The Daily Noggin

Many people notice that their sleep changes over the years. They grow sleepy earlier in the evening, wake earlier in the morning and wake more often during the night. These changes are common, and they are partly the work of the body’s internal clock, which tends to shift earlier with age.

What does not change much is how much sleep we need. Sleep experts suggest that most adults over 65 do best with about seven to eight hours a night. Good sleep helps memory, mood, balance and the body’s ability to fight off illness.

The good news is that small, steady habits make a real difference.

Keep a regular schedule. Going to bed and getting up at about the same time every day, weekends included, helps the internal clock stay steady.

Get morning light. Time outdoors early in the day, or sitting by a bright window, tells the body when the day begins and helps make you sleepy at the right time in the evening.

Watch the coffee and tea. Caffeine can stay in the body for many hours. Many people sleep better if they switch to caffeine-free drinks after lunch.

Nap wisely. A short nap of 20 to 30 minutes in the early afternoon can be refreshing. Long or late naps can make it harder to fall asleep at night.

Make the bedroom restful. A cool, dark and quiet room helps. So does keeping the television and the telephone out of bed.

Be careful with a nightcap. Alcohol may make you drowsy, but it tends to break up sleep later in the night.

If you snore loudly, stop breathing for moments during sleep, or lie awake night after night, talk with your doctor. Sleep problems are common and very treatable. One of the most effective treatments for long-lasting sleeplessness is a short course of guided habit changes known as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which works without medicine.

On December 28, 2025, I visited Helan village in Yanbian, the homeland of Lee YJ, a Korean-Chinese woman whose story was shared on Global Voices this past October. It had been seven months since we last spoke, but her family warmly welcomed me, and kindly invited me to take part in a ritual that marks the boundaries of a family: the making of tsodibi (초디비), Yanbian-style water tofu, which is called sundubu (순두부), in standard South Korean.

Tsodibi is not tied to a specific season or calendar festival. Choi MJ explains that it is made when relatives gather together, regardless of the time of year. When family members return home, tsodibi becomes the centerpiece of the meal — typically handmade by the women of the extended family, it symbolizes family unity and cooperation.

It takes more than a day to make water tofu. First, you need to soak the soybeans overnight, then grind them into a velvety, thick paste.

Grinding twice is the key step for extracting the rich flavor from the beans. You can see the transformation: the first pass is coarse, but the second yields a creamy, refined texture that retains the full richness of the bean. We added hot water to make it smoother and easier to strain.

The second step is straining. “You’re doing this job too,” Lee invited me to work together on this step.

We put the bean paste into a cloth bag, and I pressed and squeezed the soybase out while Lee held the opening. We then transferred the liquid into a finer-meshed bag for a second straining. It was physically demanding work, especially given that most women in Lee’s family were over seventy. Yet they handled it with strength and patience, which they have cultivated from decades of experience.

Then came the heating. In their traditional kitchen, a large pot sits atop a furnace, which also serves as a floor-heating system.

“We have a modern kitchen, too, but we don’t use it much,” Lee’s youngest sister, Lee YN, commented proudly. “Our traditional way is more efficient and eco-friendly.” (Though I noticed she eventually slipped into the modern kitchen to prepare the extra side dishes!)

Lee’s brother, CS, went down to light the furnace. Tsodibi is traditionally prepared by women in Yanbian, and men’s involvement is usually limited to practical tasks such as tending the fire. 

While the pot slowly warmed, Lee and her sisters started cooking side dishes on the iron plate next to it, mostly fried kimchi made from various wild plants. Outside of Korean culture, many people believe kimchi refers only to spicy fermented cabbage, but in reality, it just means “pickles,” so the vegetables used can vary widely, and the resulting dishes are not necessarily spicy.

Lee’s family took the soybase out before the pot boiled. She quickly skimmed the foam that had risen to the top of the soybase mixture and added bittern (a coagulant). As she gently stirred, the magic happened: liquid began to clump into snowy white curds. She kept stirring, occasionally lifting out the tofu skin that bloomed on the surface like parchment.

To serve, you scoop away the excess water and serve it with a homemade sauce. The sauce was a mix of soy sauce and chopped fragrant vegetables such as onion, garlic, and chilli.

Freshly made Tsodibi has a tender, cloud-like softness, offering a rich, nutty flavor that store-bought tofu simply cannot replicate. “The best way to enjoy tofu is to make it yourself, isn’t it?” said YN.

Lee’s daughter, Choi MJ, explained that Tsodibi is usually served with a light sauce, because its flavour is already rich and nutty on its own. This is different from Chinese-style water tofu, which is more commonly stir-fried or cooked with spices and other ingredients. The Yanbian water tofu can also only be made in a traditional kitchen, using the traditional iron plate. “Modern equipment simply does not produce the same result,” said Choi.

To preserve the tofu, we ladled the curds into a square, cloth-lined box. Then filled another bowl with excess water and pressed the tofu into a solid, meaty block.

The name “water tofu” best depicts the nature of Tsodibi. Like the women who make it, the dish possesses a fluid tenderness underpinned by a quiet, solid strength. As the winter chill settled outside, the warmth of the furnace and the rich, nutty aroma of the soybeans reminded me that the most indulgent meals often aren’t found in luxury restaurants, but in the slow, patient hands of those who remember where they came from.

Banff National Park is in the Alberta Rockies region of Alberta. Together with six other national parks it makes up the UNESCO World Heritage site "Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks".

Established in 1885, it is the world's third oldest national park, after Yellowstone National Park in the United States, and Royal National Park in Australia.

Established in 1885, Banff National Park is Canada's first national park, and its creation gave birth to Canada's national park system. At 6,641 km², it is also one of the largest national parks in Canada. Millions of people visit the park each year.

The park starts in the north at Sunwapta pass just south of the Columbia Icefield and Jasper National Park with the southern park entrance just north of Canmore. The town of Banff and the village and resort of Lake Louise are within the park. The other park entrances are from the east near the Saskatchewan River Crossing and from the west at Kicking Horse Pass and Vermilion Pass .

History

This area was inhabited by the Nakoda (Stoney) Indians thousands of years before the white man arrived. The area was explored by the workers building the transcontinental railway in 1882. At first the park was centred around the Cave and Basin Hot Springs, and was officially born in 1885. The first Banff Springs Hotel was built three years later, the current incarnation was built in 1928. The first highway through the park was completed in 1923. The park boundaries as they are today were drawn up in 1930, as part of the National Parks Act passed by Canadian Parliament.

Landscape

Other than the townsites of Banff and Lake Louise, the three ski areas (Norquay, Sunshine Village, and Lake Louise), and the highways that bisect the park, it is about 93% untouched wilderness. The most dominant feature is the mountains, of which vistas are present from anywhere in any direction.

Flora and fauna

The most common wildlife seen in the park are bighorn sheep, deer, and North American elk. Moose are more elusive (their population is in decline) and mountain goats are virtually undetectable on the mountainsides without a good pair of binoculars. (Visitors often mistake female bighorn sheep for mountain goats, because female bighorns have short horns somewhat like those of mountain goats.) Although caribou are present in the park, they are rarely seen by visitors. It is important to keep in mind the park is also home to black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes, and cougars (mountain lions).

On the warmer and fuzzier side, the park is home to many tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, and marmots. The occasional porcupine and beaver may also be found. Bird lovers will want to watch for Ruffed Grouse, Bald Eagles, and the ubiquitous Canada Goose.

Climate

In summer the climate is generally mild. July is the warmest month, with an average temperature of 22 °C. There is rarely snow at highway level in the summer, but the mountain tops will be snow covered year round. In winter the average temperature drops drastically. January is the coldest month with an average of -15 °C. Snow will be found at any elevation in the winter, and harsh winter conditions can be expected anywhere at any time. No matter the season, it is important to consider that the temperature will drop 1 °C for every 200 m of elevation gained.

Visitor information

• Park website

Australia has one of the world’s oldest aquaculture sites, a controlled aquatic farming environment, where eels were farmed by Indigenous people for thousands of years. Scientists estimate one of the five systems is around 6,600 years old, based on carbon-dating findings.

The Budj Bim eel farms’ cultural landscape in western Victoria was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019. Budj Bim is a dormant volcano with ancient basalt lava flows. It was the first site inscribed on the UNESCO list for its cultural significance alone.

This video was produced by the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation at the time of its nomination:

The Gunditjmara are the traditional Indigenous owners of the land. They resisted white colonization and dispossession in the hard-fought frontier Eumerella Wars from the 1830s to the 1860s. Many lived on a Church of England mission near Lake Condah from the 1890s till the 1950s.

This hand-drawn map of the Lake Condah area and fish trap systems was produced by Alexander Ingram in 1893:

TikTok user, westvicbrolga, recently posted a video of a Budj Bim tour led by Gunditjmara man, Joey Saunders:

Local Winda-Mara Aboriginal Corporation conducts guided tours of the eel traps and stone houses. The Tae Rak Aquaculture center at Lake Condah has many stone holding tanks for eels, and visitors can have an eel tasting in their bush tucker cafe.

The discovery of the traps has helped to correct misconceptions about pre-colonial Indigenous peoples as being only nomadic hunter-gatherers. Ian J. McNiven, Professor of Indigenous Archaeology at Monash University explained the new findings in an article in The Conversation:

Rather than living passively off whatever nature provided, the Gunditjmara actively and deliberately manipulated local water flows and ecologies to engineer a landscape focused on increasing the availability and reliability of eels.

Manipulation of the landscape involved stone structures (such as traps and channels) dating back at least 6,600 years. Eel aquaculture facilities (ponds and dam walls) pre-date contact with Europeans by many hundreds (and possibly thousands) of years.

The remains of approximately 300 stone-walled structures, which may have been houses, have also been found near the eel traps. They could provide evidence of permanent occupation before European contact.

One of the world’s oldest creation stories also stems from Budj Bim, explaining the origins of the iconic volcano:

A little over a century ago, the humpback whales that spend their winters off the coast of Brazil were being hunted at a terrible pace. By the 1950s, scientists believe only about 450 of them were left.

Today there are about 25,000. A study published in 2019 estimated that this population had climbed back to roughly 93 percent of its size before commercial whaling began. Few wildlife stories have such a happy turn.

The turning point was a decision to stop. In 1982, the International Whaling Commission voted for a pause in commercial whaling, which took effect in the mid-1980s. Humpbacks, which give birth to a single calf every two or three years, could finally grow their numbers without being hunted.

The recovery reaches far beyond Brazil. Humpbacks around the world have grown so much in number that the International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the species as Least Concern since 2008. In 2016, the United States removed most humpback populations from its endangered species list.

Humpbacks are famous for their songs. The males sing long, complicated pieces made of moans, whoops and rumbles, repeated in patterns that can last for hours. All the males in an area sing much the same song, and it changes slowly from year to year, as if it were passed along like a popular tune.

They are also famous for leaping clear of the water, a move called breaching. A grown humpback weighs about as much as a loaded school bus, so a breach makes a splash you can see from miles away.

If you would like to see one for yourself, whale-watching boats leave from many places, including Cape Cod and Monterey Bay in summer and fall, Alaska in summer, and Maui in winter. Many tour boats have seating, railings and guides who will point out where to look.

In 2009, in Hudson, Wisconsin, a man named Todd Bol built a small wooden box shaped like a one-room schoolhouse. He filled it with books, mounted it on a post in his front yard and put out a sign inviting neighbors to take a book or leave one. He built it in memory of his mother, a schoolteacher who loved to read.

Neighbors loved it. Soon friends asked him to build more, and the idea spread from town to town. Bol and a friend, Rick Brooks, turned it into a nonprofit organization called Little Free Library. Today there are well over 150,000 registered Little Free Libraries in more than 100 countries, and countless more that were never registered at all.

The rule is simple: take a book, share a book. Nobody checks out anything, no one keeps track, and nothing is overdue. A library might hold paperback mysteries, children’s picture books, cookbooks or a well-worn copy of a classic. Its contents change every day, which is half the fun of stopping by.

The boxes come in every shape imaginable. Some look like tiny houses, barns or schoolhouses, others like birdhouses, telephone booths or even old refrigerators turned on their side. Many are built by grandparents and grandchildren together.

The idea has inspired other kinds of sharing too. Some neighborhoods now have little free pantries stocked with canned food, and little seed libraries where gardeners trade seeds in the spring.

Todd Bol died in 2018, but his small box keeps growing. Ask anyone who tends one and they will tell you the best part is not the books. It is the neighbors who stop to chat, the child who leaves a drawing as a thank-you, and the feeling of a street that shares.

If you would like to start one, you can buy a ready-made library or build your own. Or simply take a walk, find one nearby and leave a favorite book for someone you will never meet.

A new poetry anthology features writers of Chabacano, one of the Philippines’ 170 languages, which is widely spoken in the southernmost city of Zamboanga, and stands out as Asia’s only Spanish-based creole language.

The Philippines was a colony of Spain for more than three centuries, but the Spanish language was only used by the elite, friars, and colonial rulers. Only in Zamboanga did a Spanish-based creole language develop.

In 2018, Global Voices featured Bien Chabacano, a blog dedicated to promoting and documenting Chavacano de Zamboanga. Its creator, Jerome Herrera, launched a book project this year by inviting writers to submit poems to be compiled in an anthology. This led to the launch of the “Sombra y Luz” book in July, featuring 23 poems by 10 authors. The poems are mainly about love, family, and Zamboangueño identity.

Herrera said, “The project highlights not only the continued vitality of Chavacano as a literary language, but also the efforts of its speakers to create new literature and preserve the language through writing.”

He added that the book title aims to convey a message of contrast about the changes in Zamboanga City. The book cover also provides a nostalgic reference to the flowers that decorated the city in the past.

The cover features an American-era style lamppost that can be seen along the Zamboanga boulevard. The cover also features bougainvilleas which my dad tells me were ubiquitous in Zamboanga City back when it was known as the Ciudad de Flores.

One of the poems in the anthology, written by Jayline Gonzales-Barredo, mentions flowers and birds that enrich life in the city.

Maga pajaro que ta vola-vola,
Na maga rama de pono ta queda,
Alegre con uno y otro ta grita-grita,
Twit! Twit! Twit! Entero el dia.

Mio pueblo Ciudad de Zamboanga,
Ciudad de Flores que llama.
De noche mucho pajaro ay columbra,
Na maga cable de corriente ta esta.

Birds that fly and flutter freely,
Perched upon the branches of trees,
Singing and calling each other joyfully,
Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! All day long.

Oh, my beloved City of Zamboanga,
City of Flowers, they call you.
At night, many birds can be found,
Sitting on wires, that’s what they do.

In an interview with Global Voices, Herrera noted the heavy use of Spanish words in the selected poems:

…there is a lot of debate with regards to what Chabacano poetry should look like. For some, they like it with a lot of Spanish words and for others, they like it to be exactly as how Chabacano appears in everyday conversations. Most of the poems submitted leaned heavily on Spanish words, I think primarily because Chabacano writers rely on Spanish words to make their works sound more formal as well as more poetic. Since it’s poetry, I thought that it was alright to present Chabacano in an idealistic manner.

He added that the anthology seeks to encourage more people to accept the various ways that Chabacano is used.

For a very long time, people have been putting Chabacano inside a box. I hope that these books open up conversations regarding Chabacano literature and make people receptive to different kinds of writing styles in Chabacano.

This approach is evident in the poem “Escribi Chavacano, Conversa Chabacano,” which celebrates Chabacano as a living language.

Through references to poems, essays, fables, and the stories passed down by elders, the author reminds readers that the language continues to thrive when it is written, spoken, and shared with others.

The title itself is noteworthy for its use of both Chavacano and Chabacano, reflecting the coexistence of two accepted spellings of the language. In doing so, the poem highlights not only the importance of preserving Chabacano, but also the richness and diversity of its written tradition.

Herrera’s interview with Asymptote Journal noted the challenge of finding Chabacano contributors, and his hope that the book project can lead to more literary initiatives.

The biggest challenge is keeping the momentum going, since it’s hard to find Chavacano poets. Even so, I hope this anthology is just the beginning and that we’ll be able to publish a second volume in the future.

You have probably seen it: a full moon rising in the early evening, looking enormous as it climbs over the trees and rooftops. A few hours later, high in the sky, it seems to have shrunk to its ordinary size.

The surprising truth is that the moon has not changed size at all. Measure it with a camera or an instrument and it is the same width near the horizon as it is overhead, about half a degree across. If anything, the rising moon is very slightly farther away from you, by about the width of the Earth, so it is a touch smaller.

This is called the moon illusion, and people have puzzled over it for thousands of years. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy wrote about it nearly two thousand years ago.

Scientists still debate exactly why it happens, but most explanations have to do with how the brain judges distance. When the moon is near the horizon, we see it beside houses, trees and hills, and our brain treats it as something very far away, beyond all those things. Since it is “far away” yet still looks the same width, the brain decides it must be huge. High in the empty sky, with nothing to compare it to, the brain judges it differently.

You can test the illusion yourself on the next full moon. Roll a sheet of paper into a narrow tube and look at the rising moon through it, so that you cannot see the trees and houses around it. It will seem to shrink. Or hold a pencil at arm’s length and compare the moon to the eraser, first when it is low and again later when it is high. The eraser will cover it the same way both times.

Knowing it is an illusion takes nothing away from the sight. A big moon rising on a clear evening is still worth stepping outside to see.