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"On non-scientific forums, it's best to keep your qualifications to yourself." Altitude or attitude? In "Kids climb Everest,"1 Janet Stocks reports that kids and adults had vivid dreams and difficulty sleeping, and seems to imply that this is a result of high altitude. Take any kid or adult transport them to an exotic place like Nepal, with its fantastic scenery, peoples, cultural and gastronomic experiences (both positive and negative) and I bet exc

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In "Kids climb Everest,"1 Janet Stocks reports that kids and adults had vivid dreams and difficulty sleeping, and seems to imply that this is a result of high altitude. Take any kid or adult transport them to an exotic place like Nepal, with its fantastic scenery, peoples, cultural and gastronomic experiences (both positive and negative) and I bet excitement/adventure/anticipation has more to do with restless sleep and vivid dreams than altitude.

I'm envious of Janet for being wise enough to get grant funding for such an experience.

Greg Wooster
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
gaw5@cornell.edu

I strongly support Richard Gallagher's call for scientists to engage in public debate, and have done so myself for some time. In his article, 1 he points out that few scientists are identifying themselves as such on forums such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com, but there are good reasons for this. The first reason is that these forums ...

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