Naps boost memory, but only if you dream
“Sleep has long been known to improve performance on memory tests. Now, a new study suggests that an afternoon power nap may boost your ability to process and store information tenfold — but only if you dream while you’re asleep.
“When you dream, your brain is trying to look at connections that you might not think of or notice when [you're] awake,” says the lead author of the study, Robert Stickgold, the director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. “In the dream…the brain tries to figure out what’s important and what it should keep or dump because it’s of no value.”
In the study, Stickgold and his colleagues asked 99 college students to memorize a complex maze on a computer. The researchers then placed the students inside a virtual, 3-D version of the maze and asked them to navigate to another spot within it. After doing this several times, half of the participants took a 90-minute nap while the other half stayed awake and watched videos.When the students were given the maze test again five hours later, the nappers did better than the students who had stayed awake, even those who had reviewed the maze in their heads. However, the nappers who dreamed about the maze — one described being lost in a bat cave — performed 10 times better than the nappers who didn’t.
The students who dreamed about the maze did poorly on the test the first time around — which may not be a coincidence, the researchers say. If a task is difficult for you, your brain seems to know it, and you may be more likely to dream about it than if the task were easier.
“If you’re not good at something, and you dream about it, you seem to get better at it — especially if the information can be used in different situations,” says Michael Breus, the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health, in Glendale, Arizona, who was not involved in the study.”
Read more at CNN
Is Time Travel Possible?
“From summer blockbusters to sensational science headlines, modern culture is constantly inundated with tales of time travel. But when you boil down the physics involved, is it possible to travel through time?
To answer this question, I tracked down theoretical physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, author of ‘How to Build a Time Machine.’
“The short answer is that time travel into the future is not only possible, it’s been done, and we’ve known about it for over a century,” says Davies. ‘The reason that the public doesn’t seem to know about it is because the amount of time travel involved is so pitifully small that it doesn’t make for a ‘Doctor Who’ style adventure.’
A phenomenon called time dilation is the key here. Time passes more slowly the closer you approach the speed of light — an unbreakable cosmic speed limit. As such, the hands of a clock in a speeding train would move more slowly than those in a stationary clock. The difference would not be humanly noticeable, but when the train pulled back into the station, the two clocks would be off by billionths of a second. If such a train could attain 99.999 percent light speed, only 1 year would pass onboard for every 223 years back at the train station.”
Read more at Discovery News (thanks, ReliegiousMarie)
Ministers apologise for insult to Pope
“The Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to Britain by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even launch Papal-branded condoms. The astonishing proposals, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, were contained in secret papers drawn up earlier this month by civil servants following a ‘brainstorm’. The ideas, included in a memo headed ‘The ideal visit would see …’, ridiculed the Catholic Church’s teachings including its opposition to abortion, homosexual behaviour and contraception. Many appeared to be deliberately provocative rather than a serious attempt to plan an itinerary for the September visit.
The proposals, which were then circulated among key officials in Downing Street and Whitehall, also include the Pope opening an abortion ward; spending the night in a council flat in Bradford; doing forward rolls with children to promote healthy living; and even performing a duet with the Queen. In reference to the hugely sensitive issue of child abuse engulfing the Catholic Church, the Government document suggests that the Pope should take a “harder line on child abuse – announce sacking of dodgy bishops” and “launch helpline for abused children”. The document was sent out by a junior Foreign Office civil servant with a covering note admitting that some of the plans were “far-fetched”.”
Read more at The Telegraph (Thanks @Hallmork and @helennewbury)
Agora
Agora is the story of Hypatia – the last director of the legendary Library of Alexandria. Hypatia lived in the 4th century A.D when the Roman Empire had control over huge areas of Europe but was starting to see it rot from the inside.
As an astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Hypatia was a ground breaking thinker for her times. Although her works were lost, what remains is her story is an unusual yet disturbing look at the past.
Many might think that the introduction of Christianity to the Roman Empire was a peaceful and gradual transition. Yet as Hypatia’s story shows this was not the case. Hounded for her beliefs that the earth travelled around the sun, her atheism, ideas of equality and freedom of thought quickly saw her clash with the arising Christian mobs. Drunk with power they targeted her as the leading threat to the new monotheistic philosophy. Anyone who questioned the word of God was seen to be influenced by her and they set about destroying her Library, her work and ideas killing anyone who didn’t accept the new faith.
The film does of course dramatise the whole episode in typical Hollywood fashion, but the core ideas of the story do have strong evidence to back up they key plot. What comes out is a fantastic story, set an an important time in our past about one of the leading women of the modern age. Agora is in cinemas now – definitely worth checking out.
Cardiff and Woking and Coco the Mind-Reading Parrot
The curious phenomenon of audience identities continues: Cardiff crowds (though I expected a big raucous crowd) were very quiet, but saved it all up for the end. Which was a relief the first night: after that, I knew to expect it. I, to the amusement of many, struggled with audience members’ names and answers, as I did in Belfast and Dublin. The combination of unfamiliar names, strong accents, microphone amplification and the wobbly acoustics of the auditoria made this an unexpected comedy highlight. I do apologise.
Woking brought great, enthusiastic audiences – or rather ‘brings’, as I have one more night there tonight. The house has a resonant, bright sound, which helps the show enormously – it’s lovely to hear every reaction clearly. We have all benefited from a day off and time at home – although my builders have all assembled to work at mine this week, which has made the long-awaited time at home more stressful than being on tour. But hey, whaddyagonnado. Tonight, Andy comes to see the show: he hasn’t even seen it this time round, being taken up with Ghost Stories (transferring to the Duke of York Theatre on June 25th). That’ll be good.
The voice is improving, and I imagine I’ll be back to signing once we get to Stoke on Tuesday.
What else? This:
‘Tis true. Our very own Neil, from the Parrot Zoo, of which I am Patron Saint, presents Coco The Mind Reading Parrot at SkegVegas – the tourist attraction centre for Skegness. Coco has been trained in all sorts of arcane mentalist techniques and presents them to the public for the price of a pumpkin seed and a chunk of finger. Here’s Neil and Coco practising their elaborate two-person code (man on left saying ‘Is it a cup of tea?’):
Expect further updates from Coco as they unfold.
Thank you for your responses to taking part in a new show of mine: keep them coming in. No other questions answered, sorry. Email derrenbrown@objectiveproductions.com for an application form. No parrots involved.
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PS Thank you also for your response to the Dench portrait. I did anticipate the request to see it in its various stages: once I’ve absolutely finished it and have had it properly photographed, I will post a little step-by step thingette in case it remains of interest.
Take part in my new show
You known you want to. Email derrenbrown@objectiveproductions.com and you will be automatically sent an application form. That’s all we’re telling you.
Ta-ta.
The Daily Dish – 365 Hand-Painted Petri Dishes
“Brilliantly colored life forms dance across the wall in these detail images of an installation project composed of a series of hand-painted plexiglass petri dishes. Artist Klari Reis uses reflective epoxy polymer to depict microscopic images. The effect is hopeful, almost playful, belying the serious nature of the subject matter. Supported by steel rods, the paintings sit at varying degrees of distance from the wall, evoking depth and motion. Working with biotech companies in San Francisco, Klari uses organic cellular imagery and natural reactions to explore our complex relationship with today’s biotechnological industry.”
See more at the Daily Dish (thanks, Soulmate02)
‘Gigantic Scorpion’ Fossil Found In Fife
“A cast is being made of tracks left by a two-metre long ancient animal in north east Fife. The tracks were made by a giant six-legged “sea scorpion” called Hibbertopterus as it crawled over damp sand about 330 million years ago. It is the largest known walking trackway of a eurypterid or any invertebrate animal.
The tracks were discovered by Dr Martin Whyte from the University of Sheffield while he was out walking. Scottish Natural Heritage, which is funding the project, described the find as unique and internationally important because the creature was gigantic. It said the fossil would be moulded in silicone so that more people could see and research it.
Richard Batchelor from Geoheritage Fife, said: ‘The trackway is in a precarious situation, having been exposed for years to weathering. ‘The rock in which it occurs is in danger of falling off altogether. ‘Removing it and housing it in a museum would be prohibitively costly but moulding it in silicone rubber and making copies for educational and research purposes means that we can still see and research this huge creature’s tracks in years to come.’ The animal, which is related to modern-day scorpions and horseshoe crabs, was about two metres long and about one metre wide.”
Read more at The BBC (thanks, Tammy)
Amazing New Photos of The Sun
“The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the full evolution of the March prominence eruption, from its explosive growth to its apparent retraction back into the sun. Above, an image shows the eruption dying down, breaking the loop into a set of “horns.”
The eruption was featured in the first movie taken by Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), one of three main instruments aboard the craft. The imager can take pictures of the sun in ten light wavelengths simultaneously every ten seconds.
“AIA images the full disk of the sun at a pace, and with more channels, than ever before achieved,” said Dean Pesnell, an SDO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.”
Read more at National Geographic
New Picture – “Grand Dame”
With some afternoons at home, I’m finishing a new portrait – a second one of Dench – still not quite complete but I’ll finish it when I can and get it up on the art site for general availability, prints etc. Brand new easel too: my old one cost me a few quid from a Bristol Oxfam many years ago – I finally treated myself to a great big easel with a crank and everything – just wonderful.
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