Both lack of sleep and too much sleep can do damage to one’s health, study finds

Researchers from the University of Warwick and University College London recently completed a study commissioned by the British Sleep Society. The study involved more than ten thousand residents of the United Kingdom. The research was aimed at finding a correlation between the average number of hours participants slept a night and the condition of their cardiovascular systems and blood vessels.

The findings indicate that the risk of death from a cardiovascular problem doubles for those suffering from constant lack of sleep. A constant lack of sleep results in higher blood pressure, which increases the risk of a cardiac infarction or a stroke.

Women who sleep less than five hours a night are twice as likely to develop hypertension as men whose sleep duration is the same. The findings indicate that individuals who cut their sleeping to five hours or less a night face a 1.7-fold increased risk in death from all causes. Researchers believe a lack of sleep may be also associated with the increased risk of gaining weight and developing type II diabetes.

These days nearly 40 million Britons have difficulties falling asleep. Besides, one out of three persons in the group suffers from the so-called “low-quality sleep” syndrome i.e. a person can only drowse instead of having a good sleep. The hectic rhythm of today’s world does not allow people to get enough sleep, said Professor Francesco Cappuccio, one of the authors of the study. Americans are no strangers to sleep disorders either. According to data released by the U.S. National Sleep Foundation, as many as 70 million Americans are affected by a lack of sleep. “One third of Britain’s population and more than 40 percent of U.S. residents cut their sleeping to less than five hours a night… That’s why we can hear people frequently complain of feeling tired, weary and drowsy throughout the day,” Prof. Cappuccio said.

It should be noted that the issue of sleep or the lack of it, for that matter, is no laughing matter for lots of Russians too. A recent study says that around 45 percent of Russians suffer from occasional attacks of insomnia, whereas 20 percent cannot beat it at all.

“Unfortunately, people all over the world are making the same mistake these days – they sleep very little during their workweek and take a long lie-in on the weekend. They’d better stop doing so. The habit will lead to the development of drowsiness. It’s understood that you’ll have trouble focusing on you work when you feel drowsy all the time. Besides, your general condition will worsen and a number of health problems may follow. A person who is woozy from lack of sleep is more prone to accidents while driving a vehicle or operating a lathe. In short, you are likely to take a turn for the worse in your life if you feel constantly drowsy. You’ll be suffering from frequent mood swings, and some of your faculties, namely, memory and concentration will be affected too,” said Professor Gennadi Kovrov, an expert in somnology from the neurology department of one of the Moscow-based medical research centers.

British researchers also found that too much sleep can be as hazardous to one’s health as a lack of sleep. Sleeping too little or sleeping too much can more than double the risk of death in individuals, according to the study. As regards some of the reasons for too much sleep, researchers believe the condition may indicate depression and cancer-related fatigue.

“In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for one’s health,” Prof. Cappuccio said in a news release. It is noteworthy that people slept up to ten hours a day before Thomas Alva Edison invented an incandescent lamp. And they seem to have slept fairly well.

Not only how long a person usually sleeps that matters, the time at which he regularly wakes up plays an important role too, according to a study by Japanese researchers. Their findings indicate that an early awakening has no beneficial effect whatsoever on one’s health. Besides, early risers may run a higher risk of developing cardiovascular problems, said the authors of the study which involved more than three thousand people aged from 23 to 90.

All and all, we should not forget about the beneficial effects of sleep on our health. It should be noted that just one night without sleep can reduce the intensity of the brain’s activity by 9 percent. The physical power of the body recovers and the activity of its systems and organs stabilize during a period of sleep. Besides, sleep can put in order all the pieces of information a person receives during the day. That is probably why the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev saw the basics of periodic law in his dream. Therefore, make sure that you have a good night’s sleep, at least eight hours a night.

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Aliens forced Americans out from the Moon

One of Russia's central television channels, RTR, has recently aired a documentary about US astronauts who allegedly came across extraterrestrial civilizations. The film showed Russian ufologist Vladimir Azhazha and astronomer Yevgeny Arsyukhin telling that expeditions to the Moon launched within 1969-1972 allegedly came across UFOs.

The researchers state that flying objects of extraterrestrial origin were persistently spying on American Apollos. They said the expeditions to the Moon looked very much like a race and presented a film demonstrating a luminous object closely following an American spaceship. Records of communication between astronauts and the Mission Control Center were also included into the film but they were absolutely inaudible as they had been purposefully jammed by Americans. They expected that the expeditions would find something astonishing on the Moon and with the view of keeping their communication with the surface secret they encoded their messages to the MCC. When the records of communication were later deciphered it turned out that the US missions came across lunar bases, remains of space vehicles and deserted towns on the Moon.

The film stated that lunar creatures would not tolerate the presence of Earth dwellers for long. When Americans brought a dummy car to furrow Moon craters, the creatures living on the satellite began to demonstrate their furious protest against the US presence on the Moon. Filmmakers said that green dwellers of the Moon told Americans to go home as they wanted to keep secret the sublunar bases that they used to observe the life on the Earth. It was alleged that NASA was afraid of conflicting with a highly developed civilization and immediately stopped the program. Does the film sound believable?

In a couple of days, Americans demonstrated their documentary about the Apollo expeditions, In the Shadow of the Moon, with records of the flights to the Moon that were specially processed after the video archives of the Moon program had disappeared. Is it true that the archives were lost? It seems that the CIA wanted to wipe out tracks of a contact between US astronauts and extraterrestrials.

It is an open secret by the way that films demonstrating the landing of American astronauts on the Moon and Neil Armstrong’s walk about the lunar surface were lost. What is more, records telling about astronauts’ health during the flights to the Moon, information about spaceships and other 700 messages sent from the board of spaceships launched in the framework of the Apollo program are also missing. Before the late 1970s the films had been kept at the US National Archives then were moved to NASA and later disappeared at all. It took NASA officials a year to conduct searches of the films but they managed to find just not more than ten films. Will anyone believe that evidence of US’s biggest triumph may so easily disappear from the NASA archives?

An expertise of the Moon pictures demonstrated in the Russian documentary revealed that they were no ordinary photos but simply some daub. Deputy director of the Comparative Planetology Laboratory Doctor of geological sciences Alexander Bazilevsky says that experts are from time to time requested to conduct an expertise of this type of photos. The Lunar Orbiter stations shot the Moon surface, then developed films right on board the spaceships and telecast them to the surface. As a result of this film development any unexpected things or elements could appear on pictures, and it explains why one of the pictures showed in the documentary had the word ‘spire’. In a word, none of the pictures demonstrated in the documentary can be the evidence of aliens’ existence on the Moon.

This is strange that films with really important evidence can disappear from NASA. Several years ago, over 100 g of lunar soil and meteorites were stolen from the collection of the Johnson Space Center. And that was not the only incident of the kind there. A former NASA official explained that the unique films had been probably lost after they were several times moved from one place to another within the past forty years.

The NASA official who requested anonymity also told a really interesting story. When President Bush announced recommencement of the lunar program the National Aeronautics and Space Administration asked aged researchers who had taken part in the Apollo expeditions earlier to meet experts who were going to start a new mission. One of the aged researchers who came to the meeting had designed a device to measure lunar radiation. The device could measure radiation before humans landed the planet and could transmit information even when the Apollos were back to the surface. In the framework of the program heaps of records were collected. But when the program was no longer financed and stopped the bobbins with ciphered films were discarded. But the old engineer took the films and placed them to his basement where they are still being kept. Unfortunately there is no opportunity to decipher the films as a special device able to decode such records was also utilized when the program ended.

The NASA official admits that the flights to the Moon were rather a political mission as the USA wanted to gain revenge after the Soviet spaceman Gagarin was the first to enter the space. And the USA spent $150 billion to start the lunar program to demonstrate the power of the American science and engineering. It was a very expensive project that was easily abandoned as soon as financing was stopped.

The American Internet service Google is ready to pay $20 million to a private company that succeeds in landing a buggy on the Moon for transmitting photo and video information of one gigabyte in size right to the Earth surface. The sum is to be paid in case a buggy lands the Moon before 2012, and a company may get just $15 million if it launches such a buggy within the two next years after 2012.

At that, Google conditions that such a buggy must walk at least 40 centimeters along the Moon surface, transmit a series of pictures from the Moon including ‘a self-portrait’ against the lunar background, a panoramic picture of the planet and on-line video.

As it turned out, meteorites hit the lunar surface oftener than is usually believed which is really dangerous for automatic stations and manned spaceships. The Moon has no atmospheric protection, and even a small meteor can cause a tragedy if it hits a spaceship or a manned space station.

Today, the Russian project of the Moon expedition is even less developed than it was under the direction of Korolev.

The documentary In the Shadow of the Moon includes an interview given by five of the eight extant men who had ever entered space. They are now aged over seventy. None of them has ever officially stated that he saw something supernatural in space. At that, they are unanimous that the lunar race was part of the cold war when pure science was of second importance.

Neil Armstrong, the first man to land the Moon, is now living an anchorite life in Ohayo where he teaches astronautics at the university.

NASA is going to conduct another mission to the Moon with a spaceship Orion resembling Apollo and stuffed with steroids. It is planned that four astronauts will fly round the Moon in 2018. If the project goes OK a landing module is to land the lunar surface in 2020.

Russia’s ambitions as concerning Moon exploration are rather modest. A Russian astronaut may land the planet only as a member of a Chinese-Russian expedition. Chinese researchers are working on this project and invite Russia to participate in it as well.

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Six fatal cases related to brain-eating amoeba reported in USA

The term “killer amoeba” may as well belong to some sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, a microscopic organism called Naegleria fowleri is not part of fiction. The amoeba lives in lakes and hot springs. Naegleria attacks the body through the nasal cavity, quickly eating its way to the brain. Once infected, people start complaining of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. In the later stages of an infection, they will show typical signs of brain damage e.g. hallucinations and behavioral changes.

Though the attacks are extremely rare, U.S. health officials have already registered six fatal Naegleria-related cases this year. Some health officials are quite concerned about a possible epidemic caused by the killer amoeba. According to data released by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Naegleria infected 23 people from 1995 to 2004.

This year health officials already registered six deaths related to the killer amoeba in southern states, namely, three people died in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. Consequently, state health officials put their communities on high alert. On the other hand, the CDC is aware of only several hundred cases worldwide since the discovery of Naegleria in Australia in the 1960s.

The case of the 14-year-old Aaron Evans, reported in September, came as a shock to many Americans. Along with his father and other loved ones, the boy went to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to celebrate his father’s birthday on September 8. The Southwest had been hit hard by a heat wave, and the boy spent the whole day swimming and splashing in the lake. Aaron woke up with a throbbing headache about one week later. His father took him to an emergency room. The doctors first thought the boy was suffering from meningitis. Aaron was rushed to another hospital. Despite all the efforts to save his life, the boy passed away on September 17. “My kids won’t swim in Lake Havasu again,” said the boy’s father following the tragedy.

According to Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational water-born illnesses with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a patient will usually die within two weeks after initial exposure. Once infected, people have little chance of survival. Those stirring up the bottom as they wade through shallow water are likely to get infected with Naegleria. It is still unclear why boys seem to be more frequently infected than girls. “Boys tend to have more boisterous activities when swimming, but at this point we can’t be sure if that’s the only reason,” Beach said.

Naegleria fowleri is a heat-loving microorganism. Some health officials warn that the number of cases may start increasing as global warming sets in. Although some drugs have been found effective in stopping the amoeba in lab experiments, they have rarely helped patients survive the infection, according to medical sources. Plugging one’s nose prior to swimming or diving in warm, standing water seems to be the easiest way to prevent the killer-amoeba from entering the body.

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Iron Fertilization "Give me half a tanker of iron and I’ll give you the next ice age"

What if, to prevent global warming, humanity fertilized the ocean with iron? That is the question scientists will be discussing at an international Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution conference from September 26-27.

The idea became more mainstream after oceanographer John Martin famously told his colleagues, “Give me half a tanker of iron and I’ll give you the next ice age.”

Dissolved iron is rare in the ocean. Iron is a vital nutrient for phytoplankton growth and photosynthesis. Ocean zones that are iron-deficient have small phytoplankton populations, if at all.

Phytoplankton, like any other life form that obtains energy through photosynthesis (e.g. plants), absorbs carbon dioxide. Unlike most other plants, when phytoplankton dies, the CO2 is not necessarily immediately released in to the atmosphere. When most plants die, they decompose and the carbon dioxide is released in to the atmosphere. Phytoplankton lives in the ocean. When it dies, it sinks to the bottom of ocean, bringing the CO2 with it. That CO2 can stay down there for hundreds of years.

The idea is that iron fertilization would dramatically increase the phytoplankton population, who would then absorb carbon dioxide.

Critics argue that not enough research has been done on large-scale effects. Some worry that harmful algae could bloom as well, ecosystems could be disrupted, or that areas could become oxygen depleted.

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Turning your office wasteland into a recycling haven

For several years, colleagues within our office looked around at the mountains of used printer paper, newspapers and other waste that surrounded them and made mild mutterings about how awful it was that it all just went into the main waste skip and wasn’t recycled. Yet while many were keen to see the waste dealt with in a better way, no-one was particularly keen to take on the recycling role themselves.

Yet, when we finally got the bit between our teeth at the start of the year and decided once and for all that the waste must stop, it turned out to be much easier than anticipated.

If you currently find yourself in the same frustrating position as we were in, the Big Green Switch guide to setting up an office recycling scheme will hopefully help to get your office into a greener way of working.

STEP ONE: What are you going to collect for recycling?

Although this may seem like an obvious question, setting the boundaries of what you will and won’t collect is a very important aspect of your scheme.

Here are some of the items you may want to consider:
- Paper (newspaper, magazine etc).
- Drinks cans.
- Plastic bottles.
- Glass bottles.
- Drink cartons.
- Cardboard.
- Printer Cartridges.
- Items for composting.

Setting up a scheme involving all of these items may be costly and take up a lot of your time. You may want to start with the basics and build up from there. Have a look in bins and see which items are most commonly thrown away. You’ll probably find paper, plastic and cans to be a good starting point. Smells are another issue to bear in mind. Storing teabags for composting is brilliant for the environment, but could quickly lead to a very smelly kitchen. Look at how much room you have and be practical about what you can and can’t achieve within your workplace.

STEP TWO: What will you collect it all in?

Talk to your manager about buying some recycling bins to place around the office. Don’t try to use existing bins as this will very quickly lead to confusion and a huge jumble of items.

Go for bins with lids for anything that could be smelly and large boxes with sturdy handles are a good bet for carrying paper. Also invest in a stack of biodegradable bin liners to make sure you’re not just adding extra plastic to the landfill.

The way you mark your bins is also very important; be very clear about what can and can’t go in each bin to avoid confusion. We’ve created a set of posters for you to use to help people know what they can and can’t place in each bin. After a little trial and error we also found the need to stick this information on the lid of the bin (if possible) to make sure people can clearly see what the bin is for.

STEP THREE: How will it get to the main recycling centre?

So, you’ve collected your waste and it’s neatly bagged up in biodegradable bin liners. What next? Now you need to make sure it gets to a main recycling centre, and this is where you have a few options.

There are three main choices for waste collection:
- Your local authority/council.
- A private service.
- An in-house collection.

Both your council and a private scheme may also provide bins, but check out the size and positioning of these to make sure your scheme is kept as simple as possible. Visit sub-it.co.uk to find out whether a local company will collect your recyclable waste, or get in touch with your council to if there are any schemes they can offer to your business.Also remember that a private or council service will often charge for collections so check with your manager or company owner to make sure they are happy to cover this charge.

If a private or council scheme doesn’t fit your criteria, you may want to think about organising an in-house recycling run. This will only realistically work for a small to medium-sized business; if you are trying to organise this sort of scheme for a large company, a private/council collection is likely to work well.

However, organising an in-house collection can often be easier and cheaper for your company. It’s unlikely you will be able to manage every recycle run on your own, so send out an email and try to get as many people involved as possible. Remember, the more people involved, the less often they will each have to go.

Generally speaking, one run to the recycling centre per week should be enough, but this will depend on the size of your company and the amount of waste produced. Draw up a rota of the people prepared to help and give them a week or half week period when their turn should be. Don’t try to make them take the rubbish on one particular day, their work commitments must come first and they’ll need to fit the recycling around their own timetable. Also, try to encourage colleagues to make the run on their way home, rather than taking a special trip which would notch up additional traffic pollution.

As long as you’re reasonable about your volunteers’ commitment to the scheme, you should be able to get a pretty steady rota of people taking rubbish down for recycling. Always remember to say thank you and be prepared to be the first person to cover a recycling run if someone is ill.

STEP FOUR: What next?

With your recycling scheme up and running and your office hopefully now starting to catch the green bug, there are plenty of other ways in which you can make your workplace into a greener place to be. Have a look at The Big Green Switch’s ‘In the Workplace’ section to get you started on creating a cleaner, greener office.
GOOD LUCK!

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