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There's no question that sleep is intricately tied to weight. How big a factor is it? Perpetual sleep deprivation can undermine weight loss efforts as significantly as adding a Big Mac to our regular daily diet. Research is so strong for the case for sufficient sleep as a weight loss aid that as a nutritionist I look at sleep as the third element in the trifecta of factors that impact our weight, right alongside diet and exercise. So it should be no surprise that sleep apnea – a condition where people stop breathing during sleep, as often as 30 times...

“The blast took place after a number of lawyers and some journalists had gathered at the hospital following the death of the president of the Balochistan Bar Association in a separate shooting incident this morning," said Balochistan Home Secretary Akbar Harifal. Condemning the attack, Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri told local TV channel Geo News that Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was behind terror incidents in Quetta. The CM shared this statement with the media before initial investigations into the blast were completed, and before the nature of the blast was confirmed. Zehri said the attack appeared...

The husband of an Ohio schoolteacher, who was severely injured when four men dropped a rock on her car from a highway overpass, killed himself late Saturday night – and the prosecutor who jailed the rock-throwers blames them for Randy Budd’s suicide. Budd, 55, was pronounced dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Ohio residence, Harry Campbell, chief investigator for Ohio’s Stark County Coroner’s office, told the AP on Sunday. “Randy Budd did not die from a gunshot,” Union County District Attorney D. Peter Johnson told pennlive.com. “He died when those kids threw a rock through his windshield.”

While most people wouldn’t suspect it, the closest planet to our Sun is actually a potential candidate for settlement... Mercury’s very low axial tilt (0.034°) means that its polar regions are permanently shaded and cold enough to contain water ice. In the northern region, a number of craters were observed by NASA’s MESSENGER probe in 2012 which confirmed the existence of water ice and organic molecules. Scientists believe that Mercury’s southern pole may also have ice, and claim that an estimated 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of water ice could exist at both poles, which could be up to...

‘Smart clothes’ which contact charity shops or eBay when they are not worn regularly could be hanging in wardrobes within a few years. Academics at Birmingham City University are developing a ‘connected wardrobe’ in which forgotten items will text owners to remind them that they are gathering dust. If ignored for long time, the clothes will automatically contact charity shops asking to be recycled or offer themselves for auction on eBay. “Think of the surprise when an owner suddenly receives bids for items they didn’t know were in their wardrobe,” said Mark Brill, senior lecturer in Future Media at Birmingham...

awrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on using carbon nanotubes to create a barrier that would be impenetrable to chemical and biological agents, but still water-permeable. The result could make suits designed to protect against chemical and biological threats more comfortable—and effective—for long-term wear. ... Each of the tubes has a diameter of less than five nanometers. For reference, there are about 254,000,000 nanometers in a single inch. Less than five nanometers, it turns out, is the sweet spot that allows water to pass through the fabric while keeping out chemical agents, viruses, and most microscopic organisms. The result is...

Booby Trap Bras sells a sports bra with a hidden knife pouch sewn into the lining. The founder, Jennifer Cutrona, developed the idea after a scary close call. She was jogging on a trail near her home, just outside of Austin. "I walked around thinking life was all rainbows and butterflies until I was jumped out at on a local running trail. I was in active wear and had no form of protection on me. The little pocket knives I had collected over the years were all at home in the drawer with my pepper spray," ... Other Booby Trap...

Despite restrictions on internet usage Iranians on social media have discussed playing Pokemon Go in recent weeks. Reports last month said Iranian authorities were waiting to see to what extent the game's creators would co-operate with them before making a decision on banning it.

It’s impossible to do an article about Uranus without opening up the back door to a spit storm of potty humour.... Anyway, perhaps one of the strangest aspects of Uranus is its tilt.... The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the Sun’s equator. Mars is 25 degrees, and even Mercury is 2.1 degrees tilted.... Uranus is 97.8 degrees... ...[A]stronomers define the angle as greater than 90 degrees when you take its direction of rotation into account. When you describe it as turning in the same direction as the rest of the planets in the Solar System, then you have...

The U.S. unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent in July, the Labor Department said Friday. But relying on that one number as an indicator of the job market is an oversimplification of the complicated world of employment. Each month on jobs Friday, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out a slew of employment-related data, each of which tells its own story about the jobs situation. Most economists look past the official unemployment rate — also known as the "U-3" number — to other metrics that provide other views of the state of jobs. One of those figures is...

HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, is the largest and most powerful camera ever flown on a planetary mission, sending back incredible beautiful, high-resolution images of Mars. While previous cameras on other Mars orbiters can identify objects about the size of a school bus, HiRISE brings it to human scale, imaging objects as small as 3 feet (1 meter) across. The HiRISE team has just released more than 1,000 new observations of Mars for the Planetary Data System archive, showing a wide range of gullies, dunes, craters, geological layering and other features on the Red Planet. MRO orbits at...

Tuesday the White House released yet another policy to fight climate change, one with potentially far-reaching consequences. The White House’s chief environmental office, the Council on Environmental Quality, finalized a six-year process of shaping how the government’s agencies, across the board, will factor climate change into their decisions. The council’s new guidance involves what activists and environmental lawyers know as “NEPA” — one of those exceedingly wonky policies that is nevertheless critical to how the modern federal government functions. NEPA is short for a foundational 1969 environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act, that required federal agencies to consider environmental...

For the first time ever, a private company has permission to land on the moon. The U.S. government has officially approved the planned 2017 robotic lunar landing of California-based Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to Earth's nearest neighbor and help exploit its resources, company representatives announced today (Aug. 3). ... Previously, companies had been able to operate only on or around Earth. The new approval, while exclusive to Moon Express, could therefore serve as an important regulatory guide for deep-space commercial activity in general, Richards said. "Nobody's had a deep-sea voyage yet. We're still charting those waters,"...

Syrian rebels accused government forces of launching toxic gas attacks on civilians in a town southwest of Aleppo on Tuesday. The government rejected the claim and accused the rebels of using chemical weapons themselves. Rebel sources provided video of people receiving treatment who they say were among the victims of a gas attack, but the images were not conclusive and neither of the gas attack claims by the rebels or the government could be independently verified. The accusations on both sides came amid heightened fighting around the contested northern city that killed at least 20 people, activists and government media...

Canadian stuntman and sword swallower Ryan Stock has been impressing the judges all season by sticking items in his nose, putting a blow torch out on his tongue and holding a chainsaw in his mouth. During Tuesday night's live trick, Stock swallowed a long rod with a small target on the end and bent forward for his fiancée, AmberLynn Walker, to take aim. Using a crossbow and a flaming arrow, Walker fired a bolt at the target and missed, striking Stock near his neck. The mishap left judges Heidi Klum Howie Mandel, Mel B., and Simon Cowell in shock as...

In the defence review approved by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government, Japan warned that "unintended consequences" could result from Beijing's assertive disregard of international rules. "China is poised to fulfil its unilateral demands without compromise," the government said in the review. China's official Xinhua news agency condemned the review for hyping up the "China threat" theory, which aimed to tarnish the country's image. In a statement, China's defence ministry said Japan sought excuses to step up military spending, accusing it of "evil intentions" towards China's legitimate defence needs. "China's military is extremely dissatisfied with this and resolutely opposed to it,"...

he technology could provide an alternative to “rather invasive methods” for acquiring guest information, such as retinal and fingerprint identification, according to the patent filing. “These methods are obtrusive and some guests may not feel comfortable providing this type of biometric information to a third party,” it added, noting that accessories such as hats and sunglasses could also limit the effectiveness of the technologies. The technology could be used at amusement parks, theme parks, sporting events and other entertainment venues, according to Disney. The entertainment company has no immediate plans to use the system, according to the Orlando Sentinel, which...

More than 146,000 people attended the Saturday-Sunday outdoor event, according to organizers. The victims were identified as Derek Lee, 22, of San Francisco; Alyssa Dominguez, 21, of San Diego; and Roxanne Ngo, 22, of Chino Hills, the San Bernardino County coroner’s office said. Lee and Dominguez died early Sunday and Ngo died early Monday. The causes of death were under investigation. “We were deeply saddened to learn about the deaths of three people who attended the festival this weekend,” Hard Summer spokeswoman Alexandra Greenberg said in a statement. “Our sincerest thoughts and condolences are with their family and friends.” Hard...

Wyatt Gillette suffered from Aicardi-Goutierres Syndrome Type 1-(Trex 1 mutation), a rare condition that caused him multiple medical problems, including seizures and complete kidney failure. His father, 29-year-old Jeremiah Gillette, is a Marine drill instructor and said he wanted to see his son become an Honorary Marine. As Wyatt fought for his life, his father turned to fellow Marines on social media, asking for prayers. What he got was an outpouring of support, and a petition was started to make Wyatt an Honorary Marine. The U.S. Marine Corps. granted Wyatt's request, an honor only bestowed on a select few people...

Mr Vance was formerly investigator-in-charge for the Canadian Aviation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, and has led more than 200 air crash investigations. He was the chief author of a report into the 1998 SwissAir Flight 111 crash off Nova Scotia, Canada which killed 229 people. The force of that crash broke the plane into more than two million pieces. He told 60 Minutes that an absence of such wreckage was one factor suggesting MH370 landed in controlled circumstances. "Somebody was flying the airplane at the end of its flight," he said. "Somebody was flying the...