A new study involving teens in Chinese high schools found a positive relationship between midday napping and nighttime sleep. In China, naps are built into the post-lunch schedule at schools. Habitual nappers (who napped more often) tended to have a better nighttime sleep and neurocognitive scores.
TIL that a German man drove the same car, nicknamed Otto, 549,000 miles in 177 countries on a 26-year road trip. His wife joined him for most of the journey, where they traveled to nearly every country on the planet.
TIL three border collies have been trained to run around a Chilean forest devastated by wildfire while wearing special backpacks that release native plant seeds.
TIL there is a theory that the chronic vocal injuries suffered by today's vocalists are directly caused by the 'sing from your diaphragm' methods introduced in the 1800s
Children not only have fatigue-resistant muscles, but recover very quickly from high-intensity exercise -- even faster than well-trained adult endurance athletes, according to a new study.
TIL of irukandji syndrome. Caused by irukandji jellyfish venom, it has an unusual symptom where the victim has a feeling of 'impending doom.' The victim is so sure they are going to die, that they ask the doctors to kill them.
MIT neuroscientists have developed a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sensor that allows them to monitor neural activity deep within the brain by tracking calcium ions. This could allow researchers to link specific brain functions to their pattern of neuron activity
TIL that crows are one of the smartest non-primate animals on earth, with the intelligence of a 7-year-old human. They use and manipulate tools, they have long-term memory including facial recognition, and they understand analogy.
There’s a reason that programmers always want to throw away old code and start over: they think the old code is a mess. They are probably wrong. The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It’s harder to read code than to write it.