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  December 17, 2007

         YEAR END  

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      The Last Man

 

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable... and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City... and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by "the Infected"—victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville's every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time - but then God shows himself.

 
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ALL NIGHTERS A survey of 120 students at St. Lawrence University, a small liberal arts college in northern New York, found that students who have never pulled an all-nighter have average GPAs of 3.1, compared to 2.9 for those who have. The study, by assistant professor of psychology Pamela Thacher, is to be included in the January issue of Behavioral Sleep Medicine."It's not a big difference, but it's pretty striking," Thacher said. "I am primarily a sleep researcher and I know nobody thinks clearly at 4 in the morning. You think you do, but you can't."A second study by Thacher, a clinical psychologist, had "extremely similar" results showing lower grades among the sleep skippers.Many college students, of course, have inadequate or irregular sleep, for reasons ranging from excessive caffeine to poor time management.Prav Chatani, a St. Lawrence sophomore who wasn't involved in either study, said the findings made sense. The neuroscience major has been pulling fewer all-nighters, but recently stayed up until "around 4 or 5 in the morning" to prepare for an organic   chemistry test and a neuroscience presentation, he said.He found himself unable to remember some of the things he had studied."A lot of students were under the impression all-nighters were a very useful tool for accomplishing work, that caffeine intake was very useful in meeting deadlines and stuff like that," said Chatani, who had a 3.4 GPA last semester and doesn't expect to do too badly this semester, either.Dr. Howard Weiss, a physician at St. Peter's Sleep Center in Albany, said the study results make sense."Certainly that data is out there showing that short sleep duration absolutely interferes with concentration, interferes with performance on objective testing," he said.Some night owls do get good grades, of course, which may be explained by circadian rhythms, Weiss said. Circadian rhythms can be tracked through body temperature and hormonal transmissions.Some people have different 24-hour body clocks than others, and may do better depending on class and testing times, Weiss said.  Study: All-Nighters = Lower Grades

 
   
         
   

ACADEMIC SUCCESS Parental involvement is the primary factor in the academic success of your child, but not for the reasons you might think.

  • We see parents volunteering in the classroom, getting involved in the day-to-day education of their child.

  • We see parents volunteering in the classroom, getting involved in the day-to-day education of their child.

  • We envision good parents answering homework questions, spending the time it takes to help a child learn.

Certainly these are the practices of an effective parent. However, they describe only part of what an effective parent does for his or her child's education — perhaps not even the most important part. In fact, compelling research shows that effective parental involvement addresses what is the most important factor in academically successful children: engagement. By this we mean that a child is fully involved in the learning process — motivated, enthusiastic and responsible. Engagement describes a student in whatever education setting he or she is in, whether public, private, home school or any other.Sparking your child's interest and enthusiasm in learning, and keeping that fire lit, might be the most important thing you do for your child's education. Author and researcher Laurence Steinberg makes this argument in his book Beyond the Classroom. More important than school reform, school choice or education spending, the real challenge before us is this question: Can we keep our kids interested and motivated in the learning process over many years? Factors in Academic Success

 
Tyra and Stephanie are gettin' dirty
   
         

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ABOUT the BIRTH DATE   Many Biblical scholars have argued from time to time that December 25th was not the actual birth date of Christ. It was just adopted as a day to celebrate the birth of Christ as a Christian substitute to the Roman festival Saturnalia in the third century. Saturnalia was celebrated as the Feast of Sun and was actually considered the birth date of the Sun God of the Romans. Catholic priests held a special mass that day for Christ and thus, it came to be known as 'Christ-mass' or 'Christmas'. Along with the date, several other pagan traditions, rituals and customs followed the way to become associated with Christmas such as decorating fir trees and burning yule logs. According to these scholars, Christ was most probably born on September 11, 3 B.C., which was Wednesday, according to the Bible. There are several other inaccuracies that we can see in the Nativity plays that are popular these days. Here are the arguments that are given to prove this fact: Truth About Birth of Jesus Christ - True Biblical Story About ...
 
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