Sleeping despite noise, lights and shocks!

What makes us fall asleep - a boring lesson, a dull conversation or something else? Apparently, the longest a person has gone without sleeping is more than 11 days; that must be incredibly boring - staying up all that time while others sleep. I personally love a good sleep - an escape from the daily routine.

Back in the 1960s, a scientist called Ian Oswald did some research into people sleeping despite experiencing stimulation. Oswald took 3 men in their twenties and pried open their eyes with tape (keeping them moist with steam), placed electrodes on one of their legs which administered a painful shock (causing the leg to jerk), placed bright flashing lights in front of the mens' eyes and to top this all off, they had to listen to loud Blues music - what a delightful relaxing way to spend a night in!!!

Within about 10 minutes, all the men were "asleep". The pupils in their eyes constricted, their heartbeats slowed and their brainwaves (measured by an EEG) showed characteristic sleep patterns. The subjects also admitted that they felt like they had been asleep.

Oswald went further with his experiment. He took 2 new men and exposed them to the same conditions excluding the electric shocks. This time however the men were to bang their elbows and tap their feet in rhythm with the music. This time, the men fell into "micro-sleeps"- short periods of up to 20 seconds where the brain went into a sleep pattern and the men stopped moving. Shortly after, they awoke and began to move their limbs again. During the experiment, the men would fall "asleep" up to two times a minute.

So monotonous rhythmic sensory stimulation is enough to send people into a sleep. Habituation by the brain to monotonous stimulation causes the brain to shut down as opposed to becoming aroused. Maybe the organisers of Formula 1 racing should take note - loud noise, flashing colours and lights and a monotonous parade of cars isn't enough to stop most people falling into a sleep!

The good monkey parenting guide!

So what does it take to be a good parent? Nowadays, we see a lot of anti-social behaviour. Is there something wrong with the individual's upbringing or is there more to it?

Back in the 1950s and 60s, a scientist called Harry Harlow performed some experiments on Rhesus monkeys (research that would now be regarded as unethical with regards to animal rights). Rhesus macaque monkeys have DNA (genes) that is 94% identical to human DNA.

The experiments involved taking newly born monkeys and then putting them alone into cages with 2 artificial mothers. Both the surrogate mothers were made perfectly proportioned to a real macaque mother. However, one was made of metal wiring and had a single rigid breast with a steel nipple that dispensed milk. The other surrogate was made of cloth with no breast or milk.

As the baby macaques were separated from their real mothers; as expected they were initially traumatised, crying and banging their heads. After a few days though, the babies began transferring their love and affection to the new cloth mother - they cuddled her, nibbled her gently and clung to her. Whenever they were hungry, they ran over to the metal mother - had a drink of milk and then darted back to their towel parent. Observations of the monkey behaviour suggested that the primary part of nursing was to have body contact with the infant.

Further experiments showed that even if the cloth mothers were faceless, it did not alter the love from the babies. Furthermore, if heads and beautiful faces were added later to the mother's body, after the infants had already bonded, the babies absolutely refused to associate with the altered mothers. They did however learn to remove the heads of the mothers and then go back to loving them like they did before (important advice for any mothers planning a face lift or boob job!).

Harlow went even further, he made the cloth mothers become cruel after the initial bonding to see how the babies responded. The mothers blew cold air and poured cold water over the babies, they had spikes, administered shocks and so on. The babies continued to love the mothers and kept crawling back to try and cling to the mothers again and again.

This isn't the end of the story. As the monkeys grew up to be adults - unsurprisingly, they displayed antisocial behaviour: violence, inability to mate and autistic-like behaviour (self trauma and rocking). However, when scientists made the cloth mother into a rocking surrogate to provide some motion during contact with the infants, the monkeys grew up to be almost normal.

So what was the bare minimum needed to bring up a completely normal monkey? A rocking cloth mother to provide movement and contact but also half an hour a day with a real live monkey to provide some playtime. Pretty amazing that this is all that is required for a monkey to grow up and be normal.

So it seems that it really is difficult to fail to bring up a child properly!! All you need is a soft chair that goes up and down, a metal nozzle dispensing fluid/milk and a bit of human contact: sounds like babies just need a daily visit to a dentist!! So what went wrong with the upbringing of lawyers??

Use the force!!

Human magnets - do they exist? I'm not talking about humans seducing other humans - this is about the body attracting inanimate objects (... no - not in a perverted way!).

There have been reports for several hundred years of certain humans having the ability to make objects stick to their bodies without the use of superglue! Some of the people with this extraordinary capability, can make all types of materials adhere to themselves, ranging from wood to glass and plastic. More often than not, these "klingons", tend to have preferences for certain materials (do they advertise in lonely hearts columns e.g. looking for solid and dependable wood - soft in nature for close relationship?).

There was one Russian chap called Leonid Tenkaev, who was extensively tested in both Russia and Japan in the late 1980s by doctors, and could without any doubt, make metal objects weighing over 20kg, stick to his chest! Other examples have included the Superfields Conference in 1990, where over 300 of these "human magnets" illustrated their amazing abilities.

The adhesive force seems to be more prevalent in the hands, arms and chest. Practice and concentration seems to improve the ability. In addition to this, some individuals are capable of "holding" multiple objects all at once and then releasing them one-by-one.

Scientists haven't really been able to determine how these people are capable of this strange feat. Suggestions of an electrostatic effect seem very unlikely as participants could perform even if wearing rubber gloves! Some have even suggested radiation leaks are a possible cause as in recent times, a large number of these people originated from Eastern Europe.

One thing for sure is that these people must be a nightmare to go shopping with - if things keep clinging on to them - they must often face accusations of shoplifting! I wonder if they ever get stuck in awkward situations e.g. attached to the toilet seat after a period of intense concentration!

Completely rat ars*d!

"Oh it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you. Oh such a perfect day, You just keep me hanging on, You just keep me hanging on."

So the theme of this post is what makes people take drugs (with the exception of customs officers who get paid for it!). Is it simply the availability and easy supply of drugs or perhaps as a result of boredom and depression, with the need for an escape from life? Maybe some clues can come from an experiment done in the early 1980s with rats.

In 1981, a scientist experimented on whether rats would turn to morphine (heroin) when kept in different conditions. He made a 700 square ft home for the rats (bigger than most flats!) and made it luxurious - full of food, toys, areas for digging, mating, resting and other activities. This was like Buckingham Palace (especially for the mating - if you look at the number of princes and princesses!) in the rat world.

The scientist then installed 2 water bottles for drinking. One contained plain water and the other contained water laced (spiked) with heroin. He monitored which bottles the rats would drink from. The rats always chose the plain water.

All sorts of tricks were attempted to make the rats develop into junkies. They were forced to drink the heroin water for several months and then later on, given the option of plain or spiked water. Again the rats chose plain water despite mild withdrawal symptoms! The heroin-laced water was given with sugar (which rats crave) in attempt to coax them - again no joy. The rats were content with their surroundings and with their plain water (- what more did they need -they had food, sex and a life of luxury (no rock and roll though!).

However, the other part of the experiment involved keeping half of the rats in normal laboratory conditions - in small basic cages. These rats consistently drank up to 20 times more of the heroin water than plain water. So rats tended to become junkies or "addicts" when kept in poor conditions. Maybe these results contradict our understanding of "addiction"?

It has been said that taking crack (not the hairy type!) makes you feel like you can conquer the world whereas heroin makes you feel like the world is being conquered but you couldn't care less!

Let me end this post with the thought that drugs are the path to nowhere, even though they're the scenic route!

I promise to tell the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth....well at least if drugged!

Is there anything that can be reliably given to a person to make them talk openly and honestly? Obviously, this question has had immense importance to governments all over the world. Interrogators would love to be able to give something to a person to induce them to reveal valuable information.

So what, if anything, can be used to convince a person to reveal their dark and dirty secrets? Well over the last 100 years, lots of chemicals and compounds have been tested and used to varying degrees of success. Obviously for men, seduction and pillow talk is a very easy way to make a gent spill the beans (in more ways than one!). But this post is more about truth potions that have been used!!

One of the oldest known truth serums are barbiturates. Barbiturates, such as pentobarbitone and thiopentone, have been used by doctors for many years, for general anaesthesia during surgery. During the 20th century world wars, doctors used a lot of these drugs to treat injured soldiers. The doctors discovered that barbiturates had an ability to make the patients recollect and reveal their personal secrets. It was even used to help treat shell-shocked soldiers to relive and open up after suffering from memory loss (amnesia).

The problem they found with barbiturates was that they could make the person fall asleep and so stop talking (bit like talking to your partner in bed!). If they didn't give enough drug, the people became inhibited and unlikely to talk. So using them was a balancing act.

Scientists then found that they could add amphetamines (e.g. speed) to the barbiturates and have better results. Anyone who has tried amphetamines is aware that it induces a fast and unstoppable urge to talk (in addition to making you dance like there are ants in your pants). This with the barbiturates' effect of losing the tendency of self-censorship, seemed like a winning combination. Hypnosis was also added to the mix especially, in hostile interrogations, to create the illusion of the questioner being a friend or family member. The drugs though did not seem to work in every person!

Another drug used which seems more successful (working in 50-75% of people) is marijuana. Pot smokers will know that the drug can make them very chatty and more than willing to disclose personal information. Besides the obvious problems of people sometimes getting dizzy, sleepy and even vomiting; spliff tends to make the conversation very one-sided and every statement becomes very funny to the user!! To minimise the side effects, the most effective way to give the drug and elicit conversation is by inhalation. Often spies, spiked cigarettes with cannabis and gave them to their targets.

Other drugs have also been used but with unfavourable results. The problems with all the truth potions (cannabis, barbiturates etc) are that although they can drive hidden memories and secrets out of a person, they also reveal fantasies. So the information that the person is revealing may be just their vivid imagination making it unreliable!

So despite lots of research and studies, the most effective drugs at getting the truth out of people have still proven to be marijuana, with good old alcohol a close second. The only problem is the listener is not sure whether you actually saw the neighbour naked (making you a peeping tom) or wanted to (making you a pervert)!!

Remember for your next operation, if your doctor starts to look at you in a funny way, you may have opened up more than you wanted to - revealing the inner sanctum of your mind!

Tags: truth, serum, secret, barbiturates, thiopentone, pentobarbitone, marijuana, amphetamine, cannabis, alcohol, interrogation, talk

Cancel the chicken wings, I prefer the head!

A fairly common discussion in pubs all around the world (at least at my bar-table after a few pints!) is the question of the relative importance of the face and body of a prospective partner. So what do people prefer: a pretty face and not so attractive body or vice versa? I'm sure there are some puritanical people out there who will argue that the looks are not important - it's what's on the inside that counts! Well, we will all have varying opinions on humans but for turkeys, the evidence is clear!

Back in the 1950s, some scientists decided that it would be interesting to study how fussy male turkeys were when it came to mating. They wanted to discover what would be the minimal stimulus to elicit a sexual response in a male turkey. Obviously, a receptive female turkey would guarantee a response but so did a life-like model of one (Can you buy blow-up turkeys? No not for my pleasure before you say it).

That wasn't the end of the story. The turkeys weren't very fussy at all - many body parts could be removed including the wings and feet. In the end, the turkeys were given a choice between a headless body (turkey equivalent to a partner of King Henry VIII) or a head on a stick (turkey chupa-chup?).

The turkeys preferred the kebab version of a turkey-head on a stick. A head is all they really needed to get horny! With a turkey-head lollipop being the ultimate aphrodisiac in the turkey world, the scientists went even further with their investigation. They tried different types of heads: fresh female and male ones, dried heads (that had been dead for a couple of years) and even wooden heads with the beaks and eyes in a variety of positions.

All the heads produced a sexual response but obviously the fresh heads were the most popular and the wooden ones not so favoured. Maybe, it was the lack of brain in the wooden head that put them off a little??

So it's important to remember next Christmas, that in order to stuff a turkey, all you need is a head!

Tags: turkey, head, sexual, response, mate, body, attractive, aphrodisiac

Men are from Mars and women from Venus....or are they?

"You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery channel..."

The lyrics of the above song are more accurate than you may first think.......as you are about to find out in this post.

So what on earth am I going on about? Well there was an interesting study conducted back in the 1970s at a Florida university. The study basically involved 4 men and 5 women (all reasonably attractive) going up to complete strangers (who they found appealing) on the campus and offering them a sexual proposition. The question was worded: "I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be attractive. Will you go to bed with me tonight?"

So how did the strangers respond? Not a single woman said yes but 75% of men agreed to the proposition (the remaining 25% were often in a relationship e.g. married or possibly gay!) Some of the guys even wondered what was the point of waiting till the evening!

When the proposition was slightly changed to ask "Will you come to my apartment tonight?" - the figures changed a little. 69% of men agreed but now 6% of the women also agreed.

When it was changed even further to be less suggestive asking "Will you go out with me tonight?". Now only 50% of men agreed but so did 50% of the women!

So what can we conclude from this? Well firstly, men are easy (which most people pretty much know) but if there is too much effort needed and not a guarantee of a good end result - then they lose interest (what a surprise!!). On the other hand, women are not as willing to horizontally bop with a stranger! But the good news is that for all nervous men out there, the odds of getting a date with a complete stranger are good, with 1 in 2 saying yes!!!

Maybe the reason for this male behaviour, is that men take after Bonobos (a type of ape). These creatures are like the Buddhist monks of the ape world, in the sense that they are peaceful and don't use violence or aggression to solve disputes. Their society completely revolves around sex, which is used for greetings and solving arguments over food and territory (not exactly what our robed friends do to achieve serenity!).

So maybe after all, men are actually from Venus (Roman goddess of love) as opposed to Mars (Roman god of war) in the sense that all they really want to do is spread peace and love as opposed to war!! If only there were more Bonobos in the Middle East.

Tags: men, women, male, female, proposition, date, sex, bonobo, ape