Tidal wave experts working together

Experts from Russia, the United States and Japan have left Vladivostok aboard the research vessel Pegasus to study tsunami - the devastating tidal waves produced by undersea earthquakes in the Pacific.

There is regular exchange of information between the tsunami study centers in Sakhalin and Honolulu. Sakhalin transmits data from observers in Kamchatka and the Kuril islands. These lie in a zone where four-fifths of all earthquakes in the world occur. These earthquakes sometimes originate only 100-125 miles from Russian shores, a distance a tidal wave can cover in 20-30 minutes. But Russian stations give warning of possible danger within seconds of the quake.

NORTH SEA OIL IS POLLUTING THE BALTIC

The oily waters of the North Sea are polluting the Baltic.

This is the verdict of studies conducted by expeditions aboard the research ship Oceanograph. The waters of the North Sea now contain far greater amounts of harmful substances, particularly oil and oil products.

In the past the picture was quite the reserve. The currents passing through the Skagerrak and Kattegat brought oxygen into the Baltic and served as a ventilator for its waters at great depths.

The pollution of the North Sea has been caused by the rapid increase in oil extraction there. Large quantities of oil have escaped on to the northern European, particularly Scandinavian, continental shelf.

Urgent and efficient measures are needed to decrease the quantities of harmful waste thrown into the sea. All the states of northern Europe would agree with that, of course, but many aspects of the problem remain unsolved.

So far as the Baltic is concerned, the states along its shores have worked out a convention to prevent its pollution.

SCIENTISTS FIGHT OLD AGE

At the Institute of Gerontology in Kiev scientists are waging an offensive against old age.

We begin to age far earlier than we think. The process of "descending development" begins in the early thirties.

As a biological species, man ought to live 100-120 years, but for various reasons we lose the last 30 or 40.

We can now, however, to some extent, lengthen life. In experiments on animals, we have learned to prolong it by a third or more.

One aspect of the institute's work is the discovery and testing of substances which will produce a physiological effect - combinations of vitamins which the aging body needs and preparations with microelements and amino-acids. Some of these are giving promising results.

Old age is a contradictory process. On the one hand, the body adapts itself in some ways, while, on the other, certain faculties atrophy and die.

It appears that our brains and muscles tend to stay young the more actively and regularly we use them.

A correctly chosen profession, doing as much work as we are fit for, sensible meals and purposeful, not passive, leisure are all things that help the body adapt.

It has long been remarked that there are in the world some places where people live longer, are less frequently ill, and are able to work almost to the end of their days.

The Kiev Institute of Gerontology has examined some 40,000 people aged 80 and over.

They questioned centenarians (that is, people over 100 years old) about themselves, and also about their forebears and the way they lived, what they ate, what work they did, and so on.

The laboratory of social gerontology has summed up the work done by over a thousand doctors.

They found, for instance, that as a rule centenarians live in rural areas, and that more than half of them are engaged in farming. Only one in twelve of them are vegetarians, but half never smoke or drink anything alcoholic. It is interesting that very few of them have been divorced.

The Kiev institute is engaged in joint undertakings with doctors in other countries.

The more joint study there is, the more exchange of information, and the more exchange of personnel, the sooner will problems that affect so many millions be solved.

MONTH IN THE COUNTRY?

Two lorry drivers working on a new road being cut through the Siberian forests were found recently after being lost in the taiga for nearly a month. The two, Anatoly Laptev and Vladislav Inshin, had gone hunting with no more than 20 cartridges between them.

After firing off all their cartridges, they met two bears. Fortunately these local residents appeared to have dined well and did not attack them.

Another encounter proved lucky. It was the half-buried carcass of a huge elk, recently killed by a bear and stored for future meals.

Meanwhile their comrades were looking for them. A helicopter and an AN-2 plane circled over the forest from morning to night.

The two men saw the helicopter, but had no way of signalling it. Their matches had run out as well, and rubbing two sticks together only blistered their fingers.

At the beginning of the fourth week, they found a hunter's winter hut, with stores of dry bread, matches and salt.

After bringing in wood, Laptev left his comrade, who had sprained an ankle, and went on, looking for help. He finally emerged near the Educhanka, a river falling into the Angara some 60 miles below the village from which their hunting expedition had started.

Even them it took another two days to find the hut, which could not be seen from the air.

NAPOLEON'S SWORD

Among the many weapons in the State History Museum in Moscow is Napoleon's sword. It has its own history.

Manufactured by the best armories of Versailles, it has a Damascus steel blade on which is inscribed: "To Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of the French Republic". The hilt is inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and has bronze and filigree work as ornamentation. At the end of the hilt is a lion's head and a ring. The scabbard is of black leather, ornamented in bronze. The signature of Bouttle - the armorer -is engraved on the scabbard. The only time Napoleon ever parted with his sword was under the following circumstances.

When the French army was routed and the allied troops entered Paris, on March 31, 1814, the high command decided to exile Napoleon to the Island of Elba. Among the three allied commissars who were to accompany him was Count Pavel Shuvalov, aide-de-camp of Alexander I. When he learned that an attempt was to be made on Napoleon's life at one of the pots through which they would pass, Count Shuvalov offered to change clothes with Napoleon, and gave him his army greatcoat. As a token of gratitude Napoleon presented him with his sword.

In 1912 the sword was shown at an exhibition for the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812. After the exhibition it was returned to Countess Vorontsova-Dashkova, nee Shuvalova, and was preserved for a long time at her estate in the Ukraine.

In 1926, a Red Army officer, whose name is not known, presented Napoleon's sword to the Museum of the Red Army as the weapon he used in the war. A little later one of the museum's staff discovered the inscription and the sword was given to the State History Museum.

APPOINTMENT IN SAMARA

By W.Somerset Maugham

Death speaks: "There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions, and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, "Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samara and there Death will not find me". The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?" "That was not a threatening gesture", I said, "it was a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samara".