Sleep Is the Ultimate Brainwasher 210
sciencehabit writes "Every night since humans first evolved, we have made what might be considered a baffling, dangerous mistake. Despite the once-prevalent threat of being eaten by predators, and the loss of valuable time for gathering food, accumulating wealth, or having sex, we go to sleep. Scientists have long speculated and argued about why we devote roughly a third of our lives to sleep, but with little concrete data to support any particular theory. Now, new evidence (abstract, full text paywalled) has refreshed a long-held hypothesis: During sleep, the brain cleans itself."
During sleep, the Cerebrospinal fluid fills channels in the brain, collecting waste products. It uses a lot of energy, leading to the hypothesis that the brain can't clean up waste while also processing sensory input.
Like so many computer programs... (Score:5, Funny)
Humans suffer from major memory leaks and must be shut down periodically due to poor garbage collection.
Re:Extremely variable sleeping periods (Score:5, Funny)
Cats must have very clean brains!?
Re:Obvious question (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, brain poop which may lead to many brain farts.
Re:Extremely variable sleeping periods (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Neat. (Score:5, Funny)
For teenagers, it's more like a cron job running rm -rf /knowledge/school/exam_answers/*
Re:Extremely variable sleeping periods (Score:3, Funny)
That's easy you have a dirty mind.
Re:Couldn't you come up... (Score:5, Funny)
...with a better word than "brainwashing?" Since that already means something that does not match the contents of the article.
Agree. A "dirty mind" joke would have gone down far better.
Re:Neat. (Score:3, Funny)
For teenagers, it's more like a cron job running rm -rf /knowledge/school/exam_answers/*
Okay, how to I root my brain to edit my crontab???? Then I can finally not me fail english, which I that unpossible.
Re:Extremely variable sleeping periods (Score:5, Funny)
"This was also a favorite time for scholars and poets to write uninterrupted, whereas still others visited neighbors, had sex, or engaged in petty crime." ...Or all the above, at the same time :)
Like visiting a neighbor to have sex with his wife and steal some silver in the process... and then write about it.
Re:Extremely variable sleeping periods (Score:5, Funny)