Is the Boeing 787, heretofore known as the Dreamliner, becoming a nightmare for Boeing? The bet-the-company bird has had a difficult entry into service, with a number of early incidents such as a cracked windshield. And now, two incidents with lithium ion batteries catching fire and generating smoke have caused the FAA, Japan’s civil aviation authorities, and other aviation regulators to ground their airlines’ 787.

The New York Times describes the problem.

 Did you know that sleep may be crucial for forming long-term memory?

Here’s something so simple that you can do it while you sleep:

In a study published in the June 2011 issue of Science, University of Washington researchers worked with a special breed of fruit flies that could be induced to sleep on demand. Following a period of training, flies who then underwent 4 hours of induced sleep formed long-term memories of that training. Note that training alone was not enough to trigger memory consolidation—sleep was a necessary component. Flies who trained but did not sleep did not form long-term memories.

The University of Washington study makes fascinating observations about sleep’s power to cause memory formation. But if you’re wondering how much we can learn from fruits flies, then rest assured that many human studies also show that sleep improves memory and performance. Proper sleep is easy to incorporate into your lifestyle: consider getting a good night’s rest after you’ve studied for a test or experienced a particularly cherished event. Sleep may help these novel experiences stick with you.

Not only may sleep help your memory, but lack of sleep may also hurt your health. A 2010 study from Biological Psychiatry found that chronic insomnia may lead to loss of brain volume. Researchers used MRI scans to examine the brains of 37 human subjects with and without chronic insomnia. Insomniacs had a smaller volumes of gray matter in three brain areas—and the more serious the insomnia, the greater the loss of volume. And a preliminary 2012 study from the Washington University School of Medicine found that poor sleep may be linked to brain plaques found in people with Alzheimer’s.

Various studies make a good case for getting a good night’s sleep whenever you can. But remember that while sleep may be beneficial, it’s only part of the puzzle. Apart from nighttime memory consolidation, you can also work on improving your memory abilities by playing certain games.

Ed Note: There is a company called Luminosity that offers these type of Memory gams. Here are a few:

• Rotation Matrix.
• Spatial Speed Match (to stay alert during the day!) 
• Familiar Faces.

By Wu Yiyao in Shanghai ( China Daily)

Demand for gold may rise as central banks and sovereign funds are likely to replace US dollar and euro holdings with the precious metal amid the uncertainty caused by the global financial crisis, a report issued by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum said on Friday. China may decide to increase the percentage of gold holdings in its monetary reserves in the next few years, said the report, an analysis of the world monetary system commissioned by the World Gold Council.

Demand for gold is likely to rise amid the uncertainty about the stability of the US dollar and the euro, the main assets held by central banks and sovereign funds, it added.

China almost doubled its gold reserves in the last five years. The country had holdings of 1,054 metric tons in July 2012 and is now the sixth-largest holder of monetary gold. In 2011, gold accounted for 14.4 percent of the world’s total monetary reserves.

In a country-by-country comparison, the figure was 1.6 percent in China, while it was 74.5 percent in the United States, 71.4 percent in Germany and 71.1 percent in France, according to data from the World Gold Council and the International Monetary Fund.

China holds the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, which were worth more than $3.31 trillion by the end of 2012, according to figures from the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank. The amount is so large that China has no other currency options than holding US dollars and euros, the report said.

Driven by China’s desire to increase its financial clout, the Chinese renminbi is likely to emerge gradually as a genuine international currency as the country has been easing restrictions on its use in transactions and investments abroad. During the coming period of uncertainty and transition, asset managers at central banks around the world are likely to be more interested in gold as a result of doubts about the overall strength of global monetary arrangements, the report said.

“China has no wish to be unduly dependent on either the dollar or the euro. This is likely to have been an important reason why the Chinese authorities have decided in recent years to boost the share of gold in reserves,” the report said.

The re-balancing process of the global economy through China’s economic rise will occur gradually rather than abruptly and will not be straightforward. In particular, the move toward full renminbi convertibility is likely to be only gradual, the report added.

Although the renminbi’s rise as a reserve currency is unlikely to pose any immediate threat to the US dollar, “during this period of change and transition reserve holders will spread their investments into a relatively wide range of assets and sectors,” the report said.

While the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum does not envisage a return to a gold standard, gold will increasingly have a renewed role in the global monetary system, attracting a higher level of attention from policymakers and financial market practitioners, the report added.

The Left/Right US Gun Debate in a nutshell……

“Wind electricity is nearly twice as expensive as what is typically reported”.“

Once these hidden costs [of windpower] are included and subsidies are excluded, wind generation is not close to being competitive with conventional generation sources such as natural gas, coal or nuclear.”

George Taylor and I have published a new study for the American Tradition Institute (ATI) that finds that on a full cost basis, wind electricity is nearly twice as expensive as what is typically reported. “The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity” provides an analysis of three major costs that past estimates have ignored.

“The costs that have been left out of previous reports are the costs of paying for the fossil-fired plants that must balance wind’s variations, the inefficiencies that wind imposes on those plants, and the cost of longer-distance transmission,” said Taylor in ATI’s press release.  “Once these hidden costs are included and subsidies are excluded, wind generation is not close to being competitive with conventional generation sources such as natural gas, coal or nuclear.”

Adding a conservative estimate of the hidden but real costs to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s most recent generation-cost reports increases wind’s projected cost from 8 cents to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

……read the whole report HERE – the Summary & Conclusion HERE