Global sleeping patterns revealed by app data.

It showed the Dutch have nearly an hour more in bed every night than people in Singapore or Japan.

The study, published in Science Advances, also found women routinely get more sleep than men, with middle-aged men getting the least of all.

The researchers say the findings could be used to deal with the "global sleep crisis".

The study found people in Japan and Singapore had an average of seven hours and 24 minutes sleep while the people in the Netherlands had eight hours and 12 minutes.

People in the UK averaged just under eight hours - a smidgen less than the French.

The later a country stays up into the night, the less sleep it gets. But what time a country wakes up seems to have little effect on sleep duration.

Prof Daniel Forger, one of the researchers, said there was a conflict between our desire to stay up late and our bodies urging us to get up in the morning.

The study also showed women had about 30 minutes more per night in bed than men, particularly between the ages of 30 and 60.

And that people who spend the most time in natural sunlight tended to go to bed earlier.

A strong effect of age on sleep was also detected. A wide range of sleep and wake-up times was found in young people but "that really narrows in old age," said Prof Forger.

"It highlights that although our body clocks are programming us to do certain things, we can't as we're ruled by social circumstances.

"We won't know the long-term consequences of this for many years."

He is ridiculed for his mendacity and ostracized by his
peers. He presides over a free-falling currency and a rapidly
shrinking economy. International sanctions stop his
kleptocratic friends from holidaying in their ill-gotten
[5] Mediterranean villas. Judged against the objectives Vladimir
Putin purported to set on inheriting Russia´s presidency 15
years ago – prosperity, the rule of law, westward integration –
regarding him as a success might seem bleakly comical

But those are no longer his goals, if they ever really were.
[10] Look at the world form his perspective, and Mr. Putin is
winning. He remains the Kremlin´s undisputed master. He has
a throttlehold on Ukraine and domesticating Ukraine through
his routine tactics of threats and bribery was his first
preference, but the invasion has had its benefits. It has
[15] demonstrated the costs of insubordination to Russians. The
conflict has usefully shown who is boss in Russia. Best of all,
discord has been sown among Mr. Putin´s adversaries: among
Europeans and between them and America.

His aim is to divide and neuter that alliance. From his
[20] tantrums over the Middle East to his invasion of Georgia and
Ukraine, Mr. Putin has sometimes seemed to stumble into
accidental disputes with the West, driven by a paranoid fear of
encirclement. In hindsight it seems that, given his outlook,
confrontation may have been inevitable. Either way, the
[25] contest he insists on cannot be dodged. It did not begin in poor
Ukraine and will not end there. Prevailing will require far more
resolve than Western leaders have so far mustered.
(from The Economist, February 14^th, 2015.)

[1] Identity is about belonging, about what

you have in common with some people and

what differentiates you from the others. At its

most basic it gives you a sense of personal

[5] location, the stable core to your individuality.

But it is also about your social relationships,

your complex involvement with others, and in

the modern world these have become even

more complex and confusing. Each of us lives

[10] with a variety of potentially contradictory

identities, which battle within us ........

allegiance: as men or women, black and

white, straight or gay, able-bodied or

disabled. The list if potentially infinite, and so

[15] therefore are our possible belongings. Which

of them we focus on, bring to the fore,

“identify” with, depends on a host of factors.

At the center, however, are the values we

share with others.

[20] Identities are not neutral. ........ the quest

for identity are different, and often conflicting

values. By saying who we are, we are also

striving to express what we are, what we

believe and what we desire.(…)

[25] All this makes debates over values

particularly fraught and delicate: they are not

simply speculations ........ the world and our

place in it; they touch on fundamental, and

deeply felt issues about who we are and what

[30] we want to become. They also pose political

questions: how to achieve reconciliation

between our collective needs as human

beings and our specific needs as individuals

and members of diverse communities, how to

[35] balance the universal and the particular.

These are not new questions, but they are

likely, nevertheless, to loom ever-larger as we

engage with the certainty of uncertainty that

characterizes ‘new times’.

[40] The basic issue can be stated ........

simply: by what criteria can we choose

between the conflicting claims of differences?

To ask the question immediately underlines

the poverty of our thinking about this. Can

[45] the rights of a group obliterate the rights of

an individual? Should the morality of one

sector be allowed to limit the freedom of

others? To what extent should one particular

definition of the good and the just prevail

[50] over others? These are ancient questions, but

the alarming fact is that one still lacks a

common language for addressing them, let

alone resolving them.

TEXTO II

“'Major' Ketamine Discovery May Lead to New Antidepressants

The possibility of an antidepressant that delivers ketamine's rapid antidepressant effects but none of its potential harms may be one step closer, new research shows.

Investigators at the National Institute of Health (NIMH) have discovered that ketamine rapidly lifts depression via a by-product of its metabolism. This metabolite singularly reversed depression-like behaviors in mice without triggering any of the anesthetic, dissociative, or addictive side effects associated with ketamine.

"This discovery changes our understanding of how this rapid antidepressant mechanism works and holds promise for the development of more robust and safer treatments," study investigator Carlos Zarate, MD, National Institute of Mental Health, Methesda, Maryland, said in a statement."Ketamine is a reasonable option to consider when patients have tried everything else, as long as it's in the right hands and given at the right time," Dr Zarate told Medscape Medical News."But if you had an alternative drug that works rapidly but which doesn't have any risk of addiction or cause any of ketamine's side effects, you open up the possibility of many others being able to receive an alternative to ketamine," he added.

The study, led by Panos Zanos, PhD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, was published online May 4^th in Nature.‖

An accident took her sight 21 years ago; another just gave it back

After a car accident injured her spine in 1995, Mary Ann Franco lost her vision. But after being blind for 21 years, the Florida woman fell in her home and hurt her neck ... and woke up from the ensuing spinal surgery on April 6 with the ability to see. "Out the window, I could see the trees. I could see the houses and stuff," Franco tells WPBF. Oddly, Franco was colorblind before her car accident, and now she can also see colors. The neurosurgeon who operated on her says he has no scientific explanation for what happened— Dr. John Afshar tells ABC News it's a "true miracle"—but he has an idea. If an artery in Franco's spine was "kinked" in the car accident, restricting the flow of blood to the part of her brain that handles vision, he may have inadvertently "unkinked" the same artery during the recent surgery, he theorizes. "And when we gave that extra amount of blood flow by unkinking the vessel, it could have reestablished the blood flow," he tells WPBF, though he notes that none of this is certain. But an explanation doesn't matter much to Franco: "The sun is coming through the trees," she said on a recent morning. "Oh God, it’s so wonderful to see." Nature isn't the only sight for her to behold: Franco has seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren who WPBF notes she has hugged and kissed but never seen.

TEXTO:

Chaos at USP

The chemistry institute at the University of São Paulo
(USP) has become the site of a “pilgrimage”, after the
courts reversed their decision to suspend the release of
a substance rumored to treat various types of cancer.
[5] The rush of patients to the institute began on Friday (9)
after the judge José Renato Nalini, president of the Courts
of Justice, reconsidered a request for the suspension of
the release of the substance phosphorylethanolamine.
The court’s decision was based on a Supreme Court
[10] order authorizing the provision of phosphorylethanolamine
capsules to a patient.
In the last two days, lines of people have formed at
the university in search of the drug. Some believe that it
could be the last chance to save themselves or their
[15] loved ones. However, on Tuesday (13), people were told
that the drug was not available, as USP did not have it in
stock, and because the judicial orders would first have
to be officially protocolled at the university. It is
“madness”, according to the president of the Brazilian
[20] Society of Clinical Oncology, Evanius Wiermann. “The
patients are being used as guinea pigs, without any
guarantee of safety or efficacy,” he says. The drug has
yet to be tested on humans.
In an interview with the local press in August, the
[25] retired USP professor Gilberto Chierice, who had
coordinated studies with phosphorylethanolamine, said
the substance could cure cancer. This sparked the initial
judicial appeals. He also said that the drug had only not
arrived on the market due to “lack of will” on the part
[30] of the authorities. Chierice was unavailable for comment.
In a statement, USP said that phosphorylethanolamine
is not a cancer cure. It said it has been studied as a
chemical product and that there is no “firm proof that it

is effective against the disease.” It has been neither
[35] registered nor authorized for use by the National Health
Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), a state regulatory body
similar to the Food and Drug Administration in the US.

Prisoners and Mental Illness

Are too many with psychiatric problems behind bars?

Thousands of people with schizophrenia, severe depression, delusional disorders or other mental problems are locked up, often in solitary confinement. While some committed violent crimes and remain a threat to themselves or other inmates and prison staff, many are incarcerated for minor offenses, simply because there is no place to send them for treatment. The number of mentally ill inmates has mushroomed in recent years as states have closed their psychiatric hospitals in favor of outpatient community mental health centers that typically are underfunded and overcrowded. In an attempt to reduce the influx of mentally ill inmates, some 300 specialized mental health courts have diverted them into court-monitored treatment instead of jail. Yet, many participants re-offend, and some experts say psychiatric treatment alone won't prevent criminal behavior. Meanwhile, courts in more than a half-dozen states have declared solitary confinement unconstitutional for those with mental illness. However, some corrections officials say solitary is necessary to separate dangerous prisoners.

Hash Reality

Like most garment workers in Bangladesh, no matter whether you are under-age or not,you are bound to work as a slave. Even harder if you are an immigrant.

Being only 12-years-old Kalpona didn’t grow up dreaming of working in an unsafe factory in another country. She came from a wealthy family whose life changed overnight after her father’s stroke which left him bedridden. Without his income, she had to undergo the harsh working conditions overseas of overworking and being under-paid in order to get by.