What, you call this Awake?

The thing about winter is, when you stay up too late because taxlady wants to watch even more episodes of Stargate Atlantis, and then sleep through the alarm so that its somewhat past 3:30 pm when you awake, the sun is already going down, and just seems wrong.

Cool Stuff: Steam Powered Racing car.

Check it out.

Aleve can be bad for the Heart.

According to this report, the FDA has issued a warning that prolonged or heavy use of Naproxen (sold as Aleve, among other names) could lead to heart disease.

Fish is Brain Food.

A recent study has shown that fish oil supplements or oily fish in the diet can lead to higher IQs later in life. Researchers likened the effect to a 2-3 year slowdown in the aging process in the brains of those ingesting fish oil.

Acupuncture better than Placebo in a recent test.

Here's a report on a recent large-scale test that showed that acupuncture had a 40% better effect on trial participants than did sham treatments, and is the first study I can remember seeing in which the acupuncture appeared to be of long-term benefit. The big question now is Why?

Reconfigurable Robot.

At a recent robotics conference this demonstration was given of a robot made out of reconfigurable units that can figure out how to transform itself into different useful shapes. You'll notice that its still quite slow as it take a while for it to recompute its geometry, but its only the first version.

"Bad Cholesterol" might cure heart disease.

According to a recent study, injecting LDL (the so-called 'bad cholesterol') into mice causes them to have a huge (70%) reduction in the plaques that lead to corronary heart disease. This might actually lead to a vaccine against heart disease.

Grape Seed Extract also seems to be good for the Brain.

Folks have touted the benefits of Grape Seed Extracts for a number of years, but there has been precious little proof that it was good for anything. Now a study has shown results that support the contention that the substance may help protect against dementia.

Tales of Futures Past.

Check out this nifty website with color scans of old SF book covers and snarky comments about what must have been going on. Fun and educational too!