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THIS PUTS THE WORLD INTO A PERSPECTIVE MORE EASILY UNDERSTOOD.
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be:
57 Asians; 21 Europeans; 14 from the north & south Western Hemisphere; 8 Africans
52 would be female, 48 would be male
70 would be non-white, 30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The following is also something to ponder.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.
If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
DNA Discovery Anniversary 4/23/03
Today marked the fiftieth anniversary of Watson and Crick's epic discovery of the structure of the DNA. They found out that DNA was shaped in a double helix (like a double spiral), and it has impacted everything from determining if a suspect is guilty to paving the way fo biotechnology and genetic engineering.
The anniversary was celebrated with a banquet in London's Guildhall and a conference in Cambridge.
SARS Virus Outbreak 4/3/03
As many of you already know, a new virus called SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) has appeared around the world. Over 1,700 people in 20 different countries have been infected and 78 people have died. Asia has been hit the hardest, with China having the most recorded infections and deaths. Several high-tech firms based in Hong Kong have closed their offices in fear of contamination. The virus has been identified as the human metapneumovirus, which has been known to cause mild respiratory ailments for quite a while. But the severity of SARS is very puzzling.
So what are the symptoms? The first sign is usually a fever of over 100.4 degrees Farenheit. Other early symptoms include headache, general discomfort, and body aches. After a while, the victims of the virus may have a dry, nonproductive cough (occurs around 10-20% of cases).
SARS can be transmitted through droplets; for instance, an infected person sneezes and another breathes the droplets in. How long an infected person is contagious is still unclear.
Treatment is basically the same as a patient with pneumonia.
Dog Show Champion Stripped of Title 3/31/03
The champion of the world's biggest dog show may be stripped of his crown due to an alleged face lift. Three year old Danny, a Pekingese, beat out 20,000 other contestants in the Crufts dog show earlier this month. Dreams were crushed in this fierce, dog-eat-dog competition (hee, hee). The owners of Danny insist that the allegations are false and just a result of the jealousy of their fellow dog owners.
War in Iraq May Be Part of an Even Bigger Problem (based on story in Newsweek; March 24, 2003)
America is the undisputed superpower in today's modern world; it has spent more money on defense than the rest of the world put together, it's economy is as large as the next three largest in the world (Japan, Germany, and Britain), and although it contains only five percent of the world's population, American accounts for 43% of the world's production, 40% of the world's high-tech production, and 50% of the world's research and development.
If you observe all the previous superpowers in the history of the world, you will notice a pattern - because of their superior military and economy, they arouse suspicion and fear in other countries and eventually fall because the other countries bond together against the superpower. Most Americans would probably insist that we're "different" - that we have not tried to occupy other nations and that we're the good guys - but the reality of it is, all the previous superpowers thought they were different as well. When they became more powerful, the world saw them in a different light.
Well, why hasn't America fallen yet? Our supremacy isn't breaking news - by 1900, we were already the richest country in the world. The reason is that in 1945, when America was above the rest of the world, FDR chose not to conquer, but to create international institutions and to give foreign aid. He chose to ally with much poorer coutries and praise to countries that were definitly not our equals. This tradition was held, and the world was a rich, secure, mostly pro-American world, until...
President George W. Bush came into office without much regard for foreign policy. His attitude seems to be arrogant - he withdrew from many international treaties, his administration abandoned many of Clinton's diplomatic efforts, etc. And after 9-11, the American response was swift and relentless, and the world saw how powerful America really is. Now, we are at war with Iraq, and America has ignored the UN and done as it has pleased. Old alliances from the cold war are failing, and support for America has dropped. In many European countries, 30% or less of the people do not agree with a war with Iraq. These countries include Spain and Britain - whose governments are supporting the U.S.
War in Iraq Begins 3/19/03
The war in Iraq has now officially started. On the dawn of March 20, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq, U.S. Tomahawk cruise missles and prescision-guided bombs were dropped from F-117 Nighthawks (a fighter-bomber plane). President Bush says they were aimed at "targets of military importance" and "leadership targets." American military advisors had not originally planned to begin the assault today, but new intelligence caused a change in the plan. Bush also addressed the world about the strike later that night, trying to make it clear that the U.S. has "no ambition in iraq except to remove a threat..."
Dolly the Sheep Dies 2/16/03
February 14th, 2003 - Dolly the sheep - the world's first cloned mammal - died at the age of six. She was given a lethal injection and put to sleep because scientists discovered that she developed a lung infection. Debate has arisen whether this problem was a result of the technology used to clone her since normal sheep usually live twice as long.
The Columbia Shuttle Tragedy 2/2/03
On the morning of February 1st, seven brave astronauts, the crew of the shuttle Columbia, were returning to earth after a sixteen-day mission when the shuttle disintegrated 200,000 feet above the earth and the crew was killed.
They were returning from a successful mission to perform more than eighty science experiments involving the effects of weightlessness on the human body and animals. Several of the experiments were submitted by high school students, but all the precious information gathered was lost. So what was the cause of the problem? Experts are still unsure, but many people attribute it to a flaw in the launch - some foam insulation from the external fuel tank broke loose and struck the left wing of the shuttle and may have loosened some of the heat-resisting tiles that protect the shuttle from the 3,000 degree temperature of re-entry.
When a shuttle blasts off and orbits the earth, it stores a lot of kinetic energy (or energy gained from movement), so when a shuttle is about to re-enter the atmosphere, it must slow down. Before the shuttle enters the atmosphere, it turns backwards and upside-down and fires its rockets to brake the initial descent - this is called a "de-orbit burn." As the shuttle flies into the atmosphere, the speed is exchanged for heat, and the pilot must keep the shuttle at the right angle of attack to make sure it won't burn up.
The Columbia completed its de-orbit burn right on schedule at 8:15 a.m., ET about 175 miles above the Indian Ocean. At 8:44 a.m., the shuttle began to enter the atmosphere in a position with the nose up so the tiles on the belly of the shuttle could protect it from the heat. Everything seemed fine until 8:53, when a sensor that measured the temperature on the left wing stopped working. But this often happens and Mission Control was not alarmed and did not tell the crew. At 8:56, the heat sensors in the left main tire well showed an increase in temperature. More sensors on the left side of the shuttle malfunctioned a couple minutes later, and at 8:59, the tire-pressure and temperature gauges stopped working. Now, Mission Control began talking about the problem with the crew, and at 9:00, they lost communication. Mission Control began to get nervous - loss of communication is common, but too many other things were acting strangely.
About 200,000 feet above Texas, the Columbia had already burst apart, and the crew was already dead. Thankfully, explosion may have caused a swift and painless death for our heroes.
The debris from the shuttle was spread through at least three states - Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The twisted metal steamed with toxic propellants, but no injuries or deaths by falling debris were reported.
The first thought of the cause of the tragedy was terrorism, but security had been very tight on this mission because the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, was a member of the crew. Also, there was little chance that terrorists could destroy a shuttle 40 miles in the air. Next, the flaw in the launch was pointed out - the insulation was soft and during the launch it was ignored, but
Now experts think it may have weakened the tiles in the left wing somehow. But NASA couldn't do anything about it even if the tiles were damaged. Space-walking astronauts couldn't walk out and patch missing or damaged tiles, and NASA officials say that the Columbia did not have the proper equipment to dock with the space station and wait for a rescue shuttle. All shuttles have been grounded until experts are sure of the real problem. NASA is hoping that this is a one-time event and not caused by a problem in the shuttles' structure.
In the meantime, we mourn the loss of seven brave heroes who knew of the dangers involved and yet were willing to risk their lives for the sake of science.
The Situation in North Korea 1/25/03
O.K., so basically what's going on in North Korea is this - In 1993, they refused to allow nuclear weapons inspectors enter their facilities according to a treaty they signed before. President Clinton got former President Carter to talk them into eventually allowing the inspectors do their job in exchange for two light-water nuclear reactors. Now, the reactors are half-built, and according to the agreement that Clinton made with Pyongyang (the capital of North Korea, for those of you who are ignoramuses in geography), North Korea is supposed to let the inspectors in. But once again, the North Koreans have refused and President Bush is unsure of what to do next.
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