The Draconids meteor shower occurs every year in early October. It will peak this year between October 7-8 when the Earth passes through the debris left from the comet 21p/Giacobini-Zinner.
In 1933 and in 1946, this meteor shower produced 200-1000 mph (meteors per hour). While this shower is usually much quieter, it peaks during evening hours (rather than early morning hours unlike other meteor showers) so it's more accessible.
Everyone try and catch this! (pity about the horribly bright Singapore city lights though, making our clouds and sky orange)
Early birds may get the best worms—or at least the best garage sale deals—but they also tire out more quickly than night owls do. In a new study researchers Christina Schmidt and Philippe Peigneux, both at the University of Liège in Belgium, and their colleagues first asked 16 extreme early risers and 15 extreme night owls to spend a week following their natural sleep schedule. Then subjects spent two nights in a sleep lab, where they again followed their preferred sleep patterns and underwent cognitive testing twice daily while in a functional MRI scanner.
An hour and a half after waking, early birds and night owls were equally alert and showed no difference in attention-related brain activity. But after being awake for 10 and a half hours, night owls had grown more alert, performing better on a reaction-time task requiring sustained attention and showing increased activity in brain areas linked to attention. More important, these regions included the suprachiasmatic area, which is home to the body’s circadian clock. This area sends signals to boost alertness as the pressure to sleep mounts. Unlike night owls, early risers didn’t get this late-day lift. Peigneux says faster activation of sleep pressure appears to prevent early birds from fully benefiting from the circadian signal, as evening types do.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Early Risers Crash Faster."
