History shows that humanity has long been driven by changing skies, either by dictating what one can plant in their garden, the mood in which they might find.
Credit: University of Washington
For centuries, humans have blamed the moon for our moods, accidents and even natural disasters. But new research indicates that our planet s celestial companion impacts something else entirely our sleep.
In a paper published Jan. 27 in
Science Advances, scientists at the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina and Yale University report that sleep cycles in people oscillate during the 29.5-day lunar cycle: In the days leading up to a full moon, people go to sleep later in the evening and sleep for shorter periods of time. The research team, led by UW professor of biology Horacio de la Iglesia, observed these variations in both the time of sleep onset and the duration of sleep in urban and rural settings from Indigenous communities in northern Argentina to college students in Seattle, a city of more than 750,000. They saw the oscillations regardless of an individual s access to electricity, though the variation
by Allison Wallis
What do basketball legend Steve Kerr, rock star Austin Carlile, and me, a pastry chef and mom from Waialua have in common?
We all have a little known, rare condition called Cerebral Spinal Fluid Leaks. Spontaneous CSF leaks are thought to be caused by a defect in connective tissue, which can cause weakness, holes and tears in the dura, the leather-like covering that surrounds the spinal cord.
The dura serves an important purpose in the body–it holds your cerebral spinal fluid, which is the fluid that creates a buffer between your brain and spinal cord and your body. CSF fluid is clear and colorless and bathes and soothes your brain and spinal cord, transporting nutrients and eliminating waste. It also serves as a shock absorber and helps to protect the brain and spine from trauma. It flows in and out of ventricles in the brain, soothing nerves and the lining of the brain. One way to think of it is as the blood of the nervous system.