Why don't loud snorers wake themselves up?

  MP3   print   bilingual 

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

  MP3   print   bilingual 

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)