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Living the dream, diagnosing the nightmare
Does a bad dream mean you should be consulting your doctor about an impending neurologic disease? Maybe.
New research published in eClinicalMedicine suggests that, for some people, bad dreams and nightmares have been associated with developing Parkinson’s disease later in life. Dr. Abidemi I. Otaiku of the University of Birmingham (England) analyzed data from a cohort study involving 3,818 older men, of whom 2.3% were diagnosed with Parkinson’s during the 12 years of follow-up.
Dr. Otaiku found those with frequent nightmares – at least once per week – were twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s than were those without, with most of the diagnoses coming in the first 5 years.
Although more research needs to be done, “identifying the significance of bad dreams and nightmares could indicate that individuals who experience changes to their dreams in older age – without any obvious trigger – should seek medical advice,” he said in a Eurekalert statement.
Dr. Otaiku pointed out that studying dreams can tell us a lot about how our brains work and are structured. By using electroencephalography, Dr. Otaiku plans to look into the biological reasons for why we dream the way we do.
So could it be that those killer clowns are actually giving you a heads up on your health?
Maybe next time try a paper route
There’s just no winning with teenagers sometimes. You tell them to go outside, they’ll sit in the dark playing video games all night. You tell them to get better grades, they’ll skip school. You tell them to get a hobby, they’ll scam the German government for millions of euros.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been tricky for governments to manage. Massive amounts of infrastructure needed to be set up, and that means corners got cut. Germany was no exception in this regard; the government entrusted the Kassenärztlichen Vereinigung, a doctor’s association, with overseeing COVID testing and payment at private test centers. To make things a bit easier, all they required private test centers to provide to receive reimbursement was an invoice.
This is where our 17-year-old from Freiburg comes in. In a spark of entrepreneurial genius, he decided to falsify documents and create an entirely fictional COVID test center. The KV approved it, and between March and July of 2021, he sent in thousands of fake invoices. Over that 4-month period, he submitted 500,000 invoices and received 5.7 million euros as compensation. That’s a few thousand tests per day, which was absolutely absurd, but he avoided scrutiny for months.
In the end, it wasn’t even the KV that noticed the fraud, but the bank. A bank employee noticed millions flowing into the account of a teenager and suspected money laundering, alerting the government. Fortunately for our young friend, since he was under 18 when he hatched his scheme, he was tried as a minor, avoiding jail time. His ill-gotten gains were confiscated, he has to pay a relatively minimal fine, and he will be on probation for 1 year. And presumably, he’ll be on the receiving end of the grounding of a lifetime.
You look like I need more sleep
Like most people, not getting our beauty sleep can make us look tired and feel less attractive, but a new study from Sweden shows that the sleep deprived also are more likely to find others less attractive. That’s probably not a good finding for singles who often go out trying to meet someone after a long day of work.
For the study, 45 young men and women were required to spend one night with no sleep and then another night with the possibility of 8 hours of sleep. The following mornings, eye-tracking technology was used as they looked at images of happy, angry, fearful, and neutral faces. The subjects then rated the faces for attractiveness, trustworthiness, and healthiness.
“The finding that sleep-deprived subjects in our experiment rated angry faces as less trustworthy and healthy-looking and neutral and fearful faces as less attractive indicates that sleep loss is associated with more negative social impressions of others,” senior author Christian Benedict of Uppsala University said in a statement.
When we are sleep deprived, the researchers added, we might not stop to really look at someone else, which has a negative impact on how we perceive people because we are not focusing on what their facial expressions are really telling us.
We already knew that not sleeping well has many negative effects on us, but now – thank you very much, science – we have something else to think about. Better hope your crush at work gets enough sleep so you’ll be accurately noticed.
The expanding-hole illusion of science
Time for a LOTME-style reality check: I think, therefore I am.
So far, so good. Next step: I think, therefore I am. I think.
Works for us. Now for the biggie: I think I am seeing the black hole in the middle of this image expanding.
Does that work for you? Do you perceive the black hole as expanding? If you do, then you fit in with the 86% of subjects in a recent study who perceived the same thing.
Lead author Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo explained the effect in a statement from Frontiers Science News. “The circular smear or shadow gradient of the central black hole evokes a marked impression of optic flow, as if the observer were heading forward into a hole or tunnel. ... The pupil reacts to how we perceive light – even if this ‘light’ is imaginary like in the illusion – and not just to the amount of light energy that actually enters the eye.”
The illusion is so good at deceiving the brain “that it even prompts a dilation reflex of the pupils to let in more light, just as would happen if we were really moving into a dark area,” the investigators said.
Of the 50 men and women who had their eye movements measured while looking at the illusion, only 14% didn’t perceive the illusion when the hole was black. When the hole was a color, that figure went up to 20%. There also was a strong dilation reflex with black holes, but colored holes caused the subjects’ pupils to constrict, they noted.
Dr. Laeng and his associates can’t explain why some people don’t see the movement, but they did offer this: “Pupils’ dilation or contraction reflex is not a closed-loop mechanism, like a photocell opening a door, impervious to any other information than the actual amount of light stimulating the photoreceptor. Rather, the eye adjusts to perceived and even imagined light, not simply to physical energy.”
And now, back to our reality check: We think we perceive the light of a cheeseburger, therefore it’s time for lunch.
Living the dream, diagnosing the nightmare
Does a bad dream mean you should be consulting your doctor about an impending neurologic disease? Maybe.
New research published in eClinicalMedicine suggests that, for some people, bad dreams and nightmares have been associated with developing Parkinson’s disease later in life. Dr. Abidemi I. Otaiku of the University of Birmingham (England) analyzed data from a cohort study involving 3,818 older men, of whom 2.3% were diagnosed with Parkinson’s during the 12 years of follow-up.
Dr. Otaiku found those with frequent nightmares – at least once per week – were twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s than were those without, with most of the diagnoses coming in the first 5 years.
Although more research needs to be done, “identifying the significance of bad dreams and nightmares could indicate that individuals who experience changes to their dreams in older age – without any obvious trigger – should seek medical advice,” he said in a Eurekalert statement.
Dr. Otaiku pointed out that studying dreams can tell us a lot about how our brains work and are structured. By using electroencephalography, Dr. Otaiku plans to look into the biological reasons for why we dream the way we do.
So could it be that those killer clowns are actually giving you a heads up on your health?
Maybe next time try a paper route
There’s just no winning with teenagers sometimes. You tell them to go outside, they’ll sit in the dark playing video games all night. You tell them to get better grades, they’ll skip school. You tell them to get a hobby, they’ll scam the German government for millions of euros.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been tricky for governments to manage. Massive amounts of infrastructure needed to be set up, and that means corners got cut. Germany was no exception in this regard; the government entrusted the Kassenärztlichen Vereinigung, a doctor’s association, with overseeing COVID testing and payment at private test centers. To make things a bit easier, all they required private test centers to provide to receive reimbursement was an invoice.
This is where our 17-year-old from Freiburg comes in. In a spark of entrepreneurial genius, he decided to falsify documents and create an entirely fictional COVID test center. The KV approved it, and between March and July of 2021, he sent in thousands of fake invoices. Over that 4-month period, he submitted 500,000 invoices and received 5.7 million euros as compensation. That’s a few thousand tests per day, which was absolutely absurd, but he avoided scrutiny for months.
In the end, it wasn’t even the KV that noticed the fraud, but the bank. A bank employee noticed millions flowing into the account of a teenager and suspected money laundering, alerting the government. Fortunately for our young friend, since he was under 18 when he hatched his scheme, he was tried as a minor, avoiding jail time. His ill-gotten gains were confiscated, he has to pay a relatively minimal fine, and he will be on probation for 1 year. And presumably, he’ll be on the receiving end of the grounding of a lifetime.
You look like I need more sleep
Like most people, not getting our beauty sleep can make us look tired and feel less attractive, but a new study from Sweden shows that the sleep deprived also are more likely to find others less attractive. That’s probably not a good finding for singles who often go out trying to meet someone after a long day of work.
For the study, 45 young men and women were required to spend one night with no sleep and then another night with the possibility of 8 hours of sleep. The following mornings, eye-tracking technology was used as they looked at images of happy, angry, fearful, and neutral faces. The subjects then rated the faces for attractiveness, trustworthiness, and healthiness.
“The finding that sleep-deprived subjects in our experiment rated angry faces as less trustworthy and healthy-looking and neutral and fearful faces as less attractive indicates that sleep loss is associated with more negative social impressions of others,” senior author Christian Benedict of Uppsala University said in a statement.
When we are sleep deprived, the researchers added, we might not stop to really look at someone else, which has a negative impact on how we perceive people because we are not focusing on what their facial expressions are really telling us.
We already knew that not sleeping well has many negative effects on us, but now – thank you very much, science – we have something else to think about. Better hope your crush at work gets enough sleep so you’ll be accurately noticed.
The expanding-hole illusion of science
Time for a LOTME-style reality check: I think, therefore I am.
So far, so good. Next step: I think, therefore I am. I think.
Works for us. Now for the biggie: I think I am seeing the black hole in the middle of this image expanding.
Does that work for you? Do you perceive the black hole as expanding? If you do, then you fit in with the 86% of subjects in a recent study who perceived the same thing.
Lead author Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo explained the effect in a statement from Frontiers Science News. “The circular smear or shadow gradient of the central black hole evokes a marked impression of optic flow, as if the observer were heading forward into a hole or tunnel. ... The pupil reacts to how we perceive light – even if this ‘light’ is imaginary like in the illusion – and not just to the amount of light energy that actually enters the eye.”
The illusion is so good at deceiving the brain “that it even prompts a dilation reflex of the pupils to let in more light, just as would happen if we were really moving into a dark area,” the investigators said.
Of the 50 men and women who had their eye movements measured while looking at the illusion, only 14% didn’t perceive the illusion when the hole was black. When the hole was a color, that figure went up to 20%. There also was a strong dilation reflex with black holes, but colored holes caused the subjects’ pupils to constrict, they noted.
Dr. Laeng and his associates can’t explain why some people don’t see the movement, but they did offer this: “Pupils’ dilation or contraction reflex is not a closed-loop mechanism, like a photocell opening a door, impervious to any other information than the actual amount of light stimulating the photoreceptor. Rather, the eye adjusts to perceived and even imagined light, not simply to physical energy.”
And now, back to our reality check: We think we perceive the light of a cheeseburger, therefore it’s time for lunch.
Living the dream, diagnosing the nightmare
Does a bad dream mean you should be consulting your doctor about an impending neurologic disease? Maybe.
New research published in eClinicalMedicine suggests that, for some people, bad dreams and nightmares have been associated with developing Parkinson’s disease later in life. Dr. Abidemi I. Otaiku of the University of Birmingham (England) analyzed data from a cohort study involving 3,818 older men, of whom 2.3% were diagnosed with Parkinson’s during the 12 years of follow-up.
Dr. Otaiku found those with frequent nightmares – at least once per week – were twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s than were those without, with most of the diagnoses coming in the first 5 years.
Although more research needs to be done, “identifying the significance of bad dreams and nightmares could indicate that individuals who experience changes to their dreams in older age – without any obvious trigger – should seek medical advice,” he said in a Eurekalert statement.
Dr. Otaiku pointed out that studying dreams can tell us a lot about how our brains work and are structured. By using electroencephalography, Dr. Otaiku plans to look into the biological reasons for why we dream the way we do.
So could it be that those killer clowns are actually giving you a heads up on your health?
Maybe next time try a paper route
There’s just no winning with teenagers sometimes. You tell them to go outside, they’ll sit in the dark playing video games all night. You tell them to get better grades, they’ll skip school. You tell them to get a hobby, they’ll scam the German government for millions of euros.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been tricky for governments to manage. Massive amounts of infrastructure needed to be set up, and that means corners got cut. Germany was no exception in this regard; the government entrusted the Kassenärztlichen Vereinigung, a doctor’s association, with overseeing COVID testing and payment at private test centers. To make things a bit easier, all they required private test centers to provide to receive reimbursement was an invoice.
This is where our 17-year-old from Freiburg comes in. In a spark of entrepreneurial genius, he decided to falsify documents and create an entirely fictional COVID test center. The KV approved it, and between March and July of 2021, he sent in thousands of fake invoices. Over that 4-month period, he submitted 500,000 invoices and received 5.7 million euros as compensation. That’s a few thousand tests per day, which was absolutely absurd, but he avoided scrutiny for months.
In the end, it wasn’t even the KV that noticed the fraud, but the bank. A bank employee noticed millions flowing into the account of a teenager and suspected money laundering, alerting the government. Fortunately for our young friend, since he was under 18 when he hatched his scheme, he was tried as a minor, avoiding jail time. His ill-gotten gains were confiscated, he has to pay a relatively minimal fine, and he will be on probation for 1 year. And presumably, he’ll be on the receiving end of the grounding of a lifetime.
You look like I need more sleep
Like most people, not getting our beauty sleep can make us look tired and feel less attractive, but a new study from Sweden shows that the sleep deprived also are more likely to find others less attractive. That’s probably not a good finding for singles who often go out trying to meet someone after a long day of work.
For the study, 45 young men and women were required to spend one night with no sleep and then another night with the possibility of 8 hours of sleep. The following mornings, eye-tracking technology was used as they looked at images of happy, angry, fearful, and neutral faces. The subjects then rated the faces for attractiveness, trustworthiness, and healthiness.
“The finding that sleep-deprived subjects in our experiment rated angry faces as less trustworthy and healthy-looking and neutral and fearful faces as less attractive indicates that sleep loss is associated with more negative social impressions of others,” senior author Christian Benedict of Uppsala University said in a statement.
When we are sleep deprived, the researchers added, we might not stop to really look at someone else, which has a negative impact on how we perceive people because we are not focusing on what their facial expressions are really telling us.
We already knew that not sleeping well has many negative effects on us, but now – thank you very much, science – we have something else to think about. Better hope your crush at work gets enough sleep so you’ll be accurately noticed.
The expanding-hole illusion of science
Time for a LOTME-style reality check: I think, therefore I am.
So far, so good. Next step: I think, therefore I am. I think.
Works for us. Now for the biggie: I think I am seeing the black hole in the middle of this image expanding.
Does that work for you? Do you perceive the black hole as expanding? If you do, then you fit in with the 86% of subjects in a recent study who perceived the same thing.
Lead author Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo explained the effect in a statement from Frontiers Science News. “The circular smear or shadow gradient of the central black hole evokes a marked impression of optic flow, as if the observer were heading forward into a hole or tunnel. ... The pupil reacts to how we perceive light – even if this ‘light’ is imaginary like in the illusion – and not just to the amount of light energy that actually enters the eye.”
The illusion is so good at deceiving the brain “that it even prompts a dilation reflex of the pupils to let in more light, just as would happen if we were really moving into a dark area,” the investigators said.
Of the 50 men and women who had their eye movements measured while looking at the illusion, only 14% didn’t perceive the illusion when the hole was black. When the hole was a color, that figure went up to 20%. There also was a strong dilation reflex with black holes, but colored holes caused the subjects’ pupils to constrict, they noted.
Dr. Laeng and his associates can’t explain why some people don’t see the movement, but they did offer this: “Pupils’ dilation or contraction reflex is not a closed-loop mechanism, like a photocell opening a door, impervious to any other information than the actual amount of light stimulating the photoreceptor. Rather, the eye adjusts to perceived and even imagined light, not simply to physical energy.”
And now, back to our reality check: We think we perceive the light of a cheeseburger, therefore it’s time for lunch.