November 1, 2023: Hi all. I'm covering for Andrea Gawrylewski today. Poor sleep disrupts emotional regulation in the brain, Lucy zips by "Dinky," and evidence shows masks work. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | | Restless or sleepless nights can quickly turn you into an emotional wreck, as you've probably noticed. Now, scientists are figuring out why this is so. Poor sleep tends to dampen brain activity in the prefrontal cortex that otherwise keeps the amygdala region's emotional responses in check, writes Eti Ben Simon, of the University of California, Berkeley, describing work she did with colleagues.
What they did: In one such study, people were shown neutral images, like bland photos of train commuters, as well as more evocative pictures, such as pictures of children crying. After losing a night of sleep, brain scans revealed that the amygdala responded strongly to both kinds of images. The brain's threshold for deeming something emotional was significantly lower.
Why this matters: Sleep loss may also increase the risk for hypertension and cardiovascular disease, Ben Simon writes. Like our physical well-being, mental and emotional health are affected by myriad choices we make throughout the day and night. | | | After years of masking policies meant to prevent the spread of COVID, the public recently was misled by a review study that gave the false impression that masking didn't help, writes Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University. After evaluating randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on masking, the study authors concluded that wearing surgical masks "probably makes little or no difference" and that the value of N95 masks is "very uncertain." In fact, Oreskes writes, there is strong evidence that masks work to prevent the spread of respiratory illness. It just doesn't come from RCTs.
The report in question: The group's report was published by Cochrane, an organization that issues "systematic" reviews of scientific evidence relevant to health care. The Cochrane Library's editor in chief said that the report had not concluded that "masks don't work." Rather the review of studies of masking concluded that the "results were inconclusive."
The takeaway: Other strong evidence, in epidemiological studies, suggests that masks do work to prevent the spread of respiratory illness. As Oreskes writes: "We often think of proof as a yes-or-no proposition, but in science, proof is a matter of discernment."
| | | NASA's Lucy spacecraft. Credit: Goddard Space Flight Center | | | • High-income governments need not worry that bold climate fixes moving markets away from fossil fuels will trigger financial losses among the poor and middle class, according to a recent analysis. Most hits from stranded fossil fuel assets would fall most heavily on the wealthy members of these countries. That ain't most voters, write economists Lucas Chancel and Gregor Semieniuk. Most of these nations have significant inequality in company ownership. So the wealthy generally own these companies' stocks and bonds. | 4 min read | | | • Maternity care in the Netherlands is the envy of the world, with new parents receiving help with everything from breastfeeding to laundry. | The Guardian | | | • A scarcity of weather stations in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South is costing lives. | Yale Environment 360 | | | • Doctors in Gaza face harrowing work in wartime. | TIME magazine | | | Hope you spent Halloween as you prefer last night. My spouse and I enjoyed sitting on the stoop to hand out candy to costumed little kids, as one does in New York City. Perhaps you did something similar. But might you also have innocently made some bad choices, such as buying a house that, oops, is haunted, or opening a normal-looking envelope, bwah ha ha? | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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