Well, as I said, a small thing with big consequences. Here are the 6 effects most commonly reported. 1. A 2012 study by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, reported in Science Daily, found that springing forward by an hour was associated with a 10 per cent increase in the risk of heart attack over the following 48 hours, but it did not pinpoint the reason. The study found a corresponding 10 per cent decrease in heart attack risk over the 48 hours after people "fall back" and gain an extra sleeping hour in the fall. A Swedish study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008 also found a higher incidence of heart attacks — approximately a seven per cent increase — in the first three weekdays after the clocks spring forward, which researchers attributed to a lack of sleep. They also noted a similar decrease in the incidence of heart attacks when the clocks fall back. The information was based on Swedish records collected over a 20-year period. "The most plausible explanation for our findings is the adverse effect of sleep deprivation on cardiovascular health," the researchers wrote. University of British Columbia sleep expert Stanley Coren said in a statement released this week, "Spring daylight saving time is a period when people lose a little extra time. Looking at different types of accidents, we found a five to seven per cent increase in accident fatalities during the three days following spring daylight saving time." Another study, by two researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2007, found that daylight time has a significant impact on the number of pedestrians killed by vehicles in the immediate aftermath of the time switch in the fall. People walking during rush hour in the first few weeks after the clocks fall back in the autumn were more than three times as likely to be fatally struck by cars than before the change. Time of day was a factor in the findings - there was no significant difference in pedestrian accidents at noon, but number rose around 6 p.m. after clocks were moved back an hour. The researchers, who looked at seven years of U.S. traffic statistics, also found there was a decrease in deaths when clocks spring forward. It isn’t the darkness per se that increases the number of deaths in the fall, the researchers suggested. Rather, it's that drivers and pedestrians have spent the previous months getting used to the light conditions, and don’t immediately adjust their behaviour to account for less light during morning rush hour. Although most people are able to adjust to the biologically earlier schedule after the clocks move ahead in spring, those who suffer from sleep disorders have a much harder time, according to Judith Davidson, an adjunct assistant professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Much of the treatment of insomnia involves getting people onto a regular sleep schedule, and the time change can throw that off, she said. That can mean several days or even a week of poor sleep for those suffering from insomnia. Daylight time isn't used everywhere in the world. Saskatchewan and some parts of B.C. don’t use it, for example, nor do Arizona and Hawaii in the U.S. It is unnecessary at or near the equator, because the length of each day remains the same or varies by just a small amount. The vast majority of countries in Africa and Asia don’t use daylight saving time. 5. It can cause time travel!! Apart from messing with sleep cycles, daylight saving can create some downright unusual situations. In 2012, an Ohio man was arrested for drinking and driving twice at the same time on the same day by the same police officer. While it recalls Groundhog Day, the comedy film starring Bill Murray about a man who keeps reliving the same day, it's actually a case of simple math. The Ohio man was arrested at 1:08 a.m. on Nov. 4, 2012, taken to the police station and released a short time later. However, at 2 a.m. that morning, the clocks were set back to 1 a.m. The man was arrested exactly one hour after his initial booking by the same officer, again for drinking and driving. The time was 1:08 a.m. His blood-alcohol level, however, was slightly lower. 6. It is expensive. There have been a number of attempts to estimate the cost of daylight saving time, factoring in everything from sleep deprivation and related health bills, through to the time lost to the simple act of resetting all the clocks in millions of households twice a year. One such effort, the Chmura Economics & Analytics study entitled Estimating the Economic Loss of Daylight Saving Time for U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas, suggests daylight time costs the United States about $434 million per year, based on 2010 population figures. So, there you go - a silly little question I guess. Bobbie, you got 2 of the effects, increased heart attacks and accidents. For you: This star business is a little more complicated. Anyway, thanks to all for playing. Off to see what Cynthia has. See you all next week. Nancy

There has been some talk of having laws requiring that there be a human operator ready to take over when the computer system determines that it is out of its depth. At first this seems like a reasonable precaution, but it neglects to factor in that the human likely won't have been paying attention, isn't aware of the current situation and then must very quickly grab the controls, assess the current situation, figure out what to do to avoid the situation and then start to .... >>CRASH<< The only benefit to such a system where the human is placed in charge in case of emergency, is to allow the autonomous car company to dodge blame saying "We notified the driver of the problem, he/she didn't respond correctly so they are to blame." I'd expect it will be 5 years or so before they are anything but a rarity, and perhaps 10 years before the odds of seeing one in a normal day of driving would be > 50%. During that time the autonomous cars may be a higher risk to those around them then the average driver. Simply given that you can often expect the bad behavior a bad driver will engage in. Whereas an autonomous car might choose entirely novel, completely unexpected actions when its sensor data or control algorithms are confused. If it is solely about safety for the driver and those in the vehicle, and those in proximity to the car, there are many technological measures that could be implemented using some of the same technologies that are being developed that would be vastly easier to bring to fruition then fully autonomous vehicles. Using similar sensors that might eventually allow autonomous control the vehicle cold determine when the driver is engaging in bad behavior: texting, running red lights, excessive speeding, lane departures, and then take some action to signal that behavior or correct it or punish it (For instance a system that detected every attempt to send or receive a text message while the phone and automatically added a fine to that person's phone bill)

Mtn, yes rats! In CA we have roof/tree rats. They are bigger than a mouse, but smaller than the Norway rats you find in NYC. They are agile little buggers and love all the food provided by the fruit trees found all over So. CA. No winters to slow them down or kill them off. We haven't found one in the house, but did have one go in the garage before we got new doors. We have quarterly pest service with several traps around the yard. The big dog is doing a great job of keeping them away. Nini, a friend's son got his masters at Rollins not too long ago and they were very happy with the program.

I can’t imagine moving elsewhere — we have too many friends and connections in our current town and I don’t want to start over socially. We just moved to our “empty nest” home in the same town we’ve lived in for 22 years. (Still have one out of three kids home, but she will go to college next fall.) Even though we‘re in the same town, our location is a bit more urban feeling, which is what we wanted. We are very close to the post office, library, shops, etc. I love it, even though it’s been a little crazy as our house has been under construction (mostly exterior) for about 6 weeks now. There are a lot of couples nearby who are similar in age — some we already knew, some we’ve met since we moved. The house is really too big for just two of us, but will be perfect for when our kids and eventual grandkids visit. And will prevent DH and I from killing each other in retirement. (We need our own space.) Once we are in full retirement mode, I can see us spending summers at our beach house, a month or so someplace warm in the winter, and most of the rest of the year at our “main” house. DH is planning to retire next summer (at age 57) but I can‘t see our full retirement mode kicking in until our youngest has graduated from college.