Dream-state sleep puts an end to a host of issues, from snoring to sleeptalking
Q. When human dreams begin, what comes to an end? A. Human REM (rapideye-movement) sleep puts the brakes on snoring, sleepwalking, sleeptalking, even just rolling over in bed, say David Myers and C. Nathan Dewall in “Exploring Psychology.” About every 90 minutes, you cycle through four distinct sleep stages: NREM1 (non-REM); NREM2, where you spend half your night; NREM3; and REM, the “most intriguing” of them all. During this phase, “your heart rate rises, your breathing becomes rapid and irregular, and every half-minute or so your eyes dart around in momentary bursts of activity behind closed lids. These eye movements announce the beginning of a dream — often vivid and emotional, usually, story-like and richly hallucinatory.” REM dreams are so vivid, in fact, that we may confuse them with reality.
But though your brain’s motor cortex is active, your brainstem blocks its messages, leaving your muscles relaxed and in effect paralyzed, except for an occasional twitching of the fingers, toes, or face. “Moreover, you cannot be easily awakened. REM sleep is thus sometimes called ‘paradoxical sleep’: The body is internally aroused yet asleep and externally calm.”
Interestingly, horses, which spend 92% of each day standing and can sleep standing, must lie down for REM sleep. Q. It’s been called bird fancier’s lung, humidifier lung and hot tub lung, among other names. Now add bagpipe lung. What’s the story here? A. “Bagpipe lung” is an inflammatory lung disease caused by regular inhalation of fungi living inside bagpipes, explains Meghan Rosen in “Science News” magazine. Here’s the story: When a 61-year-old man died after seven years of a mysterious disease that left him breathless, with a dry cough, doctors diagnosed hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a rare disease caused by breathing in particles that irritate lung tissues. But they were puzzled since the patient had not been exposed to common triggers such as birds or household mold.
Physician Jenny King of England’s University Hospital of South Manchester noticed two intriguing clues: The patient played the bagpipes daily, and on a three-month trip without his bagpipes, his symptoms disappeared. An inspection of the patient’s bagpipes revealed “pink yeast, mold and plant fungi living in the instrument’s neck, the cap that fits over the reed and in air blown out of the bag.” King’s team concluded that inhaling the microbes every day could have sparked the disease.
Further, they offered this warning to bagpipe, trombone and saxophone players: “Musical instruments with moist interiors should be cleaned immediately after use.” Q. You can call this a global “face-off” if you will, but it comes right down to this: How many people on earth look just like you? A. “FaceTopo’s software could let you find out by comparing your face with thousands of others around the world,” reports “New Scientist” magazine. First, you’ll need to provide the app a series of selfies, from which your key facial features will be used to find worldwide lookalikes. Interested in your family lineage?
The app could also highlight how similar your face is to those of family members of previous generations. Given enough data, “FaceTopo developers hope to study the degree of variation across all human faces.” As they say on their web site, “By mapping and comparing a wide variety of adult (14+) faces from all over the world, we hope to discover connections between peoples —and people.”
Want to be a part of this global citizen science project by helping the FaceTopo team reach 10,000 faces? Go to #whatsinaface for details.