Watching the World

Zipped Wounds

Closing wounds with a medical zipper works better than conventional stitching, reports the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “A surgical bandage with a zipper is adhesive, just like a normal plaster. The bandage, with its rows of teeth, is stuck to each side of the wound and is then closed like the zip fastener on an item of clothing.” A study conducted at the University Clinic of Göttingen, Germany, compared two groups of patients who had skin tumors surgically removed. Both groups had the tissue beneath the skin stitched in the normal manner. But the uppermost skin layers of one group were closed with medical zippers, while the other group’s wounds were closed with conventional stitches. The wounds with zippers left significantly thinner scars and developed unsightly “ladder” scars less frequently.

 Ants That Make Weed Killer

“Some ants that raise fungus for food also make a weed-killer to get rid of a parasite,” reports Bloomberg news service. Attine ants cannot digest the leaves and detritus they bring into their nest. The rotting vegetation they gather is stored in chambers and used to grow fungus gardens. However, the fungus the ants harvest is attacked by a microparasite, which can reduce or destroy their food supply. In order to protect the fungus, the ants culture a bacteria on their bodies. “When the unwanted fungus [parasite] appears, attine ants rub parts of their body against it, depositing the weed-killer,” says the report.

Church Attendance in Canada Continues to Decline

“In Canada, secularism is triumphant,” said French Canadian writer Yann Martel in an interview with Publishers Weekly. Moreover, a report in The New York Times says that in Montreal “church attendance is plummeting so fast that at least 18 churches in the last three years have been boarded up and abandoned or converted into condominiums and, in one case, even a pizza parlor.” According to Marguerite Van Die, a theology professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, “this is a society where religion no longer wields cultural authority.”

Venezuelan Lightning Helps Ozone Layer

Although 90 percent of the ozone surrounding the earth is formed by ultraviolet radiation from the sun, the other 10 percent is created by electrical storms. And electrical storms abound in the swamps of the Catatumbo National Park, Zulia State, Venezuela. The Daily Journal of Caracas reports that there are “140 to 160 days of electrical storms” per year over the Catatumbo River delta region. It is thought that methane, a by-product of decomposing vegetation and other matter from the surrounding lagoons and marshes, combines with low clouds and bad weather to trigger the lightning. Another interesting feature of the Catatumbo lightning is that it is so far away that no thunder is heard. It is “a natural phenomenon found nowhere else in the world,” says Lost World Adventures Web site.

The Most Expensive Cities

Tokyo, Moscow, and Osaka are the most expensive cities in the world. That is the conclusion of a study conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. The survey, which covers 144 cities, took into account the comparative cost of more than 200 products and services, including housing, clothing, transportation, entertainment, furniture, and household equipment. Half of the 20 most expensive cities are in Asia. Geneva, London, and Zurich appear among the most expensive cities in Europe, after Moscow. New York appears as the tenth most expensive city, while no Canadian city is ranked among the first 100. As to the cheapest cities, Asunción in Paraguay tops the list.

Disappearing Languages

“The number of ‘living’ languages spoken in the world is dwindling faster than the decline in the planet’s wildlife,” reports a study cited in The Independent of London. Linguists estimate that worldwide, 6,809 languages are spoken, 90 percent of them by fewer than 100,000 people. Languages with fewer than 50 speakers number 357, while 46 are known to have just one native speaker. Colonization has caused the disappearance of 52 of the 176 languages of North American tribes, and 31 of the 235 Aboriginal languages of Australia. Professor Bill Sutherland of the University of East Anglia, England, said that when threats to languages were compared in the same way as threats to animals, a substantially higher proportion of languages could be classified as “critically endangered,” “endangered,” or “vulnerable.” He adds: “The threats to birds and mammals are well known but it turns out that languages are far more threatened.”

Cause of the Common Cold

“Catch a chill and you’ll catch a cold,” goes the saying. However, “for more than a century, scientists have invested an extraordinary amount of time and energy in debunking this old saw,” reports The New York Times. “But despite their efforts, the link between colds and the weather still lingers and continues to inspire yet more research.” Beginning with Louis Pasteur, in 1878, thousands of experiments have been conducted to determine what part, if any, chilling the body has on catching a cold. Not surprisingly, researchers are still not certain of the answer. Dr. Jack Gwaltney, Jr., one of the world’s leading experts on the common cold, suggests that it is humidity rather than temperature that promotes colds. The bottom line is that “the common cold is a complex entity​—not a single disease at all, but many similar ones, and that all of them cycle in response to the weather in ways that are still not understood,” says the Times.

Psychological Problems in the Workplace

“The causes of disability in the workplace are shifting dramatically from physical to psychological,” says the Globe and Mail newspaper of Canada. More than 180 Canadian companies participated in a survey of disability management practices. Results showed that “79 per cent of respondents ranked psychological conditions as the leading cause of short-term disabilities and 73 per cent said those illnesses were the No. 1 cause of long-term disabilities.” Some reasons suggested for the rise in workplace stress, anxiety, and depression include an older work force that finds it more difficult to keep up, heavier work loads, and modern technology that keeps employees connected to their work, resulting in a “never-ending workday.” According to Dr. Richard Earle, of Toronto’s Canadian Institute of Stress, employers can help “by educating managers on how to identify and deal with psychological illnesses and by providing employer-assistance programs and other services.”