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September 18, 2012 30 mins

What if you could skip a night's sleep without any side effects? It may sound impossible, but the age of sleep replacement drugs is just around the corner. Join Julie and Robert as they discuss the DARPA-funded meds that might let us dodge those 40 winks.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
how much sleep did you get last night? Seven and
a half hours. It's pretty good. Yeah, it wasn't bad.
I mean, eight is the that's the ballpark, that's clean

(00:26):
living right there at eight. Right, that's what I aspire to.
But I need that. What about you? Um, let's see twelve, two, three, four.
I tend to get around like generally at my idea,
it's like it's seven, but I feel much better when
I get eight. Well, and it makes a huge difference, right,

(00:46):
Sometimes I get six. In the past, I found that
like I can sort of I can pull like one,
like one night a week. I can stay up a
little late, but then I need to make it out
like I don't know, I used to it. It was different.
You're younger, but well yeah, but but these days, yeah,
I find myself getting seven, but eight would be gravy. Well, okay,

(01:07):
so there's this idea out there that eight hours is
the ideal, or actually between six and eight hours sort
of depends. Everybody is wired a little bit differently, and
certainly melotonin levels are different depending on depends how much
sleeping you're getting done on the train later on in
the day, or or under your desk in a secret
compartment that you've built that nobody can see that looks

(01:28):
like cubicle but it's not. Yeah yeah, yeah, um, but yeah,
there's this idea that um that there's are these are standards.
They even call the this sleep hygiene these days. But
there's a really fascinating New York Times article, um actually
New York Times magazine. It is called the sleep industrial Complex.
And we'll talk a little bit more about this in

(01:50):
a second, but sleep industrial complex, the sleep industrial complex,
about this idea of sleep is being this you know,
god given right of eight hours and this is the
normalcy in this is sleep hygiene, and we should all
order these two thou dollar beds so that we can
sleep better because we spend half our lives sleeping. But

(02:10):
before we go into that, I wanted to mention that
we are of course talking about sleep, um this idea
about whether or not in the future and the near
future we will need as much of it and the
reasons why. But before we go into the reasons why
we may or may not need sleep. Let's talk about
the old days, the olden days of sleep. Well, sleep

(02:33):
was invented and when no, it wasn't, and we've always
we've always slept. So I mean that's the thing when
when you when you first brought this up, like, what
was what it sleep used to be? Like? My thought was, well,
it was probably like it was now. You got tired
in the evenings, maybe a little earlier, especially especially and
say if you're you feel like an agrarian kind of

(02:53):
environment going on, there's only so much you can do
at night. You need to get early, so when it's
too dark to work, you go to sleep. Or in
like saying medieval city settings where you would have certain
like curfews in place, you're not even you know, you
can only live it up so much at night, so
you might as well go to bed, right, Well, you
don't have electricity, right, so, yeah, there's not a ton
to do. Video games were primitive. There's a stick and

(03:17):
dirt and then your candle run out anyway, so eventually
you're tired of fighting the lights and you just go
to sleep and you could get eight hours I would guess, right, well,
what they're saying though, is that, um, you know, depending
on the time of the year, you could have ten
hours of sunlight in fourteen hours of darkness. And um.
In this article that I talked about that just talked

(03:38):
about the sleep industrial complex, Roger Ekra, professor of history
at Virginia Tech, says that for many centuries, and perhaps
back to Homer, Western society slept in two shifts because
there was so much darkness right there, fourteen hours and
you didn't have electricity. And he says that people went
to sleep, got up in the middle of the night
for an hour or so, and then went to sleep again. Thus,

(03:59):
night quoting here divided into a first sleep in a
second sleep, um. And this is where they have this intermission.
And he says that there was an extraordinary level of
activity during this intermission period. So it's not just like
I woke up, I stumbled into the bathroom, or I
stumbled into the kitchen and ate a chicken wing and
then I went to sleep. No, it's like you're getting up,

(04:21):
you're hitting the town for a couple of hours. Yeah. Yeah,
He's just that people would get up and they tend
to their animals, or they would do housekeeping, or they'd
have sex, or they just lay in bed thinking, um,
smoking a pipe. Pieces valid options, gossiping with bedfellows, because
I remember this is back in the day, like you
might be sleeping in a bed with six other people,

(04:42):
not necessarily that that far away in some society. Like
when I read Black Robe, which I'm sure I've mentioned
here before, the awesome novel had to do with the
Native American populations in the US, particularly hur On people,
and then also Jess Wits. But but there are a
lot of descriptions of the of the group's sleeping environments

(05:02):
among the Hurran and and and and certainly, Yeah, it's
like it's a communal experience and if people were waking up,
you'd be able to chat a little, well, do it
or smoke? You would just spoke. Or if you're Benjamin Franklin,
you would take a cold air bath, which means that
he would read naked in a chair and he'd call
it his cold air bath in the middle of the night. Yeah,

(05:24):
you can kind of see that really well, right, Like
for some reason then that's something that's easy to imagine.
I always imagine him now as the version that we
saw in the John Adams HBO mini series, played by
that great actor whose name eludes me at the moment. Yeah,
that guy. But anyway, they kind of they play up
his his bodiness a little, not to like comic degrees,

(05:47):
but to but to what feels like a more realistic degree.
So I can imagine that Ben Franklin enjoying his cool
air bath during That's exactly what I thought of a
corpulent Ben Franklin. I have to say. Um So, anyway,
that the idea here is that um sleep has not
always done an unbroken block of six to eight hours,

(06:08):
and that people have always sort of done different things
with it. In fact, uh, there's no conclusive evidence, but
it's thought that Leonardo da Vinci practice something called polyphasic sleep,
and that's taking twenty to thirty minute naps every couple
of hours throughout the day and the night, which you
can actually see the advantages to that, right, because you
kind of get refreshed at at intervals. Well, I mean,

(06:31):
if you like. I've never tried it, but certainly if
I were to look at my own schedule, I would say, yeah,
when I wake up, those first six hours are are
optimal for me. That's when I'm gonna get my best
writing done. That's when if I'm podcasting, that's when I
need a podcast and am not in the PM, and
then by the afternoon I'm having increasing difficulty stringing words

(06:52):
together or remembering where I kept things. So it would
it would seem logical that if I just increase my
waking periods, I would increase my optimal thinking periods as well,
if you had a balance of the two. Sure. Yeah, Well,
it turns out, according to Eckerach, that slip disorders could

(07:12):
be especially the ones that in which you wake up
in the middle of the night and you have a
hard time getting back to sleep. Um that this may
actually not necessarily be a sign of being not being
able to fall asleep again, but could be rooted in
the more traditional pattern that we just spoke of, in
which there are ten hours of daylight fourteen hours of
darkness and people had those intermissions. M Now, I believe

(07:33):
there was a sign felt episode where Cramer was going
after Dilniana our DaVinci model and it ended up not
working for him. Not to say that that is a
clinical trial of of said sleep pattern, but but a
number of viewers probably make that connection. Oh and by
the way, Tom Wilkinson, the actor okay, okay, great well
and aeravetic medicine to there. There's different um dosia's they

(07:58):
call them, that rule different parts of the day. So
there's this idea that certain does you would fall asleep
easily and then you would wake up, and that there
are some people who actually follow this. So these are
like four hour blocks of time. So if this certain
do show, which was more amenable to sleep, were to
occur during the day, and then you would sleep during

(08:18):
that time period. So they are all there are many
different ideas of sleep and how to accomplish it. Yeah,
I mean certainly, just in anyone's friend group, you can
probably think of various people who are you know, night work.
Like my sister for instance, she does she bakes beads
for jewelry. Uh and uh she does that like exclusively
in the wee hours of the morning and then sleeps
late and uh and we are stays up at night

(08:40):
and works on it and then sleeps rather late. Whereas
I'm just the opposite of I'm gonna do something creative
um or or an involve spot. It's going to have
to happen in the a m SO, and you see
people with drastic differences in that. I can't think of anyone.
I've never met anyone who's like, yeah, middle of the day, Yeah,
right off at eat a sandwich about three o'clock. That's

(09:01):
when I was really yeah yeah. Um, alright, let's talk
about why we need sleep. We've talked about this a
little bit before previous podcasts, but let's just sort of
have a refresher. That newborn sleep up to twenty hours
a day, um, and of course they need that because
they're secreting growth hormones and all sorts of crazy things
that are going on to help them grow. Um. And

(09:21):
then us adults log between six to eight hours of sleep,
and it is essential to mammals. Yeah. Sleep, just just
a few bullet points here. Sleep gives the body a
chance to repair muscles and other tissues to replace aging
or dead cells. So it's the it's maintenance time in
the old body. Sleep gives the brain a chance to
organize in our archived memories, dreams or thought by some

(09:43):
to be part of this process. We've discussed that before.
The idea of the of dream that our dream cycle
is a is a problem solving um space that happens
at a at a subconscious level. Sleep lowers our energy consumption,
so we need three meals a day rather than four
or five. And since we don't do anything you know,
in the dark anyway, we might as well turn off

(10:04):
and save energy. That's, of course, going rolling back on
older models of we're we're not nocturnal creatures. We can't
see anything, so we're gonna as well shut down also
um as um as as the the Wigham child points
out in the Simpsons, sleep is where you're viking, So
there's that. That's that's right, sleep perchance to dream. Um. So, yeah,

(10:24):
a lot of the points back to the fact that
we have this three pound a little you know, operating
system that does take a lot of energy. And as
you say, if we can turn off, then we can
conserve that and we don't have to keep feeding that.
So what happens when we we can't go to sleep, right,
That's that's that's always been the problem. Because you can
force yourself to stay up, be it out of sheer terror,

(10:45):
out of by the use of natural or illicit um substances,
or just sheer you know, intensity of thought. You you
may be able to keep yourself to some degree awake
and not also various medical conditions. Of course we'll do
this as well. UM, but you met this one night
of sleep, it's not going to kill you. You're generally

(11:07):
gonna be irritable the next day. UH may slow you down.
You become tired easily. Um. Or it's also if possibly
would be totally wired because of adrenaline. Um, you're still
just you know, pumping through it. Say you're running for
your life from you know, monsters all night and then
into the next day. UM. All right, if you missed
two nights asleep, though, then it starts really kissing up

(11:29):
catching up with you. Concentration becomes difficult, attention span falls, UM,
Mistakes increase, like silly mistakes, even things that you do
every day. You know, try download the dishwasher. You're gonna
break glasses left and right, that kind of thing. After
three days, though, that's when you start to hallucinate. Um,
and clear thinking becomes impossible. Um. And with contin you know,

(11:51):
you may start seeing spiders in the corners that aren't there.
You know, I actually have experienced that before when my
daughter is a newborn and being up in the middle
of the night with her so much, and at some
point I remember hallucinating that the room was getting really
tiny big, and that's when I was like, Okay, this
is you know, these are the effects of not being

(12:12):
able to sleep, and it is not. I mean, this
is one of those things that that a large percentage
of Americans, um, and the rest of the world too,
really uh actually happened to them as well. I mean,
Americans get less than the generally recommended eight hours of
sleep per night and then they suffer some type of
sleep deprivation symptom. What's worth pointing out about the three

(12:33):
days plus thing. Um, you were hallucinating a little bit,
but you were still ground in reality. You were like
I knew something was that you were like, the room
is not really moving, or you might realize there aren't
really ghost spiders crawling in the corners of my vision.
But it can reach the point where you actually lose
grasp of reality. Um. And we've we've had we've conducted

(12:53):
experiments where rats forced to stay awake continuously eventually die. Yeah,
they can live up to three years. But you're right,
if you were to take two or three weeks and
continuously deprive them of sleep, they would die. So we
know obviously that this is something that we cannot go without,
or can we That's the thing, because inevitably, I mean
we we've all had that point be it. You know,

(13:15):
especially if you if you've been in a college scenario,
or you found yourself like dealing with a newborn or
any kind of stressful, time consuming portion of your life
feel or or maybe you just through the video game
you want to play and you never have time for it,
or hobby you want to pursue, or that book you
want to write, and you find yourself sleepy and out
of out of energy when you could work on it.

(13:36):
You may think yourself, Man, if I, if I could
just get rid of this sleep thing, then that would
totally open up my day. I'd have half my life back,
and I could use that to go after these various
UH endeavors. Or certainly in military and scenarios, we've had
situations where all right, we need to win this thing.
We need these pilots to come in, fallow the planes

(13:58):
and then go out again. But we need them to
be able to fly the plane. We need them to
have UH, to have that alertness and inability that is
there when they first wake up in the morning. How
can we sustain that. Yeah, let's talk more about the
history of soldiers and stimulants, because that's a great example.
You have people who are in high stakes situations there
in different time zones, most of the time, they're in

(14:21):
a different climate, they're under extreme stress, and sleep is
a fleeting thing, right. There are times that you want
to turn it on and there are times that you
want to turn it off. Um And this I thought
was really interesting. The number currently of writtle and adderal
prescriptions written for active duty service members increased by nearly
one thousand percent in five years from that's from thirty

(14:43):
to UM. But so it decreased or has increased from
three thousand to thirty two thousand and try Care Management Activity,
which is an arm of the Department of Defense, says
that this is because there have been increased diagnosis of
a d h D. But then we know the military
where he has had a long history of using stimulants
to help keep troops alert and awake. And certainly, I

(15:05):
mean you're dealing with military environments. You know, combat environments.
It's it's ultimately a matter of life and death. So
it's it's alright, it's hard to argue against the use
of those those substances in these circumstances. I mean, if
if you're looking at this this individual, is this individual
is going out back into combats, going back out into
a situation where he or she may be shot at

(15:27):
or shot down, etcetera, then then how do you make
the argument against giving them that chemical edge, or giving
them the chemical edge to actually sleep and rest when
they return with all of these thoughts still ringing in
their head and all these fears and apprehensions. UM. I
wanted to point out to that during the Vietnam War
that US troops, troops were given amphetamines, and amphetamines worked

(15:50):
throughout the braining to boost levels UM a range of neurotransmitters,
and it's it's it's pretty much speed, right, which would
keep you very active and alert. And Nazis also gave
it to their troops in the form of something called
privatin okay the German infantry. Yeah, and um A provocil

(16:10):
and motor finel our centrals, nervous system stimulants and those
have been used by military pilots and special forces during missions. UM.
The problem, of course, with all of this are the
side effects. Provacil has side effects that include nervousness, insomnia, excitation, irritability, tremors, dizziness,
and headaches. Uh So it's not the perfect drug here,

(16:34):
and certainly it is a solution to some of the
problems that exist in this environment. But when you know
at what cost? Yeah, I mean because so certainly I
think pilots that's a great example of this, because especially
if you're dealing with flying along very long distance on
a combat mission or what have you, you want them
to have optimal performance for the entire time. But even

(16:57):
with these these chemicals, you it's going to get increasingly
shaky the more you push it out. It's like holding
them a hold in yoga. That's how far removed him
from combat scenarios, I guess. But but you know, it's
like the longer you hold it the shaker, it's going
to get to the point where no amount of chemical
um aid is going to help you. Or so we thought, right,

(17:20):
and we won't go into some of the instances, but
there there have been some um some of the use
of provocol and motor phenel in which some unfortunate instances
have happened and people have wondered whether or not it's
the side effects from the drug that that we're um
you know, causing people to not think clearly or or
having impaired thinking. So, uh, let's talk about In two

(17:45):
thousand and seven, h DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
which comes up with some really cool things. Um. Yeah,
everything from from from driverless cars to out I mean
it really runs the gamut. Yeah. Uh, they in conjunction
with UM with Department of Defense and Jerome Signal, professor
of psychiatry at U c l A, came up with

(18:07):
a nasal spray that would help create a sense of
wakefulness and alertness without many side effects, which is this
is a huge breakthrough. Yeah, I mean, the the idea
is is pretty great. I mean they refer to it
as a sleep replacement drug, which just sounds crazy. That's
I mean, it's sleep replacement. I mean it tends to

(18:30):
go against everything that we've we've discussed so far, the
idea that that's sleep is inevitable, sleep is mandatory. But
if you could actually replace it with a drug, then
what couldn't we do in the space of twenty four
hours or forty eight hours or even longer. Alright, so
check this out. There was a study of monkeys who
were deprived of sleep for thirty the thirty six hours,

(18:51):
and I wonder how they did that by the way,
to like to just play loud music or like, you know,
given the first five seasons of breaking bad. Uh yeah, yeah,
well that'll do it right there. Um. And then those
monkeys were given either orex in A or a sailine
placebo before taking standard cognitive tests. And what they found

(19:11):
is that the monkeys who are given arex in A
in a nasal spray scored about the same as alert
monkeys on cognitive tests, while the sailine control group was
severely impaired. And so this is a study that was
published in the December twenty six, two seven edition of
the Journal of Neuroscience. It was found that O rex

(19:32):
and A not only restored their cognitive abilities, but it
made and this is huge, and made their brains look
awake and pet scans as well. So there's evidence that
it's not just that there's a certain level of alertness,
but that they could have been firing on all cylinders.
All right, Well, let's let's take a quick break and
when we come back we'll keep rolling. We will stay alert,

(19:54):
stay awake, and keep talking about the death of sleep
here possibly all right, we're back, and we were talking
about rex and a, this promising sleep replacement drug candidate,
which do not go to your your pharmacy, Do not

(20:16):
go to your doctor and ask for rex and a,
becaun't buy it online. I'm sure something is available that
is calling itself our x and a. UM. It's also
called hypocretin. It's a neuropeptide hormone and it's produced in
the hypothalamus, and it's what allows us to remain awake
for a continuous chunk of time because our body basically

(20:36):
releases our x and A throughout the day. So this
is the interesting part is that UM. The reason that
O x in A was discovered to help manipulate these
different sleep states and wakeful states is because they noticed
researchers noticed that people who have narcolepsy have trouble falling asleep. UH.

(20:56):
And the reason they are having trouble falling sleep is
because they lack O rex in A. This this wakefulness hormone.
So rexin A is the finger of the brain poking
you and keeping you awake during that meeting or that
church sermon and uh, and people with narcolepsy don't have
that finger to poke them in the shoulder. And it's

(21:18):
interesting because previously researchers were trying to treat sleep disorders
by really inducing sleep at the right time, rather than
tinkering with wakefulness. So sort of they took the opposite
tact here, instead of like we're going to knock you
out at thirty pm, let's actually look at what's going
on in the brain. Yeah, yeah, so if so, the

(21:39):
idea here is that if the deficit of ox and
a makes people sleepy, adding it back into the brain
would reduce its effects. So that's where you see something
like the nasal spray becoming really effective because you're getting
a shot of this orexin a, you are vanquishing the
sleepies um with wakefulness, and so it becomes a really
effective drug for or not politics as well, right, because

(22:02):
it's inducing wakefulness. Now at the other end of the spectrum,
you have something called sero veccent, and this is a
drug from Mark and it's still in trials, but what
it's trying to do is block the receptors for rexin.
So now they're saying okay, well let's not let o
rexin attached to the receptors so that we can induce

(22:23):
the sleepiness. Um, and you're essentially taking out the wakeful component. Yeah. Um.
And this is the the huge thing about it is
it doesn't appear to have the hangover side effects that
some sleep aid medications are reported to have. But it's
still in trials and um, there's the idea that more
research needs to to go on, obviously to make sure

(22:45):
that the drug wouldn't inadvertently cause sleep state disassociations for
your body later on the idea of being here that
you're you're taking one pill to wake you up, one
pill to put you down, and eventually everything's going to
be out of whack. Yeah, that your body. It's like, okay, well,
now that I have been manipulated with with my receptors
have been blocked here on the rex in a and

(23:07):
sleepiness is has been induced later on in the days,
my body going to try to make up for it.
Is there a possibility so far with the drug trials
that doesn't seem to be the case, but you still
would want to know what the long term effects would
be for both the super accent which would help you sleep,
and for the nasal spray um, which would inhibit sleep

(23:28):
and create wingfulness. You know, that's the question that it
comes down to, Um, how will this be used for
the general public? The nasal spray um? You know? Well
gamers just the sniffing it for hours a day? Right, Well,
party yours really because that the people people are partying

(23:49):
on nine anyway. But and if this improves one's optimal
partying ability, then then yeah, it becomes you can see
that becoming a hot thing. But I mean it sounds
like sniffable red bull to me. Yeah, and to say
nothing about the potential complications of combining this with any
other a number of stimulants or or or other medications.
So so yeah, the jury is definitely out, but it

(24:12):
is what we'll do with it and then what the
various complications could be. It's a fascinating question though, about
whether or not you could restore your cognitive functions to
a to the wakeful state that you naturally would have
and be able to avoid sleep. I mean, you're not
going to get the cell uh rejuvenation that you would
in a deep sleep. Yeah. Also, I mean you need

(24:34):
your muscle repair to take place, aging dead cells to
be tended to. So yeah, it seems like all, I mean,
all that is going to catch up with you. You
wouldn't be able to use this to stay awake indefinitely
or not without severe consequences. But again, I find it
fascinating from the perspective of being able to manipulate our

(24:55):
our wakeful states and our sleep states. And you know
is they're going to be a drug that is the
on the other end of the spectrum that makes you
go to sleep so that you can manipulate, uh, that
you know, your sleep activities and your wakefless activities whenever
you want. Yeah, I mean I wonder if we could

(25:15):
reach the point where I like I've also I also remember,
in addition to having thoughts of what if I didn't
have to sleep, wouldn't life be easier? You wouldn't have
to buy a bed, you know, do this, that and
the other. But I've also had those times where I thought,
wouldn't it be nice if I could just stockpile some sleep,
stay up for a certain period of time, or I
could stay up for four days and just sleep the
weekend away into a certain extent. That's how it works

(25:36):
in terms of having to pay back what you take
away from your sleep cycle. But if you could actually
do this at a chemical level with and you know,
and and at a hormone level with these substances, then
perhaps we would reach the point where someone is taking
a X and A to stay awake for say four
days of work during the week, and then counter countering

(25:57):
that with with other medications to sleep it out for
the weekend. Or if you're just having a commute and
you artificially, um, make yourself fall into a sleep pattern.
So if you're like commuting on Marta for instance, on
the train system and you can catch minutes, yeah you can.
And then if you don't have any cash on you

(26:18):
when you wake up, well there you have it, um,
something to sleep on, something to sleep on or not
sleep on, as it may work out. Um. It reminded me,
of course we got this title from from death. Uh.
There's a there's a great parton Makebath where Matbeth says,
methought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more. Macbeth

(26:38):
does murder sleep, the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up,
the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life,
sore Labour's bath, balm of hurts, minds, great Nature's second course,
chef nourisher in Life's Feast, And Lady Macbeth says, what
do you mean? And Thenbeth says, still it cried sleep
no more to all the house. Glamis hath murdered sleep

(27:00):
been there for cart Or shall sleep no more? Macbeth
shall sleep no more. So, of course Macbeth is rather
stressed out during most of this, and that's what's what's
keeping him awake, all these worries about what he's done
and what he's gonna have to do and uh and
and what the toll is going to be at the end.
But but yeah, the the idea that Macbeth, you know,

(27:21):
as as usual, Shakespeare manages a word at best, but
it's talking about sleep. Is this the sleep that knits
up the raveled sleeve of care? I really like that.
So what happens when we when we banish it, when
we murder sleep? When we stay unraveled? So I am
sure you guys and gals have some some sleep related
tidbits to share with us about either about legitimate problems

(27:44):
we've had with with sleep, or times when you've really
pushed yourself to stay awake for an extended period of time,
and pent or or Ben pushed to stay away for
extended period of time. Uh, what was that like? What
were the what strengths did you find yourself flowing with?
What what negative impact did it have on your wakeful state?
We'd love to hear about all of that. And certainly,

(28:06):
what are your thoughts about the potential of being able
to take a sleep replacement truck? How do you think
that would change your life? How do you think it
would change cultures as we know it would it? I
don't know would you banish sleep to get half your
life back or do you feel like you'd be losing
the best half of your of your life because let's
face it, sleep is awesome? And would you take air

(28:28):
baths a lot? Do you take newd air baths in
the in the night? Let us know about that as well. Uh,
let's call over the road of it real quick and
just do one quick listener mail. All right, here's one
from Don Don Wrightson and says, Hello, Robert and Julie,
thank you for taking on breastfeeding as a scientific topic.
I would imagine that this topic will generate lots of
mail for you on both sides of the issue. It's

(28:50):
amazing to me how something so natural and so logical, frankly,
is rebuked by so many. Just yesterday, I was excited
to see that a shopping mall had designated nursing rooms,
even uh if the sign for the room featured an
illustration of the baby bottle half full of milk. I
was amazed to learn that some men are able to breastfeed.
Imagine if this were the norm, I would be interested
to see this develop, especially since men strutted around shirtless

(29:12):
in public so shamelessly. And this is something that when
I was talking to my wife about about about some
of this, and she was like, yeah, it's like, you'll,
you know, the woman takes her has her top off,
and it's you know, it's a scandal. But you'll see
the most grotesque men walking around with their shirts off
and it's no big deal. Yeah, it does kind of
buggle the mind. And then Don continues on the topic

(29:34):
of performance art, which was another episode we did. I
wanted to draw your attention to a performance artist named
Chris Burden, if you haven't already heard of him. I
saw one of installation of these installations in college. Apparently
he crucified himself to the hood of a Volkswagen Beetle,
had someone shoot him in the arm, and also had
a piece where he stood backstage and attempted to breathe
water pretty five minutes. Interesting stuff. He bought the great

(29:55):
work done. We'll have to check that out. Yeah, I've
heard of the the bull sucking beetle thing rings a bell,
but I know I've seen some stuff about the shooting
as art Chris Burden all right, well, um, yeah, so
let us know your thoughts on sleep replacement drugs, on

(30:15):
breastfeeding in public, which, by the way, we have received
a lot of comments from there, and I have to
say that all of them have been really positive. I mean,
nobody's very insightful, very insightful. Yeah. Uh. And if you
have any thoughts, obviously about performance art, let us know.
You can find us on Facebook and Tumbler, where we
are stuff to blow your mind on both of those,
and on Twitter we are we are blow the mind

(30:37):
and you can always drop us a line and blow
the mind at Discovery dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
dot Com

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