How did we come from drilling holes in our skulls to complex procedures such as organ transplants and keyhole surgery? Ekaterina Tikhoniouk explains

Advancements in nutrition and technology as well as a rise in living standards have greatly increased our overall life expectancy. During the Middle Ages, an average adult had a life expectancy of only about 30 years, while in ancient Rome the average person was only expected to make it to 20.

In 1901 an average male born in the UK was expected to live to 45, while now, a century later, he is expected to live to 77. But the main factor that is allowing people to live longer and better lives are the dramatic advancements in medicine that happened the world over and continue improving to this day.

Human beings have been practising medicine for a very long time. Medicine is termed as the science of diagnosing, treating or preventing disease and other damage to the body and mind. It has been around for millennia, as ancient and even prehistoric civilisations had their own beliefs about what caused death and illness. Throughout history, illness has been attributed to witchcraft, demons, adverse astral influences or the will of the gods.

It is believed that the earliest forms of medicine were practised as early as the Stone Age, but these were often misguided attempts to alleviate symptoms of illnesses, often through superstitious practises. A lot of this early medicine consisted of wild guesses at what caused the various diseases that afflicted the population. Ancient medicine was a crude system of trial and error, predominantly based on appeasing the gods or spirits through ritual or sacrifice, or expelling the evil spirit troubling the sick person.

Throughout the long process of discovering which plants were edible, the Stone Age man did occasionally stumble upon plants with natural properties that alleviated certain symptoms or reduced pain when ingested. Herbal medicine was the earliest medical practise with a scientific basis. Some of their discoveries have been disproven, while others play an integral part in our modern medicinal practises. Curare, made from poisonous bark by South American tribes in the Amazonian jungle, was smeared on the tips of their arrows to paralyse their prey. Nowadays a modern variant of curare is used as an important muscle relaxant during surgery.

It is hard to tell how long mankind has known about the medicinal properties of certain herbs, but the oldest medical procedure known to man is the trepanation of skulls, which, according to archaeological evidence, dates back to roughly 2,000BC.

Trepanation is an age-old medical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull. Stone Age societies believed that this relieved migraines by releasing the evil spirits trapped within the sufferer’s head, as well as curing epilepsy and mental disorders. It is only by fluke that this sometimes worked by relieving inter-cranial pressure.

Well-preserved mummies survive in Peru with this hole in their skull, many of which show signs of healing in the bone around the wound, suggesting that as many as half of these so-called patients survived the crude and most likely gruesome operation. Gradually, a growing base of medical knowledge began to build up, mainly through chance observation.

The ancient Egyptians developed the beginnings of a primitive medical tradition, with their earliest known surgery carried out almost 5,000 years ago. The earliest physician is also accredited to ancient Egypt. In countries such as Greece, India and China, early attempts began at the same time to treat medicine as a science instead of a superstitious ritual.

The world’s first plastic surgeon is accredited to India. Susruta, who lived during the sixth century BC, was the founder of Indian medicine and creator of rhinoplasty, a plastic surgery technique that alters the shape of the patient’s nose.  This was a very important operation in ancient India as cutting off the nose was a common punishment for adultery during the time, and is the second most common plastic surgery procedure nowadays.

The roots of modern medicine lie in ancient Greece, with the famous Greek doctor Hippocrates who is often termed the father of modern medicine. As well as being the first documented chest surgeon, Hippocrates was the first to document several diseases and medical conditions and many of his findings are still valid to this day. Most famously he is said to have created the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, which is still in use today.

This golden age of medicine was torn apart by the fall of the Roman Empire and during the Dark Ages, a shadow of superstition settled back over Europe. While at the same time the new medicine continued to flourish in the east during the Middle Ages.

During the Middle Ages, western medicine was based on the theory of the four humours of the body, that the human body contains four fluids or ‘humours’- blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Most doctors believed that illnesses were caused by an imbalance of these humours in the body, which had to be restored in order to cure the patient. Medieval doctors were great advocates of bloodletting, believing that regular bleeding would keep the body healthy.

Ideas about the origins and cures of diseases were often based on the widespread beliefs of the time, and fear and superstition played a large part in medieval medicine. In a largely uneducated society rife with ignorance and superstition, many thought that illnesses were a punishment from God and caused directly by the sins of the person. Instead of consulting a doctor, many turned to prayer or gruelling pilgrimages in the hope of being cured of their illnesses or conditions.

Medieval medicine was set back even further by the Black Death that swept through Europe in the middle of the 14th century, killing approximately 25 million people in just under five years. This pandemic was widely blamed on the sins of the people of Europe.

But later centuries saw a turnabout in medical practises. During the 18th century medicine saw very slow progress, but the start of the 19th century saw the development of the world’s first vaccine, the first successful human blood transfusion and the first uses of general anaesthetics and in 1884, cocaine (which was discovered in the 1960s) was used as a general anaesthetic before being replaced with Novocaine. Louis Pasteur identified germs as the cause of disease in the 1850’s, while William Roentgen discovered x-rays in 1895. Another golden age of medicine had begun.

Before the 1930s there weren’t many effective treatments in existence: we had insulin, x-rays, anaesthesia, vaccines against a number of illnesses, aspirin and the electrocardiograph. Then suddenly, in the space of 40 years or so, science poured out a constant stream of miracles. Many things that we associate with modern medicine were discovered in that time: treatments like antibiotics in the 1940s, dialysis in 1943, kidney transplants in 1963 and heart transplants in 1967, intensive care, heart surgery, almost every drug you’ve ever heard of, and more.

These miracle treatments form the cornerstones of our modern medical practises. But alongside these great medical advances, some of the more ancient and bizarre treatments of the past have survived.

Mercury was used since ancient times to treat just about anything and has even been found in Egyptian tombs dating as far back as 1,500BC. It was believed to heal wounds, cure illnesses and prolong life. In second century China, the study of mercury was centred on a search for an elixir of life. It was also used to treat syphilis starting from the 16th century.

The 19th century saw the production of a cough syrup containing heroin, as well as a demand for children’s soothing syrups, each ounce of which could contain up to 65mg of pure heroin, as well as other narcotics such as cannabis and powdered opium.

One of the more gruesome and unethical practises was lobotomy, a surgical procedure in which an ice pick is inserted through the eye socket and into the brain, severing certain neurological connections particularly in the frontal lobe. Thought to treat depression, violent behaviour and mental illnesses, this procedure was brought into many psychiatric hospitals during the 1950s. It became so popular that its inventor, Antonio Egaz Moniz, was given a Nobel Prize in 1949. By the 1960s, parents were getting them for their moody teenagers, and over 18,000 people were lobotomised before this practise was deemed barbaric.

Medicine is on the brink of several important advancements. Scientists are still fighting to find a cure for cancer, stem cell research is giving us more and more possibilities and some predict that in the not-so-distant future, we will be able to grow artificial organs. Scientists talk excitedly about one day alleviating ageing and death altogether.

The medical beliefs of ancient civilizations, of the Middle Ages and even of the past century or two seem alien and bizarre to us. It is impossible to comprehend how people thought drilling a hole in your skull could relieve headaches. But medicine and its related technology is advancing at such an increasingly fast rate so that in the years to come, future generations may look back on our medical practises and wonder how we managed at all.

You wake up to muffled footsteps outside your room, pinned to the bed with fear and only able to move your eyes. The bedroom door opens then closes, the shuffling steps near your bed, and you become aware of an evil presence in the room with you. You try to move or shout, but nothing comes out and only your eyes move back and forth.

The heavy pressure on your chest gets worse and you find it increasingly hard to breathe. It feels as though this evil presence is holding you down and choking you. Bright lights and shapes move around the room and inanimate voices whisper or scream into your ear. What seems like hours drag by, until finally the frightening weight on your chest disappears and you abruptly regain movement of your body.

Sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? But this is no horror story and for an increasing number of people, the above experience is a familiar occurrence, while others only experience it once or twice in their entire lifetime. These nightmarish symptoms are typical of a sleep disorder called sleep paralysis.

Sleep paralysis is described as the most terrifying of all sleep disorders. Once considered very rare, recent studies have revealed that almost half of all people have suffered some form of sleep paralysis at least once during their lives.

According to current studies, 17 to 20 per cent of people report having some form of sleep paralysis during their lives, although many leading specialists in the area believe the figure to be much higher. According to David J Hufford, Professor Emeritus of Medical Humanities in the Penn State College of Medicine and lifelong researcher of subjects such as sleep paralysis, a large amount of cases of sleep paralysis remain unreported. There are even people who had experienced sleep paralysis and believed themselves to be mentally ill, prior to hearing about the condition.

Clinically, this disorder is characterised by a brief period of being unable to perform voluntary movements which occurs at the onset of sleep or when awakening, either during the night or in the morning. In a nutshell, sleep paralysis is summarised as the sufferer being awake but unable to move for a period of time, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to between 15 and 20 minutes.

This is the basic definition, although in over 80 per cent of cases, it is accompanied by an acute sense of danger as well as terrifying hallucinatory experiences (likened to waking dreams) that include any or all of the following:  feeling of pressure on the chest, feeling phantom hands on the throat, the sound of shuffling or dragging footsteps, noises and bright lights, phantom voices, visions of humanoid forms, sensation of floating and out-of-body experiences. The sound of footsteps and feeling of pressure on the chest are the most common experiences reported by sufferers of this frightening condition.

The phenomenon has been known to man for centuries. History is littered with reports of sleep paralysis and the hallucinations that often accompany it. In Eastern culture, descriptions of the condition date back as far as 400BC. The famous Greek physician Galen attempted to explain these ‘nightmares’ logically, believing them to be caused by gastric disturbances.

Some scholars believe that sleep paralysis accounted for quite a number of centuries-old claims of nocturnal demonic activity and witch attack, as until about three centuries ago, sleep paralysis was widely explained as the work of evil spirits.  Legends have arisen in every culture as a means of explaining why a person awakes unable to move, with a weight pressing down on his chest.

In western culture, incubi sitting on the chests of their victims apparently caused these episodes. In Old English, the name for these beings was ‘mare’, while the Icelandic term is ‘mara’ that translates as ‘The Crusher’.

In South Asia, sleep paralysis is considered to be an encounter with evil djinns and demons. In Pakistan and Iran, this evil entity is known as a ‘bakhtak’, while in eastern culture the demon is the evil female spirit called ‘Lilitu’ who attacks men in their sleep. The ‘Old Hag’ is a female demon in British folklore that sat on the chests of those sleeping on their backs, sometimes choking her victims.

Several scientists have proposed that there is a direct link between sleep paralysis and the increasingly huge number of alleged alien abductions reported every year. This is especially evident in the USA, where the 1992 survey known as Roper Poll claimed that over four million Americans were victims of alien abduction. When scrutinised closely, many of the cases of reported alien abductions have common characteristics that sound all too familiar. Many testimonies report flashing lights, strange sounds, figures moving around the victim, sensations of paralysis and levitation and intense pressure on his or her chest.

Richard McNally, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who has studied alleged alien abductees for the past decade, is convinced that these people were actually victims of sleep paralysis, whose hallucinations had been generated by their exposure to popular alien culture.

Due to the advent of the electrooculogram (EOG) in the 1950s, we have, after thousands of years of blaming it on demons incubi and other evil spirits, finally discovered the real scientific basis behind this strange phenomenon.

The disorder is produced by a physiological mechanism in the brain. Human sleep consists of two states of brain activity; non-REM sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep which alternate in cycles.

During non-REM sleep, the body can toss and turn in bed, as well as engage in activities such as sleeptalking and sleepwalking. But during REM, sleep atonia occurs – the brain locks down the muscles in the body to prevent the body from acting out its dreams and hurting itself during the dream stage. Physiologically, sleep paralysis is closely related to REM atonia, the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM sleep.

Sleep paralysis strikes when a person is moving into or out of REM sleep and results when the nervous and endocrine systems erringly continue to send out signals for movement inhibition, even when the person has woken directly from REM sleep. When this happens, the person wakes up unable to move for a short period of time until the brain realises it is awake and stops inhibiting movement. Thus, the individual experiences sleep paralysis, as demonstrated in a series of experiments by Kzuhiko Fukuda of Fukushima University.

But what is the scientific basis behind the hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis? According to scientists, these too are a result of brain activity. Activity in the temporal lobe induces auditory hallucinations, while the visual cortex generates visual stimuli, which manifests in the person’s mind as a malevolent presence watching them.

Researchers Adie and Wilson discovered that many sleep paralysis sufferers also suffer from narcolepsy, a sleep disorder characterized by sudden and uncontrollable episodes of deep sleep during the day. Sleep paralysis may also occur in those who do not suffer from narcoleptic fits, a condition called ‘isolated recurrent sleep paralysis’. Sleep paralysis occurs either at sleep onset (predormital form) or when waking up (postdormital form). Isolated sleep paralysis usually occurs when waking up in 64 per cent of patients, while in narcolepsy-related and familial sleep paralysis, the episodes usually happen at sleep onset.

Detailed research on sleep patterns, as well as the anthropological work of researchers such as Robert Ness and David J Hufford, has given us a new understanding of what we now know to be a neurological glitch and not an evil age-old entity trying to hurt us at night.

Energy comes just a little too easily these days. We switch on the ignitions of our cars without thinking about how much oil there is left in the world. We often turn on the light switch or plug our phone charger into the wall without even wondering where all this electricity is coming from. Is it coming from renewable sources? Or are we thoughtlessly destroying the last reserves of fossil fuels that will certainly not replenish themselves anytime soon?

Most of us seem to take it for granted that these fossil fuels of oil, gas and coal will last forever, while in reality at the rate that we’re burning up fuel, it’s estimated that we would have fully depleted our planet’s oil reserves within the next 15 years and its turf and coal reserves by 2020.

Humans have been deriving energy from the things around them for millennia. Prehistoric man built fires from tree branches for warmth. Around the year 8,000 BC, man discovered coal. Farmers began cutting turf on their bogs, to burn during the winter months.

A great leap forward was made with the discovery of the steam engine at the start of the 18th century. Steam-powered trains, their furnaces fed with enormous amounts of coal allowed for great transportation networks to spring up all over the globe, which marked the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Thales of Miletus had known about electricity in 600 BC, but Otto von Guericke did not build the first static generator until 1675 AD. Electricity had very little use until the invention of the telegraph around 1840. It was quickly followed by the telephone, radio and television. Edison added lighting in 1880. Successful batteries had begun appearing in the 1840s and onwards.

But there is evidence that batteries have actually been around for much longer than previously thought.

In 1936, controversy was sparked by the discovery of the so-called ‘Baghdad Battery’ that was discovered during the excavation of the ruins of a 2,000-year-old village near Baghdad. Believed to date back to Parthian times, this particular find has been baffling archaeologists and scientists for years.

The ‘battery’ consists of a bright yellow clay urn sealed with an asphalt plug. The urn contains a sheet-copper cylinder with a narrow iron rod struck through the asphalt stopper and hanging down the centre of the copper tube. The inside of the asphalt stopper bears the undeniable marks of acid corrosion. The whole mechanism bears undeniable similarity to a modern-day battery.

Experiments with the Baghdad Battery have determined that, if filled with acid, it can generate between 1.5 and 2 volts. Although this is quite a small amount of power, there’s a possibility that many of these primitive ‘batteries’ could have been linked together to achieve higher voltages. But what was its purpose? Was this small clay urn used for electroplating (gilding a material in gold), or possibly for the treatment of pain? No one knows even now in the 21st century the ‘Baghdad Battery’ remains a mystery.

In the 2,000 years since then, our society has become completely and utterly dependent on energy and now, dwindling fossil fuel resources have forced us to come up with alternative solutions for powering our cars, buildings and factories.

The most common mainstream forms of alternative energy are wind, hydro and solar power.  But traditional wind and solar sources are usually low intensity sources, with large areas of land needed to collect enough energy to power a densely populated area.

But what other options do we have? Surely, there must be more inventive and efficient ways to generate energy.

In fact, more and more bizarre but plausible energy solutions have been arising in recent years, from things such as viruses, alcohol or even man-made tornadoes. There is even the possibility of deriving energy from fruit.

Creating a battery from a lemon is a common science project for kids. A metal nail galvanised in zinc and copper penny are stuck into a large fresh lemon, creating a weak single cell battery. The nail and coin work as electrodes, while the lemon juice is the conducting electrolyte and four lemons linked together can actually create enough current to light an LED bulb for a surprising amount of time.

Potatoes, tomatoes and other fruits or vegetables that contain acids can also be used to light LED bulbs. It would take over 9,000 lemons to power a single flashlight bulb, but it’s a start.

Another bizarre source of energy are onions. Californian onion farmers Bill and Steve Gill have discovered a way to turn onion juice into fuel. An anaerobic digester converts treated onions into biogas, which is then turned into methane. This methane is pumped into a 600-kilowatt fuel cell to make electricity.

Common viruses that are harmless to humans can be harnessed to create batteries that have the same capacity and performance as typical rechargeable batteries. Researchers at MIT are currently genetically engineering viruses that build cathodes and anodes, creating prototypes the size of a coin.

Scientists in California have genetically engineered bacteria that excrete renewable petroleum when fed agricultural waste. The company LS9 claims that this new oil will be carbon negative.

Natural tornadoes contain vast amounts of energy. The average tornado contains as much energy as a typical power plant. This prompted Canadian engineer Louis Michaud to create a way of harvesting all this potential energy by creating man-made tornadoes in a controlled environment using a prototype he calls the Atmospheric Vortex Engine. He claims that with a proper facility, he could extract as much as 200 megawatts of electricity that is enough to power a small city.

Alcohol may play an important part in future energy production. In Sweden, hundreds of thousands of litres of confiscated alcohol are shipped to waste-fuel plants in Linkoping, where they are added to other waste and turned into methane. Several Scottish whiskey distilleries run their own plants on by-products of the distilling process.

Meanwhile, in countries such as Brazil and America, alcohol is being used more and more as fuel. Bioalcohols are alcohols obtained from biological sources. Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermenting the sugar components of plants. It is made mostly from sugar and starch crops. Ethanol can be used to fuel vehicles in its pure form, as in Brazil that has an ethanol fuel programme, which means that many of its vehicles run efficiently on this biofuel, or added to gasoline in order to improve emissions.

It sounds quite bizarre, but with this rate of advancement, one day we may all live in a world where you can fill your car with beer, and plug your television into the nearest piece of fruit.

There have always been violent killers lurking in the background of every society and civilisation of the world, going right back to ancient times. History’s earliest serial murderer is thought to be Lui Pengeli of China, a cousin of the Han Emperor Jing. In the years after being made king of his region in 144 BC, Pengeli is believed to have killed over 100 people for sport. Another infamous early murderer was Vlad the Impaler, a 15th century Wallachian prince who impaled over 20,000 people.

But the first ‘modern’ serial killer of our time is considered to be Jack the Ripper, an unidentified individual who butchered a number of prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888.

The first known American serial murderer was H. H. Holmes, who was convicted of nine murders and hanged in 1896. Holmes confessed to killing 27 people in the three years before his arrest, although many investigators believed that he might have actually had over 100 victims. There have been many other notorious serial killers in the last century such as Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper, David Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacy and Ed Gein.

But what exactly is a serial killer? There are many different definitions, but the most common is that a serial killer constitutes someone that has murdered three or more people. All the murders often have elements in common with each other. The killer sometimes preys on people that are all a certain age, gender or profession, or murders every victim in a particular fashion.

Moreover, every serial killer has his or her own personal ‘stamp’. Ed Gein preyed on middle-aged women; while Elizabeth Bathory killed young virgins and bathed in their blood in the belief that this would keep her young forever.

The actual term ‘serial killer’ was coined in the mid-1970s by FBI agent Robert K. Ressler and was named after the serial films he grew up watching.

The FBI defines a serial killer as someone who murders more than three victims, one at a time, with a cooling off period between each kill, differentiating serial killers from mass murderers (who kill four or more people at the same time), or spree killers (who murder in multiple locations over a very short period of time). Serial killers, on the other hand, kill over longer periods of time, sometimes with years passing in between kills.

But what is it about these despicable sociopaths that we find so fascinating? It is possible that serial killers attract so much interest from the general public because what they do is often so bizarre and horrific. Ever since the era of Jack the Ripper, serial killers have instilled terror in the masses, as well as a sense of morbid curiosity.

Tales and rumours of Jack the Ripper’s killings spread like wildfire through 19th century London (eventually becoming horror stories told to frighten misbehaving children for many generations thereafter). Similarly, frenzies of media coverage surrounded the cases of notorious killers such as Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader.

In fact, the past two decades have seen the rise of a bizarre new phenomenon: the buying and selling of serial killer memorabilia or ‘murderabilia’. Personal items of serial killers, such as clothing, letters, paintings and sculptures can be bought over the internet, as well as serial killer action figures, calendars and trading cards.

This morbid fascination with serial killers is as strong as ever in our pop culture – you need look no further than the popular TV series Dexter. This series, already in its fifth season, describes the life of Dexter Morgan, a blood-splatter expert who works in the Miami forensics department.

Dexter is also a pathological serial killer whose stepfather had, from an early age, taught him to control his overwhelming urges to kill.  Instead of butchering innocent people, Dexter tracks down other serial killers – those that have slipped through the grasp of the Miami police department, or who had been wrongfully deemed not guilty of their crimes in court. This self-professed monster then exacts his own form of punishment on them by personally butchering them.

The series Dexter dispels one of the most deep-rooted myths about serial killers. On the outside, Dexter Morgan is mild-mannered, outgoing and a great father figure for his girlfriend’s kids. He has contact with his sister, his girlfriend, her two kids and countless colleagues on a daily basis, yet no one is able to see through his facade.

The show underlines the downright frightening fact that even in real life, it is almost impossible to detect a serial killer. Serial killers often lead elaborate double lives; a serial killer can be a caring father and husband on the outside and a homicidal maniac on the inside. Anyone you know can be a serial killer; the postman, your sister’s boyfriend, the man who collects your rubbish every Tuesday, even your own husband.

The majority of serial killers aren’t recluses. In fact, many live in plain sight of their communities. For example, Ted Bundy, who was convicted of the murders of 33 women, was often seen as an attractive, charismatic man. Dennis Rader, the ‘BTK Killer’ who murdered ten victims in Kansas, was married with two kids and was a local government official, as well as president of his church.

There are many other myths and incorrect perceptions surrounding serial killers. If you were asked to visualise a serial killer, chances are you would imagine someone socially inept who has no friends or partners, was a loner in school, and tortured small animals as a child. The main issue that most people seem to agree on is that this serial killer would be completely and utterly insane.

Yet research and profiling of serial killers, as originally developed by the FBI’s Behavioural Sciences Unit in the 1970s, shows that almost all of the above assumptions are incorrect. Former FBI profiler John Douglas believes that most serial killers are psychopaths who are suffering from chronic mental disorders, with violent or abnormal social behaviours. Only a small handful are actually classified insane, such as Richard Trenton Chase, who believed he needed to drink human blood in order to stay alive.

Another myth is that serial killers have no social skills. According to demographics of serial killers throughout history, these people are often charming and well liked by their peers and community. While many describe themselves as ‘empty’ or ‘devoid of emotion’, they are very capable of faking emotions and good social interactions. Cold and calculating, they have no problems manipulating people. Many killers have subsequently stated that it is far too easy to fool people, especially psychiatrists, by simply telling people what they want to hear.

On the silver screen, serial killers have been glorified as evil geniuses, able to outsmart the police force at every turn. However, such ideas are ultimately rather fanciful, although many do have above average intelligence.

Another popular myth is that all serial killers are men, but profilers approximate that about 10 per cent are actually women. One type of female serial killer is termed the ‘angel of mercy’. These often work in professions such as nursing and as doctors in hospitals. Stealthily murdering one patient after another, usually through drugs overdoses, these serial killers believe that they are releasing patients from their pain.

It is extremely difficult to understand the psyche of a serial killer, but it is even harder to ascertain why these people are compelled to kill their innocent victims. Here we run up against the age-old argument of nature versus nurture. Are serial killers created through childhood trauma or abuse, or are they simply born that way? And is there such a thing as a serial killer gene?

Unfortunately, research into serial killers to date cannot give us a solid answer, but serial killers’ profiles do follow certain trends. Children who grow up to become serial killers are often from foster homes or single-parent homes where they were raised by a domineering mother, as well as suffering physical or sexual abuse at the hands of family members. The Macdonald triad, which is a set of sociopathic characteristics developed by J.M. Macdonald in 1963, identifies animal cruelty, continued bedwetting past the age of five and pyromania as markers of sociopathic and possibly homicidal tendencies.

Some serial killers have developed an internalised hatred of their overbearing, controlling mothers, sometimes without even realising it. Ed Gein chose victims that were of roughly the same age as his domineering mother. After being rejected by his real mother, David Berkowitz became violent and murderous. He didn’t attack his mother directly, but the majority of his victims were similar in appearance to her.

On the other hand, many serial killers also had a background of mental health problems and disorders, which may have had some influence on the development of their personalities. John Wayne Gacy suffered psychomotor epilepsy – a condition that caused a clouding of consciousness. He also experienced increased emotional bursts of anger and fear, which could have influenced his behaviour in adulthood.

It is impossible to pinpoint what exactly causes a person to become a serial killer, but another theory centres on the neglect and abuse that many serial killers experience as children. A study conducted by the FBI showed that each case had “similar patterns of severe childhood neglect”. Most killers were physically or sexually abused as children and it is this pattern of abuse and neglect that may have led them to grow up without a sense of anyone but themselves.

It seems that these poor, abused, unloved and unwanted children never learned to love, trust or empathise, and eventually grew up to become monsters.

Fangs bared, the ghastly black-cloaked vampire bends over the sleeping woman. His victim is a beautiful virgin dressed in a billowing white nightgown that signifies her purity and innocence. With a sinister hiss, the vampire bites into her fragile neck.

This scene is so popular and well-known throughout our culture, featuring in countless films, books and videogames that it is hard to find someone who is unfamiliar with it. And this is not only because of the recent wave of interest in vampire culture sparked by the Twilight phenomenon. The myth of the vampire had already integrated itself into our mainstream culture long before that, but where does it come from, and is there any fact to the legend?

Although tales of blood-sucking ghosts and demons are millennia-old and appear in the folklore of many ancient cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Ancient Greeks and Romans, the term vampire as we know it only really became popular in western Europe during the start of the eighteenth century. This occurred because of an influx of vampire superstition from eastern areas such as the Balkans, Greece and Romania, where vampire legends were rife.

These mysterious, evil beings had seized the imaginations of the Western world, and since then the legend of the vampire has continued to grow.

It was Irishman Bram Stoker’s immensely successful novel Dracula that generated the image of the sophisticated vampire, creating a basis for modern vampire fiction. The legend of the vampire exploded onto the silver screen with numerous films based on the popular book, such as the landmark silent film Nosferatu.

The last twenty years have seen a wide array of series and films about vampires, ranging from shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to movies like Interview with the Vampire, the Russian Night Watch, the Twilight Saga and True Blood.

But what is it about vampires that appeals to us so strongly? The classical myth of the vampire is about society trying to deal with its fear of death. People identify with immortal vampires because it lets them temporarily escape from their own mortality, and the mortality of their loved ones.

Although vampires cannot see their own reflections in the mirror, they are in fact a reflection of the culture of the era that created them. The different issues and fears of each time-period were reflected in its portrayal of the epitome of evil – the vampire.

The vampire has evolved in tandem with the society around him and distinct changes can be seen in the portrayal of vampires throughout the decades. Bram Stoker’s 1897 Count Dracula was anything but handsome and aristocratic – he had a large nose, pointed ears, squat fingers and hair growing in the palms of his hands. Stoker’s villain channelled the repressed sexuality of the Victorian era, as well as the subservience of women in their society. He was the perfect vessel for the fears and desires of that era.

But in the 1931 film Dracula, the evil vampire was depicted as the epitome of style. A powerful, alluring eastern aristocrat, with slicked back hair and expensive clothing.  This became the standard for all vampires to come. During the cold war era, Dracula changed yet again, becoming the quintessential evil villain that audiences could not sympathise with. Christopher Lee’s 1958 depiction was a truly evil creature with long fangs and blood-red eyes.

A new trend has arisen in the past twenty-five years, with vampires becoming more and more youthful and rock ‘n’ roll. The vampires in films such as The Lost Boys, Queen of the Damned, Van Helsing and the popular series Buffy the Vampire Slayer exude sex appeal and charisma. A new breed of gothic vampires had emerged, and while often very attractive and alluring, they transform into grotesque creatures, revealing the ugliness beneath their handsome exterior.

Vampires of the previous years were pale, mysterious and often-vicious villains that burned in direct sunlight, while the vampires of the Twilight universe merely sparkle. Recent times have seen a shift towards genteel, abstinent vampires, such as the southern gentleman of the True Blood universe, or the brooding teens of the Twilight Saga and Vampire Diaries.

After centuries of existence in our culture’s imagination, vampires are more popular now than ever. But why are people, especially teens, so quick to immerse themselves in this myth? Believing that vampires are real in this day and age is ludicrous, yet they still hold an unnatural fascination over us.

Vampires do play an important part in mainstream culture, especially for teens and young adults. While in previous years, vampires were the villains, they have now become the new anti-heroes – caring yet potentially dangerous beings surrounded by mystery, excitement and sex appeal. They are killers by nature, yet they fight their base instincts for the sake of the humans they love.

In True Blood, the nineteenth-century vampire Bill Compton is a chivalrous and polite gentleman. In a world filled with both good and bad vampires, he is determined to protect his human girlfriend Sookie from the worst of his kind. Although he suffers from his thirst for blood, he reins in his basic instinct to kill, and it is his restraint that makes him more alluring in our eyes.

In the Twilight series, Edward is handsome, protective and in tune with his emotions and on the surface, he seems to be everything a teenage girl would ever want. As well as that, his brooding presence creates a sense of mystery and danger.  There are also obvious sexual overtones in Edward’s battle with the urge to drink his human love’s blood.

However, with the rise of vampires in popular culture, so too have people claimed to be vampires themselves. There is no scientific proof that any human needs blood to survive, but underground groups have sprung up, in which individuals drink each other’s blood, sleep in coffins and engage in what they believe to be vampiric behaviour. As with any activity involving fluid exchange, drinking the blood of another person is incredibly dangerous as diseases such as hepatitis and HIV can easily be transmitted. It seems that in the case of vampires, fantasy is a lot safer than reality.

For something that consumes about a third of our lives, sleep does not always go smoothly – because when some of the brain’s sleep mechanisms malfunction, serious medical problems can develop.

These disorders aren’t as uncommon as is believed. Almost everyone has had some experience with a sleeping disorder – like having trouble getting to sleep the night before a big event, or being unable to get up for 9am after 12 hours of solid sleep – or even waking up on your living room floor, with no idea how you got there.

In fact, surveys have shown that approximately 30 per cent of the general population has a sleeping disorder. More than half of those over 65 experience disturbed sleep, while a quarter of under-5s have some problem sleeping.

There are a total of 84 classified sleep disorders, which can be lumped into two broad categories: parasomnias and dyssomnias. Parasomnias involve unnatural movements, emotions and perceptions while sleeping or awakening. These include sleep-sex, sleep-walking and sleep-talking, teeth grinding and night terrors. On the other hand, dyssomnias are sleep disorders involving either too little or too much sleep, such as insomnia, sleep paralysis and hypersomnia.

Disorders such as insomnia are increasingly frequent around the globe, affecting one in ten people. There’s no single definition of insomnia that applies to all sufferers, but a general definition is having difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep over a period of at least three weeks. This deficit of nighttime sleep can create daytime fatigue, impairing mental and physical function during the waking hours. There can be many triggers, but one of the most commonly reported causes is stress – especially job-related anxiety. Other triggers include depression, lack of exercise, and poor sleeping habits.

There are many different ways to treat insomnia. Often a doctor may prescribe sleeping medication, but these can exacerbate the situation. Insomnia is not a disease that can be corrected with medication; it is rather a symptom of other personal or physical problems, such as high levels of stress, or physical pain or discomfort. Patients who take medications develop a tolerance to them, meaning that larger and larger doses are needed with time. Insomniacs also suffer rebound symptoms if they cease taking the medication, or try to take smaller doses, finding that they can’t sleep properly without a full dose. This common syndrome is called drug dependency insomnia.

On the other side of the scale lies hypersomnia, characterised by excessive amounts of sleep. Patients with hypersomnia will have no problem getting to sleep – in fact, they often experience recurrent bouts of drowsiness during the day, but even frequent naps do nothing to relieve symptoms. Even after 12-14 hours of sleep every night, they will have trouble waking up the next morning, and often be tired and unresponsive.

The Klein-Levin Syndrome, also nicknamed the Sleeping Beauty Disease, is the most known form of recurrent hypersomnia, involving long periods of acute drowsiness. These episodes can last from several days to several weeks, with the person sleeping close to 23 hours a day, only waking up to eat or go to the bathroom. Very little is known about its causes and treatments.

Narcolepsy is another sleeping disorder where the person has abnormal and unpredictable sleep patterns, and is characterised by recurrent “sleep attacks” that the patient cannot fight, usually lasting about 10-20 minutes. The sufferer feels refreshed by the sleep, but will often feel sleepy again several hours later.

A narcoleptic attack can include not only a bout of severe sleepiness, but also a loss in muscle tone and stability (cataplexy), which often forces the sufferer to collapse. This means that a person with narcoleptic cataplexy can enter deep sleep at inopportune moments – the sufferer could be walking down the street, watching TV, cooking dinner, or – even more worryingly – driving or doing something that requires full attention.

The exact causes of narcolepsy have not been fully documented, but some scientists believe that it is caused by the brain’s inability to adjust to a normal sleep-wake cycle. Other researchers have found that a malfunction in the immune system could be to blame. Both sides agree, however, that certain people are genetically predisposed to this disorder.

Narcolepsy is one of the most unusual and least common sleep disorders, affecting one in 4,000 people, but it’s not limited to humans – there have been case studies of narcoleptic dogs, and cats suffering bouts of cataplexy. There is no cure for narcolepsy, but in humans, it’s often treated by prescribing stimulant amphetamines, while antidepressants can help control cataplexy attacks.

Parasomnias are quite different from dyssomnias. The patient usually finds no problem with getting to sleep and staying asleep. Parasomnias are sometimes described as disorders of physiological arousal during sleep. The most well-known parasomnias are sleepwalking and sleeptalking, and some bizarre instances have even involved sleep-sex.

Sleepwalking (or ‘somnambulism’) occurs when the states of being awake and being asleep occur at the same time. The eyes are open and the muscles active, allowing sleepwalkers to act on the whims of their half-conscious brains – to quote Shakespeare, their “eyes are open, but their sense is shut.”

Sleepwalking is most common in children, with up to 17 per cent of under-12s experiencing one or more episodes during their childhoods, though this is something the child often grows out of. Roughly four per cent of adults still experience somnambulism, and the disorder appears to have a genetic factor, running in families. One researcher reported a family of grown members who were reunited for a holiday celebration. In the middle of the night they awoke to find that they had all gathered in the living room – in their sleep.

Somnambulists can do other bizarre things in their sleep, from merely walking around, and unlocking doors, to raiding the fridge, or having conversations with themselves or others in their sleep. This writer was privy to seeing an unnamed friend sit up in bed, eyes half-closed, bellowing “The key, the key! Where is the key?” before falling back to sleep. Other instances include waking up to find said friend sleepwalking repeatedly into the wall, or trying and failing to open the bedroom door.

Most people perceive sleepwalking as a comic, mildly embarrassing occurrence, and there are many anecdotes like the ones above – of sleepwalkers eating half the contents of the fridge and contentedly curling up on the kitchen floor, ‘redecorating’ the living room with muesli and moving furniture around, or putting their slippers in the microwave.

Although it is true that most instances of sleepwalking cause the individual no harm, others can be extremely dangerous – and even fatal – to the sleepwalker and those around them. Recently there have been many tragic examples of death through somnambulism, such as that of teenager Troy Heather who sleepwalked off a balcony during a holiday abroad.  There’s also a frightening increase in the number of ‘sleepdriving’ cases, in which sleepwalkers have gotten into their cars and driven for sometimes long distances, paying very little attention to traffic lights or other cars, and sometimes causing horrific road accidents.

Scientists are still not fully sure what exactly causes somnambulism, but they have discovered many relevant factors. In chronic sleepwalkers, for example, scientists have identified an accompanying respiratory disorder, which when fixed, lessens the recurrance of sleepwalking over time. Other factors include alcohol, drugs, and sleep deprivation, which is known to trigger sleepwalking in susceptible persons. Spending over 30 consecutive hours awake greatly increases the chance that a person will sleepwalk during their ‘recovery sleep’ that night.

Sleeptalking can be triggered by similar causes, but is much more common. Those who are awake can carry a conversation with the sleeptalker, as well as implant ideas into their heads. Sleeptalkers are usually very suggestible during this time.

Another disorder similar to sleepwalking is sleep-sex, a parasomnia that causes people to engage in sexual acts in their sleep. They may even go as far as sexual assault or rape, and have no memory of it the next morning. People who have a history of sleepwalking or sleep talking are more likely to exhibit sexsomnia episodes. There have been relatively few case studies of this disorder; the first legal case of sleep-sex was brought as recently as 2005 when a York man, charged with rape, was acquitted after being diagnosed with sexomnia. On the other side of the globe, an Australian woman was reported as leaving her house at night and having sex with strangers while sleepwalking.

So from insomnia to hypersomnia, sleepwalking to sleeptalking, there are many things that can go wrong during sleep. Sweet dreams…

Marijuana, weed, pot, grass, hash, reefe… the product of the plant Cannabis Sativa has been called many things throughout the years. With its earliest recorded usage being in the third millennium B.C., marijuana has been around for thousands of years.

Over five thousand years ago, Chinese physicians used it as anaesthetic, while the shamans of the Dacians – as well as the Hindus of Nepal and India – believed it to be a sacred drug and burned cannabis flowers in order to induce a state of trance. Many other cultures, such as the ancient Assyrians, Persians and Aryans, used it during important religious ceremonies.

But presently, there has been a large amount of debate and controversy over the legality of marijuana. One side is trying to legalise marijuana, while the other side battles to close the increasing number of Head Shops dotted around the country, which are sell ‘herbal’ cannabis by means of a loophole in legislation.

Marijuana has had a turbulent legal history – but ironically, the first cannabis law to ever exist was enacted in the state of Virginia in 1619, which actually ordered farmers to grow hemp, a variety of the cannabis plant. The next significant legislation, called the Marijuana Tax Act, was about in 1937. This tax stamp led to an instant halt in the production and usage of hemp and marijuana, declaring all forms of cannabis to be illegal. Illegal it would stay, except for a brief stint during the Second World War – the main reason for its original ban being that it was believed to make people violent.

Certainly this notion was not true. In this day and age we know that, for the most part, marijuana has the opposite effect: it induces relaxation. Short-term effects include a notable change in mood, increased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, and impairment in motor coordination and short-term memory.

Long-term effects are a lot less clear, but some studies report a shift in perception, and loss of drive and energy.  The user is more likely, in the words of one particularly opinionated study, to “become relaxed and lose interest in engaging in society, being content to sit around and smoke pot in their basement all day.” There’s also uncorroborated evidence that excessive use can lead to a decrease in mental capacity – in short, that it kills off brain cells.

But official studies have shown that prolonged use in young teens right through to adulthood can have damaging effects on their development, both social and psychological, as well as exacerbating existing genetic conditions of mental illness such as schizophrenia or psychosis. Other research has shown that the children of mothers who used it during pregnancy were more likely to develop problems with psychological development.

Another argument against marijuana is that it can act as a ‘gateway drug’ – that using it increases the probability of the person graduating to harder drugs. Some theorists have described pot as a stepping stone to cocaine. The ‘gateway’ theory has a valid point – because of the illegality of cannabis, its users are more likely to find themselves in situations which allow them to meet people who deal stronger drugs.

The legality of cannabis has been much debated, however, because it also has its benefits.  Recent research has shown us that small amounts of unadulterated marijuana may be even good for you. Experiments showed that there’s a solid possibility that controlled amounts of clean marijuana could stimulate the brain cells, improving memory and overall intelligence.

Cannabis actually has significant medicinal value – it can slow Alzheimer’s, relieve pain and stress, increase appetite, and alleviate nausea. Indeed, many medical conditions respond favourably to it, such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis, depression, anxiety and others.

Yet another myth about the drug was busted recently by Dr Donald Tashkin, emeritus professor at UCLA, who has published evidence finding that marijuana – when smoked the correct way – is not a direct cause of lung carcinoma. In fact, other studies have shown that excessive alcohol consumption has a much worse effect on an individual’s brain cells than a couple of ‘joints’. In fact, during the ten thousand years of marijuana usage, there hasn’t been a single documented case of death from marijuana alone.

Many experts predicted that keeping marijuana banned would do very little to actually stamp out its usage. And they were right – the States currently have one of the largest underground markets of any country, and approximately 0.8 per cent of the world’s adult population use it on a daily basis.

Activists for the legalisation of hash often liken the ongoing ban on marijuana to the prohibition of alcohol in America in the 1920’s, which failed disastrously – alcohol abuse escalated during those years of prohibition, creating even more social problems. Many believe that the same is happening with marijuana.

Keeping marijuana use illegal has created many problems. With no quality control, anything can be added to the bag, which makes underground cannabis potentially dangerous to a person’s health. Also, no control means anyone who knows the right people can access it- there’s no way to stop it from falling into the hands of children or adolescents. Thus, many believe that shutting down the Head Shops would merely push marijuana even further underground and cause even more damage.

The legality of marijuana is a strongly contested issue, and many people believe that marijuana should have no criminal penalty attached to it – and yet, marijuana remains as illegal now as it was seventy years ago.

All of us have probably heard the words ‘just friends’ used in some context or other, usually describing a purely platonic relationship between two people of opposite sexes. Similarly, most have heard of the myth surrounding this matter: that men and women simply cannot be friends. According to Harry Burns, an affable character from the film When Harry Met Sally: “Men and women can’t be friends – the sex part gets in the way.”

These famous words reflect the countless debates on this topic since time immemorial. Whether between relationship psychologists or drunken students crowded into a bar, the debate rages to this day.

One side of the argument states that men and women were destined to have purely romantic relationships, and that all existing cross-sex friendships are based purely on lust. On the other hand, some believe that in this modern day, men and women are capable of having purely platonic friendships.

There are probably grains of truth in both arguments. The way we view our relationships is still influenced, to some extent, by past times: in the previous era, society held the romance-only position; in fact, it was a scandal for a married man or woman to befriend someone of the opposite sex at all. Back then, men and women lived in different worlds: the women stayed at home while the men went off to work, so the main attraction was often purely a romantic one.

But changing times now mean that men and women stand on an equal ground – they live, work and relax together, often keeping sexual involvement and friendships separate.  But in modern society, to quote Harry Burns, does the ‘sex part’ still get in the way? According to Hollywood, it certainly does.

It seems that modern pop culture is veering towards an old-fashioned stance – nowadays, television teaches us that every male-female friendship will inevitably blossom into romance. This message is obvious in many romcoms and in chick flicks like Maid of Honour, When Harry Met Sally, Sex Drive, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Just Friends, 13 Going On 30… the list goes on and on. In fact, even the Harry Potter series isn’t immune to the trend, as evident in the changing relationship between Ron and Hermione. It seems that according to Hollywood, men and women just aren’t meant to have purely platonic relationships – and that being ‘just friends’ simply doesn’t happen. On the silver screen, friendship is merely a barrier that must be overcome in order for the pair to live happily ever after.

This sort of mindset has crept into everyday life – in the real world today, when a man and woman stand talking together, people can be quick to jump to conclusions. Many people point-blank refuse to believe that such men and women can be ‘just friends’, and in a recent online survey, over a third of participants admitted to feeling jealousy over their boyfriend or girlfriend having close friends of the opposite sex.

Another mindset in today’s culture is the belief that male-female friendships are based on one person (often the man) nursing an attraction, with the other person dutifully ignoring it for the sake of the friendship. Online surveys and unofficial research have shown that many women, in fact, experience a friendship with a man regardless of whether they find him attractive or not, though men are more likely to strike up friendships with a woman they find attractive. Although these findings can’t be fully verified, at the very least they highlight a predominant trend. But culture is one thing: what do the real experts think?

Psychologists agree that there are many barriers, both psychological and social, to men and women being able to remain as platonic friends. These divides and biases manifest themselves early in life – from the age of five or six, boy and girls begin to play mostly with others of their gender, with the sexes only meeting again at the start of adolescence.

In juvenile society it was – and still is – seen as somehow inappropriate for a girl to be friends with mostly boys, and vice versa. Each sex is required to fit its own gender stereotype – a girl shouldn’t go haring off with a group of boys to climb trees, while a boy shouldn’t show interest in girls’ games. While this situation has certainly changed in the past years, an echo still remains.

Another substantial barrier to male-female friendships is the fact that the deeper the feelings of friendship between a man and woman, the greater the chance of them being more than just good friends. This means that friendship can often turn into a romantic relationship – a survey by Match.com showed that 62 per cent of participants have had a platonic relationship that had crossed the line and became romantic or sexual.

But no matter how long relationship gurus and psychology enthusiasts drone on about sexual tensions and secret desires, it must be admitted that there are also numerous exceptions to the rule. There are some friendships that are based purely on platonic love – as too many of us know, not every friendship winds up turning into romance.

Another interesting exception was discovered by a study by J.W. Shepherd. Do you remember the neighbour’s boy who used to swim naked in your paddling-pool with you? Or the best friend you’ve known since Junior Infants, whom your parents always secretly wished you’d marry, despite his acne, scrawny chicken legs and his aversion to personal hygiene? In most cases, you won’t be able to think of such childhood friends in an amorous way, no matter what, and this reaction has a deep-seated psychological importance behind it.

Through his research of a kibbutz community in India, Shepherd found that if children, whether related or not, are reared together or in close proximity, it will act as a sexual aversion, preventing them seeing each other as potential lovers later. Thus, Shepherd concluded that prepubescent friendship acts as a mental deterrent against future romances between two parties.

More than a decade of research has passed since the release of When Harry Met Sally, and yet we still have no conclusive result about whether men and women can be ‘just friends’ or not. Looks like it’s up to you all to decide for yourselves!

It’s that time of year again, when the days grow short, the trees on campus lose their golden leaves, and the college libraries slowly but surely fill with anxious-looking students, all vying to use the photocopier at the same time, or running around the stacks in a frenzy, trying to find that elusive, but much-needed book.

The end of autumn marks the start of that dreaded time – that’s right, Semester One exam season has officially begun.

But it must be noted that exam season panic strikes at different times for each individual: for some this time of peril begins in the middle of week 10 or earlier; for others it starts the day before their first exam.

You know the types, the ‘ah it’s grand, I’ll just pull an all-nighter’ ones…yeah you, listen up! Cramming twelve weeks’ information into your brain in one night might seem possible, but it won’t stay there, unless something else gets pushed out. You could stroll in to that exam knowing the exact dates of every battle in the Franco-Prussian War, but I bet you can’t tie your shoelaces any more.

Let’s face it, we’ve all done the last minute cramming, people who haven’t are either too arrogant or too stupid to care. But no matter how late or how early in the semester you start studying, we can all admit that exam time is a stressful time. Exams not only take a toll on your social life, but also on your health and general wellbeing.

Many students all over the country admit to feeling stressed out and under too much pressure, with some reporting recurring headaches and fatigue, especially over the last few weeks leading up to exams, when there are projects to be handed up, and twelve weeks of lecture doodles to sort through, decipher and learn. Or, you know, download from Blackboard.

Here in UCD, countless students feel that exam stress is more pronounced in the first semester than in the second. Semester One doesn’t even have a mid-term break, which could be used to go over some of the coursework, or even to just catch up on some sleep. According to quite a large number of students, it would be preferable to have a week’s break at Halloween and three at Christmas, instead of spending a whole month lounging around at home over the holidays, eating Mammy’s cooking, putting on weight and watching daytime TV. Not that that’s not brilliant too.

Another issue with exams is the debate that has been simmering for years: that of whether or not exams are the right method for testing a person’s understanding of the curriculum. It has been argued extensively that exams don’t encourage the individual to grasp the coursework. Most modules involve some form of project or essay to be handed up, but there are still many modules where an overwhelming proportion of the marks hinge on the end-of-semester exam.

Another problem is that there are too many subjects to study for, and not nearly enough time to get an in-depth understanding of all of them. Students are bombarded with facts, diagrams, and endless definitions. We are exposed to an enormous pool of information, but rarely are we ever taught how to remember this information correctly. It is entirely possible to learn off definitions, phrases and even whole paragraphs, while at the same time having very little comprehension of what they actually mean. If Leaving Cert Irish taught us anything, it was this nugget of wisdom.

What most pupils and students are not taught is that there are actually two types of studying: shallow learning and deep learning. Yes yes, here comes the science.

As the name implies, shallow learning involves skimming over the meaning of the information, and learning off a series of words to regurgitate in the upcoming exam. Shallow learning is basically saying the item over and over, in the hope that it will be remembered. It’s handy for the aforementioned battle dates, but not much else unless you have background info for all the items on the list.

Deep learning involves more than rote repetition – you must aim to process the information and think deeply about its meaning, and then elaborate on it. This means that the information has a much bigger chance of being stored in your long-term memory. Think of it as an information fantasy if you will, give your different facts characters and traits and behaviour models, then watch them play out during your exam. Just don’t forget to write it down after, otherwise you’re just that weird person who thinks atherosclerosis is akin to Clare County Council workers’ dodgy pothole filling after someone’s been and damaged the road surface. And ok it doesn’t make the road narrower per se, but you have to think in three dimensional terms and…oh just write it down before you fall asleep in the RDS.

Apart from using deep learning when you study, there are many other things you can do to make this exam season a little easier on yourself. The main advice is to start studying now. As well as that, avoid all-nighters at any cost, take short breaks during study sessions, and whatever you do, stay away from that hell-brew called coffee.

Good luck in the exams!

Studying in the library is detrimental to your overall health and wellbeing, a fact proven by many authentic and intellectual sources (namely myself, the bike shop guy, and that dude I met while searching for a book on the mating habits of jellyfish). Our collective findings have pinpointed the most annoying personalities that you could ever find in the communal library study area, the type of people that make it impossible for anyone else to stay focused for more than 3.14 seconds.

At joint first place we have the coughers and sniffers: you know, the ones that are loudly dying in the back of the room while you desperately try to cram a whole semester’s worth of knowledge into your head. These days, there appear to be whole bands of these ‘unclean’ wandering the study areas, all sniffling in harmony and spreading the Dog Flu or what-have-you.

Next on the list is the loud eater who sits down beside you and ‘secretly’ begins to unwrap his grub under the desk, positive that nobody can hear him. Then, oblivious to the agonised rumbling of all the stomachs around him, he proceeds to savour a breakfast roll of such proportions that it would leave a sumo wrestler clutching his chest in agony.

The Muncher is closely followed by the mystical Library Warden, who can be found prowling the computer area for evil-doers, shushing people for turning pages too loudly and generally being a sod.

And finally, did I mention those evil, evil students who hog all the best books for themselves? The worst library study experience you will ever have occurs two days before your first exam, when you find that your lecture notes for the whole semester contain drool marks from you falling asleep, and little comic strips of your lecturers meeting their untimely deaths in humorous fashion. But before the panic can set in, an organised friend texts you the name and reference code of a book that sums up your entire semester’s lectures and, ecstatic with hope, you float to the library desk – only for the smiling librarian to inform you that the last copy of Environmental Bullshit has just been checked out, but do come back in two weeks time.

So, to sum up our wonderful survey, studying in the library makes you tired, hungry and just downright annoyed. It also increases your chances of catching the Black Death from the untouchables, so take heed and avoid this place of illrepute – just study at home instead.