In this episode, Gabriella continues her conversation with Kenneth Miller about his group biography Mapping the Darkness, The Visionary Scientists who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep.

As we learned in the previous episode, a century ago, sleep was widely considered a state of nothingness and a wasteful habit we could learn to overcome. Thanks to the four scientists Kenneth introduced us to in episode one, we now know the truth: that sleep is an incredibly complex phenomenon, central to our physical, emotional, and cognitive health.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• How Kenneth captured each character’s passion for research and their sense of scientific wonder.
• How Kenneth portrayed each scientist’s quest to uncover the mysteries of sleep.
• How Kenneth structured the narrative to create a gripping adventure of the human spirit.
• Details of the famous cave experiment in 1938 when two sleep researchers retreated into the cavernous Mammoth Cave in Kentucky for 32 days to find out when they could switch to a 28-hour sleep cycle after being deprived of environmental cues.
• Kenneth’s meticulous research strategy and how he grasped complicated sleep science.
• How Kenneth transformed thousands of pages of complex scientific information into a propulsive and compelling biography of the quartet of individuals who revolutionised our understanding of why we sleep and how we can get sleep better.

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