If you’re reading this, your DNA’s likely comprised of 23 pairs of chromosomes. That would make you a human, as well as a potential customer for the at-home DNA testing kits sold by 23andMe. Order and register your kit, send in a tube of your spit, and in upwards of four weeks you’ll get access to genetic information that’ll clue you in about your health and heritage in ways you never thought possible. Or, perhaps, important.

How it’s possible is an explanation best left to the scientists, but why it’s important is best left to you to repeat to as many people as possible: genetic testing will tell you if any children you plan to conceive will be at risk for inherited traits and conditions. And that’s not all. What can DNA testing tell you about such “garden variety” diseases as diabetes? According to 23andMe, “on average, one person in five develops diabetes by age 79. Variations in your DNA tested for by 23andMe might raise your risk to one in three, making your lifestyle choices on factors like exercise and weight control even more critical.” Whether you use this site’s kit or choose to have genetic testing done in a doctor’s office, there’s no debate that that’s news you can use.

Once 23andMe tests your DNA, they store it in their database, allowing you to access your genome or genetic information online. You can also pay to compare your genes with those of others registered with the service, making it a genetic Facebook of sorts, enabling you to potentially find potential living relatives as well as details about who your ancestors were and where they lived.

Whether you spring for the testing or not, watch the site’s Genetics 101 video that’ll re-school you about DNA’s building blocks and help you appreciate that the next time someone tells you that “you have your father’s hair,” what they’re actually saying is “you appear to have inherited a gene or genes from your father that makes a protein that instructs your hair follicle cells to produce hair that curls like your father’s.”

It’s fitting that the creators of free Web app Web 2.0 suicide machine are from the Netherlands. Why? The Netherlands is known for its windmills, among other things, and the phrase “tilting at windmills” from Don Quixote refers to the pursuits of battling imaginary enemies and chasing an impossible dream. And that gets to the heart of what this app is about: It automatically and permanently scrapes your private content, friends, and connections from your social networks in defense of an enemy the founders believe is real, during a process that is far from impossible.

The tangible enemies are the networks themselves that can retain bits of your personal data forever. The intangible enemy is the ability of social networking to disconnect us from real life — hardly a new concern, but one the founders express in urgent tones: “Users are entrapped in a high resolution panoptic prison without walls, accessible from anywhere in the world. We do have a healthy amount of paranoia to think that everyone should have the right to quit her 2.0-ified life by the help of automatized machines.” An amusing but effective video drives their point home.

The way the suicide machine words is fiendishly simple. Decide which social network — Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, or Twitter – you want the app to gut (the accounts themselves are not deleted), give the app that account’s user name and password, and a Flash video pops up enabling you to watch a Moddr script methodically delete tweets and posts, untether connections, and eradicate your account data. The app makers itemize each action so you know precisely what’s happening. As of this writing Facebook was trying to throw up legal and technical roadblocks to stop the app, but the founders have found a workaround, at least on the technical side.

In a post about this app, blogger Lisa Hoover poses a helpful question: “Are you so over social networking that you’re ready to disappear yourself, or do you want to stick around and enjoy the party a little longer?” Only you can answer that, of course. Once the app does its thing, the only data the suicide machine site retains  is “your profile picture, your name and your last words,” which could easily be “I shall return” if you’d like to come back to your abandoned network again someday — perhaps as someone else.

Even if you’re not a fan of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (but if you’re not, ask yourself why) you may know of one of its characters, a highly-capable but emotionally-challenged android named Data.

Thinking about it, the name Data was quite appropriate. He was clinical about everything. And that’s precisely why we like data, lowercase “d,” in real life. Data doesn’t get rattled by office politics, the reason Google approves projects based on data and not the emotions and whims of coworkers. If you were unfamiliar with Google’s data-driven culture before, it probably makes more sense to you now why they’re pushing endless productivity apps to help us record, organize, and analyze our own data.

What’s the point of basing our lives on data? Well, the same as it always was: You either want to save time, money, and energy, or help someone else do the same. And the recording process has a name: lifelogging, and while Rubel didn’t coin the term he’s on to something when he says that “if you dedicate yourself to using data wisely to plan and measure you will succeed no matter what your goals are.” The most basic form of lifelogging is keeping a personal diary, perhaps the oldest and still the best way to keep track of your life, whether you plan to write your autobiography or one day subject the world to your grooming tips, ala Bob Packwood.

Rubel helps single out one of the more selfless lifeloggers – dad Allen Fawcett, who tracked his son’s sleep patterns for a year and recorded them in the graph shown in the time-lapse video embedded above. The blue shows when his boy was sleeping, the yellow when he was awake. Over time, the yellow awake blocks solidify into predictable blocks, as you’ll see. How did this graph help Fawcett? It didn’t, per se, but the data gives other new parents hope that sleep patterns can even out. And if data can give you hope, that’s a pretty good reason to record it.

Everybody knows a friend or family member with a bedtime snore that seems louder than a lion’s roar.  The snore is so loud that you have to fall asleep before they do; otherwise you aren’t getting to bed anytime soon.  Have you ever noticed that the loud snorers never wake up in the middle of the night?  They just keep sawing logs like they are cutting down a forest.  There are a couple of reasons why the snoring giant will sleep through his own noises.  Neil Kline of the American Sleep Association explains that “our ability to sleep through loud noises changes during the night as our body transitions between the different stages of the sleep cycle”.  Did you know that even snores louder than the volume of a fire alarm may fail to wake the sleeping beauty from deep sleep?  On average people are in deep sleep 20% of the night.  In deep sleep, you don’t wake up.  During the other 80% of the time, their snores can wake them up numerous times without him or her realizing it.  Even though a loud snort can wake you for a few seconds, it is simply not long enough for you to completely awaken.   You might be oblivious to your brief sleep interruptions at the time they occur, but it comes at a price.  If you have increased sleepiness during the day, it might be a result of the fragmented sleep you had last night.  I guess there is really nothing better than a good nights rest.

Original Article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/why-don%E2%80%99t-loud-snorers-wake-themselves

For years scientists have wrestled with the idea of improving your IQ. Is your IQ something passed down from your parents, or is it something that you can improve and develop over time? Or, is it a combination of both factors? Although we may never know the answer, today it seems less likely that your IQ is entirely a result of your genes. Many modern scientists are convinced that altering environmental factors can result in an increased IQ. Below is a list containing a number of different ways to improve your IQ. If you don’t believe that these will work, try comparing your results on the IQ test (http://www.iqtest.com/).

• Take Deep Breaths –They teach you in yoga to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. This increases the amount of oxygen flow to the brain.

• Keep a Journal – This type of reflection has been praised by many of the best, including Einstein and Newton.

• Continuous Learning of New Things – You might be surprised by what you can do. A curious mind will unlock new skills.

• Pick Up Speed Reading – Knowledge is power. The quicker you can read, the more information you can absorb.

• Take Short Breaks – This helps keep your mind fresh and maintain focus.

• Acronyms – I’m sure you used mnemonics to study in college. This assists with memorization.

• Breakfast – You need energy, so start the day off right.

• Movement – This helps the blood flow and circulation.

• Meditation – Helps reduce stress and increase the power of the brain

• No Sugar – A sugar loaded diet will cause unpredictable crashes in your day.

• Use your emotional intelligence – Empathy is the key component to understanding others. The better we can relate to others, the better we can understand our self.

• Productive use of downtime – Don’t sit around watching television after work. Run errands, do your laundry, or pay your bills. A written list or schedule can be effective for budgeting your downtime.

• Exercise – Experts say this is key for good health and reducing stress.

• Use of multiple senses to learn – We learn better when multiple-senses are involved.

• Focus – Induce alpha brain waves to relax and focus

• Consumption of antioxidants – A good diet can drastically improve your focus.

• Use your intuition – Pick up on environmental cues

• Learn a memory system – To read more about these system, follow this link (http://www.memory-improvement-tips.com/memory-systems.html)

These methods will not only improve your IQ. They are also great ways to keep your mind and body sharp and focused. As we get close to old age, our brains start to degrade. If you want to maintain a sharp and youthful brain, I highly recommend these methods.

Originally From: www.abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com/2008/09/05/20-ways-to-raise-your-iq/

Imagine waking up every morning to have your cup of coffee.  You take a step outside to grab your newspaper and walk the dog.  Instead of seeing your typical neighborhood scene, you are standing at the edge of a cliff.  That’s what citizens of these 5 amazing and perilous “cliff-towns” experience every day.

• Manarola, Italy –    If you visit this town, be sure to try the local specialty Sciacchetrà, a sweet dessert wine that tastes of honey and apricots. Manarola is one of five cliff-side villages in the Cinque Terre area of the Italian Riviera.

Picture: http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/manarola.jpg

• Al Hajjarah, Yemen – In western Yemen you will find the Haraz mountains and the village of Al Hajjarah.  When this clifftop village was built by the Ottomans in the 11^th century, it served  as a fortified military base as well as an enclave for Muslims.  Today, the village is best for travelers interested in a unique mountain climbing and hiking destination.

Picture: http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/haj.jpg

• Bonifacio, France – At the southern tip of the French Island of Corsica, you will find Bonifacio.  It was originally built for military purposes, and today it serves as a great vacation spot for the holidays.  The view across the Mediterranean Sea is spectacular.

Picture: http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/bon2.jpg

• Castellfollit de la Roca, Spain - Castellfollit de la Roca is located in the Catalonia region in the middle of Spain.  With cliffs on both sides of the village, it has one most spectacular views of the Catalonian countryside.

Picture: http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/castellfollit-1.jpg

• Ronda, Spain – Ronda sits upon two hilltops, separated by the 400 feet deep El Tajo Gorge.  The issue here is how to bridge the two sections of town. The current bridge took 42 years to build!  Other than the view, its claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of modern bullfighting.

Picture: http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ronda-2.jpg

Originally From:  http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/amazing-views/cliff-side-edge-towns

How to Nap

Do you want to take the perfect nap?  Follow the steps below.

• Make sure there are no distractions (you won’t get a world-class nap at work or school).
• Make sure you have no other commitments — an unfinished to-do list can linger on your mind and prevent you from getting to sleep.  Quiet Your mantra (counting sheep or “Z’s”).
• Wear comfortable clothing, something light and soft.
• When washing sheets, add a scent that you enjoy, such as lavender.
• Arrange pillows and covers suitably. Make sure there are no wrinkles in the sheets, as they can cause discomfort. If you don’t have a pillow, use what you can in your environment — rest your head on your hands, use a sweatshirt, etc.
• Go to the bathroom, you can’t take a nap bouncing up and down.
• Turn off all lights, TV, music, and other distractions.
• Lie down in a comfortable position.
• Close your eyes and think of pleasant visions.
• Relax and breathe softly and slowly.
• Set an alarm

Originally From: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/

If you are like me, you probably have trouble remembering every phone number, internet password, birthday date, and pin number.  Well, I have found the perfect solutions: The Major Memory System, a powerful technique for memorizing numbers.  By mastering this technique, you will be about to recite pi up to 22,500 decimal digits.  The system is divided into 3 separate steps: encode numbers as images, associate images in your mind, and extend the system for longer numbers.  What is striking about this system is that it suggests why we have such trouble remembering numbers: our brains usually work best using vibrant images, and numbers lack such characteristics.  The system he discusses relies on converting these dull numbers into vivid images and associating numbers with pictures.  In doing so, we are able to more easily remember even the longest of numbers (like pi).  The system is like using a mnemonic system on steroids.  For a full description of the system and how to use it, please see the link below.

Originally From: URL: http://litemind.com/major-system/