Culture Briefs

Smoke signals

“Angry protesters, riot police, mass demonstrations, arrests for disorderly conduct — it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for the Olympic-torch relay. If people are looking for another reason to be mad at China, how about this: By the time this pyro parade is over, it will have produced about 11 million pounds of carbon emissions.

“The torch is visiting 23 cities during a global sweep that includes stops in London, Paris, San Francisco, Bangkok, Islamabad and Almaty. The Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee says the journey will cover more than 85,000 miles.

“So when the torch isn’t being marched through city streets and/or extinguished by protesters, how is it getting around? You guessed it: by plane — an Air China A330 painted with the Olympic logo and color scheme. The A330 burns 5.4 gallons of fuel per mile or 462,400 gallons for the entire trip. With Earthlab estimating that every gallon of jet fuel burned produces 23.88 pounds of CO2, the Olympic Torch Relay is adding about 11 million pounds of carbon to the atmosphere. That’s 5,500 tons.”

— Dave Demerjian writing on “Olympic Torch Inflicts Environmental Toll,” Wednesday at ABCnews.com

Stop babying

“Every new parent knows how difficult it can be to get a fussy baby to sleep, but new research suggests that a parent’s best efforts may only be exacerbating the problem — and that inadequate sleep in childhood can have long-lasting health effects. …

“A new study by Valerie Simard of Hopital de Sacre-Coeur in Montreal examines the link between parents’ bedtime behavior and sleep disturbances in children during infancy and early childhood. She found that certain ’maladaptive’ parental habits — such as the mother staying with the child until he or she fell asleep, or the parent giving a child food or drink upon nighttime awakening — appeared to develop in response to babies’ early sleep difficulties, at 5 to 17 months of age.

“In turn, however, some of those calming strategies, which parents reported continuing to practice at 29 to 41 months, led to disrupted sleep — bad dreams, short sleep time and delays in falling asleep — in children of preschool age.”

— Tiffany Sharples, writing on “How Not to Get Baby to Sleep,” Tuesday in Time.com

Using his noodle

“Junichiro Koizumi never hosted a G8 summit while in office, but this week the popular former Japanese prime minister popped up at a ’World Ramen Summit,’ where he touted the tasty noodles as a universal treat.

” ’Ramen is not just for Japan, but it is also for the world and the universe,’ Koizumi, whose colorful ways made him one of Japan’s most popular leaders ever, told business people from about 20 countries in Osaka, western Japan.

“Koizumi, prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was attending a biannual gathering organized by the Ramen noodle industry aimed at improving quality and boosting consumption. This year’s summit coincided with the 50th anniversary of the invention of instant noodles by ’Cup Noodle’ king Momofuku Ando, who died in January 2007 at the age of 96.”

— Teruaki Ueno, writing on “Japan’s Koizumi praises noodles at Ramen Summit, Wednesday for Reuters