Our Earthquake

With all the talk about the recent earthquake that hit Illinois, I thought I'd share this article I found:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080418/sc_livescience/scientistsevenbiggerquakecouldhitmidwest

It talks about the likeliness of another earthquake hitting in the near future. What I was wondering was, what would happen if we actually did have a large earthquake in the area?

My thoughts were this:
Unless you have taken a geoscience class and actually payed attention when learning how to deal with an earthquake, there are almost no people in the Chicagoland area that would know what to do. This could put us in a "perilous times" of real sorts, not just on the political side of things. Thoughts?

Sleep vs. Exercise and Diet

As you may know, my topic for Junior Theme is about sleep deprivation in Americans. The book I am reading (Light's Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival) brought up some very good points, and I thought I would share some of them with you. A major point in the book that I found interesting, although not directly connected with my topic, is the correlation between exercise and GAINING weight. And I don't mean converting fat to muscle type of weight, I mean increasing food intake and fat percentage. The author had a good argument. He states that when you run, your body immediately thinks you are running for your life. This triggers the release of cortisol, a stress hormone. The increased level of cortisol, paired with adrenaline, creates a temporary euphoria. But when you exercise vigorously a few times a week or more, the cortisol levels do not get a chance to subside, causing your body to be in a constant state of distress and crave fatty foods.

Junior Theme

For Junior Theme I am researching sleep deprivation and stress. My main question is "Why are Americans so reluctant to see sleep as productive?" It is a very interesting topic, especially since walking around the halls of New Trier the majority of the people you see are sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation is a main cause of obesity, leading into type II diabetes and heart disease, depression, and cancer. A main problem we have is staying away from artificial light. There are normal light-dark cycles our bodies have been trained to go through for centuries, eating more in the long summer days to prepare for the famine of winter. Artificial light allows us to stay up late, night after night, and we trick our bodies into believing we are in an eternal summer. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Problem is when we never get to hibernate and sleep off all the extra food we're eating, we gain weight and become unhappy, irritable, and sick. Yet we think this just means we need to exercise more. Quite to the contrary, mon ami. Sleeping will solve all of your problems. Well, almost all.