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The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Why your mother tells you to get enough sleep
t the foot of my bed there is a round
white pad the size and shape of a fist.
Every night, I slip it underneath my
pillow, cross my fingers and hope that it will
do its job. There is a big, ominous sticker on
its face: Super Shaker Bed Vibrator. DO NOT
OPEN.
The Super Shaker Bed Vibrator is connect-
ed to an alarm clock manofactored by Sonic
Alert, a supplier of medical products for deaf
people. The alarm clock also has 2-inch high
LED numbers and beeps at 113 decibels, fall-
ing somewhere between a rock concert (100
dB) and a jackhammer (120 dB). It shakes,
beeps and flashes me awake every morning.
It's important to note here that I am not deaf
and I have three other alarms set.
Gone are the days of the gentle waken-
ing - bluebirds joining together in clear-
throated song, smiling sun bursting-over the
land. For me, waking up is an ordeal. This
is a result of the fact that I stumble through
five of the seven days of the week in a haze of
sleep deprivation.
And I'm not alone: 20 percent of peo-
ple miss work because of sleep problems,
according to a 2005 National Sleep Founda-
tion survey. And half of young people (ages 14
to 20) receive an insufficient amount of sleep,
accordingto the 2006 survey. Only15 percent
get the recommended 8.5 hours of sleep.
Till Roenneberg, a researcher in Munich,
calls this phenomenon social jetlag, which is
the permanent state of being out of sync with
the rest of society. So if I yawn in a discussion
section (or end up face-first in a puddle of my
own drool in a large lecture), is it essentially
my problem or can I blame society?
DE REK BLUMKE/Daly
LSA sophomore Scott Caplan tries to study in the Law Library. He's one of many students plagued by lack of sleep.
I asked psychology Prof. Robert Pachella
about his experience teaching his Psych 442
class at 8:30 a.m. However, it is in a lecture
format, and attendance is not taken. He did
say instead that "the earliest time I have
found it reasonable to teach a class that
depended on discussion, conversation and
interaction is 10 am."
So is it warranted to treat young adults as
creatures whose exotic sleeping habits must
be respected by their hard-driving taskmas-
ters? Or is this yet another capitulation to
our precious children - to the accommoda-
tion and softening of the youth - and to the
decline of western civilization in general?
Well, real consequences are associated
with sleep deprivation. Up to 60 percent of
road accidents involvea lack of sleep, and peo-
ple who only get five to seven hours drive with
the equivalent of a .05 percent blood alcohol
level - skirting the state's legal limit.
Additionally, task-specific impairments
make it particularly difficult for students:
reduced learning, impaired short-term
memory and depression can severely handi-
cap performance in the classroom. A sleepy
student is like pianist with a stubbed finger
or a clown who has just lost his funny.
Adolescent sleep patterns, as well as
all other matters hypnagogic and sopo-
rific, are now studied by researchers in
the pioneering University Center for Sleep
Science. It is also home to the first sleep
science graduate program in the country.
But it will take continued and persistent
investigation into this most peculiar ani-
mal, teenage H. sapiens, to convince the
schoolmarms and early risers. 03
And three things you can't:
1. "Guys, it's so cold."
2. Barack Obama
3. The State of the Union
TALKING
POINTS
Three things you can talk about this week:
1. Chinese baby shortages
2. Refugee soccer players
3. The state of the union
According to Russell Foster, an Oxford Uni-
versity circadian neuroscientist, it's society's
problem. "It is cruel to impose a cultural pattern
on teenagers that makes them underachieve,"
Foster said in the London Evening Standard.
But is it really "cruel," as Foster puts it?
Well, both the CIA and KGB did have chunks
of their torture manuals dedicated' to sleep
deprivation. But given a choice between
waterboarding or missing a little sleep...
However, recent research has provided
compelling evidence that adolescents from
high school on to their undergraduate years
have a late-shifted body clock. During those
years, teenagers' bodies shift the peak pro-
duction of the sleep hormone melatonin two
to four hours later into the night, resulting
in later wake times. As they enter adulthood
their body clocks shift back onto so-called
normal time.
Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland
- a pea in the center of the brain - and is
cued by the amount of light the eye receives.
This system worked well enough in the Stone
Age but not so much in today's always-on
environments. Those who IM and Facebook
in front of a computer right before sleep are
essentially staring into a lightbox, throwing
their bodies off track.
High schools around the country are now
starting classes later to better accommodate
both the habits and brains of adolescents.
More than 80 school districts have made
the switch. According to Foster, adolescents
"don't start to function until 10 a.m. or as late
as noon."
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
((Lohan Won't Be
Released from
Rehab."
- IMDb.com celebrity news
wire, Jan. 22
"Lohan To Leave
Rehab for Filming
Every Day."
- IMDb.com news wire, the
next day
YOUTUBE
VIDEO OF
THE WEEK
This is a spider,
and this is a spider
on drugs
In this mockumentary, a somber
male voice-over explains a study
that recently took place to observe
the effects of psychoactive drugs on
the common wood spider. Sounds
plausible, right? Once the clip
begins to detail the results, you see
the study is even more illuminating THEME P
than you thought it would be.
For example, the spider that Democrz
was given THC - the active ingre-
dient in marijuana - doesn't build break ou
a web; it builds a hammock and Edwards
sits around all day watching the
hyperactive spider that was given Throwing t:
caffeine.
It isn't until the final seconds of
the clipwhenyou see "FirstChurch R
of Christ" flash on the screen that
you realize: you've been duped. OF TH
You were not only entertained by
this outrageous clip, you were justI
taught a lesson about the dangers
of drugs and alcohol. Pascal's
What a tangled web we weave. tion of dec
- CALLIE WORSHAM known as
collection(
See this and other YouTube videos apologetic
ofrthe week at God exists
youtube.com/user/michigandaily is always g
Indeed, he
sought to c
religion an
Variatio
philosoph:
below). Pa
tionary pr
In his W
to evaluati
the option
sibility.
"This is the first time that
I've ever been called a liar
and a bigot and an anti-Sem-
ite and a coward and a pla-
giarist. This is hurting me."
- Former President JIMMY CARTER to an aus-
ience at Brandeis University at a speech in which
he defended his controversial new book, "Pales-
tine: Peace Not Apartheid."
"It's one of our ratings, and
I'd like to see it used more."
- MPAA Chief DAN GLICKMAN on the NC-17 film
rating, which for years has been controversial over
claims that it leads to censorship by Hollywood studios.
word cuotbe trusted is professional
word can't be trusted is professional
PLAGIARISM death."
From page 5B England said this method of pro-
moting academic integrity is both
associate dean for academic affairs efficient and effective, and some
in the College of Engineering, statistics on honor codes support his
explained that when students enter claim.
the engineering program they must Don McCabe and the Center for
sign a copy of the school's honor Academic Integrity's study also con-
code that states that they will not cluded that cheating on campuses
participate in any act of academic with honor codes is typically a third
misconduct. They also write a state- to a half lower than on campuses
ment on all exams saying they have that don't have honor codes.
not cheated in any way. Because The Business School also takes a
students sign this honor code, fac- different approach to dealing with
ulty members are not required to be cases of academic dishonesty.
present during exams. In April 2006, the Community
"I'll set a chair in the hallway," Values Committee voted to adopt
England said. "If a student has a a new academic honor code. Under
question they'll come out and ask me. the new policies, professors who
No one sits in the room and watches suspect students of plagiarism must
for cheating." immediately report incidents to the
Thatsystem, which may seemlike committee, and may not confront
an unorthodox approach to some, students on their own. The commit-
makes perfect sense to England. tee then conducts an investigation of
"Being a successful engineer the incident and determines wheth-
really depends on people respect- er a student is guilty, and if so, how
ing what you say, when you sign off the student should be punished.
on something, your professional This is a somewhat unusual
integrity says, 'to the best of my abil- approach, Reece explained, in the
ity, I'm telling the truth,'" England world of academia, a professor'sright
said. "Getting a reputation that your to determine a grade or fail astudent
typically goes unquestioned.
ButReece said itwas importantto
design the code in this manner.
First, he said there were some
professors who failed to report inci-
dents of plagiarism to the commit-
tee, which made it difficult to gauge
how big the problem of academic
dishonesty really was.
Second, he explained that the
code creates a more uniform way of
dealing with problems.
"One professor might lower a
grade, another might verbally slap
(the offending students) on the wrist,
another might fail them - all for the
same violation," Reece said.
The new code has been in effect
for less than a year, but both Reece
and Schreiber believe it is a major
step in an effort to curb academic
dishonesty.
"It's our objective to establish as
a culture in this school that (cheat-
ing) is going tobe minimized," Sch-
reiber said. "We want students to be
brought to the point that they real-
ize the honorable way to go is to be
straight in these affairs."
NO EASY ANSWERS
A solution to the problem of pla-
giarismat the University is not easily
determined, especially when there
is no consensus that a real problem
even exists. But if the 2005 statistic
stating that 50 percent of students
have committed one or more serious
acts of cheating on a written assign-
ment is even remotely accurate, then
far more students are plagiarizing
than are being held accountable.
Perhaps the real problem is not
one of prevention or recognition
but of a different nature altogether.
As the opinionated Sulzdorf said in
a long interview, the problem with
plagiarism at the undergraduate
level is that few can define why the
act itself is a problem.
In answer to the question "Why
does plagiarism matter?" the Uni-
versity Libraries handout on plagia-
rism reads, "Careers and reputations
have been damaged by findings of
plagiarism. Journalists have been
fired from the Sun-Times, the Wall
Street Journal and the Nashville
Tennessean. A Harvard psychiatrist
resigned after a finding of plagiarism
against him."
This type ofargument may
not be particularly resonant with
students who don't yet have a career
or meaningful reputation to damage,
and itdoesn't address the fundamen-
tal philosophical question.
There's the common argument
that plagiarism is wrong because it
is dishonorable to steal another per-
son's words or ideas and pass them
off as your own. But stealing implies
avictim,andas Sulzdorfpointedout,
the unnamed government employee
who wrote the article on Missouri's
website will never know her work
was plagiarized, so in some ways,
the morality argument eludes both
students and faculty members.
"Students aren't publishing these
papers. Most of them aren't going
to go on with their education, so it
doesn'treally matter in the scheme of
things.There are no reverberations,"
Sulzdorf said. "What we're teaching
students when we teach them not to
plagiarize is not how to be academ-
ics, but about how to be responsible
human beings, and if you don't care
that much about the student becom-
ing a responsible human being, then
it's not that big of a deal."
If Sulzdorf is right, plagiarism at
the University will remain un-cited,
anda problem many are content to
ignore.
BY THE NUMBERS
The number of jobs Pfizer is eliminating from it's offices, laboratories
and factories across the world
Number of jobs in Ann Arbor that will be lost by 2008 when Pfizer
pulls out
Number of jobs Internet giant Google is expected to bring to Ann
Arbor in the span of five years when it opens shop on East Liberty Street
Source: The Associated Press
ARTY SUGGESTION
atic presidential contenders - time to
t your Dennis Kucinich wig and that John
union T-shirt.
his porty? Let us know thestotement@umichedu
)OM WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE
iE WEEK
Pascal's Wager
Wager is the French philosopher Blaise Pascal's applica-
ision theory to the belief in God. It is also occasionally
Pascal's Gambit. It appears in the Pens6es, a posthumous
of Pascal's notes for an unfinished treatise on Christian
s. Pascal argued that it is a better "bet" to believe that
, because the expected value of believing that God exists
'reater than the expected value resulting from non-belief.
claimed that the expected value is infinite. With this, he
onvert those, to Christianity, who were uninterested in
ad unimpressed by previous theological arguments for it.
ins of this argument may be found in other religious
ies, such as Islam, Hinduism, and even Buddhism (see
scal's Wager is also similar in structure to the precau-
inciple.
lager, Pascal provides an analytical process for a person
e options in regarding belief in God. As Pascal sets it out,
s are two: believe or not believe. There is no third pos-
1