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Short Sleepers Might Be Benefiting From a DNA Mutation
An anonymous reader writes: As someone definitely not in that category, I envy people who can get along with little sleep. I have sometimes secretly believed they're exaggerating. Maybe not. The BBC reports on DNA research that says there might be a genetic basis for the very low sleep needs that some people have. The article says that UC-San Francisco researchers "compared the genome of different family members. They discovered a tiny mutation in a gene called DEC2 that was present in those who were short-sleepers, but not in members of the family who had normal length sleep, nor in 250 unrelated volunteers. When the team bred mice to express this same mutation, the rodents also slept less but performed just as well as regular mice when given physical and cognitive tasks." If it's stuck in the genes, though, I guess I'll still want more hours in a row if I don't want to start hallucinating. So how many hours do you need? I seem to get along with six or seven, but sleep past noon on the occasional weekend day. Update: 07/09 19:24 GMT by T : The latest Freakonomics podcast has some interesting things to say about the economics of sleep, and hours-per-night is a big part of it.
The military has studied this quite a bit, and there has been no way to achieve a statistically significant reduction in sleep requirements over long term studies.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
1) Pick some rare advantageous trait (e.g. short sleepers, super multitaskers)
2) Post a story about it on Slashdot
3) Observe the large number of posters who claim to have the trait
Optionally:
4) Cross-correlate these posters against list of posters claiming to possess a different rare advantageous trait in previous Slashdot discussions
#DeleteChrome
I need about 1-2 more hours than I get.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Sadly, not in my case. If not for those first 3-4 months I would probably have a second kid, but I really became an exhausted wreck until things got more regular and fell into a (mostly) once a night feeding schedule. Our coping mechanism at that point was that we traded nights to get up with him and I was only a zombie every other day at work instead of a constant zombie/a-hole.
The USA really needs to have much better maternity/paternity leave than we do. 2 weeks (burning through all my meager vacation) was not enough. My wife at least was able to get some cat-naps during the day, not so much for me (no, she didn't have it easier, but she did get more sleep from weeks 2-12). It is pretty darn hard to come home after working all day as a zombie and have to take over because your wife is an exhausted wreck, all knowing that the cycle won't have a break until the weekend.