Five things that stop a good night’s sleep

Tossing, turning, can't get to sleep? It's a familiar feeling for many. Here are five things that could be preventing us from getting the restful night we need.

An uncomfortable or noisy environment

As we start to fall asleep, our muscle tone reduces and our limbs begin to relax. We may feel drowsy but our brain is still active, and any noise or discomfort can make it hard to fall asleep.

As we drift into light sleep, an area of the brain called the thalamus starts to block the flow of information from our senses to the rest of the brain. But it will still let through noises, which can wake us up.

After about half an hour of light sleep, most of us enter a type of deep sleep called slow-wave sleep. The changes in the brain neurochemistry typical of deep sleep, make it harder to be woken up. But some things will always get through - such as our names being called out loudly.

Missing out on any part of our usual cycle of sleep results in reduced quality and quantity of sleep.

An irregular routine

We all have a built-in body clock which tells us when we are tired, and helps synchronise thousands of cells in our body to the circadian rhythm.

The main synchroniser for our body clock is light. Our eyes react to the light and dark, even when our eyelids are closed.

Daylight prompts our brains to reduce the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. We become more alert, and wake up.

If we sleep less, because of going to bed late or waking up early, we're unlikely to get as much deep sleep as we need, or enough of the stage that comes after it - REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when we do most of our dreaming.

Stimulants - coffee, alcohol, food

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Stages of sleep

Sleep is essential to maintaining normal levels of cognitive skills such as speech, memory, and flexible thinking. Sleep plays a significant role in brain development.

Every 60-100 minutes we go through a cycle of four stages of sleep before entering dream sleep

• Stage 1 is a drowsy, relaxed state between being awake and sleeping
• Stage 2 is a period of light sleep where heart rate slows and body temperature decreases, getting ready for deep sleep
• Stage 3 and Stage 4, or deep sleep are hard to wake up from because there is the lowest amount of activity in your brain and body
• After deep sleep, we go back to Stage 2 and then enter dream sleep - also called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep

Caffeine is a stimulant which can stay in our system for many hours. Drinks high in caffeine make it harder to fall asleep and can result in more time in the lighter stages of sleep, with less deep sleep.

Drinking alcohol often makes us snore more, making it harder to breathe, and so making us more restless.

Although alcohol initially helps some of us fall asleep, too much of it may disrupt sleep. A lot of alcohol close to bedtime means we can go straight into deep sleep, missing out on the usual first stage of sleep.

As the alcohol starts to wear off, our bodies come out of deep sleep and back into REM sleep, which is much easier to wake from.

In the course of a night we usually have six to seven cycles of REM sleep, which leaves us feeling refreshed. However, a night of drinking means we'll typically have only one to two, and wake up feeling exhausted.

Eating a large, heavy meal too close to bedtime may also interfere with sleep. Spicy or fatty foods can cause heartburn, which leads to difficulty in falling asleep and discomfort throughout the night.

Foods containing a chemical called tyramine (examples include bacon, cheese, nuts and red wine) can keep us awake at night.

Tyramine causes the release of noradrenaline, a brain stimulant. Carbohydrates, such as bread or pasta, have the opposite effect. They trigger the release of hormone serotonin, which makes us sleepy.

The wrong body temperature

Our core body temperature goes down when we sleep. It's controlled by our body clock, which starts to open up the blood vessels of the hands, face and feet, to lose heat, as we approach the time we should be sleeping.

But if our bedrooms or duvets are too warm, our bodies can't lose heat. That can lead to restlessness and discomfort.

Our core temperature should only be half a degree less than during the day. If we get too cold, we get restless.

A busy mind

Stress is the enemy of sleep. In bed, our mind is left free to wander, and feeling anxious about getting enough sleep will only make it worse.

In these states people lose track of time. You may nod off and wake up again but it may still feel as if you are getting no sleep at all. This can result in fragmented sleep with less time spent in the deep stages of sleep.

Sleep experts recommend getting up and doing an activity which distracts our mind from worry - such as a puzzle - before trying to sleep again.

Sources: Dr Chris Idzikowski, Director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, Professor Jim Horne, Director of the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre, Dr Dev Banerjee, consultant sleep physician.

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Lack of sleep blights pupils' education

Sleep deprivation is a significant hidden factor in lowering the achievement of school pupils, according to researchers carrying out international education tests.

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It is a particular problem in more affluent countries, with sleep experts linking it to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night.

Sleep deprivation is such a serious disruption that lessons have to be pitched at a lower level to accommodate sleep-starved learners, the study found.

The international comparison, carried out by Boston College, found the United States to have the highest number of sleep-deprived students, with 73% of 9 and 10-year-olds and 80% of 13 and 14-year-olds identified by their teachers as being adversely affected.

In literacy tests there were 76% of 9 and 10-year-olds lacking sleep.

This was much higher than the international average of 47% of primary pupils needing more sleep and 57% among the secondary age group.

Achievement gap

Other countries with the most sleep-deprived youngsters were New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Australia, England, Ireland and France. High-performing Finland is also among the most lacking in sleep.

The BBC's Jane O'Brien reports on how lack of sleep impairs learning

Countries with the best records for getting enough sleep include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Japan and Malta.

The analysis was part of the huge data-gathering process for global education rankings - the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

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I think we underestimate the impact of sleep... on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading”

Chad MinnichResearcher

These are among the biggest international benchmarks for education standards, based on tests taken by more than 900,000 pupils in primary and secondary schools in more than 50 countries and regional administrations.

The rankings of results for maths, science and reading were published at the end of last year, with Asian education systems dominating the top of the tables.

But the researchers also wanted to find out more about the influence of home life. There has been much analysis of the impact of family wealth and poverty, but the Boston College researchers also wanted to measure factors such as sleep and nutrition.

So the tests were accompanied by questionnaires for teachers, pupils and parents about sleep patterns. And this information was compared with pupils' test results, so that the performance in maths, science and literacy could be compared with levels of sleep.

Brain food

"I think we underestimate the impact of sleep. Our data show that across countries internationally, on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading. That is exactly what our data show," says Chad Minnich, of the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center.

"It's the same link for children who are lacking basic nutrition," says Mr Minnich, based at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College.

Mobile phones and computers in the bedroom are blamed for disrupting sleep

"If you are unable to concentrate, to attend mentally, you are unable to achieve at your optimal level, because your mind and body are in need of something more basic.

"Sleep is a fundamental need for all children. If teachers report such large proportions of children suffering from lack of sleep, it's having a significant impact.

"But worse than that, teachers are having to modify their instruction based on those children who are suffering from a lack of sleep.

"The children who are suffering from a lack of sleep are driving down instruction."

That means that even the children who are getting enough sleep are still suffering from this sleep-related dumbing-down.

Cramming school

The researchers uncovered regional trends that bucked expectations.

Asian countries are the highest-performing in maths tests - and Mr Minnich says this has often been associated with long hours and cramming in after-school classes.

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“Start Quote

Having a computer screen that is eight inches away from your face is going to expose you to a lot more light than watching a television on the opposite side of the room”

Dr Karrie FitzpatrickNorthwestern University, Illinois

"One would assume that they would be extremely tired," he said. "And yet when we look at the sleep factor for them, they don't necessarily seem to be suffering from as much sleep deprivation as the other countries."

Getting a good night's sleep isn't going to transform an underperforming country into an education superpower. For instance, the least sleepy pupils seem to be in Azerbaijan, but they are still considerably behind the most sleep-deprived pupils in Finland.

But researchers say that it does show how differently individual pupils might be placed on the ability spectrum, with lack of sleep representing the difference between being high-performing and average.

There are also big changes as pupils get older. Younger pupils in South Korea have among the lowest levels of sleep deprivation in the world, but in secondary school they have some of the worst problems.

There are differences within countries too. At the level of US states, among secondary pupils Colorado has a much worse problem with lack of sleep than Massachusetts.

What the study does not show is why young people are missing out on sleep - or why more technologically advanced countries seem to have the biggest difficulties.

But sleep experts point to a particular problem due to technology in children's bedroom - specifically the use of screens on smartphones or laptops late at night.

Serious barrier to learning

It isn't only that young people are kept awake by messaging their friends or using the internet. The light from the screen, held close to the face, is physically disruptive to the natural onset of sleep.

"Having a computer screen that is eight inches away from your face is going to expose you to a lot more light than watching a television on the opposite side of the room," says Karrie Fitzpatrick, sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Illinois.

"It's going to tell your brain to stay awake," says Dr Fitzpatrick.

Sleep exhaustion has become part of the 24-hour culture

"That light can reset the whole circadian rhythm system and say, 'Wait a minute, it's not time to go to bed'."

Lack of sleep is also a serious physical barrier to learning.

"Sleepiness is a problem at all stages that are relevant to learning, memory and academic performance," says Derk-Jan Dijk, director of the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey.

Research into sleep disorders and brain function has shown the importance of sleep in memory and consolidating information.

Without sleep, the brain struggles to absorb and retain ideas.

"There is a growing interest in the associations between adequate sleep and academic performance," says Prof Dijk.

'Loss can be reversed'

Dr Fitzpatrick says lack of sleep is going to leave pupils more emotionally volatile, more potentially disruptive and physically struggling to learn.

And she says that the loss of sleep and short-term attempts to catch up can cause further and complex disruptions to the way the brain tries to store information.

But there is good news. If you start getting enough sleep on a regular basis, the loss to learning can be reversed.

"As long you haven't gone into extreme sleep deprivation, if you go back to seven to nine hours per night, as long as there has been no permanent damage, you can probably restore the functionality of accumulating, processing and being able to recall memories," says Dr Fitzpatrick.

"The basis of learning will likely be restored to normal levels."

Otherwise trying to study without sleep is going to be tough. "Your brain is running on empty."

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RTLS: The technology tracking cows to make them happy

I see you: Could technology that lets farmers track their cow's every movement safeguard livelihoods?

When Asger Christensen started farming there were 40,000 dairy farmers in Denmark.

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Now there are only 3000.

This is a family farm, where they grow maize and wheat, as well as raising cattle. The Christensens bought it in 1982 from Mrs Christensen's parents, and it has been in the family since 1760.

They are survivors in an industry that has been squeezed hard. Dairy farming has come under intense pressure around the world in recent years.

Retail giants have demanded the wholesale price of milk fall in many countries, making it more difficult for smaller producers to make a living. Falling sales in the United States in particular has also had an impact.

Green and pleasant land: Asger Christensen's farm lies in the Danish region of Jutland

All of which means that anything that can help maximise profits while maintaining a happy, productive herd of cows could mean the difference between healthy profits and the loss of a livelihood.

Till the cows come home

For the past eight months, Mr Christensen has been involved in trialling GEA CowView, technology that lets him track the movement of every animal in his herd.

Asger Christensen plans to expand his herd of 550 to 1000 within five years, using the CowView system

"You can see how long the cows are lying down, you can see how many hours the cow sleeps, how long the cow is walking round, and it tells me a little bit how the cow is feeling, its welfare," he says.

"If a cow is lying down too long, maybe it's sick. And on my iPhone I can see where the cow is in the stable."

Each cow wears a special collar, fitted with a wireless RTLS (real time locating system) tag. The tags are read several times a second by sensors fitted in a grid in the roof of their barn.

The data is sent from the sensors to a hub, where the cow's every movement is collated and analysed using complex behavioural algorithms.

From this, the system can tell the farmer via real time alerts delivered to his smartphone whether the cow is ill, or is in heat and ready to be inseminated.

"You can see in the system when a cow is beginning to be not so happy. The system can tell me two whole days before I can see with my own eyes if the cow is sick," says Mr Christensen.

Group dynamics: The data collected can indicate whether there is enough food available for the cows

"If you can help the cows two days before, it's money, because the cow, not being so sick is easier to treat."

The system also lets him find that cow quickly.

"If I touch cow number 5022 on my iPhone, about two seconds later I can see where the cow is," he says.

Bad behaviour

GEA Farm Technologies' Keld Florczak is the man behind the project.

"A cow is a herd animal, so she will try and hide her weaknesses as much as possible, but she can't hide her changes in behaviour," he says.

"But a farmer might not see change in behaviour because there is no physical sickness."

Tracking Miss Daisy: Data about the cows, and real time alerts, are all accessible from a smartphone

When a tag is fitted it takes 6-10 days to build up a database of the animal's behaviour, and the sensors have a range of up to 600 metres.

Cows are creatures of habit, according to Mr Florczak.

"If she can, she will choose to lie down for the same amount of time, eat the same amount and walk the same distance," he says.

"If a cow is coming into heat she will start to walk more, she will start to socialise more with the other cows, and she will be out of her cubicle,"

"She needs the same amount of food, but she will be too active to stay there and eat, she will walk to the feeding table and then walk out to play with her female colleagues."

And equally a lack of activity can indicate illness or lameness.

Active listening

"Lameness is a huge cost to farmers. And if he identifies a sick cow he will have saved the cow, because the moment she has a physical sickness or a fever it's already too late."

The system is being used in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands - and is launching in the UK and US this month. Mr Florczak estimates it should pay for itself in one to two years.

CowView uses a type of RFID (radio frequency identification) called UWB (ultra-wideband) technology.

"One of the challenges we had in the beginning was finding a technology that was able to give us the triangulation or accuracy that was good enough," he says.

When a cow is about to give birth it 'nests' - Gea hopes to improve accuracy enough to spot this

"Until then we have been within several metres. And that is not enough to identify her changes in behaviour."

The system is now accurate to within 30-50cm. UWB also uses relatively little power, giving the tags a shelf life of seven years.

RFID technology is nothing new in farming, but it has traditionally been used to track animals as they move from farm to farm and into the food chain, and to prevent theft.

What makes these tags different is that they are active rather than passive - they transmit signals rather than waiting to be read.

The UWB tags are supplied by RFID and location specialists Zebra Technologies.

"The unique part about our solution as it works with GEA is ... UWB which is ultra-wideband. And all UWB means is it blinks really quick. That's all. It just blinks really fast," says Zebra's Jill Stelfox.

"And if you are talking about a moving cow, even though in theory they move kind of slow, you want the rate of collecting information to happen very quickly."

Analyse this

While a cow will happily wear a collar, pigs have a very different world view.

Pig-headed: Pigs are more particular than cows when it comes to where to wear their tags

"We developed an ear tag, because for sows you can't use anything else, on the neck or leg because they destroy them," says MKW Electronics founder Wolfgang Auer.

"We are the first company to do this with breeding sows."

The plastic housing on the tags is made by MKWE's plastics arm

The Smartbow system also uses RTLS technology to track animal behaviour, and is designed for use with grazing animals including cows. The Austrian company has taken a slightly different approach to GEA.

The sensors operate at a frequency of 2.4ghz, tracking the animals every second. It has a range indoors of 30-100 metres and outside 500 metres. It will tell you where an animal is to within 1.2 metres.

This technology is generally cheaper than UWB - but is less accurate, has a shorter range and is more power-hungry.

The focus for MKW is analytics - and cost. Mr Auer estimates the system should pay for itself in under a year.

In rural areas, a reliable internet connection can be a problem, to MKW's work management software runs on the farmer's own PC rather than in the cloud

"I think accuracy of one metre is enough, what we are doing is in pattern recognition," he says.

"I'm a farmer myself, I have cows at home, and I worked many years at a company that made feeding systems, so I know that the price has to be very low."

The system is accessed through work management software that is accessible from a smartphone, tablet or on a PC.

"It doesn't need an internet connection, the system is running at the farm and not in the cloud. The farmer can also connect from outside via the internet to his server," says Mr Auer.

Starting out

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I think the main differentiation is performance versus cost generally”

Raghu DasIDTechEx

"I think the technology is very strong," says Raghu Das of market research firm IDTechEx, an agricultural RFID specialist.

"And there is a range of options available. Some do ultra-wideband which gives you high precision in terms of location, but usually, not always, that comes at a higher price point than others which are less accurate.

"So there are a few different technology options."

A reluctance in some parts of the farming industry to adopt new technology will have to be overcome, says Mr Das.

"It is still fairly embryonic with RTLS. I think the main differentiation is performance versus cost generally," according to Mr Das.

"I think it will depend on a case by case basis, because where you have a very dense environment with a lot of cattle, then you may want UWB, or if it is an open field and not very much cattle, then the cheaper system may do."

It's probably just as well few cows have deep concerns about privacy.

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Bad sleep 'dramatically' alters body

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A run of poor sleep can have a potentially profound effect on the internal workings of the human body, say UK researchers.

The activity of hundreds of genes was altered when people's sleep was cut to less than six hours a day for a week.

Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers said the results helped explain how poor sleep damaged health.

Heart disease, diabetes, obesity and poor brain function have all been linked to substandard sleep.

What missing hours in bed actually does to alter health, however, is unknown.

So researchers at the University of Surrey analysed the blood of 26 people after they had had plenty of sleep, up to 10 hours each night for a week, and compared the results with samples after a week of fewer than six hours a night.

More than 700 genes were altered by the shift. Each contains the instructions for building a protein, so those that became more active produced more proteins - changing the chemistry of the body.

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How to get a better night's sleep

• Try avoiding key things that make it hard to sleep such as too warm a bedroom
• Creating a personal sleep profile can help you manage your body clock effectively

Sources: Mental Health Foundation and BBC Science

Meanwhile the natural body clock was disturbed - some genes naturally wax and wane in activity through the day, but this effect was dulled by sleep deprivation.

Prof Colin Smith, from the University of Surrey, told the BBC: "There was quite a dramatic change in activity in many different kinds of genes."

Areas such as the immune system and how the body responds to damage and stress were affected.

Prof Smith added: "Clearly sleep is critical to rebuilding the body and maintaining a functional state, all kinds of damage appear to occur - hinting at what may lead to ill health.

"If we can't actually replenish and replace new cells, then that's going to lead to degenerative diseases."

He said many people may be even more sleep deprived in their daily lives than those in the study - suggesting these changes may be common.

Dr Akhilesh Reddy, a specialist in the body clock at the University of Cambridge, said the study was "interesting".

He said the key findings were the effects on inflammation and the immune system as it was possible to see a link between those effects and health problems such as diabetes.

The findings also tie into research attempting to do away with sleep, such as by finding a drug that could eliminate the effects of sleep deprivation.

Dr Reddy said: "We don't know what the switch is that causes all these changes, but theoretically if you could switch it on or off, you might be able to get away without sleep.

"But my feeling is that sleep is fundamentally important to regenerating all cells."

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Can you train yourself to get by on less sleep?

(Copyright: Thinkstock)

Margaret Thatcher did it. So did Salvador Dali. They survived the day with only a few hours of sleep. The question is whether you can force yourself to do the same.

We waste a third of our lives sleeping – or that’s how some people see it. When there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day, you yearn to be like the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was said to get by on just four hours sleep a night, or the artist Salvador Dali who wasted as little time as possible slumbering.

There is a quite a range in the number of hours we like to sleep. As Jim Horne writes in Sleepfaring, 80% of us manage between six and nine hours a night; the other 20% sleep more or less than this. But how easy is it to change your regular schedule? If you force yourself to get out of bed a couple of hours early every day will your body eventually become accustomed to it? Sadly not.

There is plenty of evidence that a lack of sleep has an adverse effect. We do not simply adjust to it – in the short-term it reduces our concentration, and if it’s extreme it makes us confused and distressed, and turns us into such poor drivers that it’s the equivalent of being drunk. The long-term effects are even more worrying. Repeatedly getting less sleep than you need over the course of decades is associated with an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

But what about those people who do happily appear to manage on fewer hours than the rest of us?  Why does it not seem to make them ill? 

Firstly, you can console yourself with the fact that there are plenty of myths about people’s bold claims. Napoleon allegedly said that sleep was only for weaklings, but in fact he got plenty of shut-eye.

But there are a few very rare individuals who can manage with only five hours sleep a night without experiencing deleterious effects. They are sometimes known as the “sleepless elite”. In 2009, a team led by geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California San Francisco discovered a mother and daughter who went to bed very late, yet were up bright and early every morning. Even when they had the chance to have a lie-in at the weekend (a tell-tale sign that you are sleep-deprived) they didn’t take it. 

Tests revealed that both mother and daughter carried a mutation of a gene called hDEC2. When the researchers tweaked the same gene in mice and in flies, they found that they also began to sleep less – and when mice were deprived of sleep they didn’t seem to need as much sleep in order to catch up again. This demonstrates that genetics play at least some part in your need for sleep; unfortunately the sleepless elites’ enviable state of affairs isn’t available to rest of us, because at the moment we are stuck with the genes we have (that’s my excuse anyway).

But while it might not be possible to train yourself to sleep less,researchers working with the military have found that you can bank sleep beforehand if you plan well in advance. At the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research they had people go to bed a couple of hours earlier than usual every night for a week. When they were subsequently deprived of sleep they didn’t suffer as much as the people who hadn’t had the chance to bank sleep in advance.

This does involve a lot of effort, so in general what you need to do is work out your personal sleep requirement and then try to stick to it. In his book Counting Sheep Paul Martin describes a method of working this out. You probably need to do it while you’re on holiday because you need to wake up naturally, rather than rely on an alarm clock. Every night for two weeks you go to bed at the same time and see what time you wake up by yourself next morning.  For the first few nights you might well be catching up on missed sleep, but after that the time you wake up gives an indication of the length of your ideal night’s sleep.

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Apple: An end to skeuomorphic design?

(Copyright: Getty Images)

The tech giant looks like it is ditching its fondness for apps and programs that look like real-world products. Is this a good thing?

Why do most smartphones make a clicking noise, like a camera shutter closing, when you take a picture with them? Why do the virtual pages of a book on a tablet appear to turn as you swipe across the screen?

The answer is skeuomorphic design, from the Greek words for a tool (skeuos) and shape (morph). It means designing a tool in a new medium that incorporates some of the features of its antecedents. These no long perform any necessary function but – like the unfurling of virtual paper across a digital screen – forge an intuitive link with the past, not to mention being (hopefully) attractive in their own right.

Though it sounds obscure, skeuomorphism is everywhere around us – from “retro” detailing on clothes to electric kettles shaped like their stove-top ancestors. It’s also a topic of much hand-wringing and angst in the tech world, thanks to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to shake up the design principles of his company’s iOS mobile operating system – one of the world’s touchstones for digital appearances.

The latest incarnation of iOS – version 7 – is likely to be previewed in June ahead of a September release. And its putative appearance is feeding a frenzy of speculation thanks to Cook’s decision in October last year to put hardware supremo Jonathan Ive – the designer responsible for iconic minimalist designs from the iMac and iPod to the iPad – in charge not only of the physical product, but also the look and feel of its software.

Ive replaces perhaps the world’s most influential exponent of skeuomorphic software, Scott Forstall, whose work at Apple included creating iOS as we know it – complete with a compass app that looks like a handheld orienteering compass, a notes app mimicking yellow sticky paper, a calculator app designed like an old-fashioned accountant’s pocket calculator, a game centre themed around wood and green baize, and analogue dials on its clocks.

Apple’s skeuomorphism has, over the last few years, divided the opinions of designers, to say the least. For author and tech design consultantAdam Greenfield, it’s inexplicable that the company has for so long saddled its exquisite devices with “the most awful and mawkish and flat-out tacky visual cues”; while software developer James Higgs has bluntly described it as “horrific, dishonest and childish crap.”

For more sympathetic critics like user interface designer Sacha Greif, meanwhile, the decision to launch the iPhone with such a textured, “realistic” interface was a sensible move given just how novel the device was in 2007. “Nobody,” he argues, “had seen such visual richness in an operating system’s user interface before (let alone on a phone)... Realism was a way to link the future with the past, and make people feel at ease with their new device.”

This ease has been important to the company’s success. Outside the rank of designers, few ordinary users are likely to give the subtle stylistic influences of their screens much thought. Yet these are crucial psychological components within a weightless, immaterial medium.

Unlike physical materials and the traditions surrounding them, digital pixels have no inherent aesthetic or “feel”. Everything onscreen must be fabricated from scratch – and, for many early users of Apple products, the textured tones of a skeuomorphic interface offered a democratic counterpoint to the elitism of their seamless exteriors.

From fake to flat

Today, though, even the fanboys agree that some species of revamp is in order – and that Ive’s fondness for modernist minimalism is in line with trends elsewhere. Rather than fake wood and leather, a visual style has emerged in the last few years that is neatly embodied by Microsoft and its technicolour approach to Windows’s latest incarnation.

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Yen dips below 100 threshold against US dollar

The Japanese currency has dipped below 100 yen to the US dollar for the first time since April 2009.

Japanese Yen v US Dollar

LAST UPDATED AT 09 MAY 2013, 17:16 GMT*CHART SHOWS LOCAL TIME

¥1 buys	change	%
0.0100	0.00	-0.33

It broke the threshold in New York on Thursday and was trading close to 100.8 yen to a US dollar in Asia on Friday.

The yen has fallen nearly 25% against the US dollar since November, after Japan unveiled a series of aggressive moves to spur growth in its economy.

The drop has helped boost exporters' profits and triggered a rally in the country's stock market.

The Nikkei 225 index rose nearly 3% in early trade on Friday. The benchmark index has surged more than 55% since November last year.

The Japanese currency has come close to the 100 yen to the dollar mark in recent days, but has been unable to breach that level.

Analysts said that on Thursday, strong data out of the US, which showed that first-time applications for unemployment insurance had fallen to the lowest level in more than five years, had helped the yen pass the mark.

The data triggered hopes of a sustained recovery in the US economy, they said, resulting in investors ditching safe-haven assets such as the yen in favour of the US dollar.

"A stampede out of safety and brightening US job prospects helped catapult the dollar over the key triple-digit threshold against the yen," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions.

Aggressive measures

Japanese policymakers have taken various measures as they try to revive the country's sluggish economy.

A key policy initiative has been the Bank of Japan's decision to set a target inflation rate of 2%.

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Every decline in the yen against the US dollar means Japan is paying for more for its energy needs - it's a steep rise in costs for everybody”

Sean CallowWestpac

Unlike other economies in the region, Japan has been fighting deflation - falling prices - for most of the past two decades. That has dampened domestic demand as consumers and businesses have been putting off purchases in the hope of getting a cheaper deal later on.

Earlier this year, the central bank announced that it would double the country's money supply and buy long-term bonds to keep interest rates low.

The idea was that with more money in the system, and at a cheap rate, more people would have cash to spend, driving up consumer demand and eventually consumer prices.

All these measures have resulted in the yen weakening significantly over the past few months.

A weak yen bodes well for Japanese exporters. It not only makes their goods cheaper to foreign buyers, which should help boost sales, but also lifts their profits when they repatriate their foreign earnings back home.

The latter impact is already being felt by Japanese firms.

Over the past few days, leading exporters, such as Toyota and Sony, have reported a jump in profits, courtesy of a weak currency.

And with the yen expected to remain weak in the medium term, they have forecast a further jump in profits in the current financial year.

Double-edged sword?

However, some analysts have warned of the risks associated with these aggressive measures and the yen's continued weakness.

They say that if Japan's economy does not start showing signs of recovery, and with interest rates in the country close to near zero, it may see a rise in "carry-trades".

This happens when traders around the world borrow yen at very low interest rates and use it to buy currencies to invest in countries where interest rates are higher.

Such trades have no impact on the real Japanese economy, but they result in the yen weakening further.

That would not bode well for Japan, not least because the country has seen its fuel imports rise in recent times, after almost all of its nuclear reactors were shut in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

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"Every decline in the yen against the US dollar means Japan is paying for more for its energy needs - it's a steep rise in costs for everybody," said Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac.

Mr Callow said that while a weak yen would help boost profits of exporters, the rise in energy costs "would offset some of those gains".

At the same time, there are also concerns that if investors start to fear that the currency may keep on weakening, they may start to withdraw their savings and invest outside Japan.

That would not only put further pressure on the yen, but also see deposits in Japanese banks dip.

Some analysts have warned that in a worst-case scenario Japanese banks may not have enough cash to buy government bonds. As a result, the government may not be able to raise enough fresh money for its regular operations as well as to repay its debt.

"In that scenario the government will either face bankruptcy or the Bank of Japan will have to keep printing more money, which will eventually result in hyperinflation," said Takeshi Fujimaki, of Fujimaki Japan.

Hyperinflation involves price increases running out of control as a currency collapses in value.

"This is good for the government as the value of its debt will shrink immensely, but it will be miserable for the Japanese people as the value of their savings will erode," said Mr Fujimaki.

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