar to that of a pedal-powered version that crossed the English Channel last year.

Natural Cure

◆ A bolt of lightning reportedly cured most of 62-year-old Edwin Robinson’s health problems. The Maine truck driver had been blind and partly deafened after a traffic accident in 1971. Then the bolt struck last summer, and Robinson was knocked out for about 20 minutes. “When he regained consciousness, he could see and hear well again,” reports the New York Times. “A month later he reported that hair was starting to grow on his once bald head.” Now he says: “It’s coming in thick​—my wife is all excited about it. I was bald for 35 years. They told me it was hereditary.” His hearing aid was “all burned out,” he said, but now “I can hear like a kid.” As for his eyes, Albert Moulton, his ophthalmologist, said: “I can’t explain it. I just don’t know why he can see again. All I know is that he was blind and now he isn’t.” Robinson also claims that his case of varicose veins has cleared up since the curative bolt from the sky.

Lizard God Disturbed?

◆ After much controversy, a petroleum company recently began drilling for oil in a remote area of Western Australia. But aborigines of the local Yungnara tribe went to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva to protest the project as a desecration of the sacred site of their lizard god Goanna. They believe that the drilling disturbs the spirit of the Great Goanna, who retaliates by influencing the local six-foot (1.8-m) monitor lizards not to mate. The worried Yungnaras count on the monitors as a major food source.

Tried Trading Baby for Car

◆ A New Jersey couple recently were arrested as they prepared to trade their child for an $8,800 used sports car. “They had the keys and the papers for the car and we were putting the license plates on,” said the auto dealer. “They left the baby in the showroom on the floor.” The dealer had gone to the police when the couple approached him earlier about the transaction, and troopers closed in as it was being consummated. “My first impression was to swap the car for the kid,” related the salesman. He had lost members of his own family in a fire. But he thought about the baby’s future: “How could this boy cope with life knowing he was traded for a car?”

Official Witch Doctors

◆ Zimbabwe’s 8,000 ngangas (witch doctors) are now to be officially a part of the National Health Service. The nations’s new Health Minister, Herbert Ushewokunze, declared: “We will set up centres for them from which to practice.” Dr. Ushewokunze organized the National Traditional Healers’ Association, and has observed that “African medicine is part and parcel of our culture. . . . Our whole culture background is strongly linked to the spirit mediums.” The witch doctors are being employed in an effort to deal with health problems in war-shattered rural areas where few medical doctors are available.

Fearful Elephant

◆ What is an elephant afraid of? One fable has them afraid of mice. But it was quite a different story in the case of Dali, a 14-year-old African elephant at Scotland’s Edinburgh Zoo. She refused to leave her indoor pen for four years, though all kinds of attempts were made to induce her to come outside for fresh air and exercise. But then an old Indian elephant, Sally, in the next pen, died. Within a month, Dali began to come out into her yard. “She was actually afraid of the other elephant,” said zoo director Roger Wheater. “The only idiosyncrasy that she has now is that she goes outside backwards.”

World Wage Comparison

◆ According to U.S. News & World Report, workers in the United States labor for bargain rates when compared with those in some European nations. If fringe benefits are included with pay, the average hourly labor cost in America in 1979 was $9.71. But in Switzerland, it was $11.77; in the Federal Republic of Germany, $12.06; in Sweden, $12.23; and in Belgium, $12.29​—the highest. Two major industrial nations’ workers that had lower hourly pay and benefits were Japan, at $6.74, and Britain, at $5.83.

Child Sacrifice

◆ Religious superstition and ignorance may have resulted in the human sacrifice of two Indian children. Reporting on statements by the Leader of the House in India’s Tamil Nadu State Assembly, The Hindu of India noted that he “described the incident as shameful,” and “said that the alleged human sacrifice was to get divine blessings for begetting a child.” And another member of the Assembly “alleged that it was a planned act done with the help of magicians.” The headmaster and a teacher at the local primary school were arrested for the crime.

$625,000 Plant Pot

◆ An English widow recently was shocked to learn that a small oriental jar she had used outside as a plant holder was actually worth a fortune. An art expert called in to advise a picture noticed the small bowl and identified it as a 15th-century Imperial Ming. The widow’s husband had been given the jar when visiting the Orient years ago. It sold at auction for £265,000 (about $625,000, U.S.).

Fat/​Breast-Cancer Link?

◆ The number of breast-cancer deaths “increases proportionally to the amount of fat consumed,” according to a Canadian Press report of remarks by Dr. Kenneth K. Carroll, professor of biochemistry at the University of western Ontario. Studies of women who moved to Canada and the United States from Japan and Poland, lands with low cancer death rates, showed a dramatic rise in incidence of breast cancer after they came to North America. The higher fat consumption in North America is felt to be the cause of the change. Carroll, reputed to be a top researcher in the field, claims that breast-cancer deaths could be cut in half if fat consumption were also reduced by 50 percent.

Air Safety

◆ The safety record of 18 domestic airlines in the United States and 40 U.S. and foreign international carriers shows that the risk of a fatal air accident has decreased by more than half in the last two decades, says Scientific American. Among domestic airlines, the odds of a passenger’s being killed improved from one in 988,000 in 1957 to one in 2,599,000 in 1976. The international carrier record is not as good, though it also improved, from one in 163,000 in 1960 to one in 340,000 in 1975.

Hippie Ban

◆ Thailand recently circulated its definition of hippies to airlines and immigration officials. Those meeting the definition are to be barred from the country, according to Africa’s To The Point. The official hippie description includes: “Wears a short-sleeved vest (no bra for the females) and dirty shorts. Wears baggy pants (Chinese style as an alternative to the dirty shorts). Is untidy and has a strong aroma of stale biscuits.” To The Point notes that “such laws have failed in other Asian countries [Singapore, Malaysia and Maldive Islands] . . . because the canny hippies resort to wearing jacket and tie when flying into countries which do not welcome them.”

Pollution Conquered

◆ England’s once-dead Thames River is coming alive again as the pollution that once strangled it dissipates. “But the absence of pollution also has encouraged less attractive forms of life,” says London’s Daily Mail. It seems that mussels, barnacles and other small water life are clogging the intakes and other pipes of industrial plants that use river water. Underwater wood-boring creature have gone to work on wharves and other wooden construction. And the water’s growing oxygen supply makes metal structures vulnerable to rust. The successful Thames cleanup “is an inspiration to conservationists all over the world,” says a zoologist at London’s Natural History Museum. “But when you make life possible again, you have to accept the destructive organisms along with the good.”