unofficial count, hundreds of emergency officials down here emergency responders. the good news is they did rescue those two window washers. we're told by officials on the ground here that they're okay. they're being brought to the hospital. we saw one of them on the stretcher being put into an ambulance. that's being done they say, out of an abundance of caution. >> the big question on a lot of people's minds right now, now that we know the two window washers are safe do we have any idea of how they're going to get that scaffolding safely secured? >> reporter: no. and i can't imagine how you would go about doing it. i think the question that would have to be answered is, what exactly happened to it? are you talking about a cable being broken? what you would have to do to resecure it. do you lift it up? do you pull it down? all of those things, i would imagine, they're trying to figure out. in the meantime, they have moved the public back away from the memorial garden and set up a kind of boundary in case it does

fall and the worst case scenario, no one walking by will be hurt by it. >> good news coming from stephanie gosk in lower manhattan. thank you so much for the update. now, let's send it to luke in washington, where it's sort of kind of the first day of school. >> oh, 535 of the honorables are back yes, members-elect. but will it make a difference? the 113th congress is gaveled in for its final four weeks in session before the end of the year and the start of republicans control of both chambers. this city is back in action or is it inaction? the president's a lame duck and so is his party on the hill. democrats who lost last week are boxing up belongings clearing away for freshmen to unpack their bags. the new class doesn't take office until january 3rd. but orientation starts tonight for the members-elect, soon-to-be senate majority leader mitch mcconnell welcomed incoming gop leaders this

morning. >> we're really excited about having a great new bunch here. we are here to make the place function again. and to begin to make progress for the american people. >> but before they can take their seats on the chamber floor, the current congress has work to hopefully finish up from isis and ebola to internet access nsa surveillance, key ston keystone, and one thing that needs to be passed is a spending bill. if washington wants to avoid a government shutdown just in time for the holidays. only 185 bills have passed this congress putting it on pace to be the least productive congress in modern history. the big question now, do dems try to force through party agenda items or focus on the must-pass bills? according to gallup poll just 36%, dems approval. no big surprise when you look at the november 4th election results. as for the gop, their favorability keeps rising but

has only hit 42%. "the new york times" warns, quote, if this congress cannot make deals now, they might never be able to. well, there's something then to look forward to. what a positive way to begin with our first guest, congressman peter welch, democrat from vermont. thank you for being on the show. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> so first question right out of the gate, we hear from the republicans that if the president moves forward on immigration reform through executive action the well has been poisoned and they will not move on anything substantive. from where you're sitting right now, but do you foresee the possibility that congress can get any of these big-ticket items done? perhaps, i'll say, tax reform or some semblance of immigration reform doesn't pertain to executive action. >> it's good for us if we get it done. the ironies if republicans aren't arrogant in victory and

democrats aren't bitter in defeat, we have to work on items we agree on. that will work for republicans politically. there's a debate within the republican party now about whether they want to govern or whether they want to double down on implaquable option to the president. two things are different. they won the election. they won the senate. and the president is a lame duck. so my hope is that they're going to vote for progress and then i think on our side we've got to be willing to work with them when we can find common ground. >> on the point you bring up about this inner fighting that's going on within the house gop conference i would argue to some degree within the senate republicans as well, you spent a lot of time in the house. you were there where i was when a lot of these votes that boehner put on the floor could not get 218 of his own party because he was dealing with the liberty caucus the sort of 30, 35 guys who said, hell no to anything the leadership brought up. some of those people are going to be emboldened by the latest

election results. from your reading of the house gop conference and how it operates, do you think that boehner can, in fact get to 218 more easily in his conference? >> we don't know. i mean he's got the biggest majority since the truman era, so he's got the authority. he's got the numbers. whether he's able to put them together and get -- really tamper the folks there that believe in shutdown that believe in debt default as a tactic to get what they want time will tell. it's very clear to me what i would call the problem-solving element caucus knows shutdown is bad -- >> congressman, one of the things that this lame duck is going to have to do is a bill to keep the government open after september 11th but that could mean a lot of dimpbt things. we could have many bills that take us into 2015 or a short bill that sets us up for another government shutdown fight in the new congress early on. what do you think will happen?

are we going to get certainty for a while? >> i think we should have a long-term plan that gives us stability and takes the shutdown off the table. all of us -- the republicans have a higher approval rating than the democrats now. but it's nothing to brag about. and the bottom line all of us have been hearing, folks who voted for us and against us is we've got to make washington work. folks like tom cole know that. a long-term budget agreement will give stability to the political situation, also give our managers an opportunity to manage. >> congressman, according to nbc news today, senate democrats may bring the keystone pipeline up for a vote even as soon as in the coming week. senator mary landrieu was just on the floor a few moments ago asking the senate to consider the bill even as early as tomorrow. do you think the keystone pipeline could pass in the next congress and is it something you would support?

>> i wouldn't support it. but if it were brought up in the senate and pass there, it would pass in the house, i do believe that. >> and the president would sign off on that as well? >> i don't know what he would do. that would be a tough call for the president. it's still under review with the state department, so the normal permitting process has to be done. and the question is what kind of bill would they pass. if it was too eliminate all kinds of permitting requirements for any project anywhere as well as do keystone i think the president would take a second look at that. but they would have the votes to pass keystone in the house if they put it on the floor even though a number of us myself include -- >> they may have the votes in congress. >> john boehner and mitch mcconnell are talking about the 48 job bills that passed the house and in their words, #stuck in the senate. >> we have to have it. i mean the big economic challenge is that the average american has not had a raise in 10 or 15 years.

it's that wage stagnation that's a killer. we have different prescriptions on how best to address it but we do have to address it. some elements in those bills might work but the approach we've taken here in the house is basically been a slash regulations and slash taxes. that's not a growth agenda. we really have to be getting our infrastructure built. we need long-term funding for infrastructure. we have to renew funding for our basic scientific research. that's essentially and we've got to make education affordable. these are three things that work for all of america. and we've been fighting because there's an unwillingness to basically find a way to fund them. >> congressman peter welch of vermont, thank you for being on the show. take care. coming up on this busy afternoon, we'll take you live into the arctic blast zones. snow wind and falling temperatures. yipn yipee. and amazing new pictures of a comet from outer space. we continue to monitor breaking new this is afternoon. the two window washers rescued

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hello. i'm leanne gregg in denver colorado. it's been snowing all day here in denver but the accumulation is only expected to reach about 3 inches. much more in the foot hills. the real story is frigid cold that has come in quickly. over the weekend the temperature were in the severance70s. in washington park the lake people were in paddle boats.

a much different scene across colorado where records are being broken. this is the coldest high temperature for the day in close to 100 years. that record is expected to be broken again tomorrow. it's causing all kinds of traffic problems. truckers are chaining up in the mountains and using extra caution, moving slowly. the rush hour is upon us. again, people are asked to slow down, take it easy. hundreds of crashes across the denver metro area. this is a huge system moving to the east stretching all the way from the upper midwest down to texas and louisiana. that's the latest from denver. dominica you're with us now, give us an update on the forecast. >> thank you. we can see you're certainly cold out there. we'll start with the current temperatures across the u.s. and focus on where the extreme cold is. it's exactly where leanne was. denver, the current temperature only 4 degrees. but check out casper wyoming, minus 1. this is actual air temperature we're talking about.

overnight they dipped to minus 24. can you believe that? so, some really cold air that is sitting over the rockies. that's where the core of this cold air is. current windchills have them feeling like it's minus 9 in casper and minus 9 in denver. it gets a little more mild relatively speaking as you head through the plain states and down to the south. this cold air is starting to spread and it will continue through the rest of the week continue to push further south and off to the east. so, this cold air is going across the country pretty much to everybody, except for eight states, will get in on these really chilly temperatures. now, here is how it looks for the rest of the week. atlanta, temperatures are going to start to drop by friday. you're going to notice about a 20-degree drop. still not as cold as the rest of the country is seeing, but it will be significantly cooler for you. then the cold starts to push into the i-95 corridor by thursday and friday as well. temperatures will fall into the 40s.

unfortunately, for much of the country, this cold is going to hang on for the next seven to ten days. back to you, josh. >> wow. thanks dominica davis. now to politics. the president is in myanmar after wrapping up an eventful trip to china. today's headline is an agreement to combat climate change by the year 2030. the white house calls it a milestone in our relationship with china and china's president echoed that sentiment. does this mean our relationship has finally thawed? it's a climate change joke. never mind. mike green is one of the leading experts on u.s./asia relations. he worked under bush 43 on national security and now with the international strategic and international study. we have this agreement on climate change, we have an agreement on making it easier to get visas between u.s. and china. how big of a deal is this? >> the good news i suppose, is that there's good news because the u.s. and china on a range of issues have been clunking heads

together. cyber espionage and cyber attacks by china, the human rights situation in many ways is worse, and pressure on the people of hong kong pressure on vietnam, philippines, japan, maritime states where china is claiming territory and sending coast guard and navy ships out to assert that claim. so it's been a pretty tough year in u.s./china relations. the fact we were able to get some agreement -- i think the climate change agreement is more symbolic than the student visa thing. is that is real. that's great. the fact they were able to get a positive message in this environment is on balance -- >> right. i lived in beijing about two years ago. and anyone who spent quality time there knows how bad the pollution can be. some days i would wake up literally could not see outside your window. you can barely open your eyes because your head hurts so badly. really, some health concerns here. the chinese people wanted to hear this today, but now the

question is will china actually follow through? isn't this something you have actually see to believe? >> you have to see it through all the smog to believe it. and it is true. but, you know, this is an area where china's interest actually in many ways do align with ours. you know from being in beijing, it's just horrible the pollution there. there are other forms of environmental degradation. the chinese people now protest over 200,000 times a year according to china's over statistics and most of those are over environmental problems. so xi jinping and china has a reason to reduce pollutions reduce emissions. whether or not they agreed to a goal they will then live up to or in any way can be enforced is a bigger question. >> a little bit of an interesting move by china, while the president was in beijing, the military unveiled this new stealth fighter, the chinese military.

>> interesting timing. >> yes, interesting timing there. is china really moving now to exert its influence military and sort of stretch its muscles there in addition to the economic might it's already shown? >> yes. there's a disturbing pattern when secretary of defense gates was in china to reinitiate military-to-military document they unveiled a stealth fighter then. it's almost like a need to wave a stick around. we invited china to participate in r.i.m. pack our major naval exercises in the pacific a few months ago. the chinese participated. they sent a ship for the first time. then they sent spy ships to spy on our ships cooperating with their ships. they are flexing their muscle. their fleet is growing larger. their air force is growing larger. right now and for the foreseeable future the chinese leaders in pyongyang know-- know

they'll mess with u.s. but they're a power that will assert its interest over the coming decades. >> mike, one thing i found fascinating ahead of the president's trip to china are articles about how the president of china, xi jinping is actually someone who has quite an affinity for the nba, for american hollywood style movies. that his wife is involved with the gates foundation. so, there does seem to exist some sort of like of the united states. how much do you read into that and do you think that could actually help out the relationship not only with president obama or china under his leadership moving forward and their relationship with the united states? >> so in public opinion polls in the u.s. about 49% of americans say china's a partner. 48% say china's an adversary. only 3% have no opinion. in china in recent years, the

polls about the u.s. has suddenly become very negative. the nettisons, the cyber citizens are very nationalistic against the u.s. against japan. so i think so you saw the chinese communist party and the propaganda arm trying to put a little more positive spin on the united states because the chinese themselves still need a strong and stable u.s./china relationship. they're not ready to take on the world's leading super power. they to want put a floor under some of the controversying and tensions we have. at the same time if you look at some of the media in china, including state-run media, they've really been insulting about president obama in the wake of the midterm election, which is a curious contrast todescribed. so, i'm not sure what the chinese official view of the u.s. is, but they've certainly for this 24-hour nice cycle around the president's meeting with xi jinping, they put a positive spin. >> we'll be watching. thank you so much.

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welcome back. we want to take you right to the new york fire department doing a press conference right now on the two window washers that were rescued about an hour ago. let's listen in. >> so what we were able to do once we got them in the building, it was a fairly straightforward operation. ems cared for them. they were able to put them on backboards and do an assessment. if we were to need to remove them to the roof using that other scaffold getting them from the roof to the top floor would have been a bit of a challenging operation in terms of the only access from the roof to the top floor would have been down a straight ladder. so it would have involved more what we call high-angle rope operations to facilitate that. so it was a safer operation ultimately bringing them in to the 68th floor. [ inaudible ] >> they were quiet. we got them right to the

stretcher. they didn't say much. >> reporter: did this operation differ from another scaffolding save from another building? >> rescue one, the rescue company assigned to manhattan, is very experienced in this kind of operation. this is not the first time they've encountered this sort of incident. so they're very experienced. and they were very confident throughout the whole operation that they would be successful getting through both layers of glass as they did. [ inaudible ] >> i'm not sure how long the rescue took. sorry about that. >> we don't have the time. [ inaudible ] >> we were fine. we were inside. good to find those guys safe. the scaffolding was secure. >> it was a floor still under construction. there were no walls or partitions or any furnishings on the wall so plenty of room for the units to operate up on that floor. >> thank you both. >> you're listening to the new york fire department talking

about a safe recovery for the two people that were hanging, washing windows on the world trade tower. they are now back on the ground and safe. we are going to transition now to hacking. the chinese government might have hacked into close to a million members of the united states postal service. talk about a special delivery. let's face it these kinds of e-crimes are nothing new. russia iran even the united states have spied in high-tech ways. here's the thing pg, no one actually likes the idea of hacking until it benefits them. case in point, it was the nsa's best hackerings called the tailored access operations group who were responsible for the worm that disrupted iran's nuclear operation and aided in the counterinsurgency in iraq and helped in libya. this is the hidden war being fought on the battlefield and it's very very real. shane harris conducted dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence interviews for his new book " @war." what a fascinating book.

talk to us about the interviews you had, the people you talked to. what are the biggest takeaways from writing this book and what are you most concerned about now? dmoo the idea of cyber hacking, breaking into enemy nations or adversary's computers to steal their data manipulate them has really been integrated into the way the military is fighting now and the way the nsa is spying. the people i talked to for this book are the people on the front lines of this. people who are not much older than i am and have spent their lives growing up around technology. they don't see that as anything -- as a strange world. they sort of see cyberspace as another battlefield, an extension of where the military has always been trying to fight, achieve that dominance. the thing that worried me the most though, as nsa has sought to prepare the cyber domain as a battlefield, to do that it's fundamentally weakening a lot of technologies like encryption we

rely on to keep our financial transactions safe, communications safe. it has to weaken those it knows how to get in and exploit a system or try to hack in and steal information. there's a residual effect of that, though. it makes us all potentially less security and we could be collateral damage, if you like in a cyber war if that were to break out in the future. >> so you talked to as you're alluding to a lot of these super hackers housed at nsa, part of the tailored access operations group. tell us how they function and what they actually do on sort of a daily basis. >> tao is sort of like the ultrahack he recalls the elite sort of brigades inside nsa where the highly, highly skilled folks are working. there's they're they're stationed in different places around the country and around the world but the main group is at nsa headquarters in ft. mooetd. if you were to go there, you would have to go through a vault and be scanned in order to get inside this sort of -- the nerve center of that. but these are folks who were trained by the military in

computer science and in offensive hacking. some of them cut their teeth in iraq as part of the surge where offensive cyber operations were a big part of how we were able to penetrate al qaeda's network and understand how they were moving and communicating. there's only you know probably a few hundred of these people that are actually doing this. it's a really elite brigade. you could see them as like special operations commandos but in cyberspace. >> super nerds. >> when you think about the government's priorities inside cyber security we worry about things where they wreak havoc, changing traffic lights but seems a lot of attacks have direct financial goals. people stealing credit card numbers, intellectual opportunities. how do we balance those two things and what are the big priorities there? >> financial crime is a huge problem. the government has a role in trying to prevent this as well. really, this is up to banks and to individuals and to companies to try and increase their own security so that your credit card information is not

compromised. where i think the government needs to really be focused at this point, and argueably has tried to take on too much of a role in protecting the internet s in protecting these strategic, what we call critical infrastructures, the power grid water treatment facilities, things that are actually connected to the internet and run by controlled systems that can you manipulate remotely if you wanted to break into them. things if effected would cause national catastrophic damage. that's where i think the government needs to be principally focused right now. and a lot of other security is probably best left to companies that run these networks. to be practicing better cyber security and protecting our information in ways we probably aren't because we -- this is actually a fairly recent fa nom that we have to be worried about. >> so change your passwords, luke. >> indeed. shane, on that point, regarding the united states' power grid and different water treatment facilities, et cetera, from your research, in talking to these

high-level operatives that work in this field did you walk away thinking the united states could actually survive a large-scale cyber attack? from experts i've spoken to say it would be a real-on catastrophe, people would riot. they worry about that, especially for the power grid. where did you fall on that with your research? >> the thing to remember is the likelihood of a catastrophic attack like that is not terribly high. it would have a huge impact, huge effect. let's say, for hypothetically hackers took out the power in manhattan, and they were able to shut down a part of the power grid it obviously would have huge consequences particularly if they caused physical damage to the systems that actually run the electrical grid. i mean some of these massive generators that could take months to actually replace. you could conceivably be looking at a very long-term sort of sustained kind of suffering if something like that were to happen. if a major bank were hacked in such a way the data inside those

databases was corrupted and could no longer be trusted and banks couldn't clear transz transactions, you would, i think, have a financial panic on your hands. something we haven't seen the likes of in a century, really, in this country. so those things i think, are the ones that of the highest order that have people the most concerned. there are these other low-grade persistent thins happening that also demand your attention, too. and that aren't necessarily a threat to existential threat to national security. >> this is something we'll certainly be talking about for years to come. thank you for being with us. new signs on learning had that may have you scratching your head. luke checking more sports scores. plus an itselfic moment in space, the first pictures of a comet just beamed in. it's more than the driver. it's more than the car. for lotus f1 team, the competitive edge is the cloud.

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cycling right now, we're seeing the very first images coming in of today's historic landing on the surface of a comet. cheers erupted at european space agency when the lander became the first ever to touch down just hours ago. it marks the culmination of a $1.3 billion mission launched ten years ago. scientists hope the comet can provide insight into what made up the early solar system and whether any other life is out there. the question we've all been pondering for ages. speaking of out there, what in the world was obamacare architect john gruber thinking? controversial new video has blown up online in the past 24 hours. it shows the m.i.t. professor and key adviser on health care law at a conference last year speaking candidly about how dems got the law passed. >> lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. and basically, you know call it the stupidity of the american

voter other whatever but that was basically critical to get it to pass. it's the second best argument. look, i wish we could all make if transparent but i would rather have it law than not. so there are things i wish i would change but i would rather have this law than not. >> you got, it you like, it you keep it, probably not. he also called voters stupid not the smartest move unsurprisingly gruber was in damage control mode yesterday when he talked with msnbc's very own ronan farrow. >> the comments were made at an academic conference -- inappropriately and i regret having made those comments. public policy that involves spending is typically less politically palatable than policy dealing with the tax code. it would have made more sense to do obamacare the way we did massachusetts which is to actually give people money to offset the cost of their health insurance. that was politically infeasible

so instead it was done through the tax code and that's the only point i was making. >> i was just speaking off the cuff in a room full of my own friends. of course, all this comes as open enrollment starts this weekend in a new gop-led senate is threatening to dismantle parts of the law. for more let's bring in lauren fox, correspondent at national journal. lauren, thanks for being on the show. >> thank you for having me. >> so, i've seen it already on the twitter gruber gate it's being called by some out there on the right. from where you sit, where do you see this in terms of how much of an impact it could make in removing -- moving forward on the repeal of health care? is this something that will gavel niz the gop? this has been a conspiracy from the beginning. >> on the capitol hill it's already galvanizing republicans. we've heard from some house republicans holding a congressional hearing on the law. and i think there's definitely definitely -- this kind of is

the next -- it adds fuel to the fire to help repeal the law, of course, in congress. of course, the president is never going to sign something like that. but i think there is -- certainly gives momentum to republicans to move on capitol hill. >> yeah. and to your point, washington post was reporting earlier, we heard congressman jordan wanting to have hearings on this. do you remember a republican leadership that was actually looking to move the party to some sort of governing agenda you have to be very dismayed by the idea of endless hearings over what jonathan gruber may or may not have said and what it may or may not have meant. >> i certainly think we're seeing this from senator mcconnell. mcconnell has said before that the realistic possibilities of repealing affordable care act aren't really there, but still he's willing to go through the motions. so i think even some leaders and

senior members of the party still are willing to move forward with this even though it's certainly a distraction and it could hurt republicans moving forward. >> you know what drives me crazy about this story? >> what's that josh? >> jonathan gruber was right. public opinion on health care policy is completely incoherent. people think we ought to have health care plans that are cheap, high quality care they could see whatever doctor they want, don't want to pay anything through taxes. what people want is impossible. it's like the budget, people say, we hate budget increases but they don't want to cut any programs. the budget puts politicians in a position that the only thing they can do to make the public happy is lie. democrats lie about health care and the people who put together obamacare lie about what the true cost of it is. abby, how can we fix this without the public having reasonable expectations? >> lack of transparency and also making it so incredibly

complicated that the politicians don't understand it and voters don't understand it either. this is something jonathan gruber was talking, if you had a law that made it expolice i that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed. on to that point, not only were americans not read in on this legislation, but i bet lawmakers didn't read the 00-plus pages. this-h they fully done the research, would the outcome have been different? >> well, i think that it's always hard to look back on what was going to happen with a law that's already passed of course. this was the president's signature achievement. this was the first thing democrats wanted to look for and mark as a the president's legacy. and i think that what we would have seen from democrats is that, you know this was still a law they wanted to pass. and this is something that they had been working on for a long period of time and something we should also know you know republican governor of massachusetts was able to do in his own state. and so i think that it is complicated, but, you know any

law that congress passes is going to be complicated. i don't think that keeps a government from passing laws. >> what's interesting, lauren is that these last midterms the health care law really played no role in them as it did in 2012 and 2010. it was sure a part of negative ads but not nearly front and center as in the last two cycles. i'm curious as to your opinion, you obviously see the possibility at hearings regarding mr. gruber's comments the idea of the supreme court will make a very substantial ruling on the affordable care act, probably some time around june. could we see 2015 be another year where health care rears its head after it first came out in 2009 as a very contentious partisan issue for a very long time? >> i think as long as president obama is in the white house, as long as this law is on the books, it's going to be a contentious issue. whether or not it's gruber's comments, whether or not it's the supreme court. i think any time the affordable care act comes up it's

contentious. we know what side of the aisle are on and we know where democrats stand. >> yes we do, indeed. lauren fox from national journal, thank you so much for being on the show. we appreciate it. up next how distractions and staying up late may actually make you smarter. i'm a nout owl, so i like where this is going. went to bed at 2 a.m. last night after i was so jack the up for the concert. did a lot of good reading. s one soda a day over an average adult lifetime. but there's a better choice. drink more brita water. clean, refreshing, brita.

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new research has come to some very surprising conclusions on how our brains actually learn and solve problems. for example, there's a major problem that you're having a hard time solving distracting yourself may actually be the answer, which i guess is good news for congress. if you want to increase your learning capability being caught sleeping on the job maybe isn't such a bad thing after all, which is good news for toure. where is he anyway? >> sleeping. >> i digress. a new book "how we learn" the surprising truth about when where and why it happens seeks to debunk many of the things we learned about learning and offers surprising advice on how to achieve more with less. joining us now is the book's offer. benedict kerry. thanks for being with us. >> thanks. >> one of the things you talk about is the way that you should approach learning is partly dependent on what you're trying to learn. so, talk to us about that. >> yeah. no one really gets a course in how to learn or how to study. we do it on hope and prayer and hope we're doing it right.

there's no learning 101 course. it's kind of casey, right? because you can be tactical. you can be strategic about how you prepare for whether it's a french test or recital or something like that. there's a whole bunch of sort of -- scientists have been studying this stuff for hundreds of years. they have tactics that are applicable to specific things. you trailer your strategy to whatever is you're preparing for. >> give us a couple examples. >> for example, the french test or foreign language test, you space your study time. you sort of split it up two or three pieces over a week. if you've got a test in a week. you test yourself each time you study for about half the time. and also you can manage your sleep before a test like that. the first half of the night is what's called retention territory. you really need that for -- to consolidate those facts you learned -- >> i worry if i do that i would forget that stuff after i fall

asleep. i would want to stay up all night. >> you don't want to cram. the cramming you may remember it for the test but then it's gone. we've all been there. for the sleeping, yeah so you get your first half of the night, you wake up a little early. that's the way you manage your sleep to prepare for that particular kind of test. >> one striking thing you say in this test is teachers should give the final exam on the first day of class. what does that mean? >> that's a great idea. pretesting. it's very different from a practice test. >> i don't know if i like that idea. >> it's not necessarily for the grade, right? just drop it in your lap. it's a new subject. it's not like taking practice s.a.t.s. so you bomb the thing and it turns out in some classes that primes you for what is coming later and you do better over the course. this is a very hot thing in education now. they're trying this in all sorts of -- >> fascinating. >> an advanced version of the syllabus where people understand, this is what i need to get out of the class and,

therefore, they pay attention? >> it's better than that. you're seeing the teacher's hand, in a way. you're seeing the kinds of questions -- >> you're seeing the kinds of questions that are ultimately on the final and you're getting a sense of the hierarchy of the information. what is more important. >> interesting because often times you take a final exam and you're not sure of the structure of the test and that's when it matters. talk about dreams and how it impacts your learning. i wake up often times and say i hope that didn't happen, sometimes i wish it did happen. how does that impact on your learning and how you view the world. >> dreaming happens in the second half of the night. this is an interesting story. i talked about the first half of the night, retention, dreaming happens during rem sleep that is all about pattern recognition,

more comprehension related, working things out, some emotion emotional and some intellectual so it is then that it is important when preparing for a test that prix hengs iscomprehension is what you're worried about. so in that case you do stay up late but sleep in to your normal time. that's the way to manage it. >> sorry i'm going to come in late boss. >> so then based on this research how would you change the typical classroom to create a better environment for learning? >> some of it is plieapplies in classrooms, some does not. you can use all of these techniques right now. i would say all schools should have a course learning 101. a brain science course.

most kids get some of this in 6th or 7th grade, mostly like organize niezing your folders. this would give a list of techniques to help understand the brain that will allow you to have tact many your studying. have tact in your studying. kids should know that. that's my view. >> we live in a world where there are so many distractions. are we taking in a lot more now that we're more distracted then ever. >> it's neither good nor bad, it's just there. it's bad if you're trying to pay continuous atejse attention and trying to get something out of it, of course distractions are bad but they are the best thing you have when you're trying to solve a problem and have run out of ideas. when you are blocked you made

assumptions about the solution that are mistaken and the brain needs to let go of those and reorganize the material and so it is good to jump on facebook, take a walk, call a friend engage yourself while the brain continues to work on the problem. >> is it going to change the way you write your next book. writing is a process of learning and repeating back. how will it effect how you do your work. >> it already has. in college i felt i had terrible approach to studying practicing. it was only later when i started looking at the science when i thought it's not so bad. i'm restless and always moving around. when i talked to people i would say i'm so scattered, well yeah that's the nature of the way the brain grew up learning. so i was already exploiting those things. >> you learned you were doing it right all along.

>> it didn't match perfectly but yeah right. >> i'm learning now that i thought i was doing it right. been quiet for a minute. thank you so much. >> thanks. great to be on. >> up next what the media should be getting more hysterical about. luke lets loose, next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together ♪ ♪ i've got some real estate here in my bag ♪

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welcome back. at the tail end of 2014 i'm reminded of the story that's garnered a ton of media attention. malaysia flight 370, central american kids at the border isis israel and palestine and of course ebola, all important stories, mixed in there was

genuine american outrage at the failure of the va and inappropriate treatment of the veterans. looks like the va is finally going to begin reforming. one story not covered, military suicide. since 2001 more active duties u.s. troops killed themselves than killed in afghanistan. 22,000 a day take their live. 250,000 have some form of ptsd. there are some stories out there but mostly we as a society choose to block it out. it is uncomfortable and it doesn't fit in our proud narrative of strength and freedom, difficult to find the root cause, yet 22 heroes dieing among us each day should have

more noticeable breaking news headlines now and then. what about unemployment. 50,000 veterans are homeless on any given night in america. hats off to major company who's have made a commitment to hiring veterans an the white house to bringing attention to the issue. more needs to be done. the struggle needs to be 234in the public eye. transitioning to stable life are more important to our way of life than any of 2014's wall-to-wall stories. now veterans are proud. many detest the whoa is me stories that covering this issues creates, there needs to be more of a sengsse of urgency.

when you stand proudly during "god bless america" and clap for wounded warriors remember the story doesn't stop there not until suicide stops and every vet who wants a job can find one. that's it for the cycle. "now" with alex wagner. it is wednesday november 12th and this is "now." >> it is a historic moment. ♪ ♪ >> it is a milestone. >> a landmark climate agreement between u.s. and china. the two largest economies have agreed to major deals involving pollution. >> u.s. and china produce 40% of the world's green house gas emissions. >>