Most students at Cornell are intimately familiar with the effects of trimethylxanthine, better known as caffeine. Caffeine increases metabolism, raises blood pressure, elevates heart rate and accelerates breathing. It also blocks the neuroreceptors for adenosine, a sedative neuromodulator, which yields its most important effect to busy college students — the ability to offset the drowsiness of sleep deprivation by waking up its consumer.
These effects drive many of Cornell’s brightest and most tired students and faculty to Libe and Tower caf