Salmon and Coffee

I recently came across an article that was titled “Salmon and Coffee – for Ultimate Brain Power”, which discussed how certain foods and drinks can sharpen our memory. A study, which included more than 3000 men and women, was conducted at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and researchers found that fish can help prevent memory loss. The study showed that “people who ate fish at least once a week had a 10 percent slower decline compared with those who did not eat fish”. This is because of the omega-3 fatty acids which are the good fats found in fish. The article mentioned that some of the best foods for omega-3 are salmon, anchovies, rainbow trout, pacific oysters, flaxseed, walnuts, canola oil and soybeans. The article then started to discuss the affects that coffee has on your memory. A study was done at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, which used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to examine brain activity of people working on a memory task while drinking coffee, and while not drinking coffee. The study showed that caffeine drastically improved the memory skills of those people that drank coffee. I thought that the article was interesting and provided information that can help us all improve our memory.

Bottled Water vs. Tap Water

When I went online today, an article titled Is bottled water really better than tap? caught my attention. In the article the author states that bottled water "isn't necessarily healthier or safer than tap water". The author said that a test was done on 1,000 bottles of 103 different brands of bottled water, and that in the water they found man made chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic in 22 percent of the bottles. The author of the article also says that “twenty five percent of all bottled water is repackaged tap water”. It is true that there is also the same chance for these chemicals to show up in your tap water coming from your faucet; however, when you buy bottled water you don’t expect this. The author of the article says that “an estimated 60 to 70 percent of all bottled water in the U.S. is packaged and sold in the same state, which exempts it from FDA regulation” and that “1 in 5 states do not regulate that bottled water”. The author makes some interesting points in the article, but I still think that bottled water is still probably safer than tap water. I also think that bottled water is convenient, which is why so many people drink bottled water every day.

New World Record

When I went online today there was a news article, which caught my attention. The article describes a Japanese musician who played the piano for 184 hours non-stop. Initially I did not think about how long 184 hours really was, but when I did the math and found out that this translated to nine days; I was completely surprised. The musician was able to overcome fatigue for these nine days and break a new world record. Music from the concert included various arrangements including some of The Beetles and traditional Japanese music. I am amazed that this can even be done. I get tired from being awake for 15 hours, and for a pianist to play music for 184 hours seems almost impossible. The previous record on file was done in Canada, which lasted 182 hours. The concert began March 23 and ended March 31st and various musicians came to see the performance. During the performance there was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake which, shook the stage, while she was playing, but this didn’t stop her from breaking the world record.