The Bottoms Up Edition

Three beverage-related snippets caught our eye last week, all three of particular interest to those who spend a deal of time in the college environment.

First, Nature News reports on studies conducted in Germany and Switzerland which demonstrate that sleep loss contributes to the formation of false memories but that caffeine helps boost the memory. Researchers had subjects memorize a list of words and then either allowed the subjects a night's sleep or kept them up all night. The next day when presented with the original list of words plus a few new ones, the sleep-deprived group did a poorer job of identifying the original words. Taking the study a step further, scientists then took two sleep-deprived groups and gave them either caffeine or a placebo one hour before their memories were tested. The caffeinated group had 10% more accurate recall.

The upshot? If you are preparing for a test or memorizing a random list of words, get a good's night sleep and have a cup of coffee.

Second, WebMD reports on a French study which shows that loud music in a bar contributes to increased drinking in young males: "When the music was loud, bar patrons ordered an average of 3.4 drinks and took less than 11.5 minutes to finish a glass of beer compared with an average of 2.6 drinks and 14.5 minutes to finish a drink when the music was at normal levels."

Previous research had established that fast music promotes fast drinking, and that the presence of music encourages people to spend more time in a bar. Now our deepest suspicion has been confirmed that loud music in a bar will make a group of young males drink more. Obviously, it's preferable when studying for a test on a random list of words that one sit quietly at home drinking beer before getting a good's night sleep followed by a roborative cup of coffee.

Finally, two posts on Omnivoracious discuss the serious pairing of books and beer. As the authors note, why should wine and food have all the fun? Omnivoracious solicited beer and book pairings from a number of authors such as T. C. Boyle, Karen Joy Fowler, Arianna Huffington, Michael Chabon, and more. You can read and view their selections in Part I and Part II.

Our conclusion? Whenever you need study for that hypothetical test while quietly sipping a quiet beer in your quiet home, make sure you are sipping the right beer for the reading material at hand, get a good night's sleep, and enjoy your morning coffee.

(Omnivoracious photo: Lauren Groff's The Monsters of Templeton paired with Brewery Ommegang's Three Philosophers, along with another Ommegang beer, and a stout.)

* Disclaimer: Please note that nHumanities cannot support irresponsible reading or drinking.