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Sleep disturbances in the general population are associated with elevated blood pressure. This may be due to several mechanisms, including sympathetic activation and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis disturbance. Elevated blood pressure in pregnancy can have devastating effects on both maternal and fetal health and is associated with increased risk for preeclampsia and poor delivery outcomes. Preliminary evidence suggests that mechanisms linking sleep and blood pressure in the general population may also hold in the pregnant population. However, the effects of disturbed sleep on physiologic mechanisms that may directly influence blood pressure in pregnancy have not been well studied. The role that sleep disturbance plays in gestational blood pressure elevation and its subsequent consequences warrant further investigation. This review evaluates the current literature on sleep disturbance and elevated blood pressure in pregnancy and proposes possible treatment interventions.
Haney A; Buysse DJ; Okun M. Sleep and pregnancy-induced hypertension: a possible target for intervention? J Clin Sleep Med 2013;9(12):1349-1356.
The association between sleep disturbances and elevated blood pressure has been extensively studied in the general population. However, relatively few studies have investigated this relationship in the pregnant population. Pregnancy predisposes women to a variety of sleep disturbances.1,2 Similar to non-pregnant individuals, sleep disturbance in pregnancy may be a risk factor for elevated blood pressure, which can lead to maternal and fetal morbidity.3,4 Gestational hypertension, defined as a blood pressure higher than 140/90 diagnosed after 20 weeks of gestation, is associated with fetal growth restriction and abruptio placentae and can predispose to preeclampsia, as well as cardiovascular disease later in life.1,4–6 There are few studies evaluating the link between sleep and blood pressure during pregnancy. In this paper, we first review the relationship between sleep and blood pressure in non-pregnant adults. We then outline factors that predispose pregnant women to poor sleep. We conclude with a review of the emerging literature on the associations between sleep and blood pressure in pregnancy.
In the U.S. the average sleep duration has decreased by 1.5-2 h/night, with > 30% of Americans sleeping < 6 h/night.7 This phenomenon and the concurrent increase in hypertension intimated a possible link between sleep duration and blood pressure. Recently, a series of epidemiological papers have noted an association between sleep duration (both short and long) and elevated blood press ure8–11; for example, the Sleep Heart Health Study reported that participants who slept < 5 or ≥ 9 h/night had a greater frequency of hypertension than individuals sleeping 7 to 8 h/night.12 Buxton et al. analyzed the 2004-2005 US National Health Interview Survey data (n = 56,507 observations, adults 18-85 years) and found those with short (< 7 h) and long (> 8 h) sleep were more likely to have elevated blood pressure than those sleeping 7 to 8 h/night.13 These studies underscore the potential consequences of obtaining too little or too much sleep.
Similar to sleep duration, sleep quality is commonly evaluated. It can be ascertained directly with subjective methods or inferred from objective measures. Fiorentini et al., for instance, evaluated sleep quality in a cohort of hypertensive and type 2 diabetic participants. They found that poor sleep quality, defined by a Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score > 5, was more frequent among those with hypertension.14 Knutson et al. examined the association between sleep quality, measured by actigraphy, and blood pressure in mid-life adults. They found that lower sleep quality, as indicated by sleep duration and sleep maintenance, was associated with higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels both cross-sectionally and longitudinally over 5 years.11
Hypertension is commonly thought to occur in mid-life or aging individuals. However, pre-hypertension and hypertension are rapidly rising in adolescents. It is possible that several health behaviors that originate in adolescence, including poor diet, smoking, and poor sleep, may increase the risk for prehypertension and an earlier development of hyper tension.15,16
This phenomenon could partly explain why adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, are increasing despite advances in medical technology. Support for this hypothesis comes from Javaheri et al. who studied the sleep of 238 adolescents using actigraphy. They found that poor quality sleep, defined as sleep efficiency ≤ 85% or short sleep duration (≤ 6.5 h), was associated with elevated blood pressure. Specifically, they found that the odds of prehyper-tension increased 4.5-fold in adolescents who had low sleep efficiency and 2.8-fold for those with short sleep.17 Taken together, these studies support the hypothesis that poor sleep quality, beginning much earlier in life than previously recognized, is associated with increased risk of developing hyper-tension and associated morbidities. They also suggest that early intervention may prove beneficial in reducing adverse health outcomes.15–17
In addition to associations with quantitative aspects of blood pressure, sleep disturbance has been associated with impaired nocturnal blood pressure dipping.18–20 During normal sleep, blood pressure dips by 10% to 20%, in part due to a decrease in sympathetic output.21 A nocturnal blood pressure dip < 10% defines non-dipping. Several studies have shown that reduced blood pressure dipping during sleep is an indicator of cardiovascular disease.22–24 Ohkubo and colleagues, for instance, studied 24-h ambulatory blood pressure in 1,542 Japanese adults > 40 years of age, and followed them for an average 9.2 years. They found that for each 5% deficit in normal nocturnal dipping values, there was an associated 20% greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease.25 This study highlights emerging evidence which indicates that nocturnal blood pressure may be a better predictor for cardiovascular risk than daytime blood pressure readings.26–28 Reduced nocturnal blood pressure dipping can have significant immediate and future cardiovascular implications, including cognitive impairment and cerebrovascular disease.18–20,29,30 Furthermore, since sleep disturbances, such as poor sleep quality, have been associated with blunted nocturnal blood pressure dipping, the clinical importance of assessing sleep as a potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease is substantially strengthened.19,20
Sleep disordered breathing (SDB), also referred to as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), has a prevalence of up to 15% in the general population, and is even greater in obese (40%) and morbidly obese (70% to 90%) patients.31 It is strongly associated with elevated blood pressure. In OSA, repeated episodes of partial or complete upper airway collapse lead to apneas (cessation of airflow for ≥ 10 sec, usually followed by an electroencephalographically measured arousal) or hypopneas (discernible reduction in airflow for 10 sec associated with an oxyhemoglobin desaturation of 4%). The apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), defined by the number of apneas or hypopneas per hour of sleep, describes disease severity. Mild OSA is defined as AHI of 5 to 15, moderate disease as AHI of 15 to 30, and severe disease as AHI > 30.31 Episodes of apnea or hypopnea can cause hypoxia and result in frequent arousals, and thus sleep fragmentation. Repeated episodes of hypoxia and reoxygenation have also been shown to be associated with endocrine and metabolic disturbance, as well as elevated risk for metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease in OSA patients.5,6,32,33 SDB has also been shown to be an independent risk factor for hypertension.34–36 Indeed, treatment of SDB using positive airway pressure is associated with a reduction in incident hypertension and a significant improvement in hypertensive patients.37,38 However, these relationships have not been observed universally.39
In addition to sleep disturbance, several psychosocial factors are recognized correlates of increased blood pressure. These factors may also exacerbate the occurrence and the negative consequences of sleep disturbance in pregnancy, similar to what has been observed in non-pregnant individuals.40,41 Psychosocial stress, including occupational stress, social isolation, marital stress, and low socioeconomic status, have been associated with elevated blood pressure in the non-pregnant population.42–50 The most commonly evaluated, however, is acute psychological stress. It has been postulated that stress and sleep disturbance interact to compound cardiovascular vulnerability.51 A detailed examination of the role of psychosocial factors on sleep and blood pressure is beyond the scope of this review (see reviews20,52,53). Here, we merely highlight the importance of appreciating the complex relationships among these factors that may be particularly relevant during pregnancy.
The mechanisms that link sleep disturbances and elevated blood pressure are complex and involve several pathways. In OSA for example, nocturnal hypoxemia induces oxidative stress, inflammatory responses, and reduction in nitric oxide, which mediates vascular functions including dilatation and anticoagulation and has antioxidant properties.54 Sleep disturbances have also been shown to increase sympathetic tone and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function in experimental studies. Spiegel at al. found that experimentally induced short sleep (4 h) is associated with alterations in sympathovagal balance and 24-h salivary cortisol levels when compared to normal sleep (7-8 h).55 Similar findings have been found in other experimental studies.56,57 Sleep quality measures, including sleep latency and non-restorative sleep, have also been linked to metabolic and autonomic changes which have been associated with cardiovascular disease and hypertension.17,58
The relationship among cardiovascular changes, neuroendocrine changes, and sleep disturbance is not as clear. Tochikubo et al. found that in overtime workers, blood pressure, urinary norepinephrine levels, and sympathovagal disturbance (measured by heart rate variability) were higher on days after sleep restriction. However, sympathovagal disturbance was measured the evening after sleep restriction. Hence, this finding could have been due to increased stress due to sleepiness after a work day.59 Additionally, Kato et al. described elevated blood pressure after sleep restriction, although they did not find significant changes in heart rate, forearm vascular resistance, or plasma catecholamines with sleep deprivation.60 These studies show that although blood pressure appears to be directly influenced by sleep restriction, the exact mechanisms remain unclear.
Sleep disturbances are distinctly more common in pregnant than in non-pregnant women assessed from the general population. Okun and Coussons-Read examined sleep data collected at 12, 24, and 36 weeks' gestation from 35 pregnant and once from 43 comparable non-pregnant women. As early as 12 weeks, pregnant women reported an increased number of naps, nocturnal awakenings, time spent awake during the night, and poorer sleep quality than non-pregnant women.61 Sleep in the pregnant women progressively worsened, with over 50% of the women meeting sleep criteria for insomnia by the end of pregnancy. Suzuki et al. found that that among 192 pregnant women surveyed retrospectively, 88% had alterations in sleep compared with their usual experience.62 The reported changes included insomnia, parasomnias (nightmares and night terrors), restless leg syndrome (RLS), snoring, and sleep apnea. Among the most frequent self-reported causes of sleep disturbance during pregnancy were urinary frequency, back or hip ache, and heartburn. Facco et al. investigated sleep during pregnancy in a prospective cohort of 189 women assessed at 2 points during pregnancy, with a mean baseline assessment of 13.8 (± 3.8) weeks and a mean second assessment of 30.0 (± 2.2) weeks. At the second assessment, sleep duration significantly decreased compared to baseline (7.4 ± 1.2 h vs. 7.0 ± 1.3), the number of participants who reported snoring increased (11% vs. 16.4%), incidence of restless leg syndrome increased (17.5% vs. 31.2%), and there was an increase of poor sleep quality as measured by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index > 5 (39.0% vs. 53.5%).36
In pregnancy, hormonal changes occur to ensure the survival of the fetus. However, these hormonal changes may result in substantial sleep disturbances.1 By the last few weeks of pregnancy, daily estrogen production is one thousand times premenopausal ovulatory levels, and progesterone levels increase from 25 ng/mL at 6 weeks to 150 ng/mL at 37 weeks.64 Estrogen reduces rapid eye movement sleep (REM) and progesterone reduces NREM sleep.1,65,66 Estrogen can also cause physical changes that can affect sleep, including hyperemia, mucosal edema, hypersecretion, and increased friability in the upper airways. These changes result in reduction of nasopharyngeal airway patency, which can cause a sensation of nasal stuffiness and may exacerbate sleep disordered breathing in women with elevated body mass index.67 Progesterone is thought to act via peripheral chemoreceptors and centrally in the medulla to increase respiratory drive.68 This, in conjunction with greater metabolic carbon dioxide production and increased minute ventilation, can cause respiratory alkalosis, which can reduce respiratory drive and predispose to central sleep apnea.1 Furthermore, oxygen consumption is increased by approximately 20% to 33% by the third trimester due to fetal demands and changes in maternal metabolism. Increased oxygen consumption, along with a reduced functional residual capacity due to an enlarging uterus, results in a lowered oxygen reserve and can affect oxygen homeostasis more than in the non-pregnant state.1,69Table 1 illustrates the major physical and hormonal changes in pregnancy that can affect sleep.
Physical and hormonal changes in pregnancy, subsequent symptoms, and effect on sleep
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The dramatic physical changes unique to pregnancy can further affect sleep. The enlarging uterus can upwardly displace the diaphragm, further compromising functional residual capacity, which decreases by 10% to 25% at term. This, together with reduction in chest wall and total respiratory compliance, may lead many pregnant women to experience shortness of breath while lying supine. The inability to assume a comfortable sleeping position, especially during the third trimester of pregnancy, may have a significant impact on a pregnant woman's ability to initiate and maintain sleep.36 Discomfort from back and leg cramps may also disrupt sleep. Lower esophageal sphincter tone decreases throughout pregnancy, reaching its lowest point in late pregnancy. Resulting gastroesophageal reflux can cause discomfort and sleep disruptions.70 Additionally, renal blood flow increases in pregnancy throughout first and second trimester, along with dilation of the ureters and renal pelvises. These changes and the pressure of an enlarged uterus on the bladder cause pregnant women to wake several times per night to urinate.36
Elevated maternal blood pressure during pregnancy poses great risk for both mother and fetus. Approximately 10% of pregnancies are affected by hypertension. Consequences of pregnancy-related hypertension include increased risk of abruptio placentae, disseminated intravascular coagulation, cerebral hemorrhage, hepatic failure, and acute renal failure.5 Furthermore, elevated blood pressure in pregnancy can be part of preeclampsia and eclampsia, which carry maternal mortality rates of 10% to 15%, and future risk for cardiovascular disease.4,71
Systolic and diastolic blood pressure normally fall in early pregnancy by 5-10 mm Hg, reaching a mean nadir of 105/60 mm Hg, and then gradually rise to pre-pregnancy values by term.72 However, emerging evidence indicates that sleep disturbance may disrupt the normal course of gestational blood pressure changes. Williams et al. found that self-reported short (≤ 6 h) and long (≥ 10 h) sleep durations in early pregnancy (mean 14 weeks) were associated with elevated blood pressure, particularly mean third trimester blood pressures, in 1,272 women. Mean third trimester systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) for women who reported short early pregnancy sleep durations (≤ 6 h) compared to normal sleep duration (9 h) were 3.72, 3.04, and 3.18 mm Hg higher, respectively, after adjustment for maternal age, race/ethnicity, parity, educational status, and pre-pregnancy body mass index. The differences in third trimester SBP, DBP, and MAP for women who reported long sleep durations (≥ 10 h), compared with those reporting sleeping 9 h nightly, were 4.21, 3.43, and 3.65 mm Hg higher, respectively.3 A similar conclusion was reached by Reid and colleagues who reported that women with gestational hypertension has less total sleep time, lower sleep efficiency, and a lower percentage of REM sleep than healthy pregnant women.73 Although the mechanisms behind these differences are not clear, they may be similar to those that link short and long sleep durations with increased BP in the non-pregnant population.
Furthermore, as in the non-pregnant population, psychological stress may play a role in both sleep disturbance and blood pressure elevation.74 Pregnancy can be a mentally taxing time for women, especially in those with concurrent stressful life events or psychosocial stress. Stress may further elevate blood pressure in pregnant women, similar to what has been observed in non-pregnant cohorts.40,41,74 We propose that the hormonal and physical changes, as well as stress of pregnancy, induce sleep disturbance and may result in blood pressure perturbations. Figure 1 illustrates this model.
Normative physical changes, such as changes in body habitus, and hormonal changes, including dramatic increases in estrogen and progesterone, are recognized contributors to sleep disturbance in pregnancy. Subsequent to the sleep disturbance are various catecholamine and neuroendocrine changes which can negatively impact blood pressure. Concurrent stress, whether daily hassles or serious life events, is both an independent and dependent modifier of blood pressure. These associations are critical throughout pregnancy as elevated blood pressure is linked with increased risk of preeclampsia and preterm birth.
Proposed model of how physical and hormonal changes in pregnancy coupled with stress result in disturbed sleep which can result in elevated blood pressure. Normative physical changes, such as changes in body habitus, and hormonal changes, including dramatic increases in estrogen and progesterone, are recognized contributors to sleep disturbance in pregnancy....
SDB is characterized by abnormal respiratory patterns (e.g., apneas, hypopneas) or abnormal gas exchange (e.g., hypoxia). Sleep related breathing disorders like snoring and obstructive sleep apnea occur in pregnancy; however, there is little data detailing their incidence or prevalence. Most investigators agree that sleep related breathing disorders are more prevalent in pregnant women than non-pregnant women. As previously noted, estimates in non-pregnant women range from 2% to 5%, whereas estimates in pregnancy range from ∼10% in early pregnancy to upwards of 30% in late pregnancy.67,75–78 There is currently a paucity of objective data on the incidence of sleep related breathing disorders in pregnancy. Our current knowledge relies primarily on self-reported symptoms, including excessive daytime sleepiness, snoring, or breathing cessations, which suggest but do not confirm the presence of OSA. The development of SDB in pregnancy is considered a consequence of necessary physiologic adaptations that occur in pregnancy,79 such as dramatic hormonal and subsequent physical changes. Estrogen, for instance, can cause upper airway narrowing and could predispose pregnant women to snore and develop SDB. Progesterone, on the other hand, increases minute ventilation, and the resulting respiratory alkalosis enhances sensitivity of the respiratory center to carbon dioxide in pregnancy, which may predispose to central sleep apnea.1
SDB, independent of maternal BMI, is associated with an increased risk of hypertension in pregnancy, as well as maternal morbidity.73,78,80–86 In one study, preeclampsia, a hypertensive syndrome in pregnancy, was significantly more common among snorers than non-snorers (10% versus 4%, p < 0.05), as was gestational hypertension (14% versus 6%, p < 0.01).87 This was recently corroborated in a report by O'Brien and colleagues, who found that pregnancy-onset snoring was independently associated with gestational hypertension (OR 2.36 [1.48-3.77], p < 0.001) and preeclampsia (OR 1.59 [1.06-2.37], p = 0.024) in 1,719 third-trimester pregnant women.78 Another study reported that snoring and "excessive daytime sleepiness," which could indicate poor sleep, were reported more commonly in later pregnancy in women with preeclampsia than those without preeclampsia or non-pregnant controls.88 In a large cross-sectional study of immediately postpartum women, Perez-Chada et al. reported an increase in gestational hyper-tension and preeclampsia among those with symptoms of SDB even after adjusting for potential confounders such as BMI.89 In a similar study, Bourjeily et al. adjusted for comorbid conditions and reported an increase in preeclampsia and gestational hypertension in women with SDB.90 Table 2 summarizes a series of studies that have examined the frequency and consequences of SDB in pregnancy.
Selected listing of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) in pregnancy studies
Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are prevalent and pose risk to both mother and child. Additionally, they can carry risk for maternal morbidity later in life. Preeclampsia, especially if complicated by HELLP syndrome (hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count), predisposes to future cardiovascular disease.31 A meta-analysis by Bellamy et al. found that women who developed gestational hypertension or preeclampsia had an increased risk of developing hypertension later in life. The relative risk of ischemic heart disease, stroke, and venous thromboembolism were also increased later in life in women with prior diagnoses of preeclampsia. Furthermore, Bellamy et al. found that women who developed preeclampsia had greater all-cause mortality risk compared to women who had normal blood pressure during pregnancy. This risk was even greater for women who developed preeclampsia before 37 weeks.71 Kestenbaum et al. also found that gestational hypertension, mild and severe preeclampsia were associated with 2.8-fold higher risk of cardiovascular events, and that severe preeclampsia was associated with 2.3-fold higher risk of thromboembolic events.4 Furthermore, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are associated with poor fetal outcomes including preterm birth, small for gestational age infants, and abruptio placentae.5 The delayed morbidity risk of hypertensive disorders, as well as the immediate risk to mother and fetus risk, only amplifies the need for better understanding and prevention.
Elevated blood pressure in pregnancy can have devastating effects on both maternal and fetal health during the perinatal period and beyond. The causes of hypertensive syndromes in pregnancy like preeclampsia and gestational hypertension appear to be multifactorial. However, numerous studies demonstrate a strong link between sleep duration, quality or sleep related breathing disorders and blood pressure in non-pregnant adults; emerging studies suggest a similar relationship in the pregnant population. This link represents a possible source of preventative measures for gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. However, more complete understanding of the association between sleep and blood pressure in pregnancy is needed. Well-controlled, longitudinal studies with large cohorts and both objective and subjective sleep measurements are needed to better assess sleep in pregnancy and how it relates to blood pressure. These studies should include blood pressure measurements throughout pregnancy, as well as pregnancy outcomes, to assess the effect of sleep on both maternal and fetal health. Currently, screening for sleep disruption in pregnant women is not common practice. More knowledge and widespread understanding of the effects that sleep has on pregnancy may improve upon the obstetrician's ability to screen for those with sleep disruption and who may be at risk for hyper-tensive disorders. Utilization of short questionnaires, such as the Insomnia Symptom Questionnaire (ISQ),91 could be incorporated into prenatal care to assist in the identification of those women at-risk for sleep problems. Emerging data suggests that a modest number of pregnant women have difficulty initiating sleep (DIS).92 Given the associations between DIS and adverse health outcomes,93–95 this may be an appropriate target for intervention. Early identification of at-risk women may allow for simple interventions, including counseling on the impacts of sleep on maternal and fetal health and prescribing behavioral sleep regimens to not only improve sleep but potentially blood pressure as well. While there is currently a paucity of studies that have examined the impact of interventions on sleep in pregnant women, there is some evidence from a study of post-partum mothers that a behavioral-education intervention could be applied in pregnancy.96 In this randomized controlled trial, women received intervention, which consisted of an in-person meeting with a nurse for sleep strategies, a booklet, and phone contacts, or usual care. Although there was no difference in the primary outcome of maternal nocturnal sleep, it is possible that the length of data collection or the measures used in the study were unable to capture the benefits of the intervention. It is probable, for instance, that improving sleep in the early postpartum is not feasible. Assessing the women further post-delivery may indicate otherwise.
This was not an industry supported study. Funded by grants NIH ROO010813 (P.I. Okun) and the NIMH Medical Student Fellowship Program in Mental Health Research through the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The authors have indicated no financial conflicts of interest.
The authors thank Joann Broadus for her assistance with manuscript preparation.
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Izci B, Martin SE, Dundas KC, Liston WA, Calder AA, Douglas NJ, authors. Sleep complaints: Snoring and daytime sleepiness in pregnant and pre-eclamptic women. Sleep Med. 2005;6:163–9. [PubMed]
Perez-Chada D, Videla AJ, O'Flaherty ME, et al., authors. Snoring, witnessed sleep apnoeas and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand. 2007;86:788–92. [PubMed]
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Okun ML, Luther JF, Wisniewski SR, Wisner KL, authors. Disturbed sleep and inflammatory cytokine in depressed and nondepressed pregnant women: An exploratory analysis of pregnancy outcomes. Psychosom Med. 2013;75:670–81. [PubMed]
Torre-Bouscoulet L, Garcia SC, Vazquez Garcia JC, et al., authors. Perceptions of short and long sleep duration and comorbid conditions: the PLATINO study. Sleep Med. 2013;14:850–7. [PubMed]
Troxel WM, Buysse DJ, Matthews KA, et al., authors. Sleep symptoms predict the development of the metabolic syndrome. Sleep. 2010;33:1633–40. [PubMed Central][PubMed]
Grandner MA, Perlis ML, authors. Insomnia as a cardiometabolic risk factor. Sleep. 2013;36:11–2. [PubMed Central][PubMed]
Stremler R, Hodnett E, Kenton L, et al., authors. Effect of behavioural-educational intervention on sleep for primiparous women and their infants in early postpartum: multisite randomised controlled trial. BMJ. 2013;346:f1164. [PubMed Central][PubMed]
Bourjeily G, Ankner G, Mohsenin V, authors. Sleep-disordered breathing in pregnancy. Clin Chest Med. 2011;32:175–89. [PubMed]
Chen YH, Kang JH, Lin CC, Wang IT, Keller JJ, Lin HC, authors. Obstructive sleep apnea and the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2012;206:136–5. [PubMed]
Connolly G, Razak AR, Hayanga A, Russell A, McKenna P, McNicholas WT, authors. Inspiratory flow limitation during sleep in pre-eclampsia: comparison with normal pregnant and nonpregnant women. Eur Respir J. 2001;18:672–6. [PubMed]
Champagne K, Schwartzman K, Opatrny L, et al., authors. Obstructive sleep apnoea and its association with gestational hypertension. Eur Respir J. 2009;33:559–65. [PubMed]


text:
Hubble's Latest Look at Pluto's Moons Supports a Common Birth
This pair of NASA Hubble Space Telescope images shows the motion of Pluto's satellites between February 15th and March 2nd, 2006. Both images were taken through a red filter (F606W) using the High Resolution Channel (HRC) of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). During this 15-day period, Pluto's newly-discovered satellite S/2005 P 2 (P2 for short) moved counterclockwise from the noon position to the 5 o'clock position, while the other newly-discovered satellite S/2005 P 1 (P1 for short) moved counterclockwise from the 1 o'clock position to the 7 o'clock position. During that same period, Pluto's much larger and closer moon, Charon, started near the 2 o'clock position, made more than two complete counterclockwise revolutions around Pluto, and ended up near the 10 o'clock position. The motions of P1 and P2 are in excellent agreement with the predicted motions based on earlier Hubble observations, thereby confirming that P1 and P2 are orbiting Pluto in the same plane as Charon's orbit, as expected if all three moons were created during a single, giant impact event.
NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Lab), A. Stern (Southwest Research Institute), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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The Effects of using VoiceThread on Students' Listening Comprehension and Attitudes Toward using VoiceThread
The current study investigated the effects of the use of VoiceThread (VT) on the listening comprehension and attitudes of college students of Arabic as a foreign language. Thirty-five students in two 10-week classes of beginning Arabic participated in this study. The instruction in both classes was the same except that, for one group, the instruction was supplemented by the use of VT to enhance listening and speaking skills during the 10 weeks. Upon completion of the class, students using VT showed superior listening skills. Moreover, an Attitude and Engagement survey showed that the students enjoyed using VT and viewed it as a valuable tool that enhanced their language learning.
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text:
Fox Gives Right-To-Work Laws A Helping Hand
Research ››› ››› DAVID SHERE
Fox News displayed a graphic suggesting that unemployment was 0.8 percentage points lower in right-to-work states than the national average. This statistic is misleading, and a fairer comparison shows that Fox overstated the difference by a factor of four.
Fox Says Average Unemployment Is 0.8 Percentage Points Lower In Right-To-Work States
Fox: Right-To-Work States Have Average "Jobless Rate Of 7.7%, Compared To 8.5% Nationally." From the January 20 edition of Fox News' America Live:
[Fox News, America Live, 1/20/12]
Fox's Statistic Is Simply An Average Of Unemployment Rates In Right-To-Work States
Averaging Nov. 2011 Unemployment Rates In Right-To-Work States Yields A Rate Of 7.7 Percent. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12/20/11; National Right To Work, 1/23/11, calculation by Media Matters (RTW-1.xlsx)]
PolitiFact: "Fairest" Way To Compare Rates Is With A "Weighted Average"
PolitiFact: The "Fairest Way To Look At The Data" Is By Looking Jobless Rates "Weighted According To State Population." From PolitiFact:
On the Feb. 24, 2011, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said that the jobs picture is better in "right to work" states -- that is, states in which workers can refuse to pay dues or fees to the union that represents them in bargaining.
"The right-to-work states have much lower level of unemployment than the union states do," O'Reilly said while interviewing Caroline Heldman, a political scientist at Occidental College.
To test O'Reilly's claim, we turned to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which is the official source for unemployment statistics in the United States. BLS' most recent state-by state data is for December 2010.
We consulted with Gary Burtless, a labor economist with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution, about the fairest way to look at the data. We agreed that it was best to compare right-to-work and non-right-to-work states through data weighted according to state population. That way, California's unemployment rate would be given more weight than, say, Wyoming's. [PolitiFact.com, 2/24/11]
"Fairest" Calculation Shows Unemployment In Right-To-Work States Is Actually 0.2 Percentage Points Lower Than Nationwide
Weighting Jobless Rate For Right-To-Work States By Population Shows Their Rate In Nov. 2011 Was 8.5 Percent. This fairer calculation shows that the jobless rate in right-to-work states was 0.2 percentage points below the national average of 8.7 percent in November. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12/20/11, 1/20/11; Census Bureau, accessed 1/23/12 (.xls); National Right To Work, 1/23/11, calculation by Media Matters (RTW-1.xlsx)]
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- Economy, Jobs, Wages, & Unemployment, Labor Unions
- Network/Outlet
- Fox News Channel
- Show/Publication
- America Live
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text:
This week seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong received the letter he hoped would never come.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency, which regulates Olympic and many amateur sports, told him they would recommend that charges be filed against him for using and trafficking performance enhancing substances. They claim to have results from blood samples taken in 2009 and 2010 that indicate he was involved in blood doping. While these are not criminal charges, he could have his Tour de France victories vacated and be banned from participating in cycling or the triathlons in which he currently competes.
The USADA says they have at least 10 witnesses who claim to have seen him engaging in blood doping. Cyclist Tyler Hamilton made such claims on "60 Minutes" several years ago. Blood doping uses natural compounds like the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) which signals the body to make more red blood cells. This gives an athlete an advantage in speed and endurance by boosting oxygen transportation throughout the body. The margin of victory in most sports is so narrow that a blood doping athlete gets an unfair competitive advantage.
Armstrong has been a venerated athlete. Not only did he dominate the world competition in a sport which Europe specializes in but he has been a powerful role model. He survived testicular cancer and went on to unbelievable athletic achievement. He has led a scandal free life. He created the Livestrong Foundation and movement in raising cancer awareness and funding which has had a major impact. Thousands of his wristbands are worn daily. And these charges threaten his legacy.
For the last 40 years I have encouraged athletes to utilize their high profile to trigger imitative behavior, especially with adolescents. I have seen the impact that Lennox Lewis had when he did a public service campaign that said "real men don't hit women" or Oscar De La Hoya and Steve Young with their "prejudice is foul play" PSA. My clients have raised over $700 million dollars for charities and community programs around the country. This profile can do wonderful things for the world, but when it is associated with negative behavior it can send the wrong message. It would be harmful to all the fans of Armstrong if the allegations are true.
Adolescents confront the temptation to use performance enhancing substances on a daily basis. High school athletes are urged to be "bigger, stronger and faster." They are inherently competitive and focused on short-term performance, not long-term health.
Other young men get addicted to the weight room experience and the desire to remake their bodies. Both groups can turn to steroids or supplements if they are not properly educated. The physical danger inherent in long-term steroid use will manifest itself increasingly as athletes age. There is a severe emotional and behavioral roller coaster that can result.
In the 80s in the NFL, I argued with clients against steroid use. They often experienced intense anger – "roid rage" – and they would become depressed after a cycle was over. We had wives complain and one client killed himself. That is why everyone associated with the NFL supported a ban and testing. There was none of the denial and labor-management argument that occurred in Major League Baseball – we saw it as a matter of life and death.
The problem with supplements that are sold to enhance body building and performance in nutrition and vitamin stores throughout the country is that they are not regulated by the FDA. They can contain speed-like substances which alter behavior. The combination of the supplements that are taken may have negative synergistic effects and there is no way to verify purity. This practice is like playing Russian Roulette with a body as a test tube.
While I hope that Armstrong did not engage in blood doping, which includes transfusing more oxygenated blood prior to competition, I know that players have evidenced a great capacity to use technology to frustrate testing. Please be careful with your own bodies and long-term health and be vigilant in safeguarding your children.
LEIGH STEINBERG is a renowned sports agent, author, advocate, speaker and humanitarian. His column appears weekly. Follow Leigh on Twitter @steinbergsports or blog.steinbergsports.com.


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SYDNEYSIDERS are full of clever ideas about where the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, should stick his helipad for the harbour.
The rooftops of one or two commercial towers around Macquarie and Phillip streets, suggests one Herald reader. Lake Burley Griffin, the duck pond at Blackheath, the Blue Lake at Jenolan Caves? Why not just back up the cement mixers and make Port Jackson into the second airport? Or simply land choppers on whales?
Ah, how's the serenity?
The big surprise is that residents are overlooking the perfect site: the Premier's backyard.
There is, to be sure, a fair bit of "not in my backyard" about the helipad backlash.
NIMBYISM creates poor policy when it is rooted in the protection of privilege, vested interest and political advantage. It has no place in planning policy or approval processes.
The problem with the helipad proposal, however, is that it has been rushed through without satisfactory planning, approval processes or community consultation.
Contrast that with the years of doddering over Badgerys Creek as a second airport site, with O'Farrell still refusing to see sense and commit.
The helipad is the latest in a series of opaque O'Farrell decisions on projects, among them the Barangaroo casino and Darling Harbour redevelopment. The government is starting to evoke the deal-making of its Labor predecessor.
The tourist dollar may well justify a harbour helipad but that argument is difficult to accept without proper research and a cost-benefit analysis.
The cynics are entitled to ponder this: if the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, parks, beaches, hospitality, barbecues, food, wine and so on aren't good enough to bolster tourism, what hope will a floating helipad have?
This newspaper supports policies that foster balanced business, economic and population growth across NSW. Sydney has a working harbour and that should be encouraged. But secrecy and ad hoc processes mar what may well be beneficial projects.
Without community acceptance that their views have been considered, developments such as the helipad proposed by Newcastle Helicopters soon lose legitimacy.
Residents, of course, should accept when they buy property or choose to live in large metropolitan centres that they will encounter congestion and noise.
Seaplanes have used Rose Bay as a landing area for generations.
But governments have a duty to plan to minimise the impacts of change; not allow incremental damage by stealth.
Residents around the harbour are crying loud about the potential noise of up to eight helicopter flights an hour between 7am and dusk.
This is no surprise. The International Standards Organisation even has a calculator which estimates that a 20 decibel noise change will elicit a "very strong response" from residents.
An independent noise assessment for Newcastle Helicopters estimates the helipad will create noise levels of about 62 decibels for someone standing outside the closest house to the flight path. That's like the noise of a living room with quiet music or TV playing, or the level of conversational speech - far below the 85 decibel national standard for exposure to noise in the occupational environment.
The choppers will take off and land at least 600 metres from homes. The people of New York live much closer to helipads that have drawn noise complaints for decades. Last May the Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, was embarrassed when he was filmed flying his chopper in defiance of a weekend ban.
The US Federal Aviation Authority has also moved to ban most helicopters from flying directly from Manhattan over residential areas of Long Island - a route favoured by the wealthy when they head for retreats in the Hamptons. And in May anti-heliport protesters gathered on Brooklyn Bridge and chanted "stop the chop".
The Sydney proposal promises ''quiet technology'' helicopters. The noise assessment recommended careful flight-path management and concluded there would be no significant increase in overall residential noise levels on a daily basis. This took into account the distance from dwellings, existing noise from road and bridge traffic and the long-term success of floatplanes.
Those recommendations are reassuring but they are not noise tests - Newcastle Helicopters only began its own after the resident backlash - and they do nothing to assuage concerns about the derelict process.
Having approved the helipads, the government now says the licence is in effect a one-year trial and is reviewing the process for future applications.
That is not good enough. The helipad approval should be revoked now and reconsidered when the rules are fixed and the community has been consulted.


text:
Frank Capra, (born May 18, 1897, near Palermo, Sicily, Italy—died September 3, 1991, La Quinta, California, U.S.), American motion-picture director who was the most prominent filmmaker of the 1930s, during which he won three Academy Awards as best director. His most-beloved films, many of which were made during the Great Depression, were patriotic, sentimental celebrations of virtuous everymen who selflessly speak truth to power in pursuit of the common good.
Early life and work
Capra's family immigrated to Los Angeles from Bisacquino, a Sicilian village, when he was six. After graduating in 1918 from the California Institute of Technology with a degree in chemical engineering, Capra received a Reserve Officer Training Corps commission and spent the last year of World War I teaching mathematics in the U.S. Army. For the next two years he traveled, doing odd jobs and working as a book salesman. Despite lacking any filmmaking experience, in 1922 he persuaded a San Francisco stage actor who wanted to make a movie based on poetry to hire him to direct the one-reel film, The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House. Capra then took a job with a San Francisco film studio and began learning about filmmaking from the ground up, working as film cutter, camera assistant, property man, writer, and assistant director. A stint as a gag writer for Hal Roach's "Our Gang" film comedy series followed in 1924. Moving on to Mack Sennett's Keystone Company, Capra directed Harry Langdon in some of the silent comedian's most successful films—including Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926), The Strong Man (1926), and Long Pants (1927)—but when the two had a falling-out, Capra was fired.
In 1928, after directing Claudette Colbert in her unremarkable debut for the studio First National, For the Love of Mike (1927), Capra began his long association with Columbia Pictures and its head, Harry Cohn, as well as with cinematographer Joseph Walker. One of the so-called Poverty Row studios, Columbia lacked the financial wherewithal, big-name contract actors, and prestige of major studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount, and Warner Brothers. During his first year at Columbia, Capra directed seven silent features, mostly on B-film budgets: the melodrama That Certain Thing; So This Is Love?, a boxing-themed comedy; The Matinee Idol, a romantic comedy whose tension between big-city and small-town values anticipated some of Capra's signature later works; The Way of the Strong, a crime melodrama; Say It with Sables, a melodrama that starred Francis X. Bushman; Submarine, a big-budget (for Columbia) action film; and The Power of the Press, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as a justice-seeking reporter.
As the studio moved into the sound era, Capra became Cohn's most trusted director. The Younger Generation (1929) was a part-sound drama about a man who leaves his family on New York's Lower East Side to seek the good life on Park Avenue. Capra's first all-talkie was the comedic murder mystery The Donovan Affair (1929). Flight (also released in 1929) was notable for Capra's insistence on staging and filming all of its aerial action without tricks or special effects.
The early 1930s
Ladies of Leisure (1930) was the first of Capra's films to star Barbara Stanwyck. In it she played a gold digger reformed by her love for a sensitive painter. When Capra adapted the 1928 Broadway hit Rain or Shine for film in 1930, he retained comedian Joe Cook in the role of the saviour of a circus, but he dropped the stage show's music. Capra's next film was the ambitious Dirigible (1931), an expensive aerial adventure set at the South Pole. Stanwyck then starred again in The Miracle Woman (1931), a thinly disguised meditation on evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.
Playwright Robert Riskin, who would become Capra's most essential collaborator, was one of the writers of Platinum Blonde (1931). Jean Harlow and Loretta Young starred in this comedy of manners, which owed much to Lewis Milestone's The Front Page (1931) and foreshadowed the romances between female journalists and regular guys that would be at the centre the later Capra-Riskin efforts Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe. Forbidden (1932) found Stanwyck again a victim of cruel fate; this time, as a woman in love with a married man, she is forced to become a murderer. In American Madness (1932) a compassionate bank president (played by Walter Huston) tries to stem the tide of Depression-panicked customers making a run on his beleaguered institution. Written by Riskin, the story would be recycled more than a decade later by Capra in It's a Wonderful Life. Its "little people versus heartless big business" theme would become a hallmark of Capra's best-known works.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) was Capra's most erotic work. Stanwyck starred as a missionary in civil-war-torn Shanghai; she becomes the unwilling guest of a Chinese warlord (Nils Asther), who falls hopelessly in love with her. Walker's lush, intoxicating cinematography in Bitter Tea was atypical for a Capra film, recalling instead the work of director Josef von Sternberg.
Whereas Bitter Tea was not a commercial success, Capra's next film, the sentimental Lady for a Day (1933), was. Capra both produced and directed Riskin's adaptation of Damon Runyon's short story "Madame La Gimp." It concerned a decrepit peddler, Apple Annie (May Robson), who enlists a sympathetic gangster (Warren William) to transform her into a society matron so that her estranged daughter (Jean Parker) will not be embarrassed by her lowly station when she visits from Europe with her fiancé and prospective in-laws. A charming comedy with a touching payoff, Lady for a Day was nominated for an Academy Award as best picture. Capra, who was also nominated as best director, would refashion the material less successfully in 1961 as Pocketful of Miracles.
The golden period
Capra's "golden period" began with It Happened One Night (1934), the first motion picture to win an Academy Award in five major categories: best picture, best actor, best actress, best director, and best adapted screenplay. The making of this enduring romantic comedy about a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) and the brash newspaper reporter (Clark Gable) who tracks her down and falls for her became familiar Hollywood lore. Gable, who was one of MGM's biggest contract stars, was sent by the studio to work on Columbia's bargain-basement production as punishment. Colbert was on loan from Paramount. The chemistry of the their performances was electric and resulted in one of the best-loved movies of the 1930s.
Capra's second 1934 effort, the heart-tugging Broadway Bill, was less remarkable than It Happened One Night but not inconsequential. Warner Baxter starred as a businessman who, with encouragement from his sister-in-law-turned-love-interest (Myrna Loy), quits his job to try to turn a broken-down racehorse into a winner.
After suffering from an undiagnosed burst appendix that had threatened his life, Capra returned to the screen in 1936 with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, a smash hit that became one of the three or four films with which he is most closely identified. Adapted by Riskin from a story by Clarence Budington Kelland, Mr. Deeds is a David-versus-Goliath populist fable. Gary Cooper starred as Longfellow Deeds, a principled tuba-playing writer of greeting-card sentiments from a small town in Vermont who inherits his uncle's $20 million estate and moves to New York City to administer it. When Deeds decides to give the money to the less fortunate, his sanity is questioned. Jean Arthur plays a hard-boiled reporter who is suspicious at first of Deeds's motives but who falls for him once she realizes his sincerity. Capra received his second Academy Award for best director for Mr. Deeds, which was nominated for best picture.
Capra then took a full year, reportedly shot enough footage to make a dozen features, and spent more than $2 million (Columbia's biggest budget to date) filming Lost Horizon (1937). The movie, based on Riskin's adaptation of James Hilton's immensely popular 1933 novel of the same name, starred Ronald Colman as a British diplomat who finds his way to the hidden utopia of Shangri-La after his plane crashes. He and his fellow travelers (including Thomas Mitchell, John Howard, and Edward Everett Horton) are entertained by the mysterious Chang (H.B. Warner), the lovely Sondra (Jane Wyatt), and the dying high lama (Sam Jaffe), who wants the diplomat to take his place. Despite Lost Horizon's spectacular sets and allegorical power, many viewers were put off by its studied seriousness, lack of action, and deliberate pace (even after Cohn had cut Capra's three-and-a-half-hour preview version of the film to a roughly two-hour running time). It would take a number of years and many reissues for the film to finally make a profit.
Made in under two months, the frenetic comedy You Can't Take It with You (1938) was a dramatic about-face for Capra after the weighty Lost Horizon. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, a hit on Broadway, was adapted for the screen by Riskin. Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, and Edward Arnold starred in this madcap portrait of an extremely unconventional family. While some critics found the film merely workmanlike in its professional polish, others were convinced that Capra had deftly captured the play's inspired lunacy. The film won the Academy Award for best picture, and Capra—who received his third award as best director and who by this point was being paid $100,000 per film—landed on the cover of the August 8, 1938, issue of Time magazine, which hailed him as "the top director of his industry." Capra was already serving as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when he was elected to head the newly established Screen Directors' Guild, and in 1939 he played a pivotal role in negotiating a settlement between the studios and the Guild.
Columbia had given Capra an uncommon amount of freedom (which he might not have had at a larger studio) as a producer-director who oversaw his own production unit within the studio. Convinced that a director should be responsible for every aspect of his projects, Capra advocated a "one man, one film" theory, and, as the head of the Guild and as a major player in the motion-picture industry, he fought for creative freedom for other directors.
Capra's deep belief in the importance of individual expression became as much a hallmark of the characters in his films as it was of his own filmmaking creed. From the mid- to late 1930s his films were usually similar in their humorous presentation of a naive, idealistic, and courageous hero. These films projected an essential optimism as their underdog heroes triumphed over shrewd but selfish individuals in a world often beset by darkness and despair.
Some critics have denigrated Capra's films from this period as reflecting a utopianism that was unimaginably far from reality. Others have countered that Capra neither denied that cynics were ubiquitous nor that political power was generally in the hands of the few but that he instead sought to depict a more-just world that could result from the strong-willed exertion of moral force. Many film historians have noted that Capra's populist championing of individual freedom was accompanied by a profound distrust of mass society and mass politics, yet the triumph of the "little people" (often working collectively) in his films defies easy or uniform identification with any political ideology. Much clearer is Capra's celebration of the strength of the American character, though it can be seen as both intensely patriotic and chauvinistic in its embrace of American exceptionalism. Coming as they did in the throes of the Great Depression, which the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to reverse with the New Deal, Capra's idealistic works were claimed by the political right, left, and centre. The mixture of patriotism, idealism, and sentimentality found in the best known of Capra's films was frequently called "Capra-corn" (even by the filmmaker himself), but with the passage of time it was more positively characterized adjectivally as "Capraesque."
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), one of the most Capraesque of the director's films, was the story of a freshman senator from Montana who uproots pork-barrel corruption in the U.S. Senate at the risk of his own career. Even more than Longfellow Deeds, the aptly named Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) is the epitome of the Capra everyman who refuses to compromise his ethics in the face of enormous pressure from greedy, amoral power brokers—here embodied by Claude Rains's venal Senator Paine, who has sold out to the political machine. Stewart gives one of his most memorable performances, cementing his on-screen persona as the embodiment of integrity and decency, much as Gary Cooper—who was, in fact, Capra's first choice for the role of Jefferson Smith—had done in Mr. Deeds.
An enormous popular and critical success, Mr. Smith earned 11 Academy Award nominations, including those for best picture, actor, director, and screenplay. It had been claimed as a project by Rouben Mamoulian, but Capra reportedly traded Mamoulian his claim on Clifford Odets's play Golden Boy for the right to make Mr. Smith. It was the first Capra production since 1933 not written by Riskin, who had departed from Columbia; Riskin's place was taken by Sidney Buchman, who had done some rewrites on Lost Horizon.
The 1940s
Capra left Columbia after Mr. Smith and continued his examination of the American political system with Meet John Doe (1941), which was produced independently by Frank Capra Productions (essentially a partnership with Riskin) and released through Warner Brothers. Cooper starred as Long John Willoughby, a former baseball player hired by a cynical newspaper reporter (Stanwyck) to appear in public as the "John Doe" whom she has manufactured in her columns, writing that he had vowed to jump off the roof of city hall on Christmas Eve to protest the tyranny of big business. Long John is so convincingly righteous as John Doe that clubs sprout up in support of him, which the newspaper's fascist owner (Edward Arnold) plans to use to gain political power. Several different endings were shot for the film, which Capra recalled after its national release to add what he decided would be its permanent ending.
Capra worked with Warner Brothers again on the motion-picture adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace, a huge stage hit whose creators sold its rights on condition that the film version not be released until the Broadway run had completed. As a result, although Capra finished filming in December 1941, the film was not released until 1944. Cary Grant gave what some critics considered to be the worst performance of his career as the "normal" nephew of loony aunts in this minor effort from Capra, made hastily before he entered the army during World War II.
While serving as a major in the Signal Corps (1942–45), Capra made a series of well-regarded documentaries titled Why We Fight, which were intended to increase American support for the war effort. The seven films, which consisted in large part of edited newsreel footage and scenes from Hollywood and foreign war movies, were made for a mere $400,000. Of these films only Prelude to War (1942), which shared an Academy Award for best documentary, and Battle of Russia (1943; codirected with Anatole Litvak) were released theatrically during the war. Capra left the army with the rank of full colonel and with a Distinguished Service Medal.
Back in Hollywood in 1945, Capra joined with directors George Stevens and William Wyler as well as former Columbia executive Sam Briskin to form Liberty Films. Liberty's first release was It's a Wonderful Life (1946), the now-classic Christmas tale about a banker driven to despair who wishes aloud that he had never been born and then gets to see how much poorer the world would have been without him. The source material for the film, "The Greatest Gift"—a short story that was originally sent to friends as a Christmas card by Philip Van Doren Stern and later published in Good Housekeeping magazine—was purchased from RKO by Capra and developed with writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. (Jo Swerling also worked on it, as did the uncredited Dalton Trumbo and Dorothy Parker.) It's a Wonderful Life starred Stewart as banker George Bailey, Donna Reed as his wife, Lionel Barrymore as the conniving Mr. Potter, and Henry Travers as Clarence Oddbody, the angel sent to guide George, and was released in the Christmas season of 1946.
Despite the fact that the film would become a perennial Christmas holiday favourite, it was not popular at the time of its release. For many contemporary viewers, perhaps, the film's heartwarming conclusion was not enough to balance the movie's dark vision of how cruel life could be. Only after It's a Wonderful Life was shown repeatedly on television in the United States beginning in the 1970s did audiences and critics recognize the film as Capra's masterpiece.
That recognition came too late for Capra and Liberty Films. It's a Wonderful Life was the most expensive film of Capra's career and left Liberty about $500,000 in the red after receipts were tallied. Ironically, the movie that Liberty partner Wyler had made outside the company at the same time, The Best Years of Our Lives, became the year's biggest hit. Even so, It's a Wonderful Life was nominated for an Academy Award as best picture, and Capra was nominated the sixth and final time as best director.
Nevertheless, Capra and his partners sold Liberty Films to Paramount. Capra then worked for MGM on his next project, State of the Union (1948), based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway satire by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. In it Spencer Tracy portrayed a prospective presidential candidate, and Katharine Hepburn played his estranged wife. Although regarded by a number of critics as Capra's last solid work, State of the Union strained to be as stirring as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
The 1950s and beyond
Capra's first film of the 1950s was Riding High (1950), an uninspired musical remake of Broadway Bill that featured Bing Crosby, as did Here Comes the Groom (1951). After failing to get the romantic comedy Roman Holiday off the ground (it was ultimately made by Wyler in 1953), Capra did not make another theatrical feature film for eight years, which he felt was a consequence of subtle blacklist pressures for his political progressivism during the 1930s. He did, however, direct four hour-long programs for Bell Telephone's television science series for children from 1956 to 1958.
Capra's final two films were A Hole in the Head (1959), in which Frank Sinatra starred as hotelier whose irresponsibility nearly costs him custody of his son, and Pocketful of Miracles (1961), a musical remake of Lady for a Day with Bette Davis, which failed to earn back its cost. As he revealed in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title (1971), Capra chose to retire after Pocketful of Miracles rather than adapt to the new post-studio-system filmmaking. He received a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1982.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
history of the motion picture: Nontechnical effects of sound…comedies of directors such as Capra (
Lady for a Day, 1933; It Happened One Night, 1934; Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1936), Hawks ( Twentieth Century, 1934; Bringing Up Baby, 1938), Gregory La Cava ( My Man Godfrey, 1936), Mitchell Leisen ( Easy Living, 1937), and Leo McCarey ( The…
Great Depression: Portrayals of hope…the same time, movies like Capra's
It Happened One Night(1934), You Can't Take It with You(1938), and Meet John Doe(1941) suggested that people were happier and better off if they were not rich and that the familiar pleasures of home and family were more fulfilling than the…
film noir: Defining the genreEven such sentimental comedy-dramas as Frank Capra's
It's a Wonderful Life(1946) have been cited as "noir-ish" by critics who find in its suicidal hero and bleak depiction of small-town life a tone suitably dismal for film noir. Such films are also sometimes designated as "semi-noir," or film gris("gray…
Anatole Litvak: The Hollywood yearsThere he worked with Frank Capra on the Why We Fight series of documentaries, codirecting (uncredited)
Prelude to War(1942), The Nazis Strike(1943), Divide and Conquer(1943), The Battle of Russia(1943), The Battle of China(1944), and War Comes to America(1945).…
Academy Award
Academy Award, any of a number of awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, located in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., to recognize achievement in the film industry. The awards were first presented in 1929, and winners receive…
More About Frank Capra13 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
- development of film noir
- Great Depression
- "It's a Wonderful Life"
- "Lost Horizon"
- In Lost Horizon
- "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town"
- "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"
- role in film history
association with
- Cohn
- In Harry Cohn
- Columbia Pictures


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Express. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express.
Chelsea to back financial fair play deal
Chelsea are set to back both a wage increase cap and a compromise financial fair play deal at Thursday's showdown meeting of all 20 Premier League chairmen, it can be disclosed.
The Blues had been viewed as a hardline opponent of financial fair play (FFP), but Press Association Sport understands Chelsea will agree to a system that obliges clubs to break even but allows owners to cover some losses. The thawing of Chelsea's position should now ensure that both spending control systems are agreed on Thursday.
Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool will still argue that wealthy owners should not be allowed to underwrite any losses, but in order to push FFP through will have to settle for a compromise, where up to £105million over three years can be covered.
Opponents of FFP argue that the system maintains the status quo and favours the biggest clubs with large stadia and high commercial income. Four clubs - Manchester City, Fulham, West Brom and Aston Villa - are still expected to vote against it.
Chelsea's backing of a compromise, however, should enable the necessary 14 out of the 20 votes to be reached. The wage increase cap may also be watered down - initially Sunderland owner Ellis Short had suggested a maximum 10 per cent increase allowed for player wages.
It now looks likely that the cap will only affect those clubs whose total bill is higher than £52m so that promoted sides are not prevented from improving their squads. Furthermore, spending money earned from clubs' individual sponsorship deals on wages will not be restricted.
But some form of wage increase cap will satisfy club owners, who are fearful of the bulk of the income from next season's bumper new television rights deals - expected to be worth £25m-£30m per club - going straight into the pockets of the players and agents.
The Premier League's expected FFP system would be less restrictive than UEFA's, which is being brought in from next season and will oblige clubs to break even or face possible exclusion from European competition.
Under UEFA's system, for the first three years owners will be permitted to cover annual losses of up to £12million via equity but that will then be phased out.
Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool argue that tough FFP measures will maintain the Premier League's competitiveness and its attraction to a global TV audience, rather than risk a situation developing such as in Spain, where only two clubs dominate the football landscape.


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I was watching the US smash TV series "The Office" some weeks ago, when I had a eureka moment. How about an article about the diverse characters and nutters that make up a typical Nigerian office's workforce. And why not? I have been blessed (depending on how you look at it – maybe I am bad at committing to one place or I have gotten the sack everywhere I have worked) to work in a multiplicity of corporate (and not so corporate) environments.
My folks pushed me towards the door, as soon as I had turned in my final dissertation in for my first degree. No food for lazy man. I scored my first intern job in an alcoholic beverage corporation whose main product rhymes with Aguda (figure that one out). I was the archetypical intern. On my first day, I was pointed to an old dusty steel cabinet to sort out files and records which looked like they had been scattered by a 5 year old. You should try arranging folders with Nigerian names alphabetically. Folder 53456 is UWABUNKEONYE, Folder 53457 is UWAILOMWAN Folder 53458 is UWEMEDIEMOH……..Not to come across racist but the Urhobo names were the hardest..
I mean I have worked in companies where everything was rationed, even the stapler clips. I have been employed at an outfit where one chap was a perpetual latecomer. Considering where he lived, there was no way he could make it on time to work. He knew this, his manager knew this, the director knew this, HR knew this. But the guy's matter tired everyone. This company was located in Apapa, and this dude lived all the way before Alaba. Due to the incessant traffic on that Maza Maza/ Mile 12 axis, and the terrible roads, he usually got to work around past 9.
So he asked (no instructed me) to do him a favor. Since I usually got to work around a few minutes to 8, I was to switch on his computer, and take out a black suit jacket which he kept in his desk drawers and hang it on his chair. This would give the impression to whoever inquired that he had arrived work on time but "was not on seat" because he had momentarily stepped out for "inspections" or "breakfast."
He was soon found out when a director came looking for him one morning. Someone in the office mentioned that he had come in but not briefly stepped out. The director did not become a director from being fooled easily so he decided to wait this one out. When the late-comer had not come in at 9am, he (the director) tried his mobile number and the following conversation ensued:
Director: Latecomer (not his real name), this is the Director of Marketing. I have been in you office for the past 20 minutes looking for you. Where are you?
Late-comer: I am around sir. I just briefly stepped out.
Director: Is that so? Briefly stepped out to where, pray tell?
Latecomer: I am in the Logistics Department where I went for inspections.
Director: Oh, I see…I spoke to Mr. Lucky, the logistics manager like 30 minutes ago. Please put him on the line for me. I want to ask him something.
Latecomer: Err…actually sir…
The next thing in the background, the director heard a hawker panting as he said "Oga, I no fit find 5 naira change for the Gala o. My sister wey dey sell orange talk say she got get change. Abi you wan buy pure water join?"
The director said "Oh you are still on the road to work, buying Gala on company time abi? I will take this up with Human Resources. Please see me when you get in. I am recommending you for summary dismissal."
Story. You won't believe that Latecomer did not get fired eventually. He actually remained in that office for an additional 5 years until he moved because the banking sector had taken off.
Rumor was that maybe he had naked pictures of the Human Resources director smashing a Youth Corper in his office or something. He was just unsackable..
Watch out for Part 2.