Sleep
Latest
Million dollar bed floats on magnets
Sure we all like to sleep in comfort, but how many of you would be willing to pay $1.5 million for a one-of-a-kind bed? Anyone? Anyone at all? Well Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars is hoping that someone will shell out big bucks for that floating slab you see pictured above, as he's apparently spent six years of his life in the noble pursuit of a sleeping surface that can be suspended entirely by magnets. Do you actually get a better night's sleep on a bed that's only attached to a solid surface with a few narrow tethers? Probably not, but it seems that anyone spending a million bucks on something like this is more concerned with impressing potential overnight guests than waking up refreshed in the morning, anyway. If you just have to get your hands on one of these, but you'd prefer to remain below the seven-figure price point, Ruijssenaars was also showing off a smaller version at the Miljonaire fair in Kortrijk that goes for a more affordable $146,000; at 1/5th the size of the regular model, it's much too small for you to sleep in, but it would sure make a great perch for your already-spoiled dog or cat.[Via OhGizmo]
Real scientists use Duke Nukem
According to a study by a group of Belgian scientists, having a good night's sleep could improve your chances of finding your way around a foreign city or a map from a first person shooter. After being trained up in a custom version of Duke Nukem, volunteers were asked to find landmarks around a virtual city while their brains were being scanned with MRI. They were then split into two groups: one group was allowed a good night's sleep and the other was not.When the volunteers were asked to play the game again, the scientists found that the group that were allowed to sleep used a different region of their brain to find their way around the map which allowed them to make almost automatic decisions about where to go. However, the sleep-deprived players used the same region of the brain as they used when they were being trained which required more thinking. What the study suggests is that sleep accelerates the normal process of memory retrieval -- a well rested individual will "somehow know that [he/she has] to turn left, or right or carry straight on." A great example of the usefulness of games in scientific research, but what we want to know is: did anyone take any pictures of the massive scientists-only LAN party at the end?![Thanks, Nik G]
