06.11.08
How Much Sleep Is Ideal?
According to Daniel Kripke, co-director of research at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center:
“Studies show that people who sleep between 6.5 hours and 7.5 hours a night, as they report, live the longest. And people who sleep 8 hours or more, or less than 6.5 hours, they don’t live quite as long. There is just as much risk associated with sleeping too long as with sleeping too short. The big surprise is that long sleep seems to start at 8 hours. Sleeping 8.5 hours might really be a little worse than sleeping five.”
Link (to “How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?” via Yahoo News)
05.27.08
Is Being A Night Owl Normal?
Are you a night owl? Me too.
Though I’ve spent the majority of my life fighting my nocturnal instincts, I’ve ALWAYS been a night person, even as a child. Day people, or larks, just don’t get it. It’s not that night owls *like* to stay up late… it’s just the most natural sleep rhythm for us.
Although I currently have an early morning job, I feel much more rested on the weekends when I can “sleep in”, and always seem to be at my mental peak well after “normal hours”.
Some people consider being a night owl a medical disorder (and I guess it could be, if it interferes with normal life activities). A few months ago, I was reading about “Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome”:
“Delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS), also known as delayed sleep-phase disorder (DSPD) or delayed sleep-phase type (DSPT), is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, a chronic disorder of the timing of sleep, peak period of alertness, core body temperature, hormonal and other daily rhythms relative to societal norms. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep well after midnight and have difficulty waking up in the morning.”
But, based on the number of people I know who are VERY productive during the wee hours of the morning and who have no actual “problems sleeping”, I’ve always wondered if maybe being a night owl was normal, at least for a certain percentage of the population.
So I was DELIGHTED to hear a recent interview with Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules on the excellent Brain Science Podcast. Here’s Dr. Medina, from the interview:
“20% [of people] are what we call ‘Late Chronotypes‘, or owls. These are people that don’t want to go to bed much before 3 o’clock in the morning, and don’t want to wake up much before noon. And they report that their best, most productive times, are in the evening and at night.
Now those sleep cycles, with the homeostatic sleep drive and the circadian arousal system, are probably set near birth. You can certainly see them at five or six years of age.”
There’s much more in the actual podcast, so you should definitely listen to the full interview.
I plan to pick up Medina’s book ASAP, because he also discussed a lot of other good ways to help your brain “survive and thrive at work, home, and school”. For example, I think it’s very interesting that regular physical exercise plays an important role in cognitive function.
The Brain Science Podcast is great in general. The host, Dr. Ginger Campbell, covers many interesting topics about the brain, and does it in language that is easy to understand.
It’s a fun, educational show and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Link (to interview with John Medina, PhD via Brain Science Podcast)
Link (to The Brain Science Podcast)
04.22.08
Vitamins May Shorten Your Life
From BBC News:
“Research has suggested certain vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to a premature death.
A review of 67 studies found ‘no convincing evidence’ that antioxidant supplements cut the risk of dying.
Scientists at Copenhagen University said vitamins A and E could interfere with the body’s natural defences.”
04.17.08
M&Ms, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Monty Hall Problem
This is our favorite news story of the year so far, since it brings together the Monty Hall Problem, M&Ms, and monkeys:
“The economist, M. Keith Chen, has challenged research into cognitive dissonance, including the 1956 experiment that first identified a remarkable ability of people to rationalize their choices. Dr. Chen says that choice rationalization could still turn out to be a real phenomenon, but he maintains that there’s a fatal flaw in the classic 1956 experiment and hundreds of similar ones. He says researchers have fallen for a version of what mathematicians call the Monty Hall Problem, in honor of the host of the old television show, Let’s Make a Deal…
If the monkey chose, say, red over blue, it was next given a choice between blue and green. Nearly two-thirds of the time it rejected blue in favor of green, which seemed to jibe with the theory of choice rationalization: Once we reject something, we tell ourselves we never liked it anyway (and thereby spare ourselves the painfully dissonant thought that we made the wrong choice).
But Dr. Chen says that the monkey’s distaste for blue can be completely explained with statistics alone. He says the psychologists wrongly assumed that the monkey began by valuing all three colors equally.”
Link (via New York Times)
Alternate Link (in case New York Times website is not dependable, as usual)
01.30.08
Out Of Body Experiences
If you want to have an “out of body experience“, there’s no need to appeal to the supernatural.
Last year, two research groups induced out-of-body experiences in healthy participants with virtual reality techniques. The experiments, described last August in studies by H. Henri Ehrsson and Olaf Blanke and colleagues in Science, demonstrate that out-of-body experiences, previously confined to the realms of psychiatry, fiction and the occult, occur when the normal processing of sensory information is disrupted. This research provides an important tool to understand how the feeling of self is generated by the brain.
Link (to “The Lab Route To Out-Of-Body Experiences” in Scientific American)
01.20.08
Wear Something Yellow On Darwin Day
February 12, 2008 is Darwin Day and people all around the world who support science and reason will be wearing something YELLOW to show their solidarity.
Closet atheists can just wear yellow underwear.
Also, many people are throwing parties with their friends on February 12.
Who doesn’t love an extra holiday every year? 
Link (to Darwin Day lens on Squidoo)
11.25.07
More Pareidolia Fun
A few months ago, we posted a link to the “Faces In Places” blog.
The Daily Mail printed a recent story with even more pics.
To the casual observer they are simply a collection of buildings, gadgets and everyday items. But look more closely and you will see that hidden within each one there is an intriguing image of a face.
Link (to “The faces spotted in the strangest places” article on Daily Mail site)
11.17.07
First HDTV Images Of The Moon
The first high definition images of the moon have been taken by Japan’s “lunar explorer” Kaguya.
The images were captured on Halloween.
There is also a non-high-definition video called “Earth Rise” (featured below) on Youtube. Taken from a Japanese television broadcast, it is a video where you can see the Earth rise and set from the surface of the moon.
Link (to “World’s First Image Taking of the Moon by HDTV” on JAXA website”)
Link (to “Earth Rise” video on Youtube)
10.18.07
People Are More Swayed By Gossip Than Truth
Quote from a recent MSNBC story :
The new study, published this week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals individuals sometimes place so much stock in gossip that they accept it as true even if their own observations and experiences suggest otherwise.
According to the lead author of the study, humans are used to basing their decisions on gossip and other spoken information.
Link (to “People Are More Swayed By Gossip Than Truth” on MSNBC)
Link (to “Study: Gossip Trumps Truth” on LiveScience.com)
10.17.07
85 million-year-old Dinosaur Skull Found in Japan
Yahoo News sez:
An 85 million-year-old dinosaur skull has been found in southwestern Japan, one of the oldest discoveries of its kind in the country…The fossilized skull, belonging to a herbivore called hadrosaurid, was unearthed on a mountain in the town of Mifune in Kumamoto prefecture, Kyodo said, quoting an official of the Mifune Dinosaur Museum.
Scientists say the skull belonged to a “duck-billed dinosaur”.
Link (to Yahoo News Story)
