Interesting Links for 02-07-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Edinburgh's 2030 Festival City Vision

(tags:Edinburgh thefuture festival viaPatrickHadfield )

2. Universal Credit has increased crime rate by 6.5%

(tags:welfare uk crime OhForFucksSake )

3. How flowers are 'put to sleep' for long sea voyages

(tags:trade flowers sea )

4. Germany seeks ′safety first′ approach to legalizing cannabis

(tags:marijuana legalisation germany )

5. Yes, part of the UK constitution is (or was) a letter written to the Times under a pseudonym

(tags:uk monarchy politics constitution history )

6. Major chords are happy and minor chords are sad? Only if society has trained you that way!

(tags:music psychology emotion )

7. Germany unveils plans for simpler gender change process

(tags:LGBT transgender Germany GoodNews )

8. UK's export support agency stops investing in new fossil fuel projects

(tags:globalwarming investment UK GoodNews )

9. Giraffes eat acacia trees from downwind, because otherwise they warn each other to taste bitter!

(tags:trees self-defence )

10. Boris Johnson wants multi-generational mortgages so parents can pass on debt to children

(tags:mortgages conservatives BorisJohnson )

11. Melatonin peaks in teenagers at 7am. Waking them then is like waking an adult at 4am

(tags:sleep teenagers )

Comments

[jjhunter]

The more accurate title for #11 would be Melatonin peak release ends in teenagers at 7am [...] - 7am isn't the time of highest release, it's the end of the phase of intensive release after which it tapers off.

That being said, yes, the 7am for teenagers is like 4am for adults comparision is a reasonable analogue for the 3 hour difference in circadian phase.

Changing school start times to shift later is hands down one of the cheapest, most effective student performance interventions we know of for the high school age group. It would also even out a known performance difference between those students genetically included to be morning larks who aren't quite as hard hit by the early school start times and those students who are genetically predisposed to be night owls even more extremely than the average teenager. It's bonkers to be biasing the testing and learning conditions that heavily towards one subset of students who happen to have shorter circadian periods and therefore an easier time going to bed early / rising early.

I wish more attention and weight was placed on the importance of sleep for all age groups, honestly - there's bucketloads of research about the harms night shift work can do to people long-term (it's an potent risk factor for developing diabetes and other metabolic disorders, cancer, you name it). If night shift work or rotating shift work is truly necessary, there are relatively simple accommodations that can be made to the scheduling so it's not so relentlessly muddling for peoples' circadian rhythms to help them still got proper sleep.

It would also help not just people but also urban trees, animals, and other life in cities and near major highways if we committed to reducing light pollution and changing the spectrum of what street lights we do use away from the blue tones that stimulate wakefulness towards the more neutral orangey-red that minimally stimulates our melanopsin receptors. Our bodies use light to stay synced to day-night cycles and schedule when we should be asleep vs. awake. Having lights on constantly sends discrepant signals and harms our ability to properly prepare to be asleep in good time relative to when we want to wake up, and to get good quality sleep.

[dewline]

But maximizing everyone's health would keep the world from being a hellscape for everyone but oligarchs.

[mtbc]

I once suggested to somebody running a school system that it was crazy for them to have the high schools starting the earliest of the lot. To my surprise, they were also aware of the research and agreed completely but (by their account, so take with plenty of salt) the unions wouldn't allow it to be changed around.

[channelpenguin]

Hmm. It's less than 2 weeks past the longest day at 53°58' N. Waking me at 4am is just fine :-). It was fine when I was a teenager too - but I know I'm a freak.

Sleep is the killer app for the brain and waking anyone up before they wake naturally (or making them stay awake when they are falling asleep) is pure evil. As is light pollution!

I do not set an alarm, except in very very very rare circumstances, nor have I done in 20-odd years (and fairly sure it was rare before that). But I'm a freak, as stated :-).

[naath]

I thik without clocks I woiild be nocturnal, but I can make myself get up early if I go to bed early

[simont]

#6: I've only read the title and first paragraph, because it requires registration. But I remember being surprised as a teenager to find out that Phil Collins's "Another Day in Paradise" was in a major key.

The tune sounded sad to me (even before I paid attention to the lyrics), so much so that I automatically assumed I was listening to something in a minor key. It wasn't until I tried to play it on an actual instrument, and had to actually work out what all the notes were, that I realised it was major. I'm still not sure how that one particular tune manages to sound sad in spite of that.

[conuly]

6. Major chords are happy and minor chords are sad? Only if society has trained you that way!

Anybody who's ever heard one of the older Christmas carols should not be surprised by this fact.

11

[anna_wing]

I wonder if this is also true for teenagers around the equator, where day and night hours do not vary by more than about half an hour. There is also the issue that it's easier to get to school and to focus at cooler temperatures, rather than in the heat of mid-day, espeically in countries where schools can't afford constant air-conditioning.

Re: 11

[andrewducker]

That would be fascinating to know!

[calimac]

5) But the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis was not about the governor-general refusing the prime minister a dissolution, which all the verbiage around it would lead you to expect. It was about the prime minister not asking for a dissolution when the governor-general thought he should.

6) Even in Western culture, the moods associated with minor and major modes are complex. I refer you to this, by all odds the most cheerful piece of minor-mode music ever written.

My harmony instructor tried to give us ear-training by playing chords on the piano and challenging us to guess which mode they were, but as he always played minor chords softer than major chords, it was easier than he intended.

[andrewducker]

That is, indeed, very cheery!

[andrewducker]

Your harmony instructor reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story of when they tried to train an early AI to tell the difference between US and Russian tanks, only to discover that it had instead learned to tell the difference between tanks photographed morning and ones photographed in the afternoon.