STUDY: 45 minute power nap boosts memory five-fold... -

STUDY: 45 minute power nap boosts memory five-fold... - 

A power nap of just 45 minutes can boost memory by five times, research has found.
A short doze helps you to retain information you have learned and 'significantly' improves recall, scientists said – meaning naps really could help students revising for exams.
Participants in the study learned 90 single words and 120 unconnected word pairs such as 'milk taxi'. 

Happy napping: A 45-minute nap helps you to retain information you have learned and 'significantly' improves recall, scientists said – meaning naps really could help students revising for exams
Sleep study: The scientists at Saarland University found that a nap 'produces a five-fold improvement in information retrieval from memory'

Some then watched a DVD while others slept. 
When they were then retested, those who had slept remembered more word pairs, the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory reports. 

The scientists, from Saarland University in Germany, said that during sleep, bursts of brain activity known as sleep spindles play an important role in consolidating newly learned information.
Professor Axel Mecklinger said a nap of just 45 minutes to an hour 'produces a five-fold improvement in information retrieval from memory' 
'The memory performance of the participants who had a power nap was just as good as it was before sleeping, that is, immediately after completing the learning phase.
'Strictly speaking, memory performance did not improve in the nap group relative to the levels measured immediately after the learning phase, but they did remain constant.'
'A short nap at the office or in school is enough to significantly improve learning success. Wherever people are in a learning environment, we should think seriously about the positive effects of sleep,' says Axel Mecklinger. 
'Enhancing information recall through sleeping doesn't require us to stuff bulky tomes under our pillow. 
'A concentrated period of learning followed by a short relaxing sleep is all that's needed.'

Read more: -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3006742/A-power-nap-just-45-minutes-boost-memory-five-fold-according-new-research.html

US "Loses" $500 Million In Weapons Given To Yemen, Now In Al-Qaeda Hands -

US "Loses" $500 Million In Weapons Given To Yemen, Now In Al-Qaeda Hands - 

Nobody could have possibly foreseen that yet another US foreign diplomacy "success story" would turn out to be an epic disaster. Well, nobody except for those can predict that virtually every US intervention abroad is now a staggering fiasco. As for Yemen, the outcome was clear long ago:

Yemen's US-Backed Government & President Resign
Obama's "Partners" In Yemen Overthrown As Presidential Palace Falls To Local Militiamen
Deserted US Embassy In Yemen Immediately Seized By Armed Rebels
The Coup Is Complete: US Embassy In Yemen Shutting Down, Ambassador To Leave By Wednesday
And, naturally, after noting that "the employees said that more than 20 vehicles were taken by the fighters after the Americans departed from Sanaa's airport" we asked how long until we have a "tabulation of losses to US taxpayers, just like the great Islamic State 'robbery' of hundreds of millions in US military equipment in Iraq?" That, of course, was another epic US intervention success story.

Anyway, thanks to WaPo we have an answer: according to Jeff Bezos' recent media acquisition, "the Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen."

Obviously, "can't account for" means "has lost." But while the US does not know where nearly half a billion in weapons can be found, it is more than informed who is the current owner: there are "fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials."

And just like that, America's now laughable, pathetic foreign policy has not only resulted in another US-supported administration to be exiled or worse, but is has directly armed the adversary. And to think it was only 6 months ago when the Teleprompter in Chief was praising the "Yemen success story." From Obama's Statement on ISIL as of September 10, 2014:

Now, it will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIL.  And any time we take military action, there are risks involved –- especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions.  But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.  This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground.  This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.  And it is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year:  to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.
Some may find it odd then, that 6 months later this "strategy" has been flipped on its head, and the Obama administration is taking out its partners (in Yemen), while supporting the terrorists who threaten us.

But almost everyone will say this was obvious from day one.

Here is what else was obvious:

With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering, the Defense Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies donated by the United States. The situation has grown worse since the United States closed its embassy in Sanaa, the capital, last month and withdrew many of its military advisers.


U.S. firearms supplied to the Interior Ministry in Yemen, which has
received 
$500 million in aid from the United States since 2007 under an
array of 
Defense Department and State Department programs. (GAO)

In recent weeks, members of Congress have held closed-door meetings with U.S. military officials to press for an accounting of the arms and equipment. Pentagon officials have said that they have little information to go on and that there is little they can do at this point to prevent the weapons and gear from falling into the wrong hands.

“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” said a legislative aide on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

* * *

Washington has supplied more than $500 million in military aid to Yemen since 2007 under an array of Defense Department and State Department programs. The Pentagon and CIA have provided additional assistance through classified programs, making it difficult to know exactly how much Yemen has received in total.
Below is a graphic representation of all the equipment that has been "misplaced."



Another day for the US State Department under John Kerry, another day of endless embarrassment.

U.S. military officials declined to comment for the record. A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said there was no hard evidence that U.S. arms or equipment had been looted or confiscated. But the official acknowledged that the Pentagon had lost track of the items.

“Even in the best-case scenario in an unstable country, we never have 100 percent accountability,” the defense official said.
It gets better:

U.S. government officials say al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen poses a more direct threat to the U.S. homeland than any other terrorist group. To counter it, the Obama administration has relied on a combination of proxy forces and drone strikes launched from bases outside the country.
And now it is relying on an even more radical strategy: arming al-Qaeda directly.

But the absolute punchline is the way the US government justifies this most recent fiasco:

Although the loss of weapons and equipment already delivered to Yemen would be embarrassing, U.S. officials said it would be unlikely to alter the military balance of power there. Yemen is estimated to have the second-highest gun ownership rate in the world, ranking behind only the United States, and its bazaars are well stocked with heavy weaponry. Moreover, the U.S. government restricted its lethal aid to small firearms and ammunition, brushing aside Yemeni requests for fighter jets and tanks.
See, it's no biggie that US taxpayers are half a bill out of pocket: the Yemen branch of Al-Qaeda was already armed to the teeth anyway, peace out.

Up next? US-trained Ukraine troops with ultra-modern equipment mysteriously defect, and end up in the Russian army?

The winner? The US Military Industrial Complex, because as General Sline said in Spies Like Us, "a weapon unused is a useless weapon." And if there is anything the US military-industrial complex is good at, it is exporting war first courtesy of the CIA operating the in the shadows of incompetent figureheads like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, followed promptly - like in this case - by arms to fight it (while HSBC, JPM and others provide the funding).

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-23/us-loses-500-million-weapons-given-yemen-now-al-qaeda-hands

Scientists plan to mine human feces for precious metals... -

Scientists plan to mine human feces for precious metals... - 

Every year, Americans are flushing a fortune down the toilet. Literally. More than 7 million tons of biosolids—treated sewage sludge—pass through US wastewater facilities annually. Contained within our shit are surprisingly large quantities of silver, gold, and platinum.

But our days of wasting human waste may be numbered, if Kathleen Smith of the US Geological Survey has anything to say about it. She’s leading a new research program that’s examining the feasibility of extracting precious metals from sewage. As Smith will explain Tuesday at a press conference at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, recovering metals from waste could reduce the need for environmentally-destructive mining programs, and make biosolids a safer source of fertilizer to boot.

“There are metals everywhere,” Smith said in a statement. “If you can get rid of some of the nuisance metals that currently limit how much of these biosolids we can use on fields and forests, and at the same time recover valuable metals and other elements, that’s a win-win.”

At treatment plants, raw sewage is processed by a series of physical, biological and chemical processes and transformed into treated water and biosolids. Roughly 60 percent of biosolids are applied as fertilizer to fields and forests. The rest are either incinerated or buried. While biosolids are routinely screened for hazardous heavy metals including lead, arsenic, and cadmium, few studies have tested our waste for anything as valuable as, say, gold or platinum.

But that’s starting to change. Earlier this year, a study led by Paul Westerhoff at Arizona State University profiled over 50 metals in biosolid samples from 94 wastewater treatment plants across the US. Most samples were substantially enriched in rare and precious platinum-group metals, silver, and gold. Extrapolating from their data, the authors worked out that the waste produced annually by a million Americans could contain as much as 13 million dollars worth of metals. That’s over four billion dollars worth of gold coming out of our collective arses every year.​

Microscopic gold-rich and lead-rich particles in a municipal biosolids sample. Image: Heather Lowers, USGS Denver Microbeam Laboratory
Smith’s team is now on a mission to figure out which metals are the most economically viable to recover, and how we can extract them.

“We have a two-pronged approach,” she said. “In one part of the study, we are looking at removing some regulated metals from the biosolids that limit their use for land application. In the other part of the project, we’re interested in collecting valuable metals that could be sold, including some of the more technologically important metals, such as vanadium and copper that are in cell phones, computers and alloys.”

To do so, the team is working to modify extraction procedures used in industrial mining to leach metals out of minerals. “Traditional extractants will behave differently with the organic matter [in biosolids],” Smith told me over the phone. “But if we can find an extractant that does a good job, this procedure may be incorporated into current biosolid treatments.”

Smith and her fellow researchers are also planning to test biosolids across the country for precious metals, to search for any geographic or demographic patterns in their distribution. So far, the group has collected waste from several small towns in the Rocky Mountains, rural areas, and big cities. Astonishingly, in nearly all the samples they’ve examined, the team has found commercially mineable concentrations of gold.

“What’s interesting is that we’re seeing nearly the same amount of gold in all of these samples,” Smith told me. “It seems like there’s some source of gold that’s prevalent across the board.”

It's not entirely clear how these precious metals are getting into our waste, Smith says. Potential culprits include hair products, cosmetics, and detergents. But humans could also be playing a more direct role, by concentrating the trace metals we eat during digestion, and sending gold-and-silver-fortified defecations down the tube.

Whatever the reason, one thing’s clear: our sewers are a lot prettier than we realized.

Read more - 

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/scientists-want-to-mine-our-poop-for-gold