News

Why kiss?

“It isn't the most romantic theory, but scientists believe kissing was developed to spread germs which build up immunity to illness,” The Daily Telegraph reports. “They say the gesture allows a bug named cytomegalovirus, which is dangerous in pregnancy, to be passed from man to woman to give her time to build up protection against it. The bug is found in saliva and normally causes no problems. But it can be extremely dangerous if caught while pregnant and can kill unborn babies or cause birth defects. Writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, researcher Dr. Colin Hendrie from the University of Leeds said: ‘Female inoculation with a specific male's cytomegalovirus is most efficiently achieved through mouth-to-mouth contact and saliva exchange, particularly where the flow of saliva is from the male to the typically shorter female.' Kissing the same person for about six months provides the best protection, he added.”

Lions as learners

“In 1898, according to numerous accounts and no fewer than three Hollywood movies, two male lions went on a nine-month killing spree around the Tsavo area of Kenya, devouring between 28 and 135 workers building the Kenya-Uganda railway,” New Scientist reports. “… By comparing the isotopic ratios of nitrogen and carbon in the lions' remains [bone and hair samples] with that of contemporary lions, human and herbivore prey, Justin Yeakel of the University of California, Santa Cruz, estimates the lions ate around 35 people. The study also made a surprise finding. ‘One lion was consuming a lot of humans and one was not,' Yeakel says. … ‘People are a dangerous food to go after,' he says. ‘One lion was able to figure out how to do it and wasn't afraid, the other was not.'”

Bugs limit astronauts?

“French scientists say the prolific virulence and growth of bacteria in space, coupled with reduced production of antibodies, might limit future space travel,” United Press International reports. “The researchers from Nancy-University in Lorraine, France, said long-term space flights might be compromised by microbial hitchhikers, such as bacteria. That's because space travel appears to weaken the human immune system, while increasing the virulence and growth of microbes, they said.” Their study appears in The Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

Took their kids to work

Nowadays, most children can only dream of working in a salt mine with their parents, instead of loafing at home doing their schoolwork. Some vignettes of the 19th century, when child labour in Victorian England was permitted:

“In the early 1800s, many children worked 16-hour days in atrocious conditions alongside their parents,” Greg Wright reports in the Yorkshire Post. “Child labour was not confined to mills but also rife in the coal mines (where children began work at the age of 5 and usually died before they were 25), gas works and shipyards of the big northern towns and cities. It was not until 1833, when pressure from Christian pressure groups led to the first Factory Act, that the situation began to improve. It became illegal for children under 9 to work in textile factories.”

“Children as young as 5 worked in factories, down mines and were forced up chimneys as sweeps. Tens of thousands died in a callous age,” Paul Callan writes in The Daily Express. “… Campaigner Richard Oastler had observed in a speech in July, 1832: ‘Very often the children are awakened by their parents at 4 in the morning and pulled out of bed when almost asleep. The younger children are carried on the backs of the older children asleep to the mill, and they see no more of their parents until they go home at night, when they are sent to bed exhausted.' … Working such long hours, children became tired and found it difficult to maintain required speeds; they were beaten with a strap to make them work faster and dumped into a freezing water cistern if they became drowsy.”

Brought her dad to class

“A U.S. wildlife officer's decision to bring a five-foot alligator into his daughter's school for a show-and-tell backfired when it escaped,” Ananova.com reports. “Dave Brady had recently captured the reptile and thought he'd bring it into his daughter's class, with its mouth taped shut, in Florida. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Stan Kirkland said it proved a hit with the class: ‘They were impressed,' he said. Things started to go wrong when Mr. Brady loaded the alligator back into his truck after the school visit in Panama City Beach. ‘Most people don't think they can jump, but they have an amazing ability to jump,' Mr. Kirkland said. ‘They can not only jump, they can run.' The alligator successfully jumped out of the truck and ran off toward a local pond, where it has so far managed to avoid recapture.”

Thought du jour

“I am not sure how many ‘sins' I would recognize in the world. Some would surely be defused by changed circumstances. But I can imagine none that is more irredeemably sinful than the betrayal, the exploitation, of the young by those who should care for them.”

– Elizabeth Janeway, U.S. author