Watching the World

Friendly Children Are More Popular

“Having designer jeans and cutting-edge gadgets is no guarantee for popularity. In a peer group, it is much less a child’s social status that counts and much more his friendliness,” says the German magazine Psychologie Heute. Judith Schrenk and Christine Gürtler, psychologists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, in Berlin, surveyed 234 children in the third and fifth grades from ten different elementary schools. They found that the children who wanted to get along better with others and who were friendly and open were more influential. Children who hit others or who laughed at them had less influence on their peers. “Even being good looking or having lots of pocket money counts little with schoolmates,” says the report.

 Powerful Parsley

Often used as just a garnish, parsley is a rich source of vitamins and minerals, says Australia’s Sunday Telegraph. “A cup of parsley contains more beta carotene (Vitamin A) than a large carrot, has nearly twice the Vitamin C of an orange, and contains more calcium than a cup of milk. It also has more iron than liver, gram for gram, and is a good source of vitamins B1 and B2.” On the medicinal side, “parsley is a powerful diuretic, which means it helps the body get rid of excess fluids,” says the paper. It can also help with certain liver, spleen, stomach, and urinary complaints. When eaten fresh, “it is one of the best breath fresheners around, let alone the cheapest.” However, the article cautions that “in some conditions, such as pregnancy, . . . its oestrogenic [estrogenic] components can make it dangerous.”

Business Cards​—Going out of Business?

“With the wave of kidnappings in Brazil, it is safer for executives not to go around with cards that reveal their job title and prestige,” says security consultant Carl Paladini, as reported in the Brazilian business journal Exame. To criminals, such personal information is a tip-off concerning one’s financial worth. Vagner D’Angelo, a director for Kroll, a large security firm, goes so far as to say that “the contents of your wallet can ruin your life.” He advises business people in high-risk countries to remove all references to titles and status from their cards and to “dispense with the sophisticated paper [and] embossed details” on their cards. Fearing that criminals will soon wake up to this tactic as well, some executives have done away with business cards altogether.

AIDS Epidemic in the Caribbean

Next to Africa, the Caribbean has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world, reports the international edition of The Miami Herald. “Some estimates say 2.4 percent of the Caribbean’s adult population is infected with [HIV],” and up to 12 percent is infected in some urban areas. “The epidemic’s full extent is obscured by fear, denial, limited treatment and a lack of public health resources,” says the Herald. “Some 40,000 adults and children in the Caribbean are believed to have died of the disease in 2001 alone.” Patricio Marquez, a health specialist for the Caribbean and Latin America at the World Bank, says that the AIDS threat “is affecting the most productive population in the most productive age group . . . There is the risk that an entire generation could be wiped out.” Hardest hit is Haiti, with an infection rate of over 6 percent. “Health experts and political leaders warn of the potential for devastation in a region of small . . . countries that depend on a limited pool of labor and resources, as well as tourism,” says the paper.

Dazzling Under UV Light

Many scientists have long believed that the brilliant colors of some birds help them to attract a mate. Biologists at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, have found that the feathers of one species reflect ultraviolet light. “Using a penlike sensing device called a spectrometer,” says Canadian Geographic magazine, “the researchers have revealed the unseen truth about the drab feathers of black-capped chickadees.” The spectrometer revealed that “male chickadees are visually dazzling compared to females, with brighter whites and greater contrast. The caps and bibs of the most sexually successful males reflect more ultraviolet​—a colour invisible to humans.” This finding supports existing evidence that birds “see more colour and with greater acuity than humans can,” says Canadian Geographic.

The Solar System’s Record-Breaking Eruption

Jupiter’s moon Io experienced “the most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded in the solar system,” reports Science News. “The enormous tidal forces exerted by Jupiter’s gravity relentlessly flex Io and heat it up, making it volcanically active. The moon may experience a dozen or so massive eruptions each year.” According to the article, “material from the record-breaking eruption appears to cover 1,900 square kilometers [730 square miles], an area about a thousand times the dominion of Italy’s Mount Etna, one of Earth’s most active volcanoes.” Scientists spotted the eruption using Keck II, a powerful telescope situated on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, itself an extinct volcano. Keck II was able to pick up the eruption thanks to its adaptive optics, which “flex fast enough to compensate for the blurring caused by turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere,” says Science News.

How a Child’s Death Affects Parents

“Dying of a broken heart can be more than just a figure of speech,” states The Times of London. Researchers at Denmark’s University of Århus “followed the lives of 21,062 parents in Denmark who had lost a child below the age of 18 to illness, accident, murder or suicide.” They compared these parents with 300,000 others who had not lost a child. “In the first three years after a child’s death, the chances of a mother dying of unnatural causes​—usually accident or suicide—​were nearly four times greater, while a father’s risk increased by 57 per cent.” The researchers suggest that increased stress may be the main reason for the higher death rate.