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Why did Romans like baths so much?

2010-03-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

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Public baths were very popular in Ancient Rome, and were a busy, noisy and lively meeting place for the Romans. Ancient Rome had hundreds of these baths where Roman citizens could bathe, have their hair cut, exercise in the gymnasium, read at the bath's library, and even grab a snack. The Ancient Romans would have had to pay an admission charge to enter the baths, but the entry fee to the baths was low so even the poor of Ancient Rome could visit them.

A Roman visiting the baths to bathe would have had to pass through several baths in succession: first, hot and dry; second, warm and steamy, and third, a cold plunge in the 'frigidarium'.

Slaves were not allowed to visit the baths themselves, but they were often taken in by their masters to help them with the bath, for example by rubbing their backs. Roman men and women would try to visit the baths at least once every day, but they had to visit the baths at different times during the day. Children were not allowed to use the baths.

By the way, the Ancient Romans did not use soap! Instead they rubbed oil into their skin and then scraped it off with a metal scraper, called a strigil; this removed the dirt, dead skin and sweat from their bodies and left them clean.

Partly adapted from http://www.hadrians.com/, 2001 · Level: B1

COMPREHENSION
Hover mouse over each question to check

True or False?
1. Roman citizens enjoyed having a bath.
2. Public baths were a quiet place.
3. Romans could do many activities at the bath.
4. The frigidarium was the first bath in the bathing process.
5. Children didn't have to pay to enter the baths.
Questions
1. Did the Romans had to pay a lot to have acces to the baths?
2. How many baths did a person had to go through when bathing?
3. Who helped the Romans with their bathing?
4. What did Romans use to clean their bodies?
5. Which things did the strigil help to eliminate?
Find in the text
1. Very old (adj)
2. Take something strongly (v)
3. A person who had no freedom (n)
4. A substance we use to clean the body (n)
5. Remove something off somewhere (v)

Why don't loud snorers wake themselves up?

2009-11-29T10:04:00.000-08:00

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If you are a loud snorer and you have got a sleeping partner, you might be the object of angry complaints in the morning for disturbing their sleep. But there are some reasons why you did not wake up as a consequence of your own snoring.

When we sleep we go through different stages and depending on which stage we are in, our body changes its tolerance towards loud noises. Thus, during the deep 'slow-wave' stage of the sleep cycle our body might be unaware of snores louder than 100 decibels, which is higher than the noise a fire alarm makes. However, this stage lasts for only twenty percent of the night, or just over an hour and a half from an average eight-hour sleep.

The majority of time people are going through shallow sleep and they can be woken up by their snores dozens of times without even realizing it. Loud snorts may wake a person for a few seconds, but this is such a short time that the person doesn't completely wake up, neither is it possible to remember it the next morning. This means that snorers will be unaware of their broken sleep, but they will probably feel sleepier during the day.

Adapted from Popular Science, December, 2009 · Level: B2

COMPREHENSION
Hover mouse over each question to check

True or False?
1. Loud snorers usually distub their sleeping partner's sleep.
2. There are different types of sleep
3. The noise made by a fire alarm is always higher than the noise made by a big snort.
4. We are deeply sleeping 80% of the sleeping time.
5. Some people can remember how many times they were woken up by snores the previous night
Questions
1. What reaction can snores have on a sleeping partner?
2. When is our body most tolerant towards noise?
3. How noisy can a big snort be?
4. How long does a typical person sleep?
5. What is the usual consequence of continually being woken up for short periods during the sleep?
Find in the text
1. Make noise while sleeping (v)
2. Interrupt, bother or avoid the normal course of an action (v)
3. The different parts in a process (n)
4. The unit we use to measure sound
5. Unconscious, ignorant (adj)

Bigger not necessarily better, when it comes to brains

2009-11-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

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According to experts from Queen's Mary Centre for Psychology and the University of Cambridge, a bigger brain doesn't mean more intelligence. Even tiny insects are capable of some intelligent behaviours, for example honeybees can count, classify things that look similar like dogs or human faces and tell when a shape is symmetrical or not.

Animal brains hugely vary in size. The brain of a whale may reach 9 kg, that of a human weighs up to 1.45 kg, whereas a honeybee's brain weighs just one milligram. Bulky brains are certainly more precise and far better at going into details. However, a bigger brain is not more complex than a small one, it's just a repetition of the same neural circuits over and over. To use a computer analogy, bigger brains are like bigger hard drives, not necessarily better processors.

This must mean that advanced thinking can be achieved with a relative small number of brain cells. Counting could require just a few hundred and a few thousands might be enough to generate consciousness. Engineers now expect to be able to apply this type of research in building computers with the ability to recognise facial expressions and emotions.

Adapted from Science Daily, November 18th, 2009 · Level: B1

COMPREHENSION
Hover mouse over each question to check

True or False?
1. Intelligence requires a bigger brain
2. Human brains are the biggest
3. A brain that weighs one milligram is capable of intelligent behaviour
4. Precision depends on the size of the brain
5. Several thousand brain cells are necessary for such a simple task as counting
Questions
1. What type of intelligent behaviour can honeybees have?
2. How much does a whale's brain weigh?
3. What are bigger brains better at?
4. How many brain cells are necessary for advanced thinking?
5. What do engineers want to do in the future?
Find in the text
1. The organ used to make thoughts (n)
2. Alike (adj)
3. A large mammal that lives in the ocean
4. Again and again (expr)
5. Sufficient (adj)