The Hangover
I'm never drinking again. And this time I mean it!
Anyone who's suffered through a bad hangover has muttered these words.
But does a hangover even delay your next drink?
Scientists recruited almost 400 adults who consumed alcohol at least once a week.
At the beginning of the study, the participants answered questions about alcohol and nicotine dependence.
Afterwards, they kept drinking diaries for three weeks.
They also kept morning and bedtime reports on their mental status and stress level.
To see if hangovers inspired participants to delay their next binge, researchers measured the time between drinking episodes.
On average, hangovers did postpone the next drink—but only by about 6 hours.
The work is published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
In addition to discovering that hangovers fail to deter drinking, the study found that people with alcohol dependence or financial stress were more likely to develop hangovers.
And of course, the only way to prevent hangovers entirely was to limit drinking. Cheers!
Cities Befriend Select Plants and Animals
The concrete jungle is no tropical rainforest.
Replacing trees with buildings means a loss of more than 90 percent of bird species.
But a new survey suggests megalopolises aren't quite the homogenous ecosystems you might think.
Yes, meadow grass and pigeons can now be found from Nairobi to New York.
But so can hundreds of other bird species, most specific to their locale and some even once endangered.
Like the peregrine falcons that have become so popular in Gotham they even have their own webcam.
That's according to a new survey of cities and wildlife in 36 countries published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Cities aren't just for the birds.
Thousands of plant species thrive in cities worldwide, especially in green spaces.
Some ecologists even call that the Central Park Effect, because of the surprising density of plants and animals found in that patch.
Street trees matter too, especially in a city like Singapore that hosts the greatest number of endangered bird and plant species.
And species can be brought back with a little careful planning, like those aforementioned falcons.
That means it's in our power to make cities not only a great place for people to live, but a home for wildlife too.
In Emergency, Smartphone Might Not Know Your Location
Touch your smart phone screen and you get local weather or a street map.
So you might assume that mobile phones know exactly where you are.
But get into trouble and you might find your phone isn't watching you as closely as you thought.
Emergency responders recently told the Wall Street Journal that their 911 dispatchers have trouble getting help to the location of cell phone callers.
And a report this summer showed more than half of all California wireless 911 calls in certain areas didn't have location information.
One way to locate a cell phone is through GPS, assuming the phone has one and it's outdoors.
Another is through location-based services.
These follow the signals sent between your phone and your wireless network's radio towers.
But towers can be miles apart, making it hard to pinpoint locations and adding minutes to response times.
Responders want wireless companies to include location data with each call, something privacy advocates oppose.
It's a matter of perspective.
Sometimes you want to be off the grid.
But in a crisis, the grid could be your best friend.