Researchers have taken the scalpel of science to three urban myths in time for the party season, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reports on Wednesday:

BEAUTY SLEEP: Forget heavy makeup, skin serums or monkey glands if you want to look good for the party. The best tip for looking fresh, say scientists, comes from conventional wisdom -- get yourself plenty of sleep. Stockholm researchers photographed 23 men and women aged 18 to 31 after the volunteers had had a normal, eight-hour sleep and again after they had been deprived of sleep for 31 hours. For the pictures, the volunteers wore no makeup, wore their hair loose, underwent identical cleaning or shaving procedures for both conditions and were told to have a neutral facial expression. The 46 pictures were then presented in random order to 65 untrained observers. On average, someone who was sleep-deprived was rated six percent less healthy, four percent less attractive and 19 percent more tired than when he or she had had a good night's sleep.