Tom Strattman for The New York Times RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY: A green iguana has an electrode attached to its head.
Photo ResearchersBaboons sleep an average of 9.4 hours per day.
Posted on 11/08/2005 8:31:05 PM PST by neverdem
In a laboratory at Indiana State University, a dozen green iguanas sprawl tranquilly in terrariums. They while away the hours basking under their heat lamps, and at night they close both eyes - or sometimes just one. They lead comfortable lives pretty much indistinguishable from any ordinary pet iguana, except for one notable exception: the bundles of brain-wave recording wires that trail from their heads.
A team of scientists at Indiana State would like to know what happens in the brains of the iguanas when the lights go out. Do they sleep as we do? Do they shut the whole brain down, for example, or can they keep one half awake?
These scientists in Terre Haute hope the iguanas will also help shed some light on an even more fundamental question: why sleep even exists.
"Sleep has attracted a tremendous amount of attention in science, but we really don't know what sleep is," said Steven Lima, a biologist at Indiana State.
Dr. Lima belongs to a small but growing group of scientists who are pushing sleep research deep into the animal kingdom. They suspect that most animal species need to sleep, suggesting that human slumber has an evolutionary history reaching back over half a billion years.
Today animals sleep in many different ways: brown bats for 20 hours a day, for example, and giraffes for less than 2. To understand why people sleep the way they do, scientists need an explanation powerful enough to encompass the millions of other species that sleep as well.
"One of the reasons we don't understand sleep is that we haven't taken this evolutionary perspective on it," Dr. Lima said.
Sleep was once considered unique to vertebrates, but in recent years scientists have found that invertebrates likes honeybees and crayfish sleep, as well. The most...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Tom Strattman for The New York Times Photo Researchers
As a life-long insomniac, I envy anyone who gets a good nights sleep.
I think the listing for dogs is a bit off. Seems to me they sleep much more than ten hours a day.
Yeah, the power nap! Have you ever tried it? It works wonders.
Knock on wood, but I NEVER have any problem sleeping. Especially this time of year, when it is starting to get cold. That's when the hibernation response kicks in for us mammals. LOL!
In the great NW, we need extra strong Starbucks to keep us awake! There's a Starbucks on every corner.
This being a chat thread, it may take eternity.
"Any takers on how long it will take for creationists to show up on this thread?"
Well they have to sleep too you know!
Ping
If you can't sleep. it SUX major league!
Without sleep, the body is tired, and the brain hasn't been able to sort and file all the input it's had that waking period.
Sleep deprivation is a torture method, and has been used to murder political prisoners (see Mazandius).
Best laugh I had today!!
I don't know about others, but I have squandered my sleepless hours. Lots of late night reading, surfing the net, listening to Art Bell, etc.
Junior, possible archival material.
Grabbed it this morning. Thanks.
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