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Online sales fared considerably better this past weekend. ComScore, a digital research firm, estimates that cyber sales on Black Friday totaled $595 million, making it the second heaviest online spending day so far in 2009 and up 11% from Black Friday 2008. PayPal said it saw a 20% increase in the amount of money people spent using PayPal to purchase items this Black Friday from last year and a 140% spike in the volume of payments made by mobile phones. The mobile-phone transaction increase indicates that buyers shopping at brick-and-mortar sites were likely price-checking items with...
...suspected that sleep plays an important role in learning and memory. But it's only in the last decade that neuroscientists have discovered the most convincing evidence that memory is indeed dependent on sleep. The prevailing theory is that during deep sleep, the brain replays certain experiences from the day, which, in turn, strengthens the memory of what happened. It is thought that when it comes to factual memories, like names, faces, numbers or locations, memory consolidation happens only during deep sleep - a phase of non-rapid eye movement sleep. (The other broad type of sleep, called rapid eye movement...
...minority of neuroscientists disagree that sleep actively aids memory, suggesting instead that consolidation of memories is merely a side effect of snoozing. They argue that the true purpose of sleep is to "cool down" the brain by resting the neurons that have been firing all day long. Paller's study lends support for the majority view: when sounds were played to the sleeping brain, the EEG patterns indicated activity - signaling that perhaps certain memories were being revisited - and this processing appeared to strengthen memories. "The meow somehow stimulated the association of the cat with a certain position on the screen...
...still a long way from understanding exactly how sleep affects memory, they are certain that getting too little sleep is a detriment. A 2007 paper in Nature Neuroscience reported that in addition to consolidating recently learned memories, "sleep before learning is equally important in preparing the brain for next-day memory formation." The study found that people who had skipped a night's sleep fared worse at making new memories the next day, compared with those who had gotten a good night's sleep. Turns out, Mom's advice may have been right all along...
...heart of Berlusconi's culture is the velina, or showgirl, who is served up to Italians every day, like pasta. Some veline merely stand mute while male presenters talk. Some give on-air lap dances to chat-show guests, as did one earlier this year to Inter Milan coach José Mourinho. Others play the funny little games producers devise, posing as table legs, or braving cold showers in tight dresses. Some simply strip: Mediaset's homepage recently featured a clip of a blonde clad in a black garbage bag, slowly lowering it to reveal her breasts. Degrading? Undoubtedly...