"The Claim: Lack of Sleep Increases the Risk of Catching a Cold" (NYT)

"As cold season approaches, many Americans stock up on their vitamin C and echinacea. But heeding the age-old advice about catching up on sleep might be more important.

Studies have demonstrated that poor sleep and susceptibility to colds go hand in hand, and scientists think it could be a reflection of the role sleep plays in maintaining the body’s defenses.

In a recent study for The Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists followed 153 men and women for two weeks, keeping track of their quality and duration of sleep. Then, during a five-day period, they quarantined the subjects and exposed them to cold viruses. Those who slept an average of fewer than seven hours a night, it turned out, were three times as likely to get sick as those who averaged at least eight hours.

Sleep and immunity, it seems, are tightly linked. Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce greater levels of disease-fighting white blood cells — but not red blood cells, even though both are produced in bone marrow and stem from the same precursor. And researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have shown that species that sleep more have greater resistance against pathogens.

“Species that have evolved longer sleep durations,” the Planck scientists wrote, “appear to be able to increase investment in their immune systems and be better protected.”

THE BOTTOM LINE Research suggests that poor sleep can increase susceptibility to colds."

"For First Time, AIDS Vaccine Shows Some Success" (NYT)

"Scientists said Thursday that a new AIDS vaccine, the first ever declared to protect a significant minority of humans against the disease, would be studied to answer two fundamental questions: why it worked in some people but not in others, and why those infected despite vaccination got no benefit at all.

The vaccine — known as RV 144, a combination of two genetically engineered vaccines, neither of which had worked before in humans — was declared a qualified success after a six-year clinical trial on more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand. Those who were vaccinated became infected at a rate nearly one-third lower than the others, the sponsors said Thursday morning.

“I don’t want to use a word like ‘breakthrough,’ but I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is a very important result,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial’s backers.

“For more than 20 years now, vaccine trials have essentially been failures,” Dr. Fauci said. “Now it’s like we were groping down an unlit path, and a door has been opened. We can start asking some very important questions.”

It will still, however, take years of work before a vaccine that could end the epidemic, which has killed about 25 million people, can even be contemplated.

“We often talk about whether a vaccine is even possible,” said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC. “This is not the vaccine that ends the epidemic and says, ‘O.K., let’s move on to something else.’ But it’s a fabulous new step that takes us in a new direction.”"...

"Blue Is the New Black" (NYT)

"Women are getting unhappier, I told my friend Carl.

“How can you tell?” he deadpanned. “It’s always been whine-whine-whine.”

Why are we sadder? I persisted.

“Because you care,” he replied with a mock sneer. “You have feelings.”

Oh, that.

In the early ’70s, breaking out of the domestic cocoon, leaving their mothers’ circumscribed lives behind, young women felt exhilarated and bold.

But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.

Before the ’70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there’s a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.

As Arianna Huffington points out in a blog post headlined “The Sad, Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling”: “It doesn’t matter what their marital status is, how much money they make, whether or not they have children, their ethnic background, or the country they live in. Women around the world are in a funk.”

...

One area of extreme distraction is kids. “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” “It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.”

...

Add this to the fact that women are hormonally more complicated and biologically more vulnerable. Women are much harder on themselves than men.

They tend to attach to other people more strongly, beat themselves up more when they lose attachments, take things more personally at work and pop far more antidepressants.

...

Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate — and Restylane — their 20s into their 60s.

Buckingham says that greater prosperity has made men happier. And they are also relieved of bearing sole responsibility for their family finances, and no longer have the pressure of having women totally dependent on them.

Men also tend to fare better romantically as time wears on. There are more widows than widowers, and men have an easier time getting younger mates.

Stevenson looks on the bright side of the dark trend, suggesting that happiness is beside the point. We’re happy to have our newfound abundance of choices, she said, even if those choices end up making us unhappier.

A paradox, indeed."

"Twitter Creator Gives Clues About His Next Venture" (GigaOm)

"Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey during a talk today at Webster University in St. Louis outlined his next venture, which he hinted may be focused on health care and financial services, according to the Wall Street Journal. Dorsey, who is now the chairman of Twitter’s board after stepping down as CEO last year, said the city of St. Louis would play a “very large part” in his next venture, according to a local paper.

Dorsey’s interest in health care mirrors other tech companies’ plans to enter the space, including Dell, Verizon and Google. Yet tech companies excited about opportunities in health care will likely have to deal with government regulation and frustrated doctors who may have previously invested in technology for their practice but received little return. That could prove a daunting task for a nascent company like Dorsey’s.

During his speech, Dorsey said that the new venture, which is currently in stealth mode, will be focused on Twitter’s core values: immediacy, transparency and approachability."