Alan Gevins and his team at SAM Technology in San Francisco are nearing the end of a large study analyzing the effects of various drugs on cognitive performance. An editor at Technology Review recently visited their offices, and downed a stiff cocktail, to experience their work first-hand.

We probably didn't need a formalized brain study to tell us that we zone out during repetitive and/or monotonous tasks and that mistakes are more commonly made when we do. That much we've figured out for ourselves. Fortunately, though, the study by scientists at the University of Bergen in Norway and Southampton University in the UK discovered something else about those times when we space.