Sleep patterns

Sleeping is a remarkable period of synchronised brain activity, memory consolidation and maintenance. Scientists are still trying to understand the nuances of sleep patterns and the variety of schedules humans can sustain. We may be used to a daily kip, but others take a rather different approach, as Matt Iredale discovers...

Monophasic

In 1938, Nathaniel Kleitman spent a month in an underground cave to redefine the day. Although he couldn’t adjust to his 28-hour cycle, his research furthered our understanding of the most common monophasic sleep pattern, the seven to nine hours of sleep we crave nightly. Interestingly, this sleeping schedule came into vogue during the propagation of coffee houses.

Biphasic

Pre 18th century, people would regularly don their nightcaps twice in one night. Historian Roger Ekirch suggests that a ‘first’ and ‘second’ sleep was common practice. One French physician even noted that conception was more likely between these phases of sleep. In the modern day, biphasic sleeping still exists in many parts of Europe, commonly known as the humble siesta. 

Polyphasic

Referring to more than two periods of sleep in a 24-hour cycle, polyphasic sleep might not be for everybody. DrYung-Hui Fu suggests only a small percentage of people can adapt to these conditions; due to a rare mutation of gene DEC2, it is possible for the brain to perform maintenance much faster during sleep than the average human. 

Dymaxion

Many have explored the possibilities of polyphasic sleeping practices. Inventor and philosopher Buckminster Fuller created his own ‘dymaxion’ schedule, consisting of a 30-minute nap every six hours.“Two hours of sleep a day is plenty,” he said in an interview with Time magazine. Fuller later abandoned the schedule after coming into regular conflict with his colleagues and his wife. 

Uberman

The Uberman is a sleep schedule followed by insomniac Marie Staver, involving 20-minute naps ever y four hours and a short sleep at night. In the early phases, Staver carried a stack of dishes around her dorm to make sure she didn’t fall asleep by accident. While at work she napped under her desk, and had developed the ability to sleep standing up. 

 

 

 

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Unexplained sounds

Some folk will tell you about the latest music or band you need to hear, but Ernest favours a different type of sound. The world may be filled with monitoring and recording devices, but not everything that’s picked up has an obvious explanation. James Burt investigates some of our favourite puzzling noises. 

Illustration by Ruth Allen

Bloop

First detected in 1997, the bloop is a low-frequency noise occurring at a location very close to HP Lovecraft’s fictional sunken city of R’lyeh, in the south Pacific. It is thought to have come from an ice-quake, since the noise is too loud for a biological explanation.That is, at least, any known biological explanation. 

Skyquakes

Also known as mistpouffers, skyquakes are similar in sound to cannons or thunder, with incidents mostly occurring near rivers and coastlines. One explanation is they are sonic booms – but this doesn’t explain accounts going back to the 1800s. According to Native Americans, the sounds are the Great Spirit working on the world. 

Taos hum

First recorded in Taos, New Mexico, similar low frequency hums have been experienced worldwide since the 1970s, suggesting they are a side-effect of the modern world. Some people have blamed secret military communications devices,others a type of fish. A leading theory is that the hums are caused by ‘spontaneous otoacoustic emissions’, the noise of the hearer’s own inner ears.

Quackers

Quackers were named after the Russian onomatopoeia for a frog’s sound. First detected by Russian submarines during the Cold War, no objects appeared on the sonar and the source moved too fast to be man-made. An unknown type of animal is one explanation, as are Unidentified Submersible Objects, the underwater equivalent of UFOs.

The 52-hertz whale

The ‘Loneliest Whale’ sings a song at a higher pitch than any other.The call is always heard alone and some say it prevents the creature ever finding companionship, leaving it to wander the Pacific Ocean alone. It has inspired a Kickstarter-funded investigation as well as Kathryn Roberts’ folk song 52-hertz. The sound has not been recorded since 2004, which may mean a happy ending. 

James Burt is a computer programmer who spends his spare time researching strange things. He is currently working on a book about the history of the vindaloo. orbific.com

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Obsolete jobs

If you think your current 9-to-5 is a bit of a drag, spare a thought for the poor souls who had to do these foul-smelling, back-breaking and often downright dangerous jobs. Whether through technology, health and safety or social enlightenment, these professions are, thankfully, now a thing of the past.

Image: Mudlarks of Victorian London (The Headington Magazine, 1871)

gong farmer

In Tudor times, gong farmers had the delightful task of emptying cess pits and privies of human excrement – or ‘night soil’ – and transporting it outside the city. They only worked at night and had to live a fair distance away from others so as to minimise the chances of spreading any nasty diseases they may have picked up. And because, frankly, they stank.

herb strewer

Before there were sewers, there were herb strewers. But they only worked for royalty. Dating back to the 17th century, the strewer’s job was to scatter sweet-smelling herbs and plants throughout the royal apartments to disguise the stench emanating from the Thames. When trod underfoot, the herbs would release their aromas to ensure royal noses remained unsullied.

mudlark

A mudlark was someone, usually a child, who scraped a paltry living by scavenging in the mud along the low tide line of the RiverThames. Working among raw sewage, excrement and the occasional corpse, they’d gather up bits of iron, rope, copper and coal that had fallen into the river – although the more daring would also pilfer from passing barges. 

knocker-upper

During the Industrial Revolution, early shifts were the norm at factories and mills, but most people couldn’t afford alarm clocks to get them up in the morning.To ensure the workforce arrived on time for their daily toil, a knocker-up was employed to tap, tap, tap on the bedroom windows of the sleeping workers using a long stick, until they were roused from their slumber.

legger

Early canal tunnels were narrow and didn’t have towpaths.The legger’s job was to walk or ‘leg’ the vessel through the cold, dark tunnels.Working in pairs, lying on planks attached to either side of a boat, they navigated through tunnels up to a mile long. Physically demanding and highly dangerous, it was common for leggers to come to grief and be crushed between the hull and the tunnel wall. 

Words: Brian Chapman. Originally published in issue 5 of Ernest Journal.

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Curious artefact: the orrery

We've teamed up with the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford to gain insights into scientific apparatus that revolutionised mankind's understanding of the world and the cosmos. Dr Sophie Waring is your guide to the orrery...

You can see fine working examples of orreries, such as this one, on display at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

Mankind has always been curious about our place in the cosmos. For millennia we, rather smugly, believed that Earth was at the centre of the universe with celestial bodies orbiting around us. This was challenged by astronomers who made heliocentric (sun-centred) models of the universe after observing the movement of the planets. The first of these models was described by mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543. He justified his system with astronomical observations and a rich geometric description of his model. It is this sun-centred model of the universe that an orrery usually depicts.

The great patron of scientific thinking, the Earl of Orrery, was given one of the first models and bequeathed his name to the invention. English clock makers George Graham and Thomas Tompion built the first modern orrery around 1704 while Christiaan Huygens published details of his newly-built planetary machine in 1703 from Paris.

The clockwork nature of these contraptions reflected our new mechanistic explanations of the universe made possible by Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity. Orreries would reflect and inspire the sense of awe people had in the 18th century as they discovered their place within a ‘clockwork universe.’

You can see working orreries on display at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.

Words: Dr Sophie Waring, Modern Collections Curator, Museum of the History of Science, mhs.ox.ac.uk. 

This originally featured in issue 5 of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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Issue five is on sale now!

We're thrilled to announce that issue five of Ernest Journal hits the shelves this week and it's a corker of an issue, exploring the interconnected themes of time travel, slow journeys and solar exploration. Read on for more about what's in store and order a copy today...

24-page guide to Vancouver Island

Seek out old growth forests and storm-battered beaches in Tofino, before exploring a puzzle of islands characterized by fiercely independent and resourceful people and a finely balanced ecosystem.

Curious histories

Enter the unruly world of made-up languages; meet the small cryonics community striving for immortality; conduct time traveling experiments in your sleep and explore everyday tales of radiation. 

Spaces

Meet the photographer capturing every RNLI station in Britain using a Victorian photographic technique; learn about the humble geologist and map maker that changed the world, and explore time bending images that have been painstakingly restored to change the way we think about the past.

Slow adventure

Seek out simple shelter in the mountain bothies of the northwest Highlands; follow in the footsteps of The Peregrine author JA Baker, and journey with Tres Hombres as she ploughs across the Atlantic, carrying cocoa and barrel-aged rum in her wooden belly to herald the start of a new slow cargo movement.

Timeless style

Chart the evolution of British style through the post-war era of burgeoning café culture, modernist architecture and rock’n’roll, and explore the social history of the fisherman’s smock. 

Workmanship

Pick up the journey of an antiques restorer who plies his trade on the open road; explore the practice of solargraphy, a long exposure technique that records the path of our sun, and discover a movement that sees artists, perfumers and chefs blend their practice to create intriguing multi-sensory experiences.

Wild food

Unravel the history of the vindaloo; reimagine the strange, unsettling, yet magical recipes of The Futurist Cookbook with Bompas & Parr, and gather wild plants from the forest floor to make your own herbal first aid kit.

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