EFFECT OF CAFFEINE IN MEMORY

Caffeine. Good or bad? It's

not always easy to know.
Chances are you have some real
misperceptions about caffeine.
For starters, do you know the
most common sources of
caffeine? Well, maybe two of the
sources aren't too hard to name
-- coffee and tea leaves. But did
you know kola nuts and cocoa beans are also included among the most
common caffeine sources? And do you know how much caffeine content can
vary from food to food? Turns out it's quite a lot actually, depending on the
type and serving size of a food or beverage and how it's prepared.
Caffeine content can range from as much as 160 milligrams in some
energy drinks to as little as 4 milligrams in a 1-ounce serving of chocolateflavored syrup. Even decaffeinated coffee isn't completely free of caffeine.
Caffeine is also present in some over-the-counter pain relievers,
cold medications, and diet pills. These products can contain as little as 16
milligrams or as much as 200 milligrams of caffeine. In fact, caffeine itself is
a mild painkiller and increases the effectiveness of other pain relievers.
Dosages of caffeine do have significant effects in the body. But does it
really affect our brains performance when it comes to memory?
The effects of "caffeine" on short-term memory (STM) are very
controversial. Findings are inconsistent, as many effects of caffeine
sometimes impair short-term and working memory, whereas the other
studies indicate very enhancing effects.
Auditory-Verbal Learning Test is a memory test that assesses recall of
lists of words on single and multiple trials given through the subjects'

auditory system. Caffeine subjects recalled fewer words than did control
subjects, and caffeine subjects showed a greater deficit in recalling the
middle- to end-portions of the lists.
Caffeine has been thought to have some benefits when testing working
memory by investigating the tip of the tongue effect, the idea being that, if
caffeine were present in one's system, then one would be less likely to
experience tip of the tongue effect, or the feeling of knowing a familiar word
but not being able to immediately recall it. A study has found that there are
more correct tip of the tongue answers with a caffeine group than those of
the control group. The finding is not that caffeine improves performance; it
was finding the priming of the phonological-system-effecting responses.
When attempting to comprise tip of the tongue effects, subjects were primed
with similar-sounding words to the target word; as a result, priming the
target word was reached faster regardless of caffeine intake.
Short-term memory has been thought to be influenced differently
throughout the day when caffeine has been ingested; in the morning, STM
performance will be different from at the end of the day. As the effects of
caffeine wear off, there would be some effect on STM. Three groups of
caffeine intake (low, medium, and high) were compared during four daytime
hours (01:00, 07:00, 13:00, 19:00). People with low caffeine intake have a
decreased performance later in the day, compared to moderate and a highlevel caffeine intake. Results are interesting but do not conclusively
determine that caffeine impairs or improves short-term memory compared to
a control group. (Terry,2013)

CORNTASTIC FACTS

Corn is called maize by most countries, this comes from the Spanish
word maiz.

Corn is a cereal crop that is part of the grass family.

An ear or cob of corn is actually part of the flower and an individual

kernel is a seed.

On average an ear of corn has 800 kernels in 16 rows.

Corn will always have an even number of rows on each cob.

A bushel is a unit of measure for volumes of dry commodities such as

shelled corn kernels. 1 Bushel of corn is equal to 8 gallons.

With the exception of Antarctica, corn is produced on every continent

in the world.

There are over 3,500 different uses for corn products.

As well as being eaten by the cob, corn is also processed and used as a
major component in many food items like cereals, peanut butter,
potato chips, soups, marshmallows, ice cream, baby food, cooking oil,
margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing, and chewing gum.

Juices and soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain corn
sweeteners. A bushel of corn can sweeten 400 cans of soft drink.

Corn and its by products are also found in many non-food items such
as fireworks, rust preventatives, glue, paint, dyes, laundry detergent,
soap, aspirin, antibiotics, paint, shoe polish, ink, cosmetics, the
manufacturing of photographic film, and in the production of plastics.

Corn is also used as feeding fodder for livestock and poultry and found
in domestic pet food.

As of 2012, the United States produces 40% of the worlds total

harvest making it the biggest maize producer in the world
(273,832,130 tonnes produced in 2012).

An area termed the "Corn Belt" in the US where growing conditions are
ideal includes the states of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana,
Ohio, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas and
Kentucky.

In the days of the early settlers to North America corn was so valuable
that it was used as money and traded for other products such as meat
and furs.

Corn is now a completely domesticated plant so you're unlikely to find

it growing in the wild.

Corn can be produced in various colors including blackish, bluish-gray,

purple, green, red, white and the most common yellow.
(sciencekids,feb2015)

PROJECT LOON

Billions of people could get online for the first time thanks to helium balloons
that Google will soon send over many places cell towers dont reach.

On the floor far below are

Google employees who look
tiny as they tend to a pair of
balloons, 15 meters across,
that resemble giant white
pumpkins. Google has
launched hundreds of these
balloons into the sky, lofted
by helium. At this moment, a
couple of dozen float over
the Southern Hemisphere at
an altitude of around 20
kilometers, in the rarely visited stratospherenearly twice the height of
commercial airplanes. Each balloon supports a boxy gondola stuffed with
solar-powered electronics. They make a radio link to a telecommunications
network on the ground and beam down high-speed cellular Internet coverage
to smartphones and other devices. Its known as Project Loon, a name
chosen for its association with both flight and insanity.
Google says these balloons can deliver widespread economic and social
benefits by bringing Internet access to the 60 percent of the worlds people
who dont have it. Many of those 4.3 billion people live in rural places where
telecommunications companies havent found it worthwhile to build cell
towers or other infrastructure. After working for three years and flying
balloons for more than three million kilometers, Google says Loon balloons
are almost ready to step in.
It is odd for a large public company to build out infrastructure aimed at
helping the worlds poorest people. But in addition to Googles professed
desires to help the world, the economics of ad-supported Web businesses
give the company other reasons to think big. Its hard to find new customers

in Internet markets such as the United States. Getting billions more people
online would provide a valuable new supply of eyeballs and personal data for
ad targeting. Thats one reason Project Loon will have competition: in 2014
Facebook bought a company that makes solar-powered drones so it can start
its own airborne Internet project.
Googles planet-scale

social-engineering project is much further

along. In

tests with major cellular carriers, the

balloons

have provided high-speed

connections to people in isolated

parts of

Brazil, Australia, and New

Zealand. Mike Cassidy,
Project Loons leader, says
the technology is now
sufficiently cheap and reliable for
Google to start planning how to roll it out. By

the end of 2015, he wants to have enough balloons in the air to test nearly
continuous service in several parts of the Southern Hemisphere. Commercial
deployment would follow: Google expects cellular providers to rent access to
the balloons to expand their networks. Then the number of people in the
world who still lack Internet access should start to shrink, fast. (MITtech,
2015)