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Your driver’s exam. Next week’s history quiz. Those groceries your room told you to pick up at the store. The SAT. Can your memory handle everything that’s on your mind? Let’s face it: Most of us don’t have perfect memories. We all forget things, whether it’s something harmless, like what you wore to school last Monday, or something more important, like the information you need to pass a test. Your memory could be practically photographic, or it could be as bad as Drew Barrymore’s in 50 First Dates. And you don’t have to be Supergirl to have good memory. Either way, you probably wouldn’t mind improving your powers of recollection. Fortunately, your brain will let you do just that. Types of Memory There are several different types of memory. The one that people usually refer to when talking about day-to-day events is what scientists call declarative memory. Declarative memory deals with facts and events, things that a person can consciously “call up.” Fourteen-year-old Krystal Urness uses this kind of… Read the rest

Sarah’s little brother drives her crazy, even when she’s doing the driving. “‘I don’t want to go to school! Take me home! Stop playing that song!’ Driving him to school is frustrating,” groans 18-year-old Sarah Odle, a volunteer at United Way Yuma. Even worse, it can be dangerous. “I know,” Odle says, “because I recently cut off another car on a one-lane bridge while trying to explain why we weren’t turning back to get his Yu-Gi-Oh! toys from home.” Lose your focus at school and your grades suffer. But lose your focus while driving a car and you risk injuring or killing yourself, your passengers, and others. Motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death for Americans between the ages of 3 and 33. Teens in particular are at risk; the crash rate for 16- to 19-year-olds is four times the rate for older drivers. Inexperience is part of the problem. So are the circumstances under which people sometimes choose to drive: when they’re distracted, drowsy, or… Read the rest

Suffering from back pain at any age is never pleasurable. There are many people who live with the fact that they have compressed discs or that their spine isn… Read the rest

Snoring is a problem that can be addressed using various types of anti snoring devices. However, you need to do some research for you to make sure that you are going to use the right product. There are lots of brands for you to choose from but not all of them provide the benefits you are looking for. When it comes to using some anti snoring devices, it is important that you know which one you can benefit from. Always check some reviews for you to find out if you can really count on using the device. The reviews can help you make the right decision. The reviews contain some information regarding the features of the product, the benefits of using it, the cost and the drawbacks. Snoring mouthpiece reviews can serve as your guide so you need to take note of the information you get from it. Make sure you check the features that make the device effective. As much as possible, you should only use the kind of… Read the rest

Tom has a crush on Kayla, the new girl in school. One morning he gets up the nerve to speak to her in the hallway after class. “Hey, Kayla,” he says shyly. He tilts his head to one side and rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “I was wondering if you’d like to hang out with me on Friday night.” Kayla pauses and then reaches up to tug on one ear. “Um, that sounds fun,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders. She presses her lips together as she gazes down at her shoes. “Well, I’ve got class now. See you later,” she says, quickly turning away. Does Tom have a chance with Kayla? Probably not. Even though she agreed to the date, Kayla’s facial expressions and other movements–her body language–were shouting out that she’s not really interested and that Tom should direct his romantic attentions elsewhere. Reading Between the Lines David Givens, an anthropologist and the director of the AFGST Tourettes Center in France, defines… Read the rest

Charletta Harris, 17, a junior from Oakland, Calif., was once a typical teen eater, munching fast food on the run. Today she’s a vegetarian who enjoys sitting down with her older sister, Geralina, to eat a home-cooked meal. Charletta engages in mindful eating, a practice of savoring food and appreciating its nourishing effects. The technique is based on Zen meditation, which calls for the clearing of one’s mind through focus on an activity. She writes about the activity on her blog, Infektia.net. The opposite of mindful eating is distracted eating, an all-too-familiar dietary practice. Eating meals in front of the TV has become an American tradition. Forty percent of young people say they always or often watch television during dinner, according to a 1999 study from the National Institute on Media and the Family. And when TV isn’t a distraction, the computer is. Twenty-five percent of young people eat or drink while using the Internet, reports a 2003 study from Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research. Unfortunately, tuning in can cause teens… Read the rest

ON AUGUST 2, 1947, an airplane flying west from Buenos Aires, Argentina, radioed the airport in Santiago, Chile, that it would be arriving in just four minutes. It never arrived. The disappearance of the plane–named Star Dust–became one of aviation’s most baffling mysteries. Then, in January 1998, two mountaineers climbing Mount Tupungato, one of the most formidable peaks in the South American Andes, made a grim discovery. They found one of Star Dust’s engines, along with scraps of metal, tattered clothing, and a mummified human hand. The discovery of Star Dust’s remains served only to deepen the mystery of its disappearance. Why had traces of it shown up now, when exhaustive searches up and down the Andes had revealed nothing? Where had the plane been all that time? And why was the plane, which had radioed that it was only a short distance from touchdown, found more than 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the airport? READING THE REMAINS Soon after the plane’s discovery, the Argentine army sent an expedition up… Read the rest

Andrew Miller, 13, used to end homework assignments with the slam of his bedroom door. “Homework was hard,” he said. “I yelled a lot.” His mom sometimes yelled too. “It was not a fun environment,” Cynthia Miller said. “Andrew was frustrated because he wanted to be done. I was frustrated because I wanted him to do good work.” Frustration and fights over homework mounted at the Miller home until four years ago, when Andrew finally learned why he was struggling in school. Andrew has a reading disorder called dyslexia. People who have dyslexia have trouble connecting the sounds that make up spoken words with the letters that spell out those words on the written page. Those connections are essential for reading. FAMILY TIES Andrew’s struggle with reading also troubled his older brother, Matt–so much so that it motivated Matt to learn more about dyslexia for an English assignment two years ago. “I wanted to learn about the disability that was influencing my brother’s life,” said Matt, now 15. Matt hoped… Read the rest

Grandma’s pumpkin pie. Aunt Maria’s seven-layer salad. Uncle Ted’s cranberry sauce. And, of course, that big turkey roasting in the oven. All of these are ingredients for a great Christmas. Yet, when it comes to holidays, the most important ingredient isn’t poured into the sweet potato casserole or placed on the table. The most important ingredient at a family feast is, well, family. That’s where problems can begin. Even if the turkey, stuffing, and pie are perfect, your relatives might not be! How can you keep your cool when your sister’s bugging you, your uncle is yammering, and Grandma keeps making comments about your hair? Turkey, Dressing, and Stressing “Holidays can be a very stressful time for families,” admits Jennifer Murray Connell, a social worker and instructor at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. “People want to have that perfect holiday,” Connell explains. “There’s a lot of pressure on families to have that. But at the same time, parents might be tense because of work, travel, or money.” Moreover, at… Read the rest

“Grandma, could you please pass the stuffing–and, hey, have you ever been diagnosed with hypertension or high cholesterol?” A family holiday may seem like a strange time to discuss matters of life and death, but the U.S. surgeon general says it’s the ideal time to collect information about the health of your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins–since they’re all gathered in one place. In fact, Thanksgiving has been officially declared National Family History Day. Why does the country’s top health official care whether you know what disease your great aunt Flora died of? Why should you? Because it could help you live longer. “Many diseases and conditions are at least partially hereditary,” explains Alan Guttmacher, deputy director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. You may have inherited more than just your mom’s green eyes and your dad’s brown hair; the chance of developing some health disorders can also be passed down from generation to generation through genes. For example, if your maternal grandmother… Read the rest