Sleep Disorders: Warning Sign For Neurodegenerative Disease?

People with a sleep disorder that causes them to kick or cry out during their sleep may be at greater risk of developing dementia or Parkinson’s disease, according to a  new study.

ScienceDaily: Mind & Brain News / Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Seven Personality Types Who Are Most Likely To Help Sick-listed Employees Back To Work

Scientists have studied which leadership qualities could help employees return from sick leave early. Being considerate, understanding and able to maintain contact with the sick-listed are the most important leadership qualities, according to the study.

ScienceDaily: Mind & Brain News / Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Societal, Economic Burden Of Insomnia Is High

The indirect costs of untreated insomnia are significantly greater than the direct costs associated with its treatment. The study estimates that the total annual cost of insomnia in the province of Quebec is 6.5 billion Canadian dollars, representing about one percent of the province’s $228.5 billion in gross domestic product for 2002. The largest proportions of all insomnia-related expenses are attributed to lost job productivity, absences from work and alcohol used as a sleep aid.

ScienceDaily: Mind & Brain News / Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Dan Walters: New approach needed to aid poor students

“The analyst’s report proposes an overhaul of ED mitigation programs that would simplify them and redirect resources into those underlying reasons ED students do so poorly in school and concentrating them on the students truly at risk of failure.”

“For example,” the report says, “a school district might receive significantly less funding for a student who is an English learner from an educated two-parent household living in a relatively safe suburb than a school district would receive for an English learner student living in a dangerous neighborhood who has one parent absent and one parent with a low level of education.”

“It makes a lot of sense. Why aren’t we doing it?“

SacBee — Dan Walters column / Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT

6-Year-Old Says Grand Theft Auto Taught Him To Drive

nandemoari writes “A six-year-old who recently stole his parents’ car and drove it into a utility pole has passed the buck onto a familiar scapegoat: the video game, Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar Games’ controversial Grand Theft Auto video game has been criticized by parent groups and crusaders (or in the eyes of gamers, nincompoops) like former lawyer Jack Thompson for years (Thompson once tried to link the Virginia Tech slayings to late-night Counterstrike sessions. He’s since been disbarred). However, not as of yet has anyone under the age of, oh, ten, blamed the game for a car theft.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spiraling Magnetic Signal Shows Up In the Cosmic Background

pln2bz writes “Astronomers looking for confirmation for emissions from early stellar formation in the cosmic microwave background radiation instead found a signal indicating large amounts of unaccounted-for spiraling magnetic fields in space, but without any accompanying infrared emissions. The discovery possibly dredges up the claims of plasma cosmologists like Eric Lerner, who claim that the intergalactic medium is a strong absorber of the CMB with the absorption occurring in a fog of narrow filaments. These filaments are the result of plasma’s natural tendency, as observed within the plasma laboratory and in novelty plasma globes, to form braided, ropelike structures which are collimated by coiled magnetic fields.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Phishing Is a Minimum-Wage Job

rohitm918 writes “A study by Microsoft Research concludes that phishers make very little (PDF): ‘…low-skill jobs pay like low-skill jobs, whether the activity is legal or not.’ They also find that the Gartner numbers that everyone quotes ($3.2B/year etc) are rubbish, off by a factor of 50. ‘Even though it harvests “free money,” phishing generates total revenue equal to the total costs incurred by the actors. Each participant earns, on average, only as much as he would have made in the opportunities he gave up elsewhere. As the total phishing effort increases the total phishing revenue declines: the harder individual phishers try the worse their collective situation gets. As a consequence, increasing effort is a sign of failure rather than of success.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CRS on Climate Change
Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists

As a matter of policy, the Congressional Research Service does not make its products directly available to the public.  Recent reports from CRS on climate change and related topics obtained by Secrecy News include these (all pdf).

“Global Climate Change: Three Policy Perspectives,” updated November 26, 2008.

“Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Perspectives on the Top 20 Emitters and Developed Versus Developing Nations,” updated November 28, 2008.

“Climate Change: Design Approaches for a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program,” updated November 24, 2008.

“Climate Change and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS): Kyoto and Beyond,” updated November 24, 2008.

“Are Carbon Dioxide Emissions Rising More Rapidly Than Expected?,” October 17, 2008.

“Capturing CO2 from Coal-Fired Power Plants: Challenges for a Comprehensive Strategy,” August 15, 2008.

“The Carbon Cycle: Implications for Climate Change and Congress,” updated March 13, 2008.

“Climate Change: Federal Laws and Policies Related to Greenhouse Gas Reductions,” updated January 28, 2008.

“U.S. Global Climate Change Policy: Evolving Views on Cost, Competitiveness, and Comprehensiveness,” updated January 28, 2008.

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