Fat catThe average American gains about 1 lb. during the winter holiday season. This is caused by two things. First, most of us are less active in the winter because it's too cold for many of the outdoor activities that help us burn calories during the warmer months. Second, Thanksgiving and Christmas are both holidays where people tend to eat way too much. If you want to maintain your weight during the winter you need to add to your physical activity -- skiing, basketball, or more time at the gym are all good suggestions. You can also pay close attention to what you eat over the holidays, but that can be really hard to do. Especially when you don't want to be a downer for those throwing caution to the wind. So, just pick up your activity level and you can still enjoy all the great holiday food that will surely be passing under your nose.

For this playlist I've pulled together 10 songs for those who overeat, and find themselves  laying around watching football with their belts loosened. Let it be a reminder that the party will come to an end, but the extra pounds will remain unless we choose to do something about it.

What songs would you add?

RadioheadNot many music lovers, or music critics, have bad things to say about Radiohead. They're one of the most influential bands of the last 20 years. If I had to break it down, I'd say that the band's music possesses an abundance of things that make it great - an incredible dynamic range, tasteful & creative textures, excellent musicianship, memorable hooks, and most importantly, Radiohead is a band the obviously feels the music they're playing. It's something very hard to quantify, but you know it when you hear it, and it's impossible to keep from being sucked in.

There are a handful of critics who don't get the music of Radiohead, but for me it's just a red flag to avoid all future musical recommendations from such critics. One of the great things about Radiohead is this -- their music is just complex enough that it reveals itself over time, it's not the least common denominator, so prevalent in pop music today. Each new Radiohead album makes the listener feel as if they've earned something, and they have. Although it takes a bit of attention on the part of the listener, it doesn't require so much that it's out of reach for the average music fan.

This playlist includes 18 Radiohead songs as covered by 18 different artists. It's a great look into how their music has influenced fellow musicians.

supernovaWe would not exist if it were not for supernovae -- massive explosions that happen at the end of a star's life.

A star is born when its core becomes dense and hot enough to start fusing hydrogen, and when two hydrogen molecules are fused together, they form a helium molecule. This process gives out energy in the form of light and heat. This is fusion. The process continues, with each switch to a new fuel creating heavier and heavier elements. The final straw is when iron starts to be created at a very large star's core. At this point it will become unstable and explode. During the explosion even heavier elements are created, like gold, silver and platinum. All the elemental matter that was created during this process is flung out into the universe where it settles and forms into other stars, planets and moons.

So, elements that make life possible here on planet Earth came from an exploding star -- a supernova.

With this frame of reference, it's no surprise that supernovae have been a

Light_speedThe speed of light equals 186,282 miles per second, or 299,792,458 meters per second. That's pretty fast. A light year is the distance it takes light to travel in a full year, or 5.879 trillion miles. That's a pretty large distance by human standards, but insignificant by the standards of the universe.

There has been a lot of news lately about to the speed of light. The work of Albert Einstein says that nothing can travel faster than light, it's our cosmic speed limit so to speak. But a recent experiment, originated in Geneva, clocked neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. This has physicists scrambling to confirm, or debunk the experiment. If true, it would throw much of what we know about the universe in the trash. Some say it may even open up the possibility of time travel one day.

If we could build a spaceship that can travel faster than the speed of light, what would we use for headlights?

This playlist includes 13 "faster than the speed of light" songs, what would you add?