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For many years, teachers advised students to study late into the night before an important exam. Recent research on sleep suggests that this advice may do more harm than good. During sleep, the brain does not simply rest; it sorts through the day's experiences and strengthens the connections that store new information. A student who stays awake until three in the morning may review more pages, but the brain has less time to fix that material in memory.

In one study, two groups of students learned the same list of words. The first group slept for eight hours afterward, while the second group stayed awake and studied further. The next morning, the group that had slept remembered significantly more words. The researchers concluded that sleep is not lost study time. It is part of the learning process itself.

The date palm has been cultivated in the Arabian Peninsula for thousands of years, and it is difficult to overstate its importance to the people of the region. Before modern transportation, dates were one of the few foods that could be stored for months without spoiling. A traveler crossing the desert could carry a small bag of dates and survive for days. The fruit is rich in sugar, which gives quick energy, and it also contains minerals such as potassium and magnesium.

The tree itself was equally valuable. Its trunk provided timber for building, its leaves were woven into baskets and mats, and its fibers were twisted into rope. Even the seeds were not wasted: they were ground into feed for animals. It is no surprise, then, that the date palm appears in the poetry, proverbs, and daily language of the region to this day.

When companies first allowed employees to work from home, many managers expected productivity to fall. They assumed that without a supervisor nearby, workers would be distracted by television, housework, or family members. The results of several large surveys, however, told a more complicated story. Employees who worked from home reported completing more tasks per day, partly because they no longer spent an hour or more commuting.

Yet the same surveys revealed a hidden cost. Workers said they found it harder to switch off at the end of the day, and many reported feeling isolated from their colleagues. Younger employees in particular missed the informal learning that happens when you sit next to an experienced coworker. As a result, most companies have settled on a hybrid model: a few days in the office, and the rest at home.

Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor, yet they support roughly a quarter of all marine species. A reef is built by tiny animals called coral polyps, which extract calcium from seawater and use it to build hard skeletons. Over centuries, the skeletons of countless polyps pile up to form the massive structures that divers admire today.

Reefs are surprisingly fragile. Corals live in partnership with microscopic algae that give them both their color and most of their food. When the water becomes too warm, the corals expel these algae and turn white, a process known as bleaching. A bleached coral is not dead, but it is starving. If temperatures return to normal within a few weeks, the algae may return. If the heat continues, the reef may not recover for decades.

I read with interest your article about the plan to widen King Faisal Road, and I would like to offer a different view. Your reporter presented the project as the obvious solution to the morning traffic jams. Anyone who has driven that road at eight o'clock will understand the frustration. But widening a road rarely reduces congestion for long. Studies from cities around the world show that new lanes attract new drivers, and within a few years the traffic is as heavy as before.

The money would be better spent on a reliable bus service with its own lane. A single bus can carry as many people as forty cars, and a bus that never gets stuck in traffic is a bus that people will actually use. I hope the city council will consider this before it signs the contract.