The mystery of the eight hour sleep
Dr Mumbo read a fascinating feature on BBC News Online on February 22. Entitled “The myth of the eight hour sleep”, a piece bylined to Stephanie Hegarty of the BBC World Service tells how humans used to sleep in two blocks.
Today comes a similarly fascinating piece on the Sydney Morning Herald bylined to Luke Malone. Coincidentally, it is headlined “The myth of the eight hour sleep“.
Hegarty informs us: “A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.”
Malone tells us: “According to mounting research, the concept of a solid eight hours sleep is a fairly recent phenomenon.”
Hegarty tells us: “In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.”
Malone puts it: “Roger Ekirch, a professor in the Department of History at Virginia Tech and author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, has found a wealth of evidence to suggest that the single sleep is a modern occurrence, with “first” and “second” sleeps considered the norm since the beginning of human civilisation.”
And so it goes on.
Hegarty: “In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.”
Malone: “Psychiatrist Thomas Wehr was the first to rediscover this behavioural trait in the early 1990s while studying the sleeping habits of humans. Plunging a group of participants into 14 hours of darkness for a month he found they fell into a distinct pattern.”
Curiously, Dr Mumbo notes that in the last few minutes the article has been updated. There’s a new second paragraph. It now begins: “As the BBC’s Stephanie Hegarty recently wrote…” Yes, yes she did.
Dr Mumbo has invited the SMH to comment.
Update: The SMH tells Dr Mumbo that it was aware that the piece was inspired by the BBC’s article but the attribution was initially inadvertently missed off until attention was drawn to it. The article also included original quotes,The SMH says that the choice of the same headline as the BBC article was entirely a coincidence and the sub who wrote it was unaware of the BBC’s piece.
Tim get off my patch.
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And to avoid any further confusion or accusations of plagiarism, the title of the piece has now been changed (“Eight-hour sleep unnatural, say experts”)
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If you enjoy the similarities between those two articles then you may enjoy this blog article that was published a week before the BBC article.
http://www.lifeslittlemysterie.....-myth.html
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Blimey O’Reilly I am going to bed.
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