Ostrich Pillow power-nap accessory

This project was asking for $70,000 on Kickstarter in order to become a reality. As of this writing it has raised $76,272.

So coming soon from design firm Kawamura-Ganjavian, it is the Ostrich Pillow!

Here's the product's description...

OSTRICH PILLOW is a revolutionary new product to enable easy power naps anytime, everywhere, OSTRICH PILLOW ‘s unique design offers a micro environment in which to take a cosy and comfortable power nap at ease. OSTRICH PILLOW has been designed to allow you to create a little private space within a public one, to relax and unwind. Its soothing soft interior shelters and isolates your head and hands (mind and body) for a short break, without needing to leave your desk, chair, bench or wherever you may be.

And if you put it on backwards it makes an excellent snore-suppressor!

Thanks to Kristen for finding this :-)

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Later start time decreasing absenteeism in high school students

Don'cha wish we knew this when we were in high school!

(Oh who am I kidding? North Carolina's government is so bass-ackwards on everything, the concept would never even get the chance to fly here...)

Anyway, an experiment being conducted by an Oxford neuroscience professor at Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside in Great Britain has had students starting classes an hour later than usual, at 10 a.m. The remarkable findings of the experiment thus far are that the later class time has caused an 8% drop in general absence and a 27% drop in chronic absenteeism. Furthermore, memory testing done on the students indicate that the best time for learning more difficult lessons is in the afternoon. Researchers believe that teenagers wanting to sleep in is not a matter of laziness, but merely a component of biology adjusting during the adolescent years.

(Or maybe it's just that they're staying up at later hours playing World of Warcraft? :-P)

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Another SESAME STREET classic: "Ernie Counts Sheep"

The first time that I saw this Bert and Ernie sketch, I was maybe five years old and it seriously cracked me up! Every time that I couldn't sleep I would start thinking about sheep, then fire engines just like Ernie does. So here it is: the "Ernie Counts Sheep" skit...

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