CuriousMinds

You're Taller in the Morning

You might be surprised to learn that you're actually taller when you wake up in the morning. This fascinating phenomenon isn't just a trick of the light or your imagination; it's rooted in the biology of your spine. Throughout the night, as you rest horizontally, your spinal discs decompress and absorb fluid, causing a slight increase in your overall height. However, this extra stature is fleeting. As you go about your day, gravity takes its toll, slowly compressing your spine. But there's more to this daily height fluctuation than meets the eye, and understanding it can offer insights into your body's inner workings.

Key Takeaways

• People are typically 1-2 cm taller in the morning due to spinal disc decompression during sleep.

• Intervertebral discs absorb fluid overnight, causing the spine to elongate and increase overall height.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

The richest 20 per cent of the world’s countries are now around 30 times richer than the poorest 20 per cent. Moreover, the income gap between the richest and poorest countries is persistent; although the poorest countries have become richer, they are not catching up with the most prosperous. Why? This year’s laureates have found new and convincing evidence for one explanation for this persistent gap – differences in a society’s institutions.

Providing evidence for this is no easy task. A correlation between the institutions in a society and its prosperity does not necessarily mean that one is the cause of the…

The Nobel Peace Prize 2024

The two American atomic bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 killed approximately 120 000 people. A comparable number died later of burn and radiation injuries. It is estimated that 650 000 people survived the attacks. These survivors are known as Hibakusha in Japanese.

The fate of the survivors was long concealed and ignored. In 1956, local Hibakusha associations along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific formed The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations, shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement soon became the largest and most widely representative Hibakusha organisation in Japan.

Nihon Hidankyo has two main objectives. The first…

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2024

Han Kang, author of the 2016 International Booker Prize winner 'The Vegetarian', is only the 9th Asian to win the Literature Nobel. The first was Rabindranath Tagore in 1913.

Ref: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/press-release/