And in fact, we still don't really know why we sleep. One of the reasons I was drawn to this project to begin with is really the question of why we sleep. MAX: Yeah, I think that's one way to look at it.
It's a progressive, inherited condition, characterized by eventually a total insomnia - leading within about nine months time to death.įLATOW: So you're awake - you're dying when you're awake because you can't sleep? The name sort of puts it all on the table. They really die because they can't sleep. MAX (Author, The Family That Couldn't Sleep): Thanks very much.įLATOW: This sounds like a really unusual disease. He's written for The New York Times and the New Yorker, and he joins us today from our NPR studios in Washington. Max is a science writer and the author of The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery. And if you'd like to join our discussion, our number is 1-80, 1-800-989-TALK.ĭ.T. So we're going to start this hour by talking about the family that could not sleep and the strange protein called the prion. The disease is linked by the new science of prions to outbreaks of the neurological disease kuru in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s, and mad cow disease in the UK in the last decade. You know how you say I'm just so tired I could die. Just like it says, it's insomnia, an illness that literally kills its victim by robbing them of the ability to sleep.
A new book tells the tale of an Italian family suffering from a rare and deadly disease called fatal familial insomnia. I am Ira Flatow.Ī bit later in the hour, a mathematical mystery. This is TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY.
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