ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609180003
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
Q: Three surviving passengers of the Titanic sinking were reported to be observers at recent salvage operations in the Atlantic off Newfoundland. Who were they? I thought the last such person died in England some months ago.|
A: You're remembering articles about the death of Eva Hart, 91, in England, described as the last surviving passenger who remembered the disaster. Hart, who was 7 when the ship went down the night of April 14-15, 1912, died in February. But there are other surviving passengers who were too young at the time of the sinking to remember it. The three who were aboard cruise ships in the vicinity of the salvage attempt last week were Edith Haisman, 99; Michelle Navratil, 88; and Eleanor Schuman, 86. No information is available about why Haisman, described as the oldest survivor of the sinking, doesn't claim to remember it. One other person observing the salvage procedures with a link to the Titanic - but not aboard when it went down - was Anne Lightoller, great-granddaughter of Charles H. Lightoller, one of the ship's officers. Her great-grandfather, who is still alive, didn't make the expedition to the site, 420 miles southeast of Newfoundland.
Q: How can I contact the committee or organization that is dedicated to keeping religion out of government?
A: Several organizations say they strive to enforce separation of church and state. Among them: Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, 1816 Jefferson Place N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; Americans for Religious Liberty, P.O. Box 6656, Silver Spring, Md. 20916; American Civil Liberties Union, 132 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036; Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, 200 Maryland Ave. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002; and National Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty, 165 E. 56th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Q: Before the drug AZT was used for treating AIDS patients, was it used for anything else? When was it first used?
A: The anti-retroviral drug, whose generic name is Zidovudine, is - and always has been - used only for the treatment of HIV infection and AIDS. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of adult AIDS in March 1987; for adult HIV infection in March 1990; for children with HIV infection in May 1990; and for some pregnant HIV-positive women, and for newborns of HIV-infected mothers, in August 1994.
Q: How did the custom of wedding rings come about, and how was the finger next to the pinky chosen to be the ring finger?
A: The origin of the wedding ring is much disputed, but it's believed that finger rings first appeared in the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, around 2800 B.C.E. To the Egyptians, a circle, having no beginning or end, signified eternity - for which marriage was binding. Numerous 2,000-year-old rings were unearthed at the site of Pompeii, buried and preserved by lava flow from Mount Vesuvius. Early Hebrews placed the wedding ring on the index finger, and in India, nuptial rings were worn on the thumb.
In the third century B.C.E., Greek physicians believed that a certain vein, the ``vein of love,'' ran from the ``third finger'' directly to the heart (they didn't count the thumb). So it became the logical digit to carry a ring symbolizing affairs of the heart.
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