

The Village that fell asleep: mystery illness that perplexes Kazakh scientists - breitling
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/18/kazakhstan-sleeping-village-mystery

======
smanuel
A crazy (or maybe not so much) theory: Bacteria. Some bacteria could cause
sleep disorders (e.g. Tropheryma whipplei [1]) and this place could be
favorable to this bacteria (or another) _thanks_ to the uranium mine.

Just speculating here, but... why not.

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20658941](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20658941)

~~~
gh02t
My first guess would be some sort of chemical poisoning from the mine. Natural
uranium is effectively inert in terms of radiation, but it is still a heavy
metal and is pretty chemically toxic (in metallic form, I don't know how toxic
the ore is). Or some leftover chemical from the mining. Or some gas leaking
from underground. Or other radiation sources that are found near uranium (e.g.
radon).

But the article says they tested all that. Weird weird weird.

------
swamp40
_> > "I’ve lived in this house for 20 years. I’ve lived on this street for 60
years,” she said , between hauling water from a standpipe through the icy
streets on a sledge. “Now where will they send me? What’s awaiting me there?”_

Indoor plumbing?

------
zellyn
Another crazy (or maybe not so much) theory: An ancient evil watches
unsleeping, waiting in pooled darkness, beneath the picturesque dwellings of
this unsuspecting town. Man was never supposed to venture into these forbidden
depths, but the temptation of wealth and unlimited energy proved too strong.
Now, the timeless horrors have been released…

------
chrischen
They sort of buried the part about there being 10 times the normal amount of
carbon monoxide in the homes of the affected...

~~~
bdevine
It's not clear from the article that that's a smoking gun. Just prior to that
point, we see:

"Elevated levels of radon and carbon monoxide were detected but later ruled
out as a cause.", with a link to a Russian page that, Google Translated, seems
to actually indicate that CO is still a leading suspect. However, the article
immediately goes on to apparently quote from the same Russian page that

"...some of houses (sic) of the affected residents had carbon monoxide levels
that were ten times higher than recommended. This... could have caused similar
symptoms to the “sleeping sickness”."

So the article itself seems a little sloppy. Beyond that, I wonder what the
sickness relationship is between high-CO houses and all inhabitants of them,
given that at least one inhabitant per house has experienced the sickness. Is
there a correlation? Also, is the social structure of the village such that
there are frequent visitations to most or every home? If so, then one might
expect to experience the sickness even if one's own house doesn't have high
CO.

------
dominotw
RT documentary on the village

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dQiCuZO76o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dQiCuZO76o)

------
WhitneyLand
What about this?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness)

