Insomnia kills
“If a tired, stressed-at-work patient is sick, depressed over a relationship, having pain and develops insomnia — as Heath Ledger apparently did — what does he do? He has no doubt been exposed to a media blitz, a tsunami of public proclamations asserting the prowess of a sleeping medication. Pop a pill and you get a perfect night’s sleep, eight hours of bliss. . .Be careful, don’t drive or drink and, oh, yes, sleeping pills can be addictive. . .However, no notation is made that with prolonged use, the pills tend to be less effective so that you will want to increase the dose. For the average person, without knowledge of pharmacology, the risk of such blandishments can be high — serious side effects and death.”
Understanding Heath Ledger’s death: how drug company advertisements, doctors, pharmacies, and patients intertwine to cause an overdose.
Meanwhile, scientists at UC Berkeley have figured out how to use MRI equipment to read people’s minds. Science-fiction scenario: In the future, you can be interrogated against your will and prosecuted for your thoughts.
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Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 7th, 2008 at 10:05 am
March 7th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Doh! The Bene Gesserit exposed!
March 7th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
^ Speaking of, I’m reminded of a favorite exchange from Dune:
Rev. Mother Mohiam: Put your hand inside this box.
Paul Atreides: What’s in it?
Rev. Mohiam: Pain.
heheh…wlalang :P
March 8th, 2008 at 10:40 am
From Michael P: As to the Altenberg 16, it’s amusing but has taken a serious turn. The creationsist are now trumpeting the meeting as proof that evolutionary biologists hate Darwin, my fellow scientists are wondering if we’ve gone over the deep end (a colleague sent me an email this morning with the subject line Looney Tunes to describe what he thought and asked me if I had drunk the kool-aid). All I wanted was to sepnd some time in Vienna this July, maybe get some nice sacher torte……
March 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Sacher torte? What about the sausages? Sausages? Vienna? Get it? Ok, never mind.