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Interesting bit of news from Yahoo!:

Office nappers now have the perfect excuse: New research shows that a little midday snooze seems to reduce the risk of fatal heart problems, especially among men.
[...]
Those who napped for about half an hour at least three times weekly had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart attacks or other heart problems than those who did not nap.

The article also mentioned that some companies allow “on the job naps”, and found that their workers are more productive as a result. OK, I’m not a doctor but this seems perfectly natural; once you’re sufficiently rested, you’re more ready to face the challenges ahead.

Note my emphasis on the word sufficiently. Over-sleeping just makes you feel sluggish and sometimes more tired than before you slept.

So boss, I’ll just take a few minutes of heart-treatment-nap for a while

Indonesia’s decision to enter an exclusive agreement of sharing H5N1 virus strains samples with Baxter International is controversial to say the least.

This move comes very soon after Jakarta announced that they will stop sharing information relating to the bird flu infections on the grounds of intellectual property protection. This, in my opinion, is a case of valuing money above lives.

While many are dying in Indonesia resulting from bird flu, its government could somehow overlook this fact and focus on making a quick buck through some “exclusive agreement”. How this deal helps Indonesia to protect this infectious property of theirs remains to be seen. This reeks of an opportunistic move that could go very wrong.

Baxter denies coaxing Indonesia to implement this move.

FT and the BBC has more coverage on this news.

I never thought this was possible, but you can die from drinking too much water.

Jennifer Strange, 28, was a contestant on the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest on KDND 107.9 where the winner will get to take home a Nintendo Wii.

Could this also be the first death (co-)attributed to the game console?

I was listening to the BBC World Service a few days ago when I heard a programme on Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness. What amazes me about this paticular mental condition is the fact that how weirded out the sufferer must feel when they get the occasional “Hi!” from a colleague outside of the office.

You see, people suffering from prosopagnosia could not identify people via facial features, a primary mean of identification for most normal people. Instead, they tend to rely on clothes, location (ie. where a particular person sits in the office) and voice (among other factors) to associate someone with their identity.

As you could probably imagine, those suffering from prosopagnosia will be extremely confused of a person’s identity should he or she not be in a particular location the person was when they first met. They could also be very disoriented should a person they’ve known true voice tone suffer from sore throat or other vocal affecting diseases.

You can find out more about prosopagnosia by reading this page on faceblind.org. There are even tests which you can take to find out if you’re suffering from the disorder.

I’m not saying that drinking juice will guarantee you an Alzheimer’s free life, but recent studies have revealed that it could help. In fact, the study showed that for those who drank juice once a week, their risk of developing Alzheimer’s was reduced by 16%. Quoted from the Yahoo! News article:

Although the scientific community had long thought that antioxidant vitamins like vitamins C and E or carotene had protective benefits against Alzheimer’s, the study confirmed their belief that “there was maybe something else,” Dai said, pointing to polyphenols, natural antioxidants found in juice, tea and wine.

What this “something else” is… we don’t know for now. However, juice is affordable and abundant for most countries, which makes it all the more worthwhile to start making it part of your diet (if you haven’t done so).