Sent by Nathalia

Do you drink coffee on a regular basis? Do you know it is decaffeinated ? Nathalia sent a link to the process of making decaffeinated coffee. "Decaffeinated coffee has long been in demand as many people enjoy the taste of coffee, but either can’t or shouldn’t ingest caffeine. There are several processes that can make coffee decaffeinated. Most today use water decaffeination because it is considered to be the healthiest process." Read more here.

Although I do NOT drink coffee, I found this link to its positive effects:

Q: Can coffee help boost my memory?
A: Memory can be divided in Short Term Memory (STM), working memory (the part that is using active information) and Long Term Memory (LTM). Coffee helps mainly with STM and the working memory when normal amounts of information have to be dealt with. With trying to cope with huge amounts of information, coffee does not help STM, your working memory or LTM.

Q: Can coffee lead to better learning?
A: Learning is the acquisition and storage of information. Coffee helps to improve alertness, attention and wakefulness and by that means, facilitates learning

Q: Does coffee drinking help my learning when I am not in the mood to drink coffee?
A: No, coffee optimises your mood when you feel like a cup of coffee.

Q: Will coffee lead to better sustained attention or vigilance?
A: Yes, it compensates fatigue by increasing the level of alertness. The benefits are found mostly during the course of a long exam or test, when you get tired.

Q: Will coffee lead to better focussed attention when studying?
A: Yes. Drinking coffee helps to focus your attention to the main task, when there are many things around needing your attention. It draws attention to what you need to learn and leads to less distraction although doing different things at the same time may in itself be stimulating enough.


The Art Of Coffee

Is it safe to use cellphones while driving?

I wonder if there were any accidents during our Easter break due to cell phone use. Do you think that they might be a cause of death on the road?

Go to this page to read about two studies on the subject. After that write about your reactions in the comment´s area.

Songs and Language learning

Someone mentioned in a comment the use of captioned TV to improve reading in English. Then someone else said songs could be helpful too. Now I want to check with all of you how much you think songs influence language learning.

Educator Tim Murphey conducted an analysis of the lyrics of a large corpus of pop songs and found that they have several features that help second language learners. They contain common, short words and many personal pronouns (94% of the songs had a first person, I, referent and are written at about a fifth-grade level); the language is conversational (imperatives and questions made up 25% of the sentences in the corpus); time and place are usually imprecise (except for some folk ballads); the lyrics are often sung at a slower rate than words are spoken with more pauses between utterances; and there is repetition of vocabulary and structures. These factors allow learners to understand and relate to the songs (Murphey, 1992). A further benefit of pop song lyrics is that their meanings are fluid, and, like poetry, allow for many different interpretations (Moi, 1994). Find lyrics to songs here.

Which is your favorite song of all times, by the way? Mine? I love songs by Linking Park and Numb is one of my favorites, but "Under Pressure" by Queen is my top number one. I can listen to it over and over again for hours. See its lyrics with translation here. To listen to it, press the yellow play button.

Berta
Ma. Gab. Guilarte
Ma. Gab. García
Carlos F.
Marie
Ma. Gab B.

How microwaves work ...

In the lab we learned about the dangers of microwave ovens. I bet most of you know aluminium cannot be placed in the oven, but do you know why? Read more about it in this site.








The following is a video Eduardo Hernandez recommended:

The depletion of the ozone layer

In class we mentioned Australia as the country which would possibly have the highest rate of skin cancer due to the hole in the ozone layer. Here is a very short article where the top country is mentioned. Is it really Australia?

Then I found another link with a list of countries and number of cases in each one. Does Australia have a higher or lower number of skin cancer cases than Venezuela?

For more information on the Greenhouse Effect, I found this site which explains it very easily, especially this kid movie.

No class or homework Thursday Feb 5th ...

Write in the comment area what is/are the possible cause(s) why we will not have class next Thursday and some of the possible effect(s) and/or consequences.

Homework: "The History of Calculators" (pp.10-13 reading guide) for next class, Tuesday 10th.

More on Tsunamis

One of the most terrible tsunamis of modern times hit Indian Ocean shorelines on December 26, 2004. That tsunami is believed to have the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. Some 200,000 people were killed in a single day.

Click here to watch a 3:27 minute video from National Geographic in case you want to know more about this topic that came up in one of our class activities this week. It takes some time to download and even has an IBM ad before it shows, but very effective for visual learners like me. Tell us if you found new information or what you found interesting, shocking, revealing, thought-provoking ...

Today in class and ... university student drinking

Last Thursday we talked about alcohol drinking, designated drivers and some consequences of drinking heavily at this stage of your lives, especially where, when and with whom we drink and what beverages we mix. As homework you will read the text "What happens when you drink?" in the reading guide to know more about the effects of alcohol and alcohol abuse in the human body.

If you want to read more about tips to survive university student drinking, you can check here and more facts about the effects of alcohol you will find here. Don´t forget to write your reactions and thoughts on this topic in the comment area.



Drunk Driving:How To Keep Your Friend From Driving Drunk