Tobacco

by Claire Powell and Dave Collett 

What’s in a cigarette? What’s in a puff?

Tobacco smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals. Some of which are harmful, others deadly. Here are three of the deadliest.

Tar

Tar, a mixture of chemicals such as formaldehyde, arsenic and cyanide, can cause serious lung diseases. Seventy percent of the tar from tobacco smoke remains in the smoker’s lungs.

Nicotine

Many people are unaware that nicotine is more addictive than heroine. A powerful and fast-acting drug, nicotine reaches the brain in about seven seconds. One of the major effects of nicotine is an increased heart rate and blood pressure.

Carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas formed when a cigarette is lit. The red blood cells absorb the gas more easily than oxygen, so up to fifteen percent of a smoker’s blood may be carrying carbon monoxide instead of oxygen. Breathing becomes more difficult because the heart has to work harder to pump less oxygen around the body.

From seed to smoke

What do tomatoes and tobacco have in common? They are both a member of the same botanical family. Tobacco is grown in more than one hundred countries with China being the largest producer, closely followed by the USA. Tobacco can grow well in poorer soils so a typical farmer can expect a good income from planting this crop.

Seeds and fertiliser are often provided by British American Tobacco. The seeds are so small that they must be protected in seedbeds for sixty days before transplanting to the field. Two weeks later, soil is carefully pushed up against the seedlings to further protect them and help to develop a good root system. Finally, after a couple of months, the flowering plants and some of the upper leaves are cut to allow more growth in the remaining leaves. The crop gradually grows towards the harvesting stage.

Harvest

In most countries harvesting is done by hand. The farmer takes off a few leaves from the lower part of each plant. A typical farmer can expect to harvest about 15,000 plants. This is quite a lot considering each plant contains around 22 leaves.

Curing

There are four main methods.

Air-cured tobacco is hung in unheated, ventilated barns until the tobacco dries and the tobacco leaf becomes a light to medium brown colour.

Flue-cured tobacco is made when heat is introduced into a barn through pipes from a furnace outside. The leaves are heated until they turn yellow.

Sun-cured tobacco leaves are hung out on racks and exposed to the sun’s rays. The direct heat turns the leaves a yellow to orange colour.

For fire curing, wood is burnt under the tobacco leaves, which dries the tobacco and produces a smoky fragrance.

Processing

There are four stages in processing. Dirt is removed from the cured tobacco. The leaf is separated from the stem (a process known as threshing). The moisture content is checked carefully. The processed tobacco is packed into 200kg cardboard boxes, for shipping to manufacturing sites.

Manufacturing

At the factory, the matured tobacco is checked for quality and then carefully blended with other ingredients which are needed for the brand recipe, such as flavourings.

Moisture content is crucial. Too dry and the tobacco leaf will crumble; too moist and it may spoil during storage. The blended tobacco is treated with just the right amount of steam and water to make it supple, and then cut into the form in which it appears in the cigarette. The cut tobacco is then given a quality check.

Cigarette making, once done entirely by hand, is today almost fully automated with the cut tobacco, cigarette paper and filters continuously fed into the cigarette-making machines.

Packing machines put the cigarettes into the familiar brand packs, wrap the packs in protective film and group them into cartons and cases. The completed cases, time-dated to ensure the freshest product possible, are then ready for distribution.

Glossary

addictive (adj): unable to stop doing something that can be dangerous.

arsenic (n): a very strong poison that can kill people.

automated (adj): from the verb automate - to make a process in a factory or office operate by machines or computers, in order to reduce the amount of work done by humans and the time taken to do the work.

brand (n): a type of product made by a particular company.

crumble (v): to break, or cause something to break, into small pieces.

spoil (v): when something spoils or is spoilt, it is no longer good enough to use.

cure (v): to treat food, tobacco, etc. with smoke or salt, etc. in order to stop it decaying, to preserve food.

cyanide (n): a highly poisonous substance.

deadly (adj): very dangerous.

fertiliser (n): a natural or chemical substance used to make plants grow.

film (n): a thin layer of plastic to cover and protect an object.

formaldehyde (n): a strong smelling gas used for preservation.

fragrance (n): a smell.

stem (n): the stick-like central part of a plant which grows above the ground and from which leaves and flowers grow, or a smaller thin part which grows from the central part and which supports the leaves and flowers.

furnace (n): a piece of equipment for heating a building.

income (n): the money you receive from doing work.

puff (n): an amount of smoke inhaled each time a smoker puts a cigarette to his/her mouth.

seedling (n): a young plant grown from a seed.

supple (adj): bending or able to be bent easily; not stiff.

ventilated (adj): from the verb to ventilate, provide air to cause fresh air to enter and move around an enclosed space.

 

Food

Do we live to eat or eat to live? That is the question.

I remember as a child growing up in Britain having fish and chips or baked beans on toast at least twice a week on my lap while watching my favourite cartoon. Of course I enjoyed my food but it wasn’t something I often talked about. Now, I’m not blaming my culture for my lack of interest in food at an early age. Perhaps my silence was due to the fact that I didn’t know anything about food. How many children know that prawns only turn pink when they are cooked and that tuna does not come from a can? Now after having lived in Southern Europe, Asia and Australia I find myself talking about food all the time. The world has seduced my taste buds and opened my mouth.

Food that’s plain and simple is often the best but not always so. For many of us food is a need. For others, food is a friend. Yet to some others food is an enemy. Cravings grip us at all the wrong times while we struggle to follow a strict diet that turned all our favourite desserts into mortal sins. There are others who regard food as an investment. To them, food has some kind of special powers that can control their lives, for better or for worse. If that’s the case, it’s time to change and make food work for us.

Let’s start by using food the way you would use a pencil or a pair of scissors. We begin using food as a tool. Like tools, some food works well for some tasks and some is specially designed to accomplish others.

Let’s say you’re feeling down. You had a tough day or a tiff with a best friend that drove you round the bend. You decide to treat yourself to a bar of chocolate –nothing like chocolate to perk you up. Unfortunately you’re setting yourself up for a higher dose of the blues. That’s because chocolate bars have a hefty amount of fat and sugar – which takes a long time to digest and can draw energy away from your brain – and caffeine which will temporarily boost your mood and alertness but send you crashing back down as soon as its effect starts to wear off.

Does this mean snacking is a bad idea when you’re feeling down? Not at all. You just have to do it wisely. In place of a chocolate bar, have a slice of toast with chunky marmalade. Then instead of fat and caffeine you’ve just given yourself a dose of vitamin C that has been shown to fight depression. In addition, marmalade is loaded with the type of sugar that spurs the release of mood-lifting chemicals in the brain.

In fact you can manage your mood and boost your brainpower, metabolism, even your sex life, by eating the right food. Whatever your goals, you can custom-design a diet to help you meet them. Here’s how taking control of your food can help you take control of your life.

The next time you have an important meeting that requires mental processing, try some brain processing food that looks like this: tuna salad on whole wheat bread, green salad with tomatoes, a handful of nuts, bananas, a glass of skimmed milk. Tuna, bananas, nuts and whole wheat bread

are high in vitamin B6, which has been scientifically proven to help preserve cognitive skills. Protein-rich food contains a nutrient called Tyrosine, which studies have shown, are linked to clear thinking and alertness. Greens such as broccoli and spinach naturally contain loads of vitamins and iron. Lack of these nutrients can lead to fatigue and difficulty in concentrating.

Having said all that, let’s not be too stressed about what we eat. Many scientists these days believe that indulging in life’s little pleasures may actually help improve your health because of the psychological lift it gives you. There is a lot of truth in the old saying that ‘a little of what you fancy does you good’.

Food 2

When I was at school, our teacher told the class 'You are what you eat.' My friends and I would laugh and call each other ‘hamburger’ and ‘biscuits’. Our teacher was trying to show us the importance of eating the right food to stay healthy.

This was a few decades ago when there were big campaigns to make British people healthier. We decided to throw out our chip pan which we had used until then to make chips every day for dinner. We replaced our chips with boiled potatoes. We also started using semi-skimmed milk instead of whole milk in our cups of tea and bowls of cornflakes. At first I felt like I was eating my cornflakes in water and my potatoes had no taste at all. But after a while I started to prefer healthier food because I felt stronger and I didn’t get sick so often.

Japanese people are reputed to be the healthiest in the world because of the food they eat. The healthiest Japanese people eat rice and fish and vegetables every day. They drink green tea or water when they’re thirsty, and snack on dried fish, fruit or gingko nuts. The traditional Japanese diet is famous for helping you to live a longer and healthier life.

So we have proof that you become what you eat. Can you tell what your friends eat just by looking at them? When you know the effects of different types of food, you can use your knowledge well and eat what you want to become.

Food has an impact on our physical and emotional health. Have you ever heard any of the following advice?

Lettuce or milk can make you sleepy.

To stop feeling sleepy you should eat peanuts or dried fish.

To keep your teeth clean you should eat apples often.

Garlic helps you not to catch a cold.

Everyone has their own advice to give, which they have read about or have been told by older relatives. Some of these pieces of advice seem to contradict each other.

Eating chocolate makes you fat and gives you spots.

Chocolate contains the essential minerals iron and magnesium

What we need to figure out is what type of chocolate to eat to get the benefits and how much of it to eat. We can do this by reading the list of ingredients on the chocolate bar wrapper. Exactly how much real chocolate is in there? And how much of that do we need to eat to get the benefits of the minerals it contains?

Future restaurants might be named after the physical or emotional state they hope to create. Their menus will list the benefits of each dish and drink. Some restaurants have already started this concept, and list the nutritional content of their dishes on the menus.

Let’s take the restaurant Winners as an example. Their menu would list dishes specifically designed to help you win sports competitions. There would be 'Night-before Vegetable Lasagne', a pasta dish with extra layers of spinach pasta for slow-burning energy, rich tomato sauce full of vitamin C and soft, easy-to-digest vegetables. All this would be topped with a little fresh cheese – just enough to help you get a good night’s sleep, but not enough to give you nightmares!

Or you could choose the 'Go-faster Salad', which is a large bowl of mixed raw vegetables in a light salad dressing, giving you energy without making you gain weight. The vegetables are carefully chosen to include plenty of natural vitamins and minerals.

What kind of dishes do you think would be on the menu at the Clever Café (which sells food that’s good for your brain)?

So what’s going to happen to hamburgers and biscuits? Will the concept of eating food because it’s tasty go out of fashion? Of course not! Junk food is also changing. If ice cream is not good for children, can’t we give them fat-free, sugar-free tofu ice cream? Unhealthy food is going out of fashion, so brands are changing. We are told not to drink cola because of the sugar and caffeine content so cola companies are making sugar-free and caffeine-free drinks. We are told dried fruit is a healthier snack than biscuits, so some biscuit companies are making biscuits with added vitamins. Snacks might soon be changing their names to 'Skinglow' and 'Chocomineral'! So in the future you might be able to eat your way to your idea of perfection!

Weather

by Mike Rayner

It's hardly surprising that weather is a favourite topic for so many people around the world - it affects where we choose to live, what we wear, our moods, and perhaps even our national characteristics. A sunny day can relieve the deepest depression, while extreme weather can destroy homes and threaten lives.

The effects of weather

Palm trees bent double in hurricane force winds, cars stranded in snow drifts, people navigating small boats down flooded city streets – images we are all familiar with from news reports of severe weather spells. But many of the effects of the weather are less newsworthy.

‘I’m feeling a bit under the weather’ is a common complaint in Britain, especially on Monday mornings, and it seems that weather really can be responsible for moods. Studies have shown that changeable weather can make it hard to concentrate, cloudy skies slow down reflexes, and high humidity with hot, dry winds makes many people irritable and snappy.

Some suggest that the weather also leaves its mark on character, giving people from the same region similar temperaments, although it seems that economic, political and social factors are likely to have a much stronger effect than the weather.

What causes changes in the weather?

If you live in a place like Britain, where the weather seems to change daily if not hourly, you could be forgiven for thinking that the weather is random. In fact the weather is controlled by systems which move around areas of the globe. In the UK the weather depends on depressions, often called ‘lows’, and anticyclones, also known as ‘highs’. These systems start in the Atlantic Ocean, and make their way across the British Isles from the west to the east. Highs bring sunny weather, while lows bring rain and wind.

The weather systems in tropical climates are very different from those in mid and high latitudes. Tropical storms develop from depressions, and often build into cyclones, violent storms featuring hurricanes and torrential rain.

In modern times, human activity seems to be altering weather patterns. Gases produced by heavy industry change the temperature of the Earth’s surface, and affect cloud formation. Some researchers say that factories in Europe and North America may have been one of the causes of the droughts in Africa in the 1980s.

Can we predict the weather?

The human race has always tried to guess the weather, especially in areas of the world where there are frequent changes. Traditional rhymes point to early attempts to identify weather patterns, popular poems include:

Red sky at night, shepherds’ delight; Red sky in the morning, shepherds’ warning

Ash leaf before the oak, then we will have a summer soak; Oak leaf before the ash, the summer comes without a splash

Flies will swarm before a storm.

Rain before 7, clear by 11.

Two other popular traditional ways of forecasting the weather used pine cones and seaweed. When the air has a high level of humidity there is a higher chance of rain, when the humidity is low, there is more chance of fine weather. Pine cones and seaweed react to changes in humidity - pines cones open, and seaweed feels dry when the humidity is low, while high humidity has the opposite effect.

While folk wisdom can still provide a guide to help forecast weather, today’s methods of prediction increasingly rely on technology. Satellites, balloons, ships, aircraft and weather centres with sensitive monitoring equipment, send data to computers. The data is then processed, and the weather predicted. However, even this system cannot predict weather for longer than about week.

A recent study by an Australian psychologist suggests that certain people may have a special gift for predicting the weather. However it is possible that these people would use their talent in another way, since the same group had considerable success in forecasting changes in another chaotic system – the stock market.

It appears that a study of weather patterns may also enable scientists to predict the outbreak of disease. An Ebola epidemic in Uganda in the year 2000 came after the same rare weather conditions that had been present before an outbreak 6 years earlier. Efforts to limit the spread of airborne diseases such as foot and mouth, are also strongly dependent on favourable wind conditions.

Extreme weather

Although people in Britain often moan about the weather, we should spare a thought for the inhabitants of parts of the world where extreme weather regularly wreaks havoc on the environment and population. Sandstorms, tornadoes, blizzards and flashfloods regularly kill thousands of people and leave many others homeless.

While most of us try to avoid extreme weather, some adventurous souls actively seek out places where extreme weather conditions exist. Sports such as surfing, kiteboarding, ice-climbing and white-water rafting are becoming increasingly popular with people seeking relief from the monotony of daily routine. Extreme sports are about exhilaration, skill and danger, and often harness the weather to provide adrenaline addicts with their kicks.

Even more extraordinary are storm-chasers – weather enthusiasts who risk their lives following tornadoes and thunderstorms at high speed to witness the damage they cause at close hand.

Glossary

adrenaline (n): a hormone produced by the body when you are frightened, angry or excited, which makes the heart beat faster and prepares the body to react to danger.

ash (n): a forest tree which has a smooth grey bark, small greenish flowers and seeds shaped like wings.

blizzard (n): a severe snow storm with strong winds.

climate (n): the general weather conditions usually found in a particular place.

drought (n): a long period when there is little or no rain.

humid (adj): (of air and weather conditions) containing extremely small drops of water in the air.

hurricane (n): a violent wind which has a circular movement, especially found in the West Atlantic Ocean.

latitude (n): the position north or south of the equator measured from 0° to 90°.

oak (n): a large tree that is common especially in northern countries, or the hard wood of this tree.

pine cone (n): the hard egg-shaped part of the pine tree which opens and releases seeds.

psychologist (n): someone who studies the human mind and human emotions and behaviour, and how different situations have an effect on them.

reflex (n): an uncontrollable physical reaction to something.

shepherd (n): a person whose job is to take care of sheep and move them from one place to another.

tornado (plural tornados tornadoes) (n) (US INFORMAL ALSO twister): a strong dangerous wind which forms itself into an upside-down spinning cone and is able to destroy buildings as it moves across the ground.

torrential (adj): used to refer to very heavy rain.

Consumer society

There is enough on earth for everybody’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.” Gandhi

If we only bought things we needed, there would be enough for everybody. What do we need? What you need depends on how old you are and your way of life. Rearrange the list of things you can buy and put the things you think we most need at the top of the list.

A coat A pair of trainers

Levi’s jeans

Water

A CD player

A pair of jeans

A dental check-up

Paper

A restaurant meal

A telephone

Jewellery

Gold-coloured laces in your trainers

Food

An appointment at the hair salon

Paracetamol

Shampoo

An iPod

Beer

Toothpaste

A packet of M&Ms

Cushion covers

Table mats which match the curtains

If we don’t need to buy so much, we don’t need to work so much. We can take part-time jobs or reduce our working day from 8 hours to 6 hours. Some people are leaving very well-paid jobs to live a healthier life in the countryside or a more exciting life abroad. This is called ‘downshifting’. Parents can spend more time with their children and the unemployed are given more opportunities to work.

If we start to respect saving the earth more than spending money, we will become ‘conservers’. When we are conservers, we try to choose environmentally friendly products which are durable and last a long time. We may find growing our own vegetables or making our own clothes more rewarding than buying them.

What was the best thing you bought last week?

Could you choose from lots of different types? We like having a choice of what to buy. People who buy things are called consumers. Consumers have choices. We usually choose the colour, taste, smell or size of what we buy, but there are other choices we can make. The following questions will help you to consider these choices.

Where was it made?

If you don’t like the place it was made, you might decide not to buy that particular product. A lot of people don’t buy products from certain countries when they don’t like the way the country is run. Was it made in a factory or on a local farm? If the product was unbelievably cheap, the people who made it might not have been paid much.

Who made it?

Do you know? If a friend made it, you probably like it more and you will want to keep it for a long time. If it was made by somebody who enjoyed making it, the quality and the design are probably better. Or does it look like it might have been assembled in a large factory?

There are children in Asia who make Santa Claus dolls for European children to play with. The children who make the toys don’t celebrate Christmas because they are not Christian; they think of the dolls as work. Would it be better if the children in Europe made their own Christmas dolls?

What is it made from?

One of the places where we want to buy expensive luxuries is at the airport’s duty-free shop. Next to the chocolate and cigarettes, there are beautifully shaped bottles and compact boxes full of perfumes and creams which promise to make you look and feel more beautiful. If you look at the ingredients you will find that the perfumes are mainly alcohol and the creams are mainly made of petroleum!

Almost all products are sold in packaging. Some products have too much packaging, creating more rubbish and using up resources. Some use recycled packaging, which is better for the environment.

Next time you go shopping, think about what you really need to buy. Don’t deprive yourself of things you like, but decide what you should buy before you go out, so that you won’t be influenced by advertisements or promotions. If it is more expensive to buy goods which don’t have much packaging and things which are more durable, buy less. If you can choose to work less, decide which things you would like to make, do or grow yourself. Even though you have less money, your life will become richer!

AWARDS

by Chris Rose

The Nobels are the originals, of course. Alfred Nobel, the man who invented deadly explosives, decided to try and do something good with all the money he earned, and gave prizes to people who made progress in literature, science, economics and – perhaps most importantly – peace.

Not all awards are as noble as the Nobels.  Even though most countries have a system for recognising, honouring and rewarding people who have done something good in their countries, there are now hundreds of awards and awards ceremonies for all kinds of things.

The Oscars are probably the most famous, a time for the (mostly) American film industry to tell itself how good it is, an annual opportunity for lots of big stars to give each other awards and make tearful speeches. As well as that there are also the Golden Globes, apparently for the same thing.  

But it’s not only films – now there are also Grammies, Brits, the Mercury Prize and the MTV and Q awards for music. In Britain, a writer who wins the Booker prize can expect to see their difficult, literary novel hit the bestseller lists and compete with "The Da Vinci Code” for popularity.  The Turner Prize is an award for a British contemporary artist – each year it causes controversy by apparently giving lots of money to artists who do things like display their beds, put animals in glass cases or – this year – build a garden shed.

Awards don’t only exist for the arts.  There are now awards for Sports Personality of the Year, for European Footballer of the year and World Footballer of the Year.  This seems very strange – sometimes awards can be good to give recognition to people who deserve it, or to help people who don’t make a lot of money carry on their work without worrying about finances, but professional soccer players these days certainly aren’t short of cash!

Many small towns and communities all over the world also have their own awards ceremonies, for local writers or artists, or just for people who have graduated from high school or got a university degree.  Even the British Council has its own awards for “Innovation in English Language Teaching”.

Why have all these awards and ceremonies appeared recently?  Shakespeare never won a prize, nor did Leonardo da Vinci or Adam Smith or Charles Dickens.

It would be possible to say, however, that in the past, scientists and artists could win “patronage” from rich people – a king or a lord would give the artist or scientist money to have them paint their palaces or help them develop new ways of making money.  With the change in social systems across the world, this no longer happens.  A lot of scientific research is now either funded by the state or by private companies.  Perhaps awards ceremonies are just the most recent face of this process.

However, there is more to it than that.  When a film wins an Oscar, many more people will go and see it, or buy the DVD.  When a writer wins the Nobel prize, many more people buy their books.  When a group win the MTV awards, the ceremony is seen by hundreds of thousands of people across the world.  The result?   The group sell lots more records.

Most awards ceremonies are now sponsored by big organisations or companies.  This means that it is not only the person who wins the award who benefits – but also the sponsors.  The MTV awards, for example, are great for publicising not only music, but also MTV itself!  

On the surface, it seems to be a “win-win” situation, with everyone being happy, but let me ask you a question – how far do you think that publicity and marketing are winning here, and how much genuine recognition of achievement is taking place?

Venomous animals 

Sea wasp

Despite the glorious semi-tropical climate, nobody swims at beaches in the northern half of Australia from September to May. For there, all but invisible as it cruises in the calm tropical shallows, is the world's most dangerous marine stinger - the chironex jellyfish, or sea wasp. It is blamed for the deaths of more than 60 people last century, exceeding the combined toll taken in the same region by sharks and crocodiles. The stinging tips are astonishingly tiny and densely packed: more than 1000 venom-injecting threads can be fired from an area about the size of a pinhead. In total, each sea wasp has thousands of millions of these threads. A serious sting can kill within seconds. A less serious one results, at very least, in tissue destruction and horrendous subsequent scarring.

Funnelweb spider

Rearing up, with beads of venom already glistening at the tips of its massive fangs (which are capable of biting through a leather boot), a big funnelweb spider is an unnerving sight. The threat is no bluff. The monster will attack on sight, and until an antivenin was finally discovered in the mid-1980s, dozens of people living in the city of Sydney were killed, including one victim who died in just 15 minutes.

Fierce snake

Venom yielded in an average milking of a big fierce snake could kill 250,000 mice, making it by far the most potent land snake venom in the world. When they strike, fierce snakes snap repeatedly, pumping venom time after time, and can kill an adult in less than 10 minutes. There are another 20 snakes in Australia capable of killing a human being.

Blue-ringed octopus

Stranded in rock pools after big tides anywhere on Australian coasts, the blue-ringed octopus is a common sight. It is just the sort of pretty toy that a toddler will pick up. If not seen, it is tiny enough to be hiding in a can of drink. But it is the most lethal octopus in the world. Its venom includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), a component found in no other creature. Two ducts pass right through its brain, bringing venom down to the mouth from a pair of salivary glands. Each is as big as the brain. Each contains enough venom to inflict paralysis and eventual agonising death on at least ten men.

Cone shell

These beautiful shells can earn collectors thousands of dollars, and so are greatly prized. But they produce and store continuous supplies of disposable poison darts, which can be extended for a distance as long as the shell. When its prey passes close by, the cone shell propels a dart forward, rams it violently against the unsuspecting passer-by, and then draws the paralysed victim back into its snout. The larger species can kill human beings.

Asthma

by John Russell

With World Health day on 7th April, this week we take a closer look at a very common health problem.

Does your chest regularly feel tight? Do you find it difficult to breathe after light exercise? Do you sometimes make a wheezing sound when you breathe? If so, you might be asthmatic. If you have breathing problems please consult a doctor, but even if you do have asthma - don’t worry, you are not alone.

What is asthma?

Asthma is a condition that affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and more than 5 million people in the UK are asthmatic, about one in thirteen people. It is a lung disease that affects your airways – the tubes that carry air to and from your lungs. It causes the muscles in these tubes to contract, the tubes themselves to swell and also causes sticky mucus to be produced. All of these factors can make it very difficult for a sufferer to breathe properly.

Shortness of breath, especially after exercise, coughing, or difficulty breathing while sleeping, are all common symptoms. These can be described as mild asthma attacks; however, they can usually be controlled by medication. A severe asthma attack, on the other hand, where a sufferer finds it very difficult to breathe, may require hospital treatment. How badly you are affected by these symptoms depends on what type of asthma you have; from mild to chronic; and how well you are able to control the disorder.

What causes it?

Asthma is not contagious, although it’s still not known precisely what causes it. People can be born with it; develop it in childhood, or at any age. If you have asthma, it’s likely that someone else in your family had it, as the illness is known to run in families. There is also some evidence that environmental factors, such as diet, housing conditions or smoking during pregnancy, can cause asthma.

Having the condition doesn’t necessarily mean you will suffer badly from the symptoms. Mild or moderate asthma can be easily controlled through medication or lifestyle changes. Additionally, all attacks need a trigger, and if these triggers can be identified and avoided, the likelihood of an attack decreases. Triggers can include: pollution, smoking, dust, animal hair, stress, pollen, exercise, and cold air. These triggers are personal to each individual sufferer, so if you have asthma, make sure you know what is causing your attacks, you can then better avoid these triggers.

History

Asthma is not a recent condition, in fact there is written evidence of the condition from ancient Egyptian times. The word asthma itself was first coined by the physician Hippocrates over 3000 years ago, and was the Greek for ‘difficult breathing.’ Over the years, people have tried many remedies both physical and mental, to combat the illness.

To alleviate the symptoms, people changed their diet, avoided polluted towns, or took herbal/folk cures such as tobacco smoke, owl’s blood, chicken soup, tar fumes, or acupuncture. Blood letting and opium were also popular treatments. Prayer and meditation were used to enable people to better control their own breathing. Some of these remedies or breathing techniques are still being used today.

Medicine and preventative measures

It wasn’t until the mid 20th century that doctors realised asthma attacks were caused by the swelling and contraction of the airways. Consequently, in the last 40 years there have been many developments in the treatment of asthma. There are presently two main types of medicine: preventers and relievers. A preventer is used every day and reduces the swelling of the airways, cutting the risk of an attack. A reliever, such as Ventolin, is taken when breathing has become (or is going to become) difficult, this actually relaxes the muscles of the airways, reducing constriction and improving the airflow. The medicine is usually taken using an inhaler.

Prevention is also good treatment, so if you have asthma, remember to keep generally healthy, take regular exercise and lots of vitamin C to avoid colds and flu – which can be dangerous for asthma sufferers. A healthy diet is also important, and do watch what you eat, as certain foods or food additives can be asthma triggers.

By taking the right medication and making the right lifestyle choices, there is no reason why most asthma sufferers shouldn’t be able to lead perfectly healthy and active lives.

Famous sufferers

There have been many famous asthmatics past and present. These include:

Beethoven, Che Guevera, Benjamin Disraeli, Marcel Proust, Bob Hope and Martin Scorsese

There are even asthmatic sporting heroes such as:

Dennis Rodman (basketball), Paul Scholes (football - Manchester United) and Paula Radcliffe (UK Long Distance runner)

The future

Unfortunately there is still no cure for asthma, although the development of new treatments has led to a much better quality of life for most sufferers. However, the number of people being diagnosed as asthmatic has increased dramatically over the past 20 years. This increase could be due to environmental or dietary factors, but for the moment researchers are puzzled.

It is not unusual for the symptoms of asthma to diminish as sufferers get older, although personally after 27 years I’m still waiting ...

Acupuncture

The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine."William Osler, M.D

 "If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity" O.W. Holmes, (Professor of Medicine Harvard University)

Alternative medicine has become much more popular in the West in recent years. It seems that people are becoming increasingly worried about the side effects of drugs, and are turning to treatments such as homeopathy, osteopathy, yoga, reflexology and acupuncture to complement, or sometimes even replace, Western medicine.

An event in my life three or four years ago made me examine my own attitudes towards alternative medicine. After suffering from insomnia for a few months, I was feeling mentally and physically exhausted. A trip to my GP, and attempts at self-medication with nightly doses of Guinness and whisky, failed to bring any relief from my condition. My friend Tony, who was studying acupuncture at a college near London at the time, suggested that I visit an acupuncturist. Since I have a healthy fear of needles from waiting in line for vaccinations in gloomy school corridors, I was reluctant to take his advice, but by this time I was so tired that I was prepared to try almost anything.

I made an appointment with the only acupuncturist in my area, and after another nearly sleepless night, turned up at his room in the local alternative health centre the following morning. After taking my pulse, looking at my tongue, and asking a few questions about my diet and lifestyle,

the acupuncturist correctly deduced that I was worn-out (I found this extremely impressive since he hadn’t asked me why I had come to see him.) He then inserted a needle in my right foot between my first and second toe, and, despite my anxiety, I fell asleep immediately. At the time I considered the whole experience to be close to a miracle.

What is acupuncture?

Acupuncture is based on the idea that energy flows through the human body along 12 lines or meridians. These meridians end up at organs in the body, and illness is the result of a blockage of the energy flow to these organs. To remove the blockage, an acupuncturist inserts very fine needles into the body at points along the meridians. This stimulates the flow of energy, and restores the patient’s health.

What is the history of acupuncture?Traditional Chinese medicine has been practised for around 3000 years in the Far East, but is relatively recent in the West, and acupuncture only really became well-known in the West in the 1970s as people began to travel more frequently between the two areas of the world.

A significant event in the history of acupuncture came in 1971, when a journalist from the New York Times had his appendix removed in China, when on a trip to the country with Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State for the USA. Surgeons used acupuncture to deaden the pain of the operation, which greatly impressed Kissinger.

Although at first doctors in the West were often sceptical of the medical value of acupuncture, in the last few years it has become more established as an alternative to Western medical treatments, since clinical tests have shown that acupuncture is effective for a number of conditions.

What can acupuncture be used to treat?

In the Far East acupuncture is used to treat a wide range of complaints, and is also used as a preventative medicine, since it is thought to increase the body’s resistance to infection. In the West, the treatment is often used to relieve headaches, dental pain, back pain, and arthritis, and to treat depression, asthma, stress, high blood pressure and anxiety.

Who uses acupuncture?

Since acupuncture is known to be effective against pain, it is not surprising that many sportspeople have experimented with acupuncture when fighting injury. Martina Hingis, the famous tennis player, had a wrist injury cured through treatment, and English Premier Division football club Bolton Wanderers employ an acupuncturist to keep their squad in good physical condition. While in Korea for the World Cup in 2002, soojichim, a Korean form of acupuncture, was very popular with the German football team.

Cherie Blair, a well-known human rights lawyer, and the wife of the British Prime Minister, was recently spotted wearing an acupuncture needle in her ear, suggesting that she uses the treatment

to cope with stress. The Queen of England is also interested in acupuncture, although she doesn’t use the treatment herself – she and many of her family rely on another alternative medical treatment, homeopathy, to keep them healthy.

What are the risks?

Finally, if you do decide to visit an acupuncturist, it is important that you check that they are qualified and registered to practise acupuncture. In the past some people have experienced allergic reactions, broken needles and even punctured lungs while being treated, although this is very uncommon.

Glossary

allergic (adj): caused by an allergy.

appendix (n): appendixes a small tube-shaped part inside the body below the stomach.

arthritis (n): an illness which causes the parts of the body where bones meet to become painful and often big.

asthma (n): a medical condition which makes breathing difficult by causing the air passages to become narrow or blocked.

clinical (adj): relating to medical treatment and tests.deaden (adj): to make something less painful or less strong.

dental (adj): relating to teeth.

GP (n): abbreviation for general practitioner: a doctor who sees people in the local area and treats illnesses that do not need a hospital visit.

homeopathy (n): a way of treating illnesses using very small amounts of natural substances.

insomnia (n): when you find it difficult to sleep.

miracle (n): something that is very surprising or difficult to believe.

organ (n): a part of an animal or plant that has a special purpose.

osteopathy (n): the treatment of injuries to bones and muscles using pressure and movement.

preventive (also preventative) (adj): Preventive action is intended to stop something before it happens.

pulse (n): the regular movement of blood through your body when your heart is beating.

puncture (v): to make a hole in something.

reflexology (n): a treatment in which your feet are rubbed and pressed in a special way in order to improve blood flow and help you relax.

sceptical UK (US skeptical) (adj): doubting that something is true or useful.

side effect (n): another effect that a drug has on your body in addition to the main effect for which the doctor has given you the drug.

significant (adj): important or noticeable.

vaccination (n): a substance which contains a harmless form of a virus or bacterium (= extremely small organism), and which is given to a person or animal to prevent them from getting the disease which the virus or bacterium causes.

worn-out (adj): extremely tired.

Archaeology

by Paul Millard

Archaeology, like many academic words, comes from Greek and means, more or less, ‘the study of old things’. So, it is really a part of the study of history. However, most historians use paper evidence, such as letters, documents, paintings and photographs, but archaeologists learn from the objects left behind by the humans of long ago. Normally, these are the hard materials that don’t decompose or disappear very quickly – things like human bones and skeletons, objects made from stone and metal, and ceramics.

Sometimes, archaeologists and historians work together. Take, for example, the study of the Romans, who dominated the Mediterranean area and much of Europe two thousand years ago. We know a lot about them from their writing, and some of their most famous writers are still quoted in English. We also know a lot about them from what they made, from their coins to their buildings. Archaeologists have worked on Roman remains as far apart as Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England and Leptis Magna in Libya.

Of course, for much of human history, there are no written documents at all. Who were the first humans, and where did they come from? This is a job for the archaeologists, who have found and dated the bones and objects left behind. From this evidence, they believe that humans first appeared in Africa and began moving to other parts of the world about 80,000 years ago. The movement of our ancestors across the planet has been mapped from their remains – humans went to Australia about 70,000 years ago, but have been in South America for just 15,000 years. The evidence of archaeology has helped to show the shared origin and history of us all.

It is very unusual to find anything more than the hard evidence of history – normally, the bacteria in the air eat away at soft organic material, like bodies, clothes and things made of wood. Occasionally, things are different.

A mind-boggling discoveryIn 1984, two men made an amazing discovery while working in a bog called Lindow Moss, near Manchester in the north of England. A bog is a very wet area of earth, with a lot of plants growing in it. It can be like a very big and very thick vegetable soup – walk in the wrong place and you can sink and disappear forever. After hundreds of years, the dead plants can compress together and make ‘peat’, which is like soil, but is so rich in energy that it can be burned on a fire, like coal.

The men were cutting the peat when one of them saw something sticking out – a human foot! Naturally, the men called the police, who then found the rest of the body. Was it a case of murder? Possibly – but it was a death nearly two thousand years old. The two men had found a body from the time of the Roman invasion of Celtic Britain. Despite being so old, this body had skin, muscles, hair and internal organs – the scientists who examined him were able to look inside the man’s stomach and find the food that he had eaten for his last meal!

Why was this man so well preserved? It was because he was in a very watery environment, safe from the bacteria that need oxygen to live. Also, the water in the bog was very acidic. The acid preserved the man’s skin in the way that animal skin is preserved for leather coats and shoes.

How did he die?Understandably, archaeologists and other scientists wanted to know more about the person that they called, ‘Lindow Man’. His hands and fingernails suggested that he hadn’t done heavy manual work in his life– he could have been a rich man or a priest. They found that he hadn’t died by accident. The forensic examination revealed that he had been hit on the head three times and his throat was cut with a knife. Then a rope was tightened around his neck. As if that wasn’t enough, he was then thrown into the bog.

So, Lindow Man was killed using three different methods, when just one would have been sufficient. The archaeologists believe that he was sacrificed to three different Celtic gods, called Taranis, Esus and Teutates. Each god required a different form of death. A sacrifice to Teutates required drowning, which is why he was found in the bog. Nobody can tell the complete story of Lindow Man. The Romans said that the Celts made sacrifices every May to make sure that there was enough food that year. Was he a typical ‘routine’ sacrifice?

An archaeologist called Anne Ross has suggested that Lindow Man was a special case. Why would an important man be sacrificed to three gods? Perhaps it was in response to the Roman invasion of Britain, which started in the year AD 43, close to the time that Lindow Man died. He might have been killed to gain the help of the gods against the Romans. It didn’t work. The Romans stayed in Britain for four hundred years and Lindow Man stayed in his bog for two thousand.

Say hello to Lindow Man. If you visit London, you can go and see Lindow Man at the British Museum, where he is spending some time in the company of more famous mummies from Egypt. Whereas the bodies of the Egyptian kings and queens were intentionally preserved,

Lindow Man is with us by accident. Whatever his origins, it is a fascinating experience to see him face to face. I recommend it.

Indigenous peoples

by Richard Sidaway

'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children’ (Native American proverb)

In December 2005, Evo Morales became the new President of Bolivia. He was only 46 years old and openly supported the production and use of the coca plant. He also wanted the state to take control of the profitable natural gas industry. But what was really significant was where he came from. He was born into a farming family in the Andes and spent much his life campaigning for the interests of the original inhabitants of the country. He was one of the first leaders of an indigenous people to make it to the top.

There are perhaps 370 million indigenous peoples in 70 countries around the world. They live on 20% of the world’s land, and they contribute 80% of the world’s biological and cultural diversity. For the last few hundred years, however, European colonialism has marginalised them. Europeans gave them diseases against which they had no defences, suppressed their culture and language, and tried to assimilate them into western societies.

Sometimes they almost disappeared from history. Few people today have heard of the Herero of Namibia.  Eighty per cent of their population died from starvation a century ago at the hands of German colonisers.  In 1803, there were 10,000 people living in Tasmania, but after the British declared war on them twenty years later, only 300 survived. The last Tasman died in 1905.

The main reason for the decimation of indigenous peoples has been to get their land and natural resources. In Colombia, a hundred years of oil extraction has resulted in the pollution of rivers, soil and drinking water. The story is repeated in Ecuador and Peru. In Brazil, the government plan to build five large dams on the Xingu River. These will flood thousands of square kilometres of tribal reserves and destroy much agricultural land.

Often governments have used forced relocation to get the local inhabitants out of the way. In Botswana today it is happening because of diamond mining and tourism. In the islands of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, the entire population were banished forever in order to build an airbase.

Land has a spiritual significance for indigenous people. In 1985 the Australian government finally recognised this and returned ownership of Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the Pitjantjatjara Aborigines. In the USA, however, the government is planning to store radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, although it is a sacred site for the Shoshone nation.

Businesses often try to take possession of indigenous cultures. Multinational companies wanted to become the owners of traditional knowledge in areas such as food, farming and health. They

have tried to create patents on plants and medicines that indigenous people have used for centuries.

Native languages are also disappearing. They were banned in schools for decades. Parents stopped using them to communicate in the home, and so they were no longer passed from one generation to another.

Sometimes families have been affected in more dramatic ways. In Australia, it was government policy from 1900-1972 to forcibly remove aboriginal children from their parents and bring them up in institutions.

Health problems such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes are another feature of indigenous life. The writer Paul Theroux, travelling in the Pacific, noted that most islanders’ diets nowadays consisted of junk food and canned fish imported from Japan thousands of miles away - despite the fact that they were surrounded by water, and fishing had been a way of life for millennia.

So is the election of Mr Morales, in one of the world’s poorest countries, a sign that things are finally getting better? Various peoples around the world now have their own representation. There is a Sámi parliament in Sweden and an Assembly of First Nations in Canada.

Formal Apologies were passed in several Australian State Parliaments in 1998 for the past mistreatment of the Aboriginal population. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi Act has made it possible for Maoris to claim back land, fisheries and forest in special courts where they have equal representation with non-indigenous people. The Miskito Indians in Nicaragua have had similar success.

Some Native American Tribes have recently become extremely wealthy because of a change in the law. They can now start casinos on their own land. Some people worry about the morality of this, but some of the profit has been used for improvements in education and health.

The meeting between western and indigenous cultures has not often been a happy one, but perhaps there is hope yet for the continued diversity of humankind.

Overpopulation

by John Kuti  (written in 2003)

I come from the south of England, in the most densely-populated corner of a small island, which, you might think, is full of people. (The UK as a whole has 2.4 people per hectare.) I have never gone hungry. The only time when I wish there were less people is on rush-hour trains. However, one of the most interesting findings of the census of 2001 was that a million people were missing. Or at least there were a million people less than the authorities expected. Should we be happy that we have more space and less mouths to feed? I don’t know.

As I start writing this article the world population (according to the Office of Population Research at Princeton University) stands at 6,315,850,431.

Doom, version 1

In 1798 Robert Malthus wrote an essay which got economics the name of the dismal science. It was called “The Principle of Population”. He said that it was impossible for the number of people to increase, and even worse, it was impossible for the standard of living to rise. The argument went like this:

1. population naturally increases geometrically: 2, 4, 8, 16…

2. food production increases arithmetically 2, 4, 6, 8…

3. so, population will be controlled by lack of food, the same as it is for animals. Some people will always be starving.

A lot of people disliked Malthus’ point of view. Often, because it seemed to go against the idea of progress, which was so important for other social theories of the time. Anyway, the experience of the next two centuries shows that something must be wrong with the theory. In the 19th century world population rose from 1 to 1.7 billion. In the 20th, it increased to about 6 billion.

Doom, version 2

In 1961, J.G. Ballard wrote a story called Billenium. It’s about a world where the population has gone on increasing at 3% a year to reach a figure of at least 20 billion, although the true number is kept secret. To make space for growing food, everyone lives in giant cities where the buildings are divided into little cubicles. A single person can have 4 square metres and a married couple six. Everyone has enough to eat, but life is certainly very inconvenient. People spend most of the time waiting in queues for the bathroom or anywhere else they want to go.

Reality

The real situation is not as bad as these alarming predictions. A very surprising and dramatic change is happening in the world, but it is not what Malthus or Ballard predicted. To understand the statistics, we need first to think about the two ways the number of people can go up.

The Fertility Rate

The most obvious way to increase population is for more babies to be born. If the population is exactly constant, the average woman has 2.1 children. This number is called the "replacement rate". These rates are going down very fast. The peak was in the period 1965-75 at 4.9, now the rate for the world as a whole is 2.8. However, there is still a big difference between the developed countries, where the rate is 1.6 and poor countries where it is 3. To quote some extreme examples, in Italy the figure is 1.2 and in Zambia 5.6.

Life expectancy

The other reason why there are more people now is that we live longer. This figure also shows a dramatic change. The people born in 1950 could expect, on average, to live 45 years. Now the world life expectancy at birth is 65, and the United Nations predicts this will increase to 76 in the next 50 years.

Predictions of doom

Malthus and Ballard were still right about some things. The dismal picture painted by Malthus is still true in poor countries where 18 million people starve every year, and more than a billion people don't have a supply of clean drinking water. Ballard is right about the trend towards city life. By the year 2006, the United Nations predicts that more than 50% of people will live in cities.

City life in the developed world

At least in the rich countries, the move into cities seems to be connected with falling fertility rates. It is more expensive to have a child in the city, and children are less useful as workers. Women receive a better education and are able to work – so they have more to lose by becoming mothers. City life seems to encourage individualism – people become more interested in getting an education and a career. They marry later in life, and divorce more often, so producing smaller families.

At the moment, it seems quite possible that the same pattern will be repeated everywhere. One UN forecast now foresees a world population of about 5 billion in 2100. But, the more time you spend looking at predictions the more you realise that the human race is a surprising phenomenon. It looks like we will have a clearer idea of what will happen in ten or twenty years time when the present generation of parents moves beyond child-bearing age.

Now there are 6,318,042,422 people.

Glossary

average (n): the figure you get if you add together a set of numbers and divide that total out equally.

census (n): the official procedure for counting all the people in a country.

constant (adj): staying the same, not changing.

cubicle (n): a very small closed off space, e.g. a shower cubicle.

densely-populated (adj): with a lot of people living close together.

dismal (adj): dark, sad and depressing.

encourage (v): to make something happen or increase.

figure (n): number.

foresee (v): to predict, to see something that might happen in the future.

go on –ing (v): continue.

hectare (n): the size of a square 100 metres by 100 metres.

lack (v): not having something.

peak (n): the highest point.

predictions (n): things people say about what they think will happen in the future.

starving (adj): dying from lack of food.

Parts of the body

By Richard Sidaway

There are 50 trillion cells in the human body, 206 bones, 32 teeth, and more than five and a half litres of blood. There is also at least one part of the body for every letter of the English alphabet. Here are 25 of them. Can you guess what they are.?

A: This is a 10cm long piece of the intestines and nobody can really work out what it’s for. It’s probably a leftover from the days when our ancestors were vegetarian, and many people have it removed when it becomes infected.

B: A muscular bag which expands to collects urine from the kidneys. It can hold as much as half a litre before you have to go to the toilet. They used to be kicked around as footballs and played as musical instruments, although only after the animals had finished using them…

C: Some people have clefts in theirs, others let hair grow on them…You keep it up to recover from a misfortune, and use the word twice to toast someone.

D: The little depression which appears each side of your mouth when you smile is, like the ability to make a u-shape with your tongue, genetic. You’ve either got it, or you haven’t…

E: That most perfect of organs, the biologist’s best argument for natural selection, the window to the soul. In sleep, it is covered by a lid. Close one and you wink, close two and you blink. The third is a symbol of enlightenment.

F: People paint the nails to make themselves more attractive and put rings on them to signify alliance. They help us read if we cannot see, and help us speak when we cannot hear. They wrote these words…

G: I’ve always thought that this sounds like the name of a distinguished Roman Emperor, but it is in fact the most powerful muscle in the human body. There are two of them and chances are you’re probably sitting on them right now.

H: The size of a fist, it beats 70 times a minute without stopping for more than 60 years. So much more than just a pump for the blood, it symbolizes love and the centre of our being. It can be followed, broken, even worn on your sleeve!

I: It opens and closes in reaction to light and gives colour to the eye. It is now scanned to check people’s identity. The word comes from the woman in Greek mythology who personified the rainbow.

J: The bone that opens and closes the mouth and holds your teeth. It drops if you are shocked or surprised. Snakes can unlock theirs if they’re having a particularly big lunch.

K: Bend it and you get shorter, get down on it and you show respect. Footballers and skiers put it under great stress. Children and ventriloquists’ dummies tend to use it as a seat. It should jerk if you hit it with a small hammer.

L: Some people fill theirs with smoke, although they are supposed to be used for getting oxygen to the blood and removing carbon dioxide. The right one is bigger than the left one. They have enough airways to cover a tennis court.

M: There are 650 of these and we move when they get shorter. They often work in pairs. Some you can’t control at all. One you can, supposedly, is the tongue. It takes 17 of them to make a smile.

N: The ‘wires’ which pass messages to and from the brain to all parts of the body by using electrical pulses and chemical changes. If the blood to them gets cut off, they get irritated and the result is ‘pins and needles’. There are over 70km of them in the skin alone.

O: About the size of a nut, there are two of these organs which produce an unfertilised human egg every month or so for about thirty years. They also release the hormones which change girls into women.

P: This is the part of the body that can be moved sensually while dancing and led to the invention of Hawaiian grass skirts, rock’n’roll and the hula-hoop. It is larger in women for the purposes of childbirth only because humans insist on having such big heads.  

R: Twelve pairs in both men and women form a cage to protect various vital organs inside. Some of them ‘float’ because they don’t meet in the middle. If you crack one, you just have to wait until it heals.

S: This is our surface covering. It takes a month for each new cell to move through the three layers to the top, after which it drops off. You lose about 50 kilos of it by the time you are 70. It comes in a variety of colours to protect us from the sun, and gets more wrinkled as we get older.

T: 60,000 litres of water pass down it in the average lifetime and sometimes you get a frog in it. It contains one pipe for food and one for air. Pressure on the outside can lead to strangulation, a blockage inside can cause suffocation.

U: The thing that hangs down at the back of your mouth. This is what you see when you yawn, and can sometimes cause people to snore when they are asleep.

V: This makes your blood look blue. Medical professionals use them if they need to extract a specimen for testing. They can become inflamed or varicose if you spend too much time in one position.

W: A joint that links fifteen separate bones. It is used to hang an accessory for telling the time, or one to persuade you to accompany the police to the station.   

X: A long continuous piece of DNA, containing around 1,000 genes, this is one of the 23 pairs that are found in human cells. Women have two of them, men one.

Y: A long continuous piece of DNA, containing between 70 and 300 genes. Its sequence has now been mapped by the Human Genome Project. It is found only inside the cells of the male of the species.

Z: If you’ve never heard of this, then you’re probably not the only one. Nor had I until I found out it’s another name for the cheekbone.

Information Society

by Richard Sidaway

Once upon a time societies were organised around religion, farming, trade or industry. In many parts of the world today this is still true, but something else is becoming more important - the exchange of information, and the technology that we use to do this. Twenty-four hour news, e-commerce, international call-centres, mobile phones, Global Positioning Systems … all these are making the world smaller and faster.

The growth in telecommunications is now giving more and more people access to democratic ideas, to the principles of international law and human rights, to the science that will help their country to develop or to the medical knowledge that can fight disease. It is starting a real global village which people only dreamed of a generation ago.

But how can everybody in the world share the recent technological advances? Millions of people cannot read these words because they don’t have access to a computer. They don’t understand English either, the language that 80% of the information is written in. They don’t even have a telephone. They are more worried about how far they will have to walk today to get clean water or if they can feed themselves and their families. For most people on this planet, information is not a priority.

The contrast between countries that have information technology and those that don’t is called the ‘digital divide’. Scandinavia and South East Asia have a high number of people who use Information Communication Technologies (ICT). Central Africa and the Pacific have almost none.

The United Nations is trying to make the information society a reality for more of the developing world. It wants to see rich countries transfer new technology and knowledge to poorer nations.

Ten years from now, the plan is that everybody in the world will have a radio or television and that 50% of the world’s population will have access to the internet from schools and universities, health centres and hospitals, libraries and museums. This will improve medical care and education, science and agriculture, business opportunities and employment. At the same time, they say, local communities, languages and cultures will become stronger.

Just a dream? Certainly there are some contradictions. Does only good come with freedom of information? If information is power, why will people share it? Doesn’t more technology mean fewer jobs? And how can the exchange of information keep local cultures alive if most of that information is only in one language?

It is much easier to get people connected to broadband or put government online in Europe than in South America or the Middle East. However, developing countries often leapfrog the process which richer nations went through, and avoid their mistakes. Brazil collects most of its taxes online these days. There are cyber cities in Dubai and Mauritius. And Taiwan and Hong Kong have better access to ICT than the United Kingdom. Maybe the English language isn’t so important after all.  

Perhaps the spread of technology means that the old centres of power are also changing. The United States introduced internet technology in the 1970s. But people are asking why they should continue to be in charge. Why should a small organisation in California tell the rest of the world how computers talk to each other?

The US says it makes the rules, but it doesn’t control the flow of information. The domain name system (DNS) controls how internet addresses work, but not what a website or database contains. Many want a more international approach, however. But they also want the internet to remain open and free for all to use.

WATER sports

by Mike Rayner

We'll all be planning that routeWe're gonna take real soonWe're waxing down our surfboardsWe can't wait for JuneWe'll all be gone for the summerWe're on surfari to stay

Tell the teacher we're surfin'Surfin' U. S. A.

(Chuck Berry, Brian Wilson)

All over the world people head for oceans, lakes, pools and rivers in search of fun, freedom and excitement. On the water, in the water or under the water, there are a huge range of sports and activities available to lovers of H2O. Let’s take a look at some of the more colourful and adventurous water sports.

Surfing

When Captain James Cook landed in the Polynesian islands of Hawaii in 1778, he was surprised to find the native men and women, both royalty and ordinary citizens, riding waves standing on wooden boards. Despite being centuries old, surfing only really took off in the rest of the world from the 1950s, starting with the southwest coast of the USA. Nowadays surfing is enjoyed by surfers wherever there are waves, in Bali, Australia, Japan, France and even Britain.

Contemporary surfers use lightweight fibreglass boards to catch waves of varying shapes and sizes as they roll in towards the beach. One of the main attractions of the sport is its simplicity – all a surfer really needs is a surfboard, a wetsuit and a way of getting to the beach.

Although there has been a fiercely competitive professional tour since the 1970s, surfing traditionally appeals to young people with a relaxed outlook on life. A whole lifestyle has built up around the sport, and movies like Big Wednesday, Point Break and Blue Crush have popularised surf culture. Surfing also has its own language – an excited surfer is ‘stoked’, a surfer who falls off their board ‘wipes out’, and something a surfer really likes is ‘awesome’. The heroes of the surfing community are the soul surfers – surfers who live only to travel and surf.

Windsurfing and kiteboarding

Both close cousins of surfing, windsurfing and kiteboarding use the wind to propel modified surfboards at high speeds across the surface of the water.

Windsurfing is a hybrid of sailing and surfing invented by sailor Jim Drake, and surfer Hoyle Schweiter in South California in the late 1960s. Windsurfing has become a hugely popular outdoor activity, and made its first appearance at the Olympics in LA in 1984. There are many different styles of windsurfing which include ‘freestyle’, where windsurfers do tricks, ‘bump-and-jump’ in which surfers use waves to take to the air, and ‘slalom’.

Kitesurfing is an even more recent development; it has only been around since the 1980s, and is only recently becoming an established watersport. As the name of the sport suggests, kitesurfers are towed along by large kites, allowing them to pull-off incredible tricks in the air. The names of the tricks give an idea of how exciting the sport is; the ‘heart-attack’, ‘boneless’ and ‘slim chance’ are among the most exhilarating to watch.

SCUBA diving

Just as mankind has always had a desire to fly, the human race has wanted to swim under the water since prehistoric times. Pictures of primitive devices to enable people to breathe underwater have been found dating from 3000 years ago, but our dream of moving freely beneath the ocean waves for long periods of time was only realised about 60 years ago, when French diving legend Jacques Cousteau developed the first practical Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA). Since then the sport of SCUBA diving has gone from strength to strength.

Lovers of SCUBA diving rave about the feeling of weightlessness, the peace and quiet under the water, the ability to move in three dimensions and the sense of adventure they get while on a dive. SCUBA divers often travel to some of the most beautiful and remote places in the world in the search for rare underwater flora and fauna. Palau, The Red Sea, The Maldives and Hawaii have many of the most popular diving sites, but recreational divers often have to make do with less exotic local destinations, like the North Sea in Britain.

SCUBA diving is not without its dangers, however. The mixture of nitrogen and oxygen divers breathe underwater, combined with the pressure under the water can be deadly if a diver rises too quickly to the surface, causing a condition called ‘the bends’. Divers can also get lost or trapped when diving on wrecks, and fatalities are particularly common in cave diving, where divers add to the dangers of diving by swimming through underground caves filled with water. Diving can also be harmful to the underwater environment – in the past irresponsible divers have caused a great deal of damage to coral reefs. However with proper precautions diving can open up a whole new world, far from the stresses of daily life.

So what are you waiting for? Get your wetsuit on, strap your board to the roof rack, throw your SCUBA gear in the boot and head for the beach. I’ll see you there.

Glossary

contemporary (adj): existing or happening now.

coral reef (n): a bank of coral, the top of which can sometimes be seen just above the

sea.device (n): an object or machine which has been invented to fulfill a particular purpose.

establish (v) (established adj): to cause to be accepted in or familiar with a place, position, etc.

exhilarating (adj): making you feel very excited and happy.

fatality (n): a death caused by an accident or by violence, or someone who has died in either of these ways.

fibreglass UK, US fiberglass (n): a strong light material made by twisting together small fibres of glass and plastic, used especially for structures such as cars and boats.

flora and fauna (n): the flora and fauna of a place are its plants and animals.

hybrid (n): a plant or animal that has been produced from two different types of plant or animal, especially to get better characteristics, or anything that is a mixture of two very different things.

modify (v): to change something such as a plan, opinion, law or way of behaviour slightly, usually to improve it or make it more acceptable.

precaution (n): an action which is done to prevent something unpleasant or dangerous happening.

prehistoric (adj): describing the period before there were written records.

primitive (adj): relating to human society at a very early stage of development, with people living in a simple way without machines or a writing system.

propel (n): to push or move something somewhere, often with a lot of force.

rave (v): to praise something greatly.royalty (n): the people who belong to the family of a king and queen.

slalom (n): a race for people on skis or in canoes (= long light narrow boats) in which they have to follow a route that bends in and out between poles.

tow (v): to pull a car, boat, etc. along, using a rope or a chain attached to another vehicle or boat.

wetsuit (n): a piece of clothing covering the whole body that keeps you warm and d

015, then maybe the answer is yes.

Disability

by Chris Wilson

Nowadays in the “west” the able bodied are constantly reminded that disabled people have rights just like everyone else and they mustn’t discriminate against them in any way. Public buildings have to have ramps and toilets big enough for  wheelchairs. Bus drivers are supposed to announce every stop so that blind people know when to get off. One is not allowed to refuse a person a job on the grounds that he or she has only one leg, or cannot speak. We use phrases like “physically challenged” instead of crippled or spastic. We avoid using the word “dumb” to mean stupid - and this is not just us trying to be “politically correct”. Things like the Para Olympics have done wonders to raise people’s awareness with so many positive images and  perceptions of disabled people genuinely have changed. Not that Western society  doesn’t  still have a long way to go, but disabled people are far less marginalised, far more integrated than in the past when they were confined to institutions, out of sight and out of mind.

Disabled people’s own self esteem has risen enormously in recent years and they have become far more assertive and insistent on their rights, and their ability to compete with everyone else. Even the words “disabled” and “handicapped” are challenged. Is a blind person disabled when he or she can function just as well as everyone else? New technology of course is making a huge difference.  Instead of clumsy wooden legs, for example, new materials and designs in prosthetic limbs enable people to walk and run  as fast  as everyone else.  High tech hearing aids exist for the deaf, as well as laser surgery for the very short sighted. Cars are adapted so that people can drive them with only one hand, or even no hands at all.  Very recently a chip was inserted into the brain of a person paralysed from the neck down enabling him to move a cursor on a screen simply by looking at it. This means he can now do all sorts of things -  switch the television and  the lights on and off,  type, surf the internet, even send e-mails. Who knows what he’ll be able to do next? Drive a car?

Also many things that previously were not considered disabilities now are recognised for what they are -  serious handicaps, and arrangements have been made for the people who suffer from them. Dyslexia is a good example. Not so long ago dyslexic people were considered at school to be slow, or stupid, and that was that. Nowadays it is seen as a serious condition and teachers have to be aware of it.

But what is it like in the Developing World? In  places where there are no facilities at all? Where polio victims have to crawl through the traffic on their knees and elbows? Where every disabled person is unemployed and forced to beg, or depend on relatives?

“Despite all that” says Anna, a Swedish Volunteer in Mozambique, “ it is often in these places that disabled people are actually more integrated and happier in society. Western society is so obsessed with beauty and physical perfection that even an overweight person feels ostracised, let alone a person missing an entire limb. Here having one leg is no more remarkable than having a big nose”.

But is this really so?

“Yes and no” says Adolfo, a blind Mozambican who, as an accomplished guitar player, is actually the only breadwinner in his family. “I’m lucky. I have a skill. More importantly I was given the opportunity to acquire one. And so I am able to contribute to society and I am respected. Most disabled people are totally unskilled and so are burdens on society whether they like it or not. Maybe we are more generous, we don’t reject people who cannot contribute. They are not outcasts - but that doesn’t mean we respect them either. I think that is too idealistic a view of African society, how we would like it to be rather than how it really is. In reality these days, with so much poverty and HIV Aids, its every man for himself, every woman for herself,  and disabled people are completely forgotten, left behind. I heard a story about a  woman in a very dry part of our country. She had lost both legs in a land mine explosion. Because of drought  there was no food and when a UN truck full of supplies arrived she was left behind in the stampede, and so she got none. Later everyone had to register in order to get a ration card, then because she didn’t get one she was told that she did not officially exist and therefore was not entitled to food! No thank you, I  would rather have no legs in Europe any day than here”.

“I don’t believe that story” says Anna. “People here just wouldn’t behave like that”.“Have you ever been really hungry?” asks Adolfo.“No” she is forced to admit.“Then how would you know?”

But Anna still  thinks its worse in the West. “ In Africa people are much more tactile, much more tolerant, much more accepting. Even the mentally deranged are part of society. What’s the use of all those facilities if no one actually ever talks to you? Disabled people in Europe are dying of loneliness.  People are physically repulsed by handicapped people. The idea that disabled people have sexual desires just like anyone else is quite shocking.  Here in the market there is a young girl who sells tomatoes. She must have been in an awful fire because one side of her is completely  burnt and her left hand has no fingers at all. Her face is terribly disfigured, she has only one eye and just a hole for a nose. But she flirts with all the guys, and then makes bawdy jokes about them to the other women, and has everyone in fits of laughter.” “That doesn’t mean they actually fancy her though” says Adolfo. “Unless they’re blind like me” he jokes.

“But going back to technology, it  is  making things easier here too” he adds. “Look at my mobile phone”. “Wouldn’t you like a speaking clock or a computer with software to enable it to read aloud to you?” asks Anna. Adolfo  just laughs. “My wife does that for me” he says. “She reads the newspaper to me every day”.“You see!” says Anna. “That proves me right. Nobody where I come from has got time to read to a blind person! And don’t tell me that a machine can do it just as well because it can’t!”