Imagine a young mother inside a car holding a baby on her lap. The baby actually weighs 10 kg, but all of a sudden there is a jerk and the mother undergoes a sense of unreality. Her infant now weighs 300 kg, as much as several washing machines! One simply couldn’t hang onto such heavy cargo — certainly not after a sudden jolt – and so the baby flies out of the mother’s arms and smashes the windscreen.

Sci-fi or surrealism? None. Arguing against the use of seat belts, one can reel off stories of girl guides, nuns, baby orphans, choir boys, or puppy dogs that died in a flaming/drowning wreck because they couldn’t unclip their seat belts. But the opening paragraphs shows what actually happens when a car stops so abruptly that it causes a sudden deceleration of some 30G (which means everything 30 times heavier).

Australian figures say that 33% of killed occupants and 20% of seriously-injured occupants in vehicle accidents had not fastened their seat belts. One person not wearing the seat belt in a car is dangerous enough to double the injury and death rate for the other passengers. In one city, only 4% of drivers/passengers ignore seat belts, but this 4% of lawbreakers cover 22% of car occupant deaths.

You must be the hero in a silly movie if you conveniently land on a cushion-like haystack when you are thrown out of the car. In all probability you will be knocked out after a real 30G collision and the impact. But, more often than not, people wearing seat belts remain conscious after the collision, so that they are more likely to be able to get out in time.

World-wide, seat belts reduce the chance of injury or death in a vehicle collision by 10% to 80%, depending on the type of collision (near-side impact, rollover, head-on, etc). As it stretches, the seat belt reduces the sudden deceleration, and so the G-forces are much lower. This means fewer deaths and injuries, and lowered costs to society.

In the 1930s, some US doctors initiated the era of lap belts by installing them in their own cars. In 1956, Volvo offered a diagonal chest belt as an accessory. Now, each year, seat belt usage saves the USA some $50 US billion in medical expenses, lost productivity and other costs related to injuries, while non-use of seat belts costs the country a staggering $26 US billion.

SNEAK PREVIEW

# The US military is after an energy-pulse weapon. It is designed to deliver a jolt of unbearable pain from up to 2 km away, and is intended for use against rioters. Rioting will be stopped but the victims will remain physically unharmed. The device fires a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person, producing pain and temporary paralysis. Right now, researchers are attempting to optimise “pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation”. In plain English it means: cause the maximum pain possible.

# Arm wrestling robots beaten by a teenaged girl, reads a recent headline. The news is about how flesh and bone scored off in the first ever man-versus-machine battle of brawn — an arm wrestling contest between robots and humans. The human champion defeated three robotic arms, hands down, in 24 seconds. She’s a 17-year-old girl named Panna Felsen, a high school student and self-confessed wimp. The research behind the battle has nothing to do with war technology. The ultimate aim is to have an artificial arm to beat the world’s strongest person. Medically, it means developing stronger polymer-based artificial muscles for use in future prosthetic limbs.

QUIZ No.176

1. Who did Tony Morrison describe as America’s first black President?

– Bill Clinton
– Woodrow Wilson
– Dwight Eisenhower
– Zachary Taylor

1. Bill Clinton.

2. Who among these actresses had the strongest Anarkali connection?

– Bina Roy
– Madhumathi
– Meena Kumari
– Sulochana

2. Sulochana (Acted twice as Anarkali, and once as Salim’s mother).

3. The number of petals on flowers often follows a system developed by …

– C.V. Raman
– George Mendel
– Leonardo Fibonacci
– Rene Descartes

3. Leonardo Fibonacci.

4. ‘French Kissing’ in the USA … Who/what is it?

– Chumbawamba
– Debbie Harry
– Belinda Carlisle
– Soundgarden

4. Debbie Harry.

5. Sticky rice was a critical ingredient in the making of which structure?

– Taj Mahal
– London Bridge
– Statue of Liberty
– The Great Wall of China

5. The Great Wall of China.