Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe BIG BROTHER OR A SAFER PLACE? A sniper obeying traffic signals could have avoided the scores of red-light cameras in the Washington, D.C., region because they typically photograph just violators, The New York Times reports. Advertisement But the sniper must have shown up on the hundreds of video cameras that feed live images to traffic managers and public Web sites, The Times says. The images from those cameras ordinarily are not stored, though and even if they were, the pictures generally are too widely focused and grainy for the police to read license plates. Cameras already used on toll roads in the United States and on many roads in England, however, can instantly read and record license plate numbers. "Our equipment could record every license plate on Interstate 95, whether the cars were in bumper-to-bumper traffic or moving 150 miles an hour," says Donal Waide, a project engineer for Computer Recognition Systems, a British company. Advertisement -- Do we want a surveillance state, where the government monitors the comings and goings of its citizens? -- Do we have enough manpower to monitor increased surveillance? HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS High school dropouts are notoriously difficult to track, but the best available data show that in 1990, 26 percent of American adolescents failed to graduate from high school. By 2000, the figure had risen to 30 percent, The New York Times reports. Changes in dropout rates attract little notice, in part because they are difficult to calculate. A school has no way to keep track of students who leave. If they move, they may show up in another school and should not be counted as dropouts. The U.S. Census Bureau, which regularly surveys young adults, counts as "completers" those who dropped out but passed a high school equivalency test. One worrisome possibility is that as states require students to pass tests for promotion, more pupils who were held back leave school when they are old enough to do so. -- Are the 25 percent who don't go to college being left behind? -- Studies show high school graduates have more employment success and commit less crime than those who received equivalency certificates so shouldn't staying in high school be more of a priority? Advertisement THE MALE BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS Men who put their career before having a family should beware: the ticking of the biological clock is as important for fertility in men as it is in women, The London Times reports. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have discovered that genetic damage to sperm routinely starts to cause infertility in men as young as 35. The popular worry that career women risk losing the chance to have children has long been supported by infertility research focusing on how the quality of a woman's eggs deteriorates with age. The older group of men had higher concentrations of sperm with broken strands of DNA, more acute levels of genetic damage and their immune systems were much less efficient. In the western world, the average sperm count is falling, quality is poorer and the incidence of congenital abnormalities of the male reproductive tract is increasing, The Times reports. Men not only have a clock ticking away, they have a clock that is not as well made as its 19th century equivalent. -- An earlier study found many young men thought a woman's biological clock "was their problem" so will this research make any difference? Advertisement -- Do women put off having children because of their careers or because they can't find men who aren't mature?
