a University of Hawaii astronomer con- firm the cosmological origin of quasars, reports Maran, a NASA staff scientist.
Astronomers had previously devised a theoretical "proof" of quasars' cosmological origins, pegged to the accepted belief that the red shift of galaxies resulted from the universe's expansion. If it could be deter- mined that quasars characteristically occurred within the remotest, faintly visible groups of galaxies and displayed similar red shifts, then the common origin...
70 million people annually. But between 1950 and 1970, the annual increase grew from 43 million to 73 million.
The "fertility transition" underway today in Latin America, Asia, and Africa is much more rapid than that of 18th- and 19th-century Europe. China's birthrate, for example, fell from 40 per thousand persons to 26 in less than 30 years (1950-77). Since 1970, birthrates have fallen even faster in the rest of the Third World.
The new figures show that the population growth-rate...
fellow virtuosos. Beethoven's string quartets were simply too difficult for most amateur musicians, as were Schubert's songs. Both musicians, however, were acclaimed experts as geniuses. Their works were widely performed by professional musicians.
The myths of the rejection of Wolfgang Mozart (1756-91) may be the most persistent, says Lenneberg. Despite mountains of contrary evi- dence, scholars still view the prolific Austrian prodigy as poor and unappreciated by Viennese society. His poverty,...
starting with the corrupt text and moving backward. Most editions of the novel are shot through with more than 6,000 typographical errors. In 1977, Hans Walter ~abler, the general editor of a planned "Critical Edi- tion" of Joyce's works, turned to a computer in Munich for help.
Gabler fed the computer every known manuscript, author's change, and early edition of the novel. The computer compared these texts and provided a group of British and American Joyce scholars with a master list...
L
A Matter "Iran's Foreign Devils" Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, in Foreign Policy (Spring of Revenge 1980), P.O. BOX 984, Farmingdale, N.Y.
11737.
By supporting the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and many Iranians have put nationalist sentiments ahead of true fealty to Islamic teachings. This reflects the Iranians' powerful xenophobic urge to avenge long years of alleged foreign dom- ination, writes Mottahedeh, who teaches Islamic history at Princeton.
Islam's...
1975, Mottahedeh writes, many Iranians believed that all 85,000 Americans assisting the Shah's army and economic development had "some standing that made them a community not fully subject to Iranian law."
Khomeini's anti-Americanism intensified in exile. Since the Shah's overthrow it has shaped Iran's treatment of U.S. citizens. In May 1979, all special American privileges were revoked the Revolutionary Council. But US. diplomats still enjoyed immunity. Last October 28, Khomeini told...
Louise Shelley, in American Sociologi- ca~eview(Feb. i980), Dept. of ~ociology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. 61801.
What is the crime capital of the Soviet Union? Surprisingly, it is not Moscow-nor Leningrad-but the much smaller port city of Vladivos- tok, in the Eastern Maritime region. According to Shelley, an American University sociologist, strict Soviet controls have not wiped out crime but shifted lawbreakers and crime-prone elements of the population to the USSR's small eastern and...
two-thirds in 10 years-and found that its crime rate grew even more quickly. The USSR's three largest cities (Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev), contrast, enjoy crime rates far below those of the smaller Soviet cities. Thus, thanks to government policy, the geography of Soviet crime differs markedly from that of other industrialized countries.
Workers of the "Migration and Development: The Changing Perspective of the Poor Arab Persian Gulf Countries" by J. S. Birks and C. A.
Sinclair, in...
W. A.
Expanded Richards, in Journal of African History (Jan. 1980), Cambridge University Press, 32 East 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Shipments of European firearms to native kingdoms revolutionized warfare in 17th- and 18th-century West Africa. They also fueled a great expansion of the slave trade, writes Richards, a historian at Britain's North Worcestershire College.
For several centuries, various West African rulers served as local "agents" for European slavers, selling the captives...
sudden volleys of gunfire." Moreover, flintlocks loaded with buckshot could fell foes-and potential slaves-without fatal injury, unlike earlier muskets capable of firing only the more lethal single ball.
These cheap weapons made slaving so profitable for West Africans that warfare became a way of life. Moreover, the insatiable demand of new Dutch and English plantations in the Americas for slave labor boosted the price of human exports. In some regions of West Africa, slave prices tripled...