It's all been a bit serious in the cabin for a while, so I thought this item from the UK newspaper
The Independent would be good for the long weekend (in the UK). Although the thread could be in Jet Blast by the morning ...
The acid test: World's weirdest experiments - Science, News - The Independent
It's three in the morning and you're trying to get to sleep. But you're not having much luck because you're stuck in a cramped seat on a plane cruising at 30,000ft. If you find yourself in this situation, you might want to reflect on an experiment conducted in 1960 by Ian Oswald, a professor at Edinburgh University.
Three men served as Oswald's guinea pigs. He asked each of them to lie down on a couch. He attached one end of a piece of tape to each eyelid and the other end to the subject's forehead, keeping his eyes pried open. Next, Oswald placed electrodes on the subject's left leg. The electrodes produced a painful shock that caused the foot to bend sharply inward involuntarily. Oswald programmed the shocks to occur in a regular, rhythmic pattern.
He also positioned a bank of flashing lights in front of each man's face. Finally, he turned on some loud blues music.
Oswald then sat in a corner of the room and waited for them to do something that would seem unlikely in such a circumstance: fall asleep. Yet, within eight to 12 minutes, all three men were asleep. Their heartbeats slowed, their pupils constricted, and their brain waves, measured by an EEG, displayed a low-voltage slow-wave pattern characteristic of sleep.
Oswald's results seem hard to believe. How could someone possibly fall asleep under such conditions? Oswald explained it as a peculiar response of the brain to extremely monotonous sensory stimulation. Instead of becoming aroused by the stimulation, the brain becomes habituated to it and shuts down.
So, to return to the plane scenario, it's not the noise and lights that prevent you from falling asleep. It's the fact that they're not monotonously rhythmic. Airlines could remedy this situation by installing vibrating seats, pulsing lights and continuously looping baby screams. Electric shocks would, of course, be reserved for business class