A nap during the day doesn't just beat tiredness, but actually improves the brain's ability to absorb new information, claim US scientists.

Volunteers who slept for 90 minutes during the day did better at cognitive tests than those who were kept awake.

...

The latest study, from the University of California at Berkeley, suggests that the brain may need sleep to process short-term memories, creating "space" for new facts to be learned.

In their experiment, 39 healthy adults were given a hard learning task in the morning - with broadly similar results, before half of them were sent for their siesta.

When the tests were repeated, the nappers outperformed those who had carried on without sleep.

A leading French fast food outlet (the article calls it "the french answer to McDonalds" but its called "Quick Hamburger" which may make it sound suitably "foreign" and upmarket over there...) has decided to trial halaal meat only in a few of its outlets (well, 8 ).

Do you think people who cannot stand other women to have the right to wear a veil will be able to stomach (literally!) halaal meat in their burgers?

Or will they say "non" ?

Feminists and politicians protest after anti-capitalist Olivier Besancenot fields Muslim woman who covers her hair

Olivier Besancenot, the postman-turned-revolutionary at the helm of France's anti-capitalist movement, has been fiercely criticised from all sides of the political spectrum for fielding a headscarf-wearing candidate in forthcoming elections.

Ilham Moussaid, a 21-year-old Muslim woman who describes herself as "feminist, secular and veiled", is running for the far-left New Anti-Capitalist party (NPA) in the south-eastern region of Avignon.

It's official: if you're feeling a bit down in the dumps, then filling your face with chips will cheer you up, according to boffins at Aston University’s School of Life and Health Sciences.

The team, led by Dr Mike Green, showed 60 adults a short film on the aftermath of the Hiroshima atom bomb, which unsurprisingly induced "mild dysphoria".

Half were then given chips, and reported "a 10 and 13 per cent increase in calmness and cheerfulness respectively" as well as an "eight per cent decrease in anxiety after eating chips".

Australia race politician Pauline Hanson moving to UK

Australian former anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson is selling up and heading to Britain, according to an interview with an Australian magazine.

She told Women's Day that Australia was no longer a land of opportunity and she had "had enough" of living there.

Ms Hanson built a career on claims that Australia was being "swamped by Asians"

She was jailed briefly for fraud before the conviction was quashed. Her efforts to stage a political comeback in recent years have failed.

"I'm going to be away indefinitely. It's pretty much goodbye forever," said Ms Hanson, 56.

"I've really had enough. I want peace in my life. I want contentment, and that's what I'm aiming for."

So now the BNP has changed its rules to allow anyone to join and is no longer a "whites only" party.

So.. the important question is... will you join?

Maybe become a part of its policy committee and undermine their racist viewpoint on stuff?

An old BBC article, but since it seems that Al Shabab will have full control over southern Somalia probably sooner than later, it is... relevant:

Since they began to capture large swathes of southern Somalia, radical Islamists have been undertaking a programme of destroying mosques and the graves of revered religious leaders from the Sufi branch of Islam.

The destruction of non-approved religious sites started last year when they began to knock down an old colonial era church in the town of Kismayo.

Most Somalis are Sufi Muslims, who do not share the strict Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahhabi interpretation of Islam with the hardline al-Shabab group.

They embrace music, dancing and meditation and are appalled at the desecration of the graves.

MI5 knew that Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantanamo detainee, was being tortured by the CIA, a Court of Appeal judgment has revealed.

Evidence held by the Foreign Office, which had until now been kept secret, shows that the Security Service was aware that Mr Mohamed was deprived of sleep, "shackled" during interrogation and threatened with the idea that he might "disappear".

MI5 has also been accused of feeding questions to Mr Mohamed's interrogators, leading to accusations that it was “complicit” in his torture.

Read more @ The Telegraph

Well, that is the gist of the story over at BBC News:

Bombs and beatings: Life among the Taliban

In Pakistan an account of life with the Taliban has emerged from a 13-year-old girl called Meena, who says her own family tried to turn her into a suicide bomber.

There is no independent confirmation of her account but police say they believe she is telling the truth, and her information could be valuable.

Meena told her story to our Pakistan correspondent Orla Guerin.

My brother used to tell me that the place for a woman is either at home or in the grave. I was always restricted to home.

He said: "If you leave the house I'll cut off your head and put it on your chest."