Snoozing grumpy face
鈥淕rumpy face during adult sleep: A clue to negative emotion during sleep?鈥� is a published not long ago in the Journal of Sleep Research. Researchers Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Alexia Aussel, Marie Vidailhet and Isabelle Arnulf at Piti茅-Salp锚tri茅re University Hospital in Paris surveiled 91 sleeping adults. They report that 89 of them frowned measurably. The measurements were made by recording the sleepers鈥� faces and monitoring electrical activity in the muscles above their eyes.
The researchers decided that people with certain sleep disorders showed 鈥減ainful expressions and rarely sadness and anger in connection with apparently negative behaviours (shouts, painful moaning, and speeches)鈥�. In ordinary snoozers, 鈥渇rowns persist during normal sleep鈥� but aren鈥檛 鈥渁ssociated with other face movements to the point of composing negative expressions鈥�. So, for ordinary sleepers, nightly grumpy face is a normal thing.
Advertisement
The same team, more or less, published an earlier study called . It concludes that 鈥淪miling and laughing occasionally persist during adult sleep鈥�, and hazards a cheery explanation: that 鈥渢hese happy emotional expressions reflect a true inner mirth鈥�.
When such things 鈥� or any things 鈥� are discussed at scientific meetings, discussants dream that all those in the audience, even the ones making grumpy faces, are paying attention. An attempt to quantify how many are actually dreaming was made in a 1983 study called . It relates that: 鈥淒uring a series of presentations of scientific papers 40.6% of 276 subjects reported dreaming, but only 18.1% actually fell asleep. The frequency of dreaming was significantly increased by the addition of either 鈥榲ery boring鈥� or 鈥榲ery interesting鈥� slides to the usual ones, but not by 鈥榥eutral鈥� slides.鈥�
Deep Oesophagus
杏吧原创s, as a group, like to think they behave in ways a little distinct from the herd. The herd, as a herd, likes to think so, too. From time to time, Feedback receives furtive notes from a keen observer of scientists; artful reflections on general behaviours that have caught this person鈥檚 professional eye. This observer could be described as a 鈥渟enior figure in the European science community鈥�.
In homage to the famous secret source 鈥淒eep Throat鈥�, this observer will be identified here as 鈥淒eep Oesophagus鈥�. Here is their first confidential dispatch.
鈥淒uring the first, especially-confused weeks of the pandemic of 2020, at a research institute that is quite typical in Europe, I saw abundant evidence that the population of approximately a thousand scientists did not differ from the general public in attitude. By 鈥榓ttitude鈥�, I mean: its beliefs and behaviours in regard to the pandemic.
鈥淲hile 95% of the scientists accepted the general isolation, sanitary and home office measures, the remaining 5% were neatly divided. One half of that 5% announced that full-body protective suits plus asbestos-proof respirators had to be distributed immediately else the four horsemen of the apocalypse would appear next morning on the doorstep. The other half of that 5% announced that the coronavirus was not as contagious as previously assumed, that the mortality rate was marginal, and that the virus anyhow only affected old people over the age of 40. In other words, while the great majority went along with general recommendations and beliefs, there were two approximately equal and oppositely-emphatic fringe groups who disagreed with the majority and with each other.
鈥淭he two fringe groups of scientists, in completely disagreeing with each other, both referred to the same peer-reviewed and pre-pub papers.鈥�
Deeper secrets
Biological oesophaguses, which connect the throat to the lower portions of the digestive system, sometimes harbour deep secrets. Some of these secrets, in some of these oesophaguses, have religious significance. Here are two of them.
, a paper given at a conference in 2021, applies a clever bit of engineering to a meaty problem. One of chicken meat. This problem is longstanding and the study has a new approach to it.
鈥淚n order to slaughter a chicken according to the Islamic Law, it is required to sever the trachea, esophagus and both the carotid arteries and jugular veins to accelerate the chicken鈥檚 bleeding and death. Syariah Compliance Automated Chicken Processing System (SYCUT) uses the Vision Inspection Technology which is built for the purpose of detecting鈥� whether a chicken is halal or not鈥� This paper discusses the possibility of deep learning approach to combat the challenges and its potential for esophagus detection.鈥�
, a paper published in 2016, describes a very different problem. The patient, a 46-year-old male, came to the doctors鈥� office in Mexico complaining of a difficulty in swallowing. A CT scan and an endoscope examination detected a metal cross, 5.3 centimetres tall and 3.2cm wide, lodged deep in the oesophagus. The doctors performed surgery, extracting it. The man went home unburdened by the cross and with what the doctors describe as 鈥済ood oral tolerance鈥�.
Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.