Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Jellyfish Lake where you can swim with jellyfish


Jellyfish Lake is the only place in the world where you can safely swim amongst millions of jellyfish because the sometimes deadly creatures have lost their sting.

The lake, based on the Pacific island of Palau, was once connected to the Pacific Ocean but when the sea level dropped jellyfish became isolated in the algae rich lake. With no risk of being eaten by predators the jellyfish population thrived and there is now estimated to be up to eight million jellyfish living in the lake. Over time their stings weakened and these amazing images show tourists can now swim alongside the jellyfish without fear of being stung.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Not Paying Attention In Class?! You Might Be A Genius

Those who appear to be constantly distracted or drift often to thoughts have more ‘working memory’ and 'sharper brains', a new study suggests.

Published online in the Psychological Science journal the new report indicates that a wandering mind is a form of a mental workspace that allows you to juggle multiple thoughts simultaneously.

During the study, volunteers were asked to perform one of two simple tasks during which researchers checked to ask if the participants’ minds were wandering. At the end, participants measured their working memory capacity by their ability to remember a series of letters interspersed with simple maths questions. Daniel Levinson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, said that those with higher working memory capacity reported “more mind wandering during these simple tasks”, but their performance did not suffer.

Dr Jonathan Smallwood, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, Germany, said: “What this study seems to suggest is that, when circumstances for the task aren’t very difficult, people who have additional working memory resources deploy them to think about things other than what they’re doing.”

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Introducing Mantyhose – The Stylish Pantyhose for Men

So men have started to wear pantyhose now.They’re called Mantyhose, and there’s even a whole website, e-mancipate, dedicated to them. There might be people who find this odd, but when you come to think of it, there’s nothing particularly feminine about pantyhose, is there? They’re just tights made of a diaphanous material. And men have been wearing them for centuries too, especially in Europe, like medieval court jesters, Henry VII and even Robin Hood.

While several men in the UK and other parts of Europe have already started wearing the garment, the trend is now catching up in the US. Most men prefer to wear them as an extra layer under pants, but the more courageous tend to pair them up with shorts too. Who can deny the benefits of sporting tights? After all they do provide that smooth look to the legs, hiding any bumps and scars. They’re pretty comfortable too. Chan Kramer, the founder of e-mancipate, writes, “We believe that pantyhose for men can be an everyday clothing item, and that it can be fashionable as well.” And Francesco Cavallini, the vice-president of luxe hosiery company Emilio Cavallini, agrees, “The mantyhose are extremely elastic and stretchable and can fit men comfortably at the top. If it’s fine for Italian guys, it’s fine for the world.”

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Popcorn Has 'More Antioxidants Than Fruit and Vegetables', New Study Says


Popcorn, when it’s not slathered in butter and coated in salt, is already known to be a healthy snack food and now a group of scientists say it may even top fruits and vegetables in antioxidant levels.

The new research has revealed that popcorn is made up of just 4% water so the antioxidants are less diluted than in fruit and vegetables, which can be made up of up to 90% water. The study found that one serving of popcorn contains up to 300mg of antioxidants - known as polyphenols – nearly double the 160mg found in a serving of fruit.

The researchers also found the crunchy hulls of popcorn (those bits that have an annoying habit of sticking in your throat) have the highest concentration of antioxidants and fibre.

Researcher Jo Vinson said: “Those hulls deserve more respect. They are nutritional gold nuggets.”

Describing popcorn as “the perfect snack food”, he added: “It's the only snack that is 100 per cent unprocessed whole grain.

“All other grains are processed and diluted with other ingredients, and although cereals are called 'whole grain', this simply means that over 51% of the weight of the product is whole grain.