Somnology Somnology Somnology is the scientific study of sleep. It includes clinical study and treatment of sleep disorders and irregularities. Sleep medicine is a subset of somnology. After the invention of the EEG, the stages of sleep were determined in 1936 by Harvey and Loomis, the first descriptions of delta and theta waves were made by Walter and Dovey, and REM sleep was discovered in 1953. Sleep apnea was identified in 1965. In 1970, the first clinical sleep laboratory was developed at Stanford. The first actigraphy device was made in 1978 by Krupke, and continuous positive airway pressure therapy and uvulopalatopharyngoplasty
Scientific method cultures", in contradiction with the idea that a so callled "scientific method" is unique and a unifying concept. Somewhere between 33% and 50% of all scientific discoveries are estimated to have been "stumbled upon", rather than sought out. This may explain why scientists so often express that they were lucky. Louis Pasteur is credited with the famous saying that "Luck favours the prepared mind", but some psychologists have begun to study what it means to be 'prepared for luck' in the scientific context. Research is showing that scientists are taught various heuristics that tend to harness chance and the unexpected.