Correlation – or Causation? Correlation versus causation is a major issue for media science and health stories. Recently I was asked in a TV interview about data that appeared to demonstrate earlier deaths for those who sleep more than eight hours a night. The reason, I tried to explain, is that people who are sick […]
It’s the middle of the night and you can’t sleep – what you can do (3/28/11)
Waking At Night Perhaps it’s the effect of a crashed economy, soaring gas prices, upheaval in the Middle East, blown up nuclear reactor buildings or the Charles Sheen saga, but people are waking up a lot these days – in the middle of the night. Frequently they can’t fall back to sleep. There […]
Lady Gaga goes Gaga over her egg bed (3/24/11)
Lady Gaga Sleeps! People can and do sleep anywhere. Botticelli’s Venus first arrived on earth popping from a half shell, and now a human desiring to be her avatar, the Lady Gaga, has “birthed” from a resin egg during the Grammy Awards. She enjoyed her egg-placed “meditation” so greatly she now wants to sleep in […]
Can naps make me smarter? (3/22/11)
Can Naps Actually Make Me Smarter? Probably. You’ll certainly be able to learn better. Matthew Walker is an Englishman who teaches and researches at UC Berkeley. Along with others like Robert Stickgold and Sara Mednick he’s shown that learning consolidates with naps. Now his recent work make it look like naps don’t just consolidate learning […]
The doctor as drug (3/16/11)
Doctors or Technicians? “I don’t feel like I’m a person anymore, just a bunch of numbers. All she wants to talk about is tests and drugs.” That’s how patients describe some of their doctors these days – technicians. Bright, intelligent, often concerned, but technicians – purveyors of tests, gatekeepers of other technicians who will eventually […]
