Determining the passage of time in our world of ticking clocks and oscillating pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between 'then' and 'now'.
Down at the quantum scale of buzzing electrons, however, 'then' can't always be anticipated. Worse still, 'now' often blurs into a haze of vagueness. A stopwatch simply isn't going to work for some scenarios.
A potential solution could be found in the very shape of the quantum fog itself, according to a 2022 study by researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden. Their experiments on the wave-like nature of something called a Rydberg state revealed a novel way to measure time that doesn't require a precise starting point.
Rydberg atoms are the over-inflated balloons of the particle kingdom. Puffed up with lasers instead of air, these atoms contain electrons in extremely high energy states, orbiting far from the nucleus.
Scientists continue to discover ways in which a lack of sleep affects our mental and physical health – now a new study reveals that a serious lack of shut-eye can even influence the way we see other people.
When we've gone without sleep, we spend less time fixing our gaze on other people's faces, the study shows. As that's a crucial part of reading social cues from those around us, our relationships could potentially suffer.
What's more, after sleep loss, angry faces appear to us to be less trustworthy and less healthy, while neutral or fearful faces come across as less attractive, compared to when we've had a full night's sleep.
"Since facial expressions are crucial to understanding the emotional state of others, spending less time fixating on faces after acute sleep loss may increase the risk that you interpret the emotional state of others inaccurately or too late," says sleep researcher Lieve van Egmond from Uppsala University in Sweden.
The study authors recruited 45 participants who went through a night without sleep, and another with 8 hours of slumber, separated by at least a week. In each case, eye-tracking sensors were used the morning after to monitor the gaze of the subjects as they looked at images of faces.
A mix of expressions were shown on the faces: happy, angry, fearful, and neutral. Participants were also asked to rate the attractiveness, trustworthiness and healthiness of the faces they saw. READ MORE...
