It is possible to save up to save up to £12,200 a year in ISAs. These are so called ‘tax-efficient wrappers’ that are in fact investments in currency, commodities, bonds and equities.

The saving opn tax is a big draw for those that chooses to purchase an ISA. The situation however is not as clear as it may appear at first glance. The fund managers fees on certain ISAs can easily overshadow any tax savings.

For example on a typical corporate bond bond fund investors can expect to see charges above £50 annually. The typical return on one of these bonds can be about 4.5%. This means that someone who pays basic rate tax putting £5000 into it would save just £45 by having the money in an ISA rather than being exposed to tax by being invested in a similar package of corporate bonds outside of the tax free wrapper.

Some kinds of funds are worse than others in terms of fees. The prices associated with equity funds can range even higher than those on corporate bonds. With these the charges can breach the £150 a year mark. This would mean that an equity growth ISA returning 2% would give income tax savings of £50 for a £10,000 investment by a higher rate tax payer.

The income tax savings offered by ISAs are just one piece of the puzzle. Capital gains tax is another of the expenses that the use of an ISA can avoid. If you can afford to shelter profits by using your ISA allowance then this makes sense.

Investing in funds with lower charges is one way in which you can have more tax efficient savings. Passively managed funds such as trackers have lower upfront costs and ongoing management tasks. It is easy to overlook some of costs of an investment, and is why paying for wealth management can sometimes pay for itself.

One of the greatest challenges surrounding global climate change is in predicting the kind of extreme weather incidents that cause the most havoc. Even a few hours extra warning can make the difference between life and death for those in the firing line.

The trouble with weather and climate is that they are the result of incredibly complex systems interacting with each other in an incredibly complex ways. Climate models are becoming ever more advanced as the various interactions become better understood. Scientists can predict weather patterns no with an accuracy that would have been pure science fiction even as little as a decade ago. That is, they can if they have the raw processing power necessary to crunch the numbers.

There are a number of ‘super-computers’ in the world. Time running programs on these is expensive, and very much at a premium. Fortunately there is another way to get this work done, and it all hinges on using the idle capacity of the Internet with its millions of ordinary desktop PCs around the world.

For the average user the majority of their system resources are idle a lot of the time. Distributed computing projects work by scheduling tasks across the available capacity, typically by the user installing a ‘screen-saver’ type program. Portions of tasks are run when the system is not being placed under high demand by the user – which is actually quite a lot of the time. If the computer has a 3D graphics card this is particularly useful in performing large numbers of complex mathematical operations quickly.

The latest project to use the power of donated computer time is climateprediction.net. Unlike early projects such as climate@home this one uses regional climate models including factors such as winds, temperature, and precipitation. You can get involved yourself today – its good to feel like you are part of the solution every once in a while!

Sleep is vital for health and well being, without a good nights sleep it is hard to do anything. Unfortunately

for many Britons a good night sleep seems to be something that eludes them. According to a recent survey 19% of the population are affected by sleeplessness. Interestingly the problem seems to be worse for women than for men, with 22% of the fairer sex suffering from the problem, compared to just 16% of men

So what is it that is keeping Britain awake at night?

Worry

If you are worried about things your mind can find it hard to switch off. A lot of people worry about money and financial issues. The best thing to do to combat that is to try and have things a bit sorted out before you go to bed, so you are not thinking about them. Given the atmosphere of financial dread that seems pervasive today it is hardly surprising that it is keeping people up, though.

Caffeine

Britain seems to love its caffeinated beverages. 45% of the population drink coffee during the day and 47% drink tea. Our reputation as a nation of tea lovers is confirmed by the fact that for 33% tea is the drink consumed most often on any given day. Cutting back on the caffeine could be a good way to catch a few more ‘zeds’.

Bedroom

How relaxing is your bedroom? The bedroom should be about sleep, and other relaxation. Televisions, computers and other distractions from sleep are probably not things that should feature. Consider your bed as well. Is it as comfortable as it could be? Investing in some better furniture for the bedroom could transform the rest that you get.

Hey, or you could just say to yourself “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. There are only 24 hours in a day, why waste them snoozing? Margret Thatcher famously said she slept for only 3 hours per night, less during time of war – and she is widely regarded as the greatest Prime Minister this country has had since Churchill.