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You'd Better Get Some Sleep Tonight Because Insomnia Will Kill You
Here's another thing to worry about while you're up all night tossing and turning because you can't fall asleep because you're worrying about stuff too much: Norwegian researchers recently found that "people who had trouble falling asleep had a 45 percent increased relative risk of heart attack" compared to people who didn't have sleep problems. Oh, but also, scientists in Colorado have discovered the chemical secret to the healthy elasticity of python hearts, and have have had success in transferring it to lab mice. So in the future, we may prevent heart attacks by drinking the blood of giant snakes. If that helps you to relax.
Drinking the blood of snakes? That's happening right now.
Norwegian researchers have a 100% chance of being both Norwegian and insane.
@NFK: Oh, yes. My wife lived in China for a while, and she was once served fresh snake's blood right at the table. At a restaurant, they brought a live snake to the table, slit it's throat and drained the blood right into the guests' glasses. Reading about that study made me want to see comparative statistics about heart failure from places where people regularly drink snake's blood. (If it happens regularly. I'm under the impression that it's only served on special occasions?) I mean, maybe they're onto something.
Can't hit the NYT site for some reason – but is there some sort of causality here (i.e., lack of sleep gives you heart attacks), or are they just correlated (stressed people are likely to have both insomnia and heart attacks)?