Watching the World

The Value of Potted Plants

“Thousands of pupils would achieve higher marks if potted plants were scattered around their schools,” say researchers, as reported in The Times of London. Professor Derek Clements-Croome of Reading University found that carbon dioxide levels in some overcrowded and poorly ventilated classrooms exceeded the recommended amount by more than 500 percent, thus damaging the children’s concentration and retarding their progress. Calling the condition sick classroom syndrome, he says that the average density of children in classrooms is five times that of workers in office buildings, where “sick building syndrome” is known to affect the workers and their performance. What plants could be used to improve room air quality? One study in the United States named spider plants as the most effective. Dragon trees, ivy, rubber plants, peace lilies, and yuccas are also very good at eliminating air pollutants. The houseplants reduce the levels of carbon dioxide by converting it into oxygen.

 “Lost” Generation

“Young Americans are woefully clueless,” states New York’s Daily News. Using a world map, “11% can’t locate America. And when faced with an unlabeled map of the U.S., half have no idea where New York is.” As to finding other nations in the news, only 13 percent could locate Iraq or Iran, and only 17 percent could find Afghanistan. In fact only 71 percent of 18- to 24-year-old Americans could correctly locate the world’s largest body of water​—the Pacific Ocean. The National Geographic Society’s 56-question quiz was given to 3,250 young people in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States. While no nation scored an “A,” which required an average of 42 correct answers, Sweden came closest with 40, followed by Germany and Italy with 38. Americans came in next to last, averaging 23 right answers, just before Mexico with 21. “If our young people can’t find places on a map and lack awareness of current events, how can they understand the world’s cultural, economic and natural resource issues that confront us?” asked John Fahey, the National Geographic Society’s president.

After 40​—Reaping What You Have Sown

“The life choices a person has made and the environment they have experienced begin to kick in at the age of 40, when signs of ageing accelerate.” This was the gist of a report from a health conference, by The Daily Telegraph of Sydney, Australia. According to Rocco Di Vincenzo, chief dietitian at the Swinburne Hospital in Victoria, “‘faulty genes’ or things in the body going wrong” may not be as important in determining a person’s health after 40 as are the choices that were made. “We now know that health after the age of 40 is a consequence of the interaction of genetic inheritance factors and environmental modifiers,” said Di Vincenzo. “According to the National Institute on Ageing, 80 per cent of older health problems are not due to ageing at all. They’re due to improper care of the body over a lifetime, and after the age of 40, that improper care begins to catch up with a person.”

Children Easily Hooked on Nicotine

“Children can become hooked on tobacco within days of starting to smoke and might even be addicted from the first cigarette,” concludes a study noted in London’s newspaper The Guardian. “Among 332 young people who had ever tried tobacco, even just a puff, 40% reported signs of addiction. Among the 237 who had inhaled, 53% reported signs of addiction.” The 30-month study, led by Dr. Joseph DiFranza of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States, monitored nearly 700 students, who were aged 12 and 13 at the start of the study. “Before the study, it was assumed that it took two years for kids to get hooked on tobacco​—that they would have to smoke it every day, at least a half a pack per day,” said DiFranza. “Some of these kids were hooked within a few days of starting to smoke. . . . [I] suspect that addiction to nicotine begins, in many cases, with the first cigarette.” DiFranza believes that teenagers are more vulnerable to addiction because their brains are still developing. “I’d like to see the message get out to kids that you can’t experiment with tobacco. There’s no way of smoking safely,” said DiFranza. “We need to convince kids that trying even one cigarette can lead to a lifelong addiction.”

New Light on “Out-of-Body” Experiences

Swiss neurologists, using electrodes to pinpoint the origin of a woman’s epileptic seizures, accidentally triggered so-called out-of-body experiences in the patient, states the German science news service Bild der Wissenschaft-Online. Each time the angular gyrus of the right cortex of the brain was stimulated, the woman reported the sensation of leaving her body and watching it from above. That area of the brain seems to match visual awareness of the body with sensory information on where the body is located. “The stimulation by electrodes disrupted this interaction in the patient, for which reason her sense of perception seemingly detached itself from her body,” says Bild der Wissenschaft. Out-of-body experiences “have time and again nurtured speculations about a soul that is independent of the body.”

Rosary Renovation

“For 500 years, devout Roman Catholics have recited the rosary, a mantralike series of Our Fathers and Hail Marys designed to stimulate meditation on 15 key events or ‘mysteries’ in the lives of Jesus and his mother,” reports Newsweek. “Last [October] Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter adding a fourth cycle to the rosary,” based on Jesus’ ministry from his baptism to the Last Supper. “The pope’s aim is to revive interest in his ‘favorite’ form of prayer, which has declined in popularity since Vatican Council II,” the magazine adds. “The main effect of the pope’s action is to give this uniquely Catholic devotion a stronger emphasis on Christ in relation to Mary, the figure most identified with the rosary.” It is hoped that this will encourage the habit of meditation among Catholics at a time, the pope noted, “when Christianity is being influenced by the meditative traditions of Eastern religions.”

Expectations Too High

“Most marriages in Germany fail because of excessive expectations,” reports the newspaper Die Welt. According to Professor Wassilios Fthenakis, who researches family life, “people look for intimacy and want to find a maximum of happiness in their relationship.” He noted, however, that it is unrealistic to expect such feelings of euphoria to last for decades. The current emphasis on personal happiness and self-realization has made couples less willing to compromise and work together through difficult times. Said another family expert: “Once the fun is over, people today make less of an effort to talk things out and save the relationship.” On average, marriages in Germany now last just over 12 years.