Why do I fight sleep?

The post below by “fightssleep” on sleepnet.com sums up my sleep situation pretty well. My biggest health problem right now is that I fight sleep. Here I am at 12:30 AM feeling very sleepy ever since 10PM. Here I am blogging about fighting sleep instead of sleeping.

Posted by fightssleep on April 23, 2003 at 08:25:05:

I am starting to believe that I have some type of sleeping disorder. I do not have a problem falling asleep when I get into bed. My problem is that I continously stay up until 2-3 am for no good reason. I wake up at 7am and feel tired all day, often fighting sleep at work. I am always extremely tired driving home (I have a long commute), and am exhausted when I get home. At this point everyday I tell myself that I am going to bed early tonight. But once I get my kids tucked in, I seem to get this second wind. I feel wide awake. Often I have to make myself go to bed at 3 am because I know that I have to be at work. After a couple weeks of really bad hours I will pass out after putting the kids to bed and get 12 hours of sleep. The next day I feel great and swear to that every night, but the cycle starts again. I have had this problem as long as I can remember. I am not sure that I fit the classic case of insomnia because I think that I can go to sleep if I could force myself to get into bed. I guess for years I have carried the shame of thinking that I simply lack discipline, but I am starting to think that it is something medical or physical. Does anyone else out there have this problem? I would really appreciate any advice. Thanks.

via Why do I fight sleep?.

Perhaps I should get into a relationship with a woman who is a really good sleeper. I need some sleeping lessons.

UPDATE: I finally got a good night’s sleep and learned something in a dream too:

Sometimes when you are right, you lose.

I met a fantastically beautiful woman and she was into me.  As we were getting acquainted, I was buying some lunch for us at a food stand. The special price said $2 for two and after I paid, the guy behind the counter brought out some fliers with fine print and charged me $19.99. I lost it and made a scene. I was right about calling him on the scam, but when I turned around, the girl was gone forever. $20 for lunch for two people is a great deal, but I didn’t get that until after I woke up. Narrow focus disorder.

Sort out your priorities and keep them in mind in all you do.

Missing Apollo 11 moon dust is returned to NASA

The few specks of dust stuck to a small swatch weren’t much to look at, but federal prosecutors said Thursday they came from the moon via Apollo 11 and have been sent back to NASA, where they belong.

U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan in St. Louis said the dust is believed to be at least part of what was smuggled out of Johnson Space Center by a NASA worker years ago. It was discovered in St. Louis last month, just before it was to be auctioned.

It is illegal for individuals to own moon material, but Callahan’s office said the auction consignor was a woman who didn’t know how the dust had come to her late husband. She was not charged.

NASA collected 843 pounds of rock and dust during six missions to the moon.

NASA believes an employee in Houston used a 1-inch piece of tape to capture some of the dust, then smuggled it out.

It is believed that the tape was cut into several smaller segments and sold to buyers, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The piece in St. Louis was the first found. …

via Missing Apollo 11 moon dust is returned to NASA | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.

More facts about moon dust you may not know…

The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. “The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust,” says Professor Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused ‘lunar hay fever,’ problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space.

Taylor and other scientists will present their research on lunar dust at the “Living on a Dusty Moon” session on Thursday, 9 October 2008, at the Joint Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) in Houston, Texas, USA. NASA will use these findings to plan a safer manned mission to the Moon in 2018. Taylor will also deliver a Pardee Keynote Session talk on Sunday, 5 October 2008 entitled “Formation and Evolution of Lunar Soil from An Apollo Perspective.”

The trouble with moon dust stems from the strange properties of lunar soil. The powdery grey dirt is formed by micrometeorite impacts which pulverize local rocks into fine particles. The energy from these collisions melts the dirt into vapor that cools and condenses on soil particles, coating them in a glassy shell.

These particles can wreak havoc on space suits and other equipment. During the Apollo 17 mission, for example, crewmembers Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Gene Cernan had trouble moving their arms during moonwalks because dust had gummed up the joints. “The dust was so abrasive that it actually wore through three layers of Kevlar-like material on Jack’s boot,” Taylor says.

To make matters worse, lunar dust suffers from a terrible case of static cling. UV rays drive electrons out of lunar dust by day, while the solar wind bombards it with electrons by night. Cleaning the resulting charged particles with wet-wipes only makes them cling harder to camera lenses and helmet visors. Mian Abbas of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will discuss electrostatic charging on the moon and how dust circulates in lunar skies.

Luckily, lunar dust is also susceptible to magnets. Tiny specks of metallic iron (Fe0) are embedded in each dust particle’s glassy shell. Taylor has designed a magnetic filter to pull dust from the air, as well as a “dust sucker” that uses magnets in place of a vacuum. He has also discovered that microwaves melt lunar soil in less time than it takes to boil a cup of tea. He envisions a vehicle that could microwave lunar surfaces into roads and landing pads as it drives, and a device to melt soil over lunar modules to provide insulation against space radiation. The heating process can also produce oxygen for breathing.

link

 

Type 2 diabetes in newly diagnosed ‘can be reversed’

An extreme eight-week diet of 600 calories a day can reverse Type 2 diabetes in people newly diagnosed with the disease, says a Diabetologia study.

Newcastle University researchers found the low-calorie diet reduced fat levels in the pancreas and liver, which helped insulin production return to normal.

Seven out of 11 people studied were free of diabetes three months later, say findings published in the journal.

More research is needed to see whether the reversal is permanent, say experts.

Type 2 diabetes affects 2.5m people in the UK. It develops when not enough insulin is produced in the body or the insulin that is made by the body doesn’t work properly.

When this happens, glucose – a type of sugar – builds up in the blood instead of being broken down into energy or fuel which the body needs.

The 11 participants in the study were all diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes within the previous four years.

They cut their food intake drastically for two months, eating only liquid diet drinks and non-starchy vegetables.

Fat loss

After one week of the diet, researchers found that the pre-breakfast blood sugar levels of all participants had returned to normal.

MRI scans of their pancreases also revealed that the fat levels in the organ had decreased from around 8% – an elevated level – to a more normal 6%.

Three months after the end of the diet, when participants had returned to eating normally and received advice on healthy eating and portion size, most no longer suffered from the condition.

Professor Roy Taylor, director of Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre at Newcastle University and lead study author, said he was not suggesting that people should follow the diet.

“This diet was only used to test the hypothesis that if people lose substantial weight they will lose their diabetes.

“Although this study involved people diagnosed with diabetes within the last four years, there is potential for people with longer-standing diabetes to turn things around too.” …

However, not everyone in the study managed to stay free of diabetes.

“It all depends on how much individuals are susceptible to diabetes. …

via BBC News – Type 2 diabetes in newly diagnosed ‘can be reversed’.

Related:

Number of diabetic adults worldwide has doubled in 3 decades

The number of adults worldwide with diabetes has more than doubled in three decades, jumping to an estimated 347 million, according to a new study released Saturday.

Much of that increase is due to aging populations — since diabetes typically hits in middle age — and population growth, but part of it has also been fueled by rising obesity rates. – link

LulzSec hacking group announces end to cyber attacks

A hacker group that has attacked several high-profile websites over the last two months has announced that it is disbanding.Lulz Security made its announcement through its Twitter account, giving no reason for its decision.A statement published on the group’s website said that its “planned 50-day cruise has expired”.The group leapt to prominence by carrying out attacks on companies such as Sony and Nintendo.Broadcasters Fox and PBS, the CIA, the United States Senate have also been cyber-attacked by the group, which also released confidential material taken from the Arizona police department.The group’s identities remain anonymous and its statement also said that “our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011″.It had previously told the BBC’s Newsnight programme that it wants to target the “higher ups” who write the rules and “bring them down a few notches”. …

via BBC News – LulzSec hacking group announces end to cyber attacks.

Drug Companies Win Two Supreme Court Decisions

… Justice Thomas wrote, that makers of generic drugs are caught in an impossible bind: they can comply with a state law requiring them to change their labels or the federal law prohibiting changes, but not both.

Given that impossibility, federal law pre-empts state law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, he wrote.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority opinion invented “new principles of pre-emption law out of the air” and will lead to “absurd consequences.”

“As the majority itself admits,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “a drug consumer’s right to compensation for inadequate warnings now turns on the happenstance of whether her pharmacist filled her prescription with a brand-name drug or a generic.”

The decision considered three consolidated cases brought by women who took generic metoclopramide, which is sold under the brand name Reglan. They took the drug for stomach ailments and developed a serious neurological disorder. Appeals courts ruled against the drug makers, saying that the federal regulatory regime did not block claims under state law.

The Supreme Court reversed those decisions on Thursday, rejecting what Justice Thomas called the “fair argument,” that the defendants should have at least tried to persuade the federal drug agency to let them use a safer label. …

via Drug Companies Win Two Supreme Court Decisions – NYTimes.com.

Do not take the drug metoclopramide for stomach acid (GERD) no matter what name it goes by.

Taking metoclopramide may cause you to develop a muscle problem called tardive dyskinesia. If you develop tardive dyskinesia, you will move your muscles, especially the muscles in your face in unusual ways. You will not be able to control or stop these movements. Tardive dyskinesia may not go away even after you stop taking metoclopramide. The longer you take metoclopramide, the greater the risk that you will develop tardive dyskinesia. Therefore, your doctor will probably tell you not to take metoclopramide for longer than 12 weeks. The risk that you will develop tardive dyskinesia is also greater if you are taking medications for mental illness, if you have diabetes, or if you are elderly, especially if you are a woman. Call your doctor immediately if you develop any uncontrollable body movements, especially lip smacking, mouth puckering, chewing, frowning, scowling, sticking out your tongue, blinking, eye movements, or shaking arms or legs.

via NIH

Asteroid Heading Near Earth

NASA, which is not as busy scheduling space launches

anymore, is focusing a great deal of energy on an asteroid about the size of a tour bus that is expected to make an extremely close pass by the Earth on Monday.

On June 27 the asteroid should fly 7,500 miles above the Earth’s surface. The asteroid, named 2011 MD, was discovered last Wednesday by a pair of roboti telescopes in New Mexico that constantly scan the skies. NASA estimates that an object this size comes this close to Earth on an average of every six years.

NASA said for several hours prior to its closest approach, 2011 MD will be visible in moderately large amateur telescopes.

Of the thousands of objects discovered by NASA, approximately 827 are asteroids with a diameter of approximately a half-mile or larger. They’re classified as Potential Hazardous Asteroid. NASA is planning to launch a probe to visit one of the dangerous objects before the asteroid makes its way near the Earth. …

via Asteroid Heading Near Earth | citydesk.

LulzSec Hacks Arizona State Police, Posts Officer Info

Lulz Security’s hacking continues to get political: on Friday the group attacked the Arizona Department of Public Safety in retaliation for immigration laws.

“We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement,” LulzSec said in a statement. “We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.”

Senate Bill 1070 is the law that requires aliens to carry registration documents with them at all times.

Arizona officials have confirmed that the documents leaked by LulzSec are authentic. The attack appears to be part of Operation Anti-Security, a push by LulzSec and Anonymous, another hacking group, to attack government agencies and post confidential or embarrassing information. Previous efforts have been limited to denial of service attacks on Websites, including those of the Brazilian and Chinese governments. Unlike those attacks, this hack has resulted in the sharing of confidential information.

This isn’t the first time LulzSec has hacked a government agency. The group’s previous exploits include an attack on the U.S. Senate, a denial of service attack on the CIA’s Website, and a hack on an FBI-affialiated organization, Infragard. Earlier attacks focused on game companies and news organizations.

But this seems to be the first case in which LulzSec has pointed out a specific political policy as the motivation for hacking a government agency. The attack will surely increase the pressure on law enforcement to find and arrest LulzSec members. So far, U.K. police have arrested one teen, who the group says was only loosely-affiliated. …

via LulzSec Hacks Arizona State Police, Posts Officer Info | PCWorld.

Stupid move. One might suppose this will encourage the growth of the “police state” that the supposed hackers supposedly oppose.

At least two killed, 20 injured after Amtrak train collides with semi

A collision Friday between an Amtrak train from Chicago and a semi-truck at a railroad crossing in Nevada killed the truck driver and an Amtrak worker and an undisclosed number of train passengers, authorities said.A Fox News report indicates five people were killed in the crash, citing information from the Nevada Highway Patrol.

Officials said that at 11:20 a.m., the truck drove into the side of the train at a crossing on U.S. 95 about 70 miles east of Reno. “Preliminary reports are that there have been fatalities to passengers, an Amtrak train crew member and the operator of the truck,’’ Amtrak said in a statement.Twenty passengers were hospitalized after a fire broke out on the train, said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Lopez. Lopez said the crossing gates were working. Bronzeville resident Marianne Tidwell said her daughter — who works for Amtrak and was on the train — had been talking to a co-worker just moments before that worker was killed. “She was telling me how nice the lady was,” Tidwell said. “She said she was a good person. I told her bad things happen to good people, too.”

Tidwell, who spoke to her daughter Friday via cell phone, said her daughter lives in the South Loop and has worked for Amtrak for about two years. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari late Friday refused to identify the crew member or reveal an age, hometown or gender. He also declined to say how many passengers were killed.He said most of the other injuries were not life-threatening. He said 204 passengers and 14 crew members were aboard the California Zephyr en route from Chicago to Emeryville, Calif., about 300 miles west of the crash site. Amtrak passenger Jim Bickley said two train cars caught fire after the semi hit the fourth car.

via At least two killed, 20 injured after Amtrak train collides with semi – Chicago Sun-Times.

More details:

The California Zephyr travels between Chicago and Emeryville, Calif. 7NEWS checked the train’s schedule. It was supposed to leave Denver at 8:05 a.m. Thursday but instead left at 12:11 p.m., meaning it made it to the crossing about 70 miles east of Reno four hours later than normal.

The vehicle that hit the train was a bottom-dumping gravel transport, according to Bob Knoll of the Reno Fire Department….Members of a Girl Scout troop from Lafayette were on the train. Five girls and their mothers are on their way to San Francisco for a bridging ceremony.

According to the Girl Scouts website, a bridging ceremony is “a defining moment when a girl becomes aware of her achievements and is ready for new adventures and responsibilities.”The troop wanted to symbolize the moment at the Golden Gate Bridge. 7NEWS spoke with one of the girls and her mother while they were on a bus from the crash site to Sacramento.

“The smoke was really intense, and it smelled rather toxic,” said Sarah Sorensen, one of the Girl Scouts.

“We weren’t entirely frightened until we saw the gravity of the situation and how people were being taken to ambulances.

“The girls were two cars behind the one that got hit by the semi. They were on the first level, while their mothers were on the upper level. “We heard a loud noise, and we saw smoke come over the train to the left of us and the fireball to the right,” said Sorensen’s mother, Allie Powers.

“At the moment, we were pretty much yelling, “Oh my god.”No one in the Girl Scout group was injured according to Sorensen and her mother. “It was odd seeing people going down the tracks, but a lot of people banded together and helped the elderly and people with babies,” said Sorensen.

“It was definitely frightening, but I feel like everybody sort of stepped up a bit.”

“There were emergency helicopters, at least two or three Medivacs, I think, and then a couple of Navy helicopters, because there’s a nearby naval base,” said Powers.

Naval Air Station Fallon is near the crash site.

via – TheDenverChanel

“It was like a bomb exploded. Like a war zone, it was crazy. Bloody people everywhere, just not good,” says Justin Rhine.

He still can’t get those images out of his mind as he waits at E.C. Best Elementary School with more than 150 other people who were in that Amtrak train.

“Well, I was just sitting there in that train looking out the window and the next thing I know, we get hit by something. A big ball of fire comes in. I jumped out the window. And then I tried to unlock the doors but it was really high up so I went over and unlocked the doors and started helping people out of the train,” says Rhine.

But there were some people he couldn’t help.

“Oh I saw the people injured,” says Rhine. “Terrible. Saw the truck driver. Terrible.”

via Kolotv

 

Fusion Experiment Faces New Hurdles

The world’s most-ambitious nuclear experiments have escalated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Federal researchers there are seeking to fuse some of the lightest atoms in the universe to study — and hopefully harness — the type of energy produced by hydrogen bombs and the sun.

The tests were delayed six months while safety devices were installed to protect workers from radiation at the National Ignition Facility, a stadium-sized laboratory that contains 192 lasers trained on a target the size of a BB. The goal is to generate temperatures of more than 100 million degrees to fuse hydrogen atoms and release nuclear energy.

Scientists describe this process, which they hope to achieve next year, as the creation of a miniature star on earth.

But the $3.5 billion ignition facility, derided by some critics as taxpayer-financed science fiction, is running into new challenges that may further delay and perhaps scuttle its goal.

Among those challenges is the unanticipated presence of particles that clog filters designed to prevent the escape of radioactive material. Officials have proposed bypassing the filters for some experiments and venting radioactive particles directly into the air.

Officials say the radiation risks to people living in the surrounding area and to Lawrence Livermore researchers not involved with the experiments will be negligible. But according to a worst-case scenario outlined in a draft environmental report, an average of one worker involved in the experiments could die every 18 years from cancer caused by radiation exposure.

Tri-Valley CAREs, a watchdog group that monitors Lawrence Livermore, argues that the National Nuclear Security Agency, which financed construction of the facility, should not allow an increase in the amount of radiation produced by the fusion project. …

via Fusion Experiment Faces New Hurdles – NYTimes.com.

Largest cosmic structures ‘too big’ for existing theories

Space is festooned with vast “hyperclusters” of galaxies, a new cosmic map suggests. It could mean that gravity or dark energy – or perhaps something completely unknown – is behaving very strangely indeed.

We know that the universe was smooth just after its birth. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the light emitted 370,000 years after the big bang, reveal only very slight variations in density from place to place. Gravity then took hold and amplified these variations into today’s galaxies and galaxy clusters, which in turn are arranged into big strings and knots called superclusters, with relatively empty voids in between.

On even larger scales, though, cosmological models say that the expansion of the universe should trump the clumping effect of gravity. That means there should be very little structure on scales larger than a few hundred million light years across.

But the universe, it seems, did not get the memo. Shaun Thomas of University College London (UCL), and colleagues have found aggregations of galaxies stretching for more than 3 billion light years. The hyperclusters are not very sharply defined, with only a couple of per cent variation in density from place to place, but even that density contrast is twice what theory predicts.

via Largest cosmic structures ‘too big’ for theories – space – 21 June 2011 – New Scientist.