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Migrating Birds Take Hundreds of Powernaps.
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Oct 06, 2006 03:14 AM
from the checking-eyelids-for-leaks dept.
from the checking-eyelids-for-leaks dept.
Ant writes "MSNBC reports that to help make up for sleep lost during marathon night flights, migratory birds take hundreds of powernaps during the day, each lasting only a few seconds, a new study suggests.
Every autumn, Swainson's thrushes fly up to 3,000 miles from their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska to winter in Central and South America. Come spring, the birds make the long trek back. The birds fly mostly at night and often for long hours at a time, leaving little time for sleep."
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this early in the morning (Score:5, Funny)
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At 4:20 in the morning, I could do with a couple of power naps as well.
Re:this early in the morning (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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So neh
http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshi remen.htm [phespirit.info]
Why they sleep only a few seconds (Score:5, Funny)
Must stay awake...
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'm falling!
Flapflapflapflapflap
Flap flap flap
Must stay awake...
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I suggest you *not* try it sometime.
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2. PROFIT!
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'e could grip i' by the 'usk!
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That that's why they keep on harrasing me in the city for food! The lazy bums should get a job like everyone else!
Re:Why they sleep only a few seconds (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all that far from the truth.
Albatross (and related species) spend virtually their whole lives at sea, returning to land only to breed. They fish for food, but can't sleep on the sea surface because they'd get caught by preditors (some shark and whale species, sealions, etc). Their only opportunity for sleep is whilst they're flying - so they nap for a few seconds whilst they're gliding.
Parent
Urban legend alert (Score:5, Informative)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross#Morphology
Parent
Re:Urban legend alert (Score:4, Insightful)
Sheesh. When did all widely-believed falsehoods become urban legends, instead of just plain old legends, myths, etc?
Parent
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We normally call it "micro sleep"
You know when you're so tired that you start nodding off before abruptly jerking your head back up? That is micro sleep and it generally lasts up to 3 seconds at a time.
I imagine birds are better at it than human pilots. Those few seconds are all it takes to go off the end of the runway, pancake during a landing, or to plow into the side of a mountain.
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Did the same thing as a student (Score:5, Funny)
They were called lectures.
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*sigh*
I wish my office walls weren't made of glass.
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Just kidding.
Someone needs to manufacture a neck/head brace type thing that has a fake (or real) wire(d/less) headset built in so you can pretend to be on the phone while napping.
Wish my boss understands this (Score:3, Funny)
Electronic Arts applauds (Score:5, Funny)
Ah shucks (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But seriously, studies of this kind tend to lose credibility when they start predicting the free behaviour of species while testing them under captive conditions. Going by this logic, I can say that lions in jungle start rattling the nearest metal bars or objects they can find when they feel hungry because I observed this behaviour in a bunch of lions in the nearest zoo. I know its stretching the point a bit, and that 'some' behaviour show consistence irrespective of the state of the subject animal/bird, BUT trying to deduce migratory behaviour (out of all things) from a bunch of observational data collected from birds in cages is stretching it too far IMHO.
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You're obviously not a real scientist. A real scientist would have let the lions out of the cage before making any observations.
Re:Maybe.. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
You couldn't be more wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
More importantly, though, although you must accept the inevitability of sleep, nonetheless you assume that sleep is a behavior and that behavior can be affected by a cage. Well, the view that sleep is behavior has no scientific basis, in spite of the fact that we (as do other animals) have some control over when we sleep, which is, well, totally beside the point. The fact remains that we, and all animals, MUST sleep and we cannot change that. If we don't sleep, our immune and nervous systems shut down and we die. This is true of all animals.
The latest science indicates beyond any doubt that sleep has nothing to do with behavior but is, rather, a metabolic state (anabolism) which is, of course, cell-based and which, therefore, cannot be affected by putting a bird in a cage or by attaching a neuro-transmitter to a flying bird.
Studies of this kind, therefore, do NOT lose credibility because it is not behavior which is being tested, but rather it is what is being tested is a simple measurement of how the catabolic - anabolic (awake - asleep) balance is maintained in birds, in particular.
It's too bad everybody seems to think that either this is just a humorous article or that they aren't interested enough in understanding what sleep is to spend a few minutes either thinking about what sleep really is, or reading about it. Sleep is important enough that if you try to do without it you will soon be rendered useless and die. Understanding sleep can make your life better. Not getting good sleep makes your life hell, if it doesn't kill you. You can't alter the basic metabolism of life by deciding that you are somehow special and you can't understand sleep if you simply dismiss it as behavior.
Parent
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So that does suggest something going on which is not related to the caging, since they were caged and observed during the whole year.
Yep... (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, just like my crazy uncle. But instead of gliding, he uses the cruise control.
Re:Yep... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Humans Too (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, there is a WikiPedia entry (not very useful) and this site too: http://www.sleepdex.org/microsleep.htm [sleepdex.org]
Hmmm... people do it. Birds do it. I'll be shocked when the research is published that fish do it too.
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I am. Thanks a bunch!
Not convinced (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't consider this to be an impressive evolved behaviour, so much as just what happens when a bird in flight is pushing itself to its limits of endurance. There just aren't many animals other than humans and avians that ever find themselves having to maintain such prolonged alertness to survive, so this is seen as a phenomenon. Try keeping squirrels on a wire over a pit of spikes or something, and you'll probably observe the same behaviour.
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Noseplugs ought to fix that right up.
Try keeping squirrels on a wire over a pit of spikes or something, and you'll probably observe the same behaviour.
I recommend alligators for this.
Re:Not convinced (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
the difference between birds and geeks... (Score:2)
yeah but do they get headaches? (Score:3, Funny)
@#$%^ Buzzwords (Score:2, Interesting)
Uberman (Score:2, Interesting)
How do they avoid crashing? (Score:5, Interesting)
If one stops flying completely for 9 seconds, the approximate distance it would fall is s = ut + 1/2at**2 [wikipedia.org]
But the barn swallow typically migrates within within 100 feet of the ground
So how do they avoid crashing?
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Thrushes migrate at 0 to 2624 feet (Score:2)
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A few theories from me as an armchair scientist. If it has a way to lock it's wings it will fall slower. It will loose several seconds of direction control but maybe it has a mechanism to compensate.
Re:How do they avoid crashing? (Score:5, Informative)
Even more impressive is the behavior of the Wandering Albatross which can fly for days at a time within a wingspan of ocean waves (albeit their wingspan is about 10 feet). They can do this even during a full gale.
So how do they avoid crashing?
They soar. Wings generate lift just because they're there and under the right conditions a bird might well increase its altitude while napping.
As a wave moves through the air, or air moves over a hill, it compresses and rises. Thus a sleeping bird may find itself safely carried over variations in surface hight without having to do a thing. It's called "slope soaring."
KFG
Parent
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birds have wings
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Sketchy Logic (Score:2)
Sure, if you discount the other half of the day.
I have to agree with the other commenters who pointed out that this is a good example of how watching a bird take naps in a cage may not be the best kind of science. For all we know, the birds in the wild are enjoying a hearty day's sleep, completely undisturbed by pesky lab techs trying to peer into their cage and see what they're doing. You keep looking at me
Did Anyone RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
The article is not even about sleeping while flying, they are talking entirely of the bird's sleep states during the daytime (and then the birds would fly at night). But, what do I expect? This is
birds split from mammals before dinosaurs (Score:2)
Despite this, theres evidence some birds can processes some symbols, and perform simple counting. They dont seem to have the emotional range of mammals.
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