The .Plan

That humans need eight hours of sleep is supposedly a myth:

But a new, contrarian school of thought is emerging. The eight-hours mantra has no more scientific basis than the tooth fairy, says Neil Stanley, head of sleep research at the Human Psychopharmacology Research Unit at the University of Surrey in Britain. He believes that everyone has their own individual “sleep need” which can be anywhere between three and 11 hours. “If you’re a three-hour-a-night person, you need three; if you’re 11, you need 11.” To find out, he says, simply sleep until you wake naturally, without the aid of an alarm clock. Feel rested? That’s your sleep need.
–Ben McLannahan, “From A to Zzzzz”, Intelligent Life, Summer 2006

Even if I don’t need eight hours of sleep per night, I would really like to get that much.

I’m shocked, shocked to find that drug companies are interested in expanding the definition of “high blood pressure” so that more people can pony up big dollars for their drugs.

And of course there are still those researchers who deem themselves un-influenceable:

“There are those who accuse us of being nothing more than shills of industry; a lot of us take pretty great offense at that,” said Dr. Joseph L. Izzo, a professor of medicine at the University of Buffalo who was part of the group that developed the new definition. “We’ve basically devoted our careers to researching this disease and how to treat it.”
–Stephanie Saul, “Unease on Industry’s Role in Hypertension Debate”, New York Times, May 20, 2006