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A nap of 60 minutes improves alertness for up to 10 hours. Research on pilots shows that a 26-minute "Nasa" nap in flight (while the plane is manned by a copilot) enhanced performance by 34% and overall alertness by 54%. One Harvard study published last year showed that a 45-minute nap improves learning and memory. Napping reduces stress and lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke, diabetes, and excessive weight gain.
Limit your nap to 45 minutes or less, if you need to spring into action after dozing. Otherwise, you may drift into slow-wave sleep. Waking from this stage results in sleep inertia, that grogginess and disorientation that can last for half an hour or more.
But you might want to take a long nap, at least 90 minutes. Many of us get about an hour to an hour-and-a-half less sleep a night than we need. One recent study shows that the sleep-deprived brain toggles between normal activity and complete lapses, or failures, a dangerous state of slowed responses and foggy inattention. Sound familiar?
Naps of 90 to 120 minutes usually comprise all stages, including REM and deep slow-wave sleep, which helps to clear your mind, improve memory recall, and recoup lost sleep. Longer naps in the morning yield more REM sleep, while those in the afternoon offer more slow-wave sleep. A nap that is long enough to include a full sleep cycle, at least 90 minutes, will limit sleep inertia by allowing you to wake from REM sleep.
Scientists know we need sleep, but they don't know exactly why, and they've been pretty clueless about how the brain decides when to sleep.
Some of the mystery has been put to rest. A new study of mice finds that brain cells called astrocytes fuel the urge to sleep by releasing adenosine, a chemical known to have sleep-inducing effects that can be inhibited by caffeine.
The longer a person or animal is awake, the stronger the urge to sleep becomes. This is known as sleep pressure. Prior studies pointed to adenosine as a trigger for sleep pressure. The chemical accumulates in the brain during waking hours, eventually helping to stimulate the unique patterns of brain activity that occur during sleep.
The new study found "adenosine from astrocytes clearly regulates sleep pressure," said study team member Michael Halassa of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
Comic book characters have taken off recently, especially with the popularity of the movies and animation on television. Even more so it appears the comic villains get a bigger spotlight than the heroes themselves. In a way this makes sense as the villains are often more interesting. Here is the top ten list of comic book villains. Criteria takes into account how important the villains were in the life of “their” hero, how powerful they were (raw power and brain power), and are they interesting. In the end it came down to this: Would I want to read a story with this comic book villain if there were no heroes in the story.


Fever, by all means, causes discomfort, even during its latter stages. You’ll feel numb and heavy (sometimes accompanied by a headache and a bad cold), and it gets worse when you try to move. Your goal is to find a way for your fever to subside, or to at least conceal the sore feeling induced by the symptom. Once you do, you’ll be able to concentrate on your work better while your fever will be nothing more than a mere inconvenience. Curious? Here are 10 of the niftiest fever-busting strategies for the workplace.
Mustard, known for enhancing the flavor of many meat products, is quite a popular condiment. It blends well with snacks like hamburgers and hotdogs, and formal entrees like steaks and salads. Given its ability to turn simple dishes into tasty delights, mustard is one of the most common items found in the cupboard. What most people don’t know is mustard doesn’t only enhance flavors, it can also make your domestic life a bit more convenient.


Newly wed to Shunsuke, eldest son of the historied Tsubakikoji family, Reiko suffers the loss of her husband the very next day. Under the cruel and unceasing mockery of the aristocrats, Reiko's common-born blood sets to boil. Clutching the rose Shunsuke gave her to her bosom, Reiko issues a defiant challenge to the house. "I am the widow of the eldest son of the Tsubakikoji family. This house is mine!" ...This is the elegant art of feminine conflict.


In California a 13 year old girl was able to rack up an astounding 14,528 text messages in one month. For those keeping track that's 484 a day which breaks down to 20 an hour or 1 every three minutes, for the entire month!


Making two internet searches through Google produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle, it has been estimated. A typical search through the online giant's website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g.
The emissions are caused both by the electricity required to power a user's computer and send their request to servers around the world.
Dr Wissner-Gross believes that Google's unique structure - which sees it send searches to multiple servers around the world and give which ever response is returned quickest - causes its searches to produce more emissions than some other sites.
He said: "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power. A Google search has a definite environmental impact. Google are very efficient but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy."
An Australian woman who allegedly set fire to her husband's genitals because she believed he was having an affair appeared in court on a murder charge Monday.
After the fire spread through the family home, Rajini Narayan, 44, told neighbours she had only wanted to burn her husband's penis "so it belongs to me and no one else," prosecutors said.
During the process of making a web the spider will use its own body for measurements, a very practical and ergonomic design feature of any web. This will allow the spider to move quickly around its own web with very few faults.
Your girlfriend's mind is a perpetual motion machine. It is constantly moving, always working and it never stops. It can calculate complex equations, delicate problems and multifaceted situations and questions in a matter of seconds. So to make sure your brain stays on its toes, these are the most common girlfriend questions that should trigger a red alert.
Researchers from Loyola University Health System and other centers compared African American women in metropolitan Chicago with women in rural Nigeria. On average, the Chicago women weighed 184 pounds and the Nigerian women weighed 127 pounds.
Researchers had expected to find that the slimmer Nigerian women would be more physically active. To their surprise, they found no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of calories burned during physical activity.
"Supermarkets are places of high impulse buying for both sexes -- fully 60 to 70 percent of purchases there were unplanned, grocery industry studies have shown us," according to Paco Underhill in Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping.



Just because diet soda is low in calories doesn’t mean it can’t lead to weight gain.
It may have only 5 or fewer calories per serving, but emerging research suggests that consuming sugary-tasting beverages–even if they’re artificially sweetened–may lead to a high preference for sweetness overall. That means sweeter (and more caloric) cereal, bread, dessert–everything.


