Genetic Mutation Enables Less Sleep 272
reporter writes to tell us that researchers are claiming to have discovered a genetic mutation that allows people to manage with much less sleep. One of the researchers hopes that this could lead to artificially reducing the amount of sleep required in your average human. "Although the mutation has been identified in only two people, the power of the research stems from the fact that the shortened sleep effect was replicated in mouse and fruit-fly studies. As a result, the research now gives scientists a clearer sense of where to look for genetic traits linked to sleep patterns."
Next up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Next up (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe they'll find a genetic predisposition of attraction to LCD screens and avoidance of sunlight.
Don't joke dude; the gene is named DEC [wikipedia.org]2; I'm sure they'll find it.
In any case, this is VERY exploratory stuff. They have found the gene in two women only, but were able to replicate it in some poor little mice and fruit flies. Other than that, the lack of details is what is outstanding about the article.
Oh, for those tagging this as "registration required", just google the effing URL of the NYTimes article, as users that come from Google get a free ride. You gotta hand it to these newspapers guys; they want to block people while getting google love.
Mutation (Score:5, Funny)
Mutation activated by Mountain Dew and Cheetos
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In other words, this mutation is the driving force of the Linux/FOSS community.... Hail and praise!
I thought it said... (Score:4, Funny)
.... genetic mutation for less sheep. That could cause problems in alabama...
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.... genetic mutation for less sheep. That could cause problems in alabama...
Nah, there aren't that many Scotsmen in Alabama. You do realize there is a reason that Dolly was cloned in Scotland, right?
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Because they wear kilts and the sound of zippers scare the sheep?
Terrible Joke You All Know (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, there aren't that many Scotsmen in Alabama. You do realize there is a reason that Dolly was cloned in Scotland, right?
Q: What is the difference between a Scotsman and Mick Jagger?
A: One sings Hey McCloud get offa my ewe!
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On the other side of the globe, New Zealanders get the short end of the stick in regards to livestock love.
Here endeth the lesson.
Re:I thought it said... (Score:5, Funny)
And in New Zealand [adultsheepfinder.com].
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That's because they're in the red light section of the state fair. Have you shown proof of age anywhere yet? Then you can't see any sheep.
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"genetic mutation for less sheep"
That would be fewer sheep. After all, the whole point of sleep is to count them...
I wonder how long.... (Score:4, Funny)
... Before we get Gustav Graves? [wikipedia.org]
Someone better tell MI6.
Employment Adjustments (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Employment Adjustments (Score:4, Insightful)
(Pope Benedict XVI, with regards to human dignity in the face of genetic enhancement technology)
Re:Employment Adjustments (Score:5, Insightful)
>Pope Benedict XVI
The guy who is against condom use in Africa, runs his own country, believes non-christians deserve eternal torment, and walks around with a solid fucking gold staff while lamenting the world's poor?
Sorry, we dont need someone with a 13th century worldview telling us what to do. Between secular moralists, secular ethics boards, FDA, AMA, et al, we are doing fine thanks. Men in dresses who think they talk to the invisible men in the sky arent helping. In fact, historically they've only hurt society.
Re:Employment Adjustments (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, I do believe that historically the christian churches have caused more harm to society than any other single force. And I disapprove of ALL dictatorships.
One could mention several attempts to equal the harm done by the christian churches...Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Hitler, Pot Pol, etc., but they have all been but short term affairs. To equal the evil of the churches requires staying power.
I have a friend who argues that Soviet Communism was basically a Christian heresy. I haven't found a good argume
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Well, if you let them treat you like that, you deserve it.
Yes, you are expected to oppose it, even if you are the only one. (And you will quickly notice getting followers, if they see you being self-confident about it.)
Re:Employment Adjustments (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everything is a slippery slope. Not all technology leads to dystopia. In fact, these things are rare in an open society.
For instance, if you read the article the two women get 6 hours a sleep nightly. Err, I do that, but I prefer 7. I dont need 8-9 as the article suggests. Sure, they probably get better sleep then I do and feel more refreshed, but you inserted that gene into me it wont lead into any big changes.
This isnt exactly discovering a gene that can let us get by with 2 or 3 hours a night. Its shaving off maybe one. I wouldnt be surprised to find out that this gene really does fuck all for the average person.
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That would require re-signing contracts. I for one would not agree to a contract requiring me to squander my new-found free time unless it came with a significant increase in pay.
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Most studies already indicate a work week of 30 hours is roughly as productive as 40 hours for most workers. Extending the work week only creates more web browsing and porn at work, not to mention additional cost to business but not likely to actually be more productive.
Meaning, for most workers, you're *lucky* to get six productive hours out of them every day.
Re:Employment Adjustments (Score:4, Interesting)
A Toyota shop near me introduced 30h working week for it staff. They kept the same pay but worked 6h days instead of 8h. Guess what productivity went up, the shop had longer opening hours 12h (2 shift) vs 8h (1 shift). People got sick less, fewer mistakes were done, customers were happier and revenue went up.
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If this actually happened there would almost certainly be a massive increase in depression and suicides.
Hasn't this already been brought on by industrialisation and modern society?
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If this actually happened there would almost certainly be a massive increase in depression and suicides.
Nah - they'll have genetic modifications to keep you happy.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Does it also let you read the thoughts of evil? (Score:2)
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Boy, this sounds great ... (Score:5, Interesting)
On second thought, is slitting my wrists an option?
Re:Boy, this sounds great ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to slit your wrists, would you do me a little favor before you do it? ;)
Please just take as much politicians, lawyers, marketing managers and phone sanitizers with you as you possibly can.
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I know what I would do:
Spend more time practicing my instruments (piano and sax).
Spend more time doing my hobby of 3d modeling and animation.
Spend more time with my GF.
Spend more time outside.
Basically spend more time doing stuff that is fun rather than sleeping (during which not much happens...).
Define "manage" (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly does "manage" mean? Does that mean you actually are more efficient and your body works just as well with less sleep? Or does it mean your brain functions better when tired... or that you don't actually GET tired? Or does it simply mean you can go longer before you burn out completely. Or whatever.
"Managing" and being "productive" are quite different... and subjective.
Re:Define "manage" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Define "manage" (Score:5, Funny)
I nominate you for Slashdot Editor.
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What's really sad is that it would take three tweets to include that.
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I think it's more efficient sleep. You get rested in less time.
Reminds me of a Sci Fi novel in which an astronaut had an AI optimizing algorithm programmed into his brain. The theory was that your brain does a sort of garbage collection and reset process while you're sleeping. With the AI, he gradually started needing less and less sleep and eventually didn't need sleep at all because it was happening while he was awake. I'm not suggesting that this extreme is practical, but the idea might be in the right b
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Was it a good book? Title?
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I wish I remembered.
Presence of Restoration Effects in These Subjects? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a biologist and I don't know what sleep durations are for other mammals but the scientist in me wonders why we settled out at eight hours a day if we are more vulnerable with our eyes closed. You would think it performs pretty important functions (or did perform) for the 5 percent of short sleepers not to collect more food and proliferate more efficiently and more frequently than the other 95% 8 hour sleepers. Perhaps in times of famine or disease this 5% are more susceptible and since we no longer have them they are freed from these shackles? Perhaps (since the two subjects noted were ages 40 and 70) this only becomes apparent with the onset of age that we never made it to back in the day? Any other ideas?
Re:Presence of Restoration Effects in These Subjec (Score:5, Insightful)
I came here to make a similar remark. A mutation like this would seem to be highly beneficial. Wouldn't you expect to see more of it in the population if it didn't have some downside to it?
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Cellular repair, sanity? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder about the average level of sleep we get nowadays, how much we need as we age, sanity issues, and more.
At the moment, sleep deprivation can lead to some nasty psychological issues. It says that the mice "recovered quicker from periods of sleep deprivation compared with regular mice", but does that mean that they just jumped to work quicker and less sluggishly, how about mental health? I'm guessing it becomes a quality VS quantity issue. I know that when my allergies act up, I don't breathe as well, and even though I sleep slightly longer durations I feel less rested than less sleep with clear sinuses. The breathing issues would then cause sleep-apnea [wikipedia.org] related issues.
Another thing I would like to see here is the "depth of sleep", such as REM, etc. If the gene actually modifies it so that the mice hit an optimal sleep depth more quickly, that might more sense. I've often found that if I consistently go without enough sleep I get sluggish, but sometimes if I really wear myself down, stay up really late, and then hit the sack when I'm just about ready to drop, I sleep *EXTREMELY* deeply and feel more rested on 3-4h of sleep than 7-8 hours. On people that get by very well on low sleep, I'd be willing to bet they measure a noticeably different EEG frequency (and possibly other factors such as blood-oxyen level), with a pattern more like a sharper curve towards deep sleep.
This would indicate a "quality" issue rather than a quantity. It would also make sense in an evolutionary sense. Yes, longer sleep means perhaps a longer duration of potential vulnerability, but a longer less-deep sleep be trading depth for recoverability.
E.G. if a large predator comes stomping up when you're at level 5/10 sleep, then you have a good chance of waking up and getting the f*** out of there even though you're out for approx 8h. Alternately, if you're out for a 3h super-nap, and at 9/10 depth for most of that, perhaps the potential for being gobbled up during that period is greatly increased?
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Evolution selects for breeding characteristics (Score:2)
Sleeping less doesn't increase your odds/ability to reproduce (at least, not significantly).
There is a mistaken idea about natural selection that it will always take any traits that are objectively "good". It doesn't. Only traits that can improve/reduce your ability to reproduce are affected. Any traits that don't affect the ability to reproduce tend to stick around forever, regardless of their perceived advantage/disadvantage.
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I'm pretty sure that being able to hunt, farm, build, and look out for predators for an extra few hours every day would enable you to stay alive long enough to reproduce more than the average cave man.
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It's not the advantage you think.
Lowered survivability in the long term offsets the superficial advantages.
I've never needed more than about 4 hours of sleep a night, my wife is a mess if she gets less than 8.
I can say from my field experiments, that some days (particularly where we both only get about 5-6 hours, but it's REALLY evident after several nights of short-sleep due to babies or whatever) she's far more likely to murder me.
Even if she doesn't kill me, the likelihood that my progeny will survive or
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Being awake at night, and especially gathering food, puts you in competition with nocturnal animals. If you don't have a mutation to see better at night, or hear better, or something like that, it's probably going to expose to you more danger than you would get at night.
A species that can somehow spend 8 hours asleep without getting eaten won't find additional benefit from working at night. If we had more predators that liked eating sleeping people, it would be a quick and obvious benefit.
Re:Presence of Restoration Effects in These Subjec (Score:4, Funny)
Uh... perhaps it's simply that it's beneficial to sleep (and use less energy) whenever you're not doing anything else? We sleep for about 8 hours because in equatorial Africa, there's about 8 hours of darkness when us vision oriented fruit-and-vegetarians monkeys can't find anything to eat or screw - I mean, who likes waking up in the morning next to a half eaten poison pear, or worse yet, a fugly skank monkey?
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How did you know about last Saturday morning?
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Yeah, those thoughts were the first that came to mind. Sleep is a big deal for so many proven reasons and so many slightly understood reasons. But I guess one reason we'd sleep for so long would be to conserve energy in a more natural environment with limited food.
My wife's immune system seems to be ridiculously strong, but maybe it's partly due to the fact that she always gets plenty of sleep and if she starts feeling slightly sick she sleeps an extra couple of hours that night/day.
Regarding the vulnerable
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You would think it performs pretty important functions (or did perform) for the 5 percent of short sleepers not to collect more food and proliferate more efficiently and more frequently than the other 95% 8 hour sleepers.
I suspect that our current sleep requirements are the product of balancing a lot of trade-offs, and it might not be wise to tamper with it (any more than we already do with coffee and alarm clocks) until we know what more of those trade-offs are. I'm sure there's some dystopian fiction waiting to be written about engineering ourselves into a state where the species wouldn't be viable in the natural world any more.
Of course, I rather like the idea that laziness and/or the desire to sleep in has some underly
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It could be a recent mutation which has not had the opportunity to propagate substantially. (How many hours a day do primates sleep?)
I imagine something like this would, like most mutations, be regressive, and therefore take a fairly long time to reach critical/substantial momentum.
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A primitive human is highly unlikely to be ABLE to gather food after it gets dark, no matter how awake and alert he may be. Darkness is like that. Not to mention that there aren't many nocturnal big game species anywhere in the world even after fire had been discovered.
So, since you aren'
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Anectdote:
A friend of mine feels fine on 5 hours a night, and can do that indefinitely. 6 is a really, really restful 9 to him. He can't even force himself to do 8 hours unless he's been up more than 24. Sounds about like the people in the study--no coffee or anything like that necessary, he simply doesn't need or even want more sleep than that.
Bastard gets so much done. It's amazing how much extra reading/video-game-playing/movie watching you can get done with an extra 2-3 hours every day, in the early
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Interesting - your friend sounds an awful lot like me, though I'm a shade older (mid thirties). I'm 5'6, have a high metabolism, and wake up automatically at the 5.5 hour mark regardless of when I go to sleep. I've been this way since junior high school, possibly earlier. I never sleep more than six hours unless I've been up for at least 24 hours straight, and I've managed to stay awake for up to 74 hours previously. I don't drink anything caffeinated - no coffee, soda, tea, etc. I read about this stud
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Or it could be that they have other mutated/different genes that somehow circumvent these issues. The more genes you'd need to pass on, the harder it would be to pass it on and become the norm.
I suppose if they have kids, they would provide some answers if they consented to DNA testing and study.
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I'm not saying that I have the mutation, but I rarely need more than 6 hours of sleep each night.
That's not some self-imposed deprivation. It's just the way I'm wired and I've been that way my whole life.
My immune system seems to be great. I rarely get sick, even when others around me are dropping like flies from the flu or whatever bug is going around.
I have a highly suppressed metabolism. Too much so. I have to constantly live on a calorie starved diet and I have to get, at least, 90 minutes of vigorous e
Age related? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what their sleep patters were like when they were teenagers. When I was in high school, I needed at least 10 hours, and preferred 12. Now that I'm almost 40, I can easily operate on 3 or 4 hours, routinely get 6, and sleeping in on saturday is 8 or 9.
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How much caffeine do you drink per day? I think a lot of the disparity is due to the fact that we (rightly) keep younger people from using caffeine and other stimulants.
The researchers in the article specifically pointed out that though a lot of people regularly get by with 6 hours of sleep, they do this using stimulants, not an innate propensity for less sleep.
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Why do people brag about their chronic sleep deprivation as if it were cool. Especially geeks.
It's like saying "I can easily operate without half my fingers and toes that I lost because of the stupid shit I did."
Try operating on 8 to 9 hours of sleep on average. You will feel like a total genius compared to now! And be able to do 8 hours of work in less than fours. How about that? Have you ever thought about that, or are you not able to do that anymore?
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Have you been checked for Sleep Apnea. I seem to remember seeing results from a study that up to 40% of the worlds population might have it to some degree or another.
I have Mild Sleep Apnea which means I don't warrant an expensive C-PAP machine but I do wear an oral device to help keep my airway unrestricted. A friend of mine has Severe Sleep Apnea and he has to use a C-PAP or he'll sleep for 12+ hours and still be exhausted.
Even with my device I pretty much never wake up feeling refreshed though. It's alwa
Did anyone else read the title as... (Score:2)
"Genetic Mutation Enables Less Sheep"?
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Did anyone else read the title as... "Genetic Mutation Enables Less Sheep"?
Y-e-e-e-e-e-s.
no thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Jolt (Score:3, Funny)
They *feel* they had enough sleep (Score:4, Interesting)
They ... found a mother and daughter who were naturally short sleepers. The women routinely function on about 6 hours of sleep a night; the average person needs 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep.
âoeWhen they wake up in morning, they feel they have slept enough,â Dr. Fu said.
These women feel they've had enough sleep, but that doesn't mean that they are fully rested and recovered from their previous day's activities. While I don't have access to the journal article, I would be interested in seeing whether mice or flies with the homologous mutation have shorter life spans or other problems that accrue over longer periods of time.
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That had crossed my mind as well.
I know a number of people who insist they don't need more than a few hours of sleep, but I don't buy it. I've even thought that about myself occasionally, but that's mainly because I regularly go so long without a full night's sleep that I forget what it feels like to really utilize my brain.
Interesting stuff and I wouldn't mind being able to function effectively on less sleep, but I'm a bit skeptical at this point.
This Guy Hasn't Slept for 30 Years (Score:5, Interesting)
6 hours unusual? (Score:5, Interesting)
A great documentary about this subject was from the Horizon program, entitled The Secret Life of Your Bodyclock [bbc.co.uk]. One of the things that they stated was some peoples body clocks run on different cycles. I believe they had examples of a 32 hour "day" clock and a 22 hour one and the differences that this placed on the subjects.
The comment that i wanted to make was that there are probably lots of people who do not fit into the 24 hour lifestyle that we are forced into. The secret life of your bodyclock was very eye opening. They had all sorts of great stats on why you shouldn't exercise in the morning, that you should always consume alcohol between 6-8pm (local time) and a great section on why teenagers hate getting up. Its well worth the watch if you can find it somehow.... [mininova.org]
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Now I'm very curious. Everything I've read indicates that morning excercise is a great idea, especially since cardio work on an empty stomach helps burn fat and kick starts your metabolism for the day. It seems to work great for me.
Perhaps I'll give that documentary a watch, it sounds interesting.
Da Vinci (Score:2, Interesting)
The 8 Year Club (Score:2)
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I tried a similar experiment in college. Wanted to see how long I could go without any sleep whatsoever. Well, it was exams week and I had four tough classes, so that contributed to the urgency of the experiment. I've never needed a LOT of sleep anyway, so I wanted to see how long I could sustain a constant waking state.
Anyway, what I discovered at the time was that I could function pretty well for about 5 days with no sleep. As long as I got plenty of water and ate well (healthy foods, no "quick burn"
Let Me Guess... (Score:4, Funny)
The 2 people with the mutation work as a movie projectionist and a banquet waiter in a luxury hotel.
Sign me up! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a co-worker who only needs 4 hours, He was actually studied in college for health issues, its amazing how much this guy can get done when only needs 4 hours sleep. Also beats the commute into work by coming in really early, while the rest of us are sleeping.
Myself, 9 is good for me. I'd love to be able to only need 4 and wake up wide awake and in good health.
As long as my boss doesnt make me work 16 hour days, sign me up.
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How old is he now? Who knows how his body will react when he's 50 or 60?
Regarding the commute, anyone can do that, more or less. Just need to go to bed 4 hours earlier. ;)
I must be a mutant... (Score:3, Interesting)
I regularly rely on less than 6 hours of sleep per night
with generally no impairment in waking function.
I've been like this my whole life.
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But does your brain function as well as it could if you got 8-9 hours of sleep?
I get 6 or less hours of sleep a night without drinking caffeine or getting sick, but that doesn't mean I should be doing that.
Sleep is an addiction (Score:2)
Bah, if only people realised that sleep was an addictive habit and could be eliminated altogether through sheer willpower alone! My years of research provide 140% proof of that:
http://www.skytopia.com/project/articles/sleep.html [skytopia.com]
My name is Hiro Nakamura ... (Score:4, Funny)
... I have the power to control time - bedtime!
Sleepless fruit! (Score:2, Funny)
Boring, already done! (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see if it also enables "less IQ". (Score:2)
Because from what I have seen, this is a non-circumventable rule.
Also I would recomment long-term checks (20 years minimum) for becoming crazy, dumbing down, other health issues, or just being less clear in the brain in the long term.
read Beggars in Spain (Score:3, Interesting)
What if, suddenly there were ppl with practically 33% more lifespan? More time every day to train sports, science, whatever - even work? No chance one of them attending chess games, olympic games or similar.
It would lead to them being outcasts as long as they were in minority.
I'm officially scared... (Score:2)
First we have some scientist doubling the lifespan of flies [scientificamerican.com] now they won't sleep? Why are they trying to create immortal sleepless flies? Please somebody stop them!
I, for one, won't welcome them...
Polyphasic Sleep (Score:2)
It sounds crazy, but maybe the people who have been able to adapt to a Polyphasic sleeping schedule (most notably, someone named Steve Pavlina [wikipedia.org]) are the people are have this gene mutation already, thus requiring less sleep? I have certainly tried this polyphasic s
Too small of a sample set (Score:2)
We need more individuals to study to determine the full effect of this mutation.
Conditional? (Score:2)
Point being, two genes in two people is an easy coincidence weighed against the vast sea of conditional variables that effect us all. For myself, if I spend a day doing relatively nothing I wake up somewhat naturally the next morning on 6 hours. If I go all day non-stop, then I can sleep for 12 hours.
If sleep is when our bodies recover, th
Worst X-Men Movie Ever. (Score:3, Interesting)
The story of Red-Eye, who battles evil by hoping they'll nod off before he does.
For the other 98% of us... (Score:2)
...there's always caffeine.
Cheers,
Dave
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go to bed around 10 or 10:30 at night and wake up alert and energized around 4 or 4:30 in the morning
"Only" 5½-6 hours of sleep? That really doesn't seem all that drastic; I'd wager that many people could train themselves to do this. (Although, whether you could keep this up for years with no ill effects I couldn't say.)
Personally I usually go to bed around 11:30 and always wake up on my own around 6:00 (my alarm doesn't go off until 6:30). Even when I stayed up until 1:00 a few nights ago I still woke up at about 6:00 out of habit.
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You would be training yourself to be tolerant of sleep deprivation. This gene means you don't have any awareness of or ill effects as a result of sleep deprivation, because you are not deprived.
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Not necessarily; you can also train yourself to have better (deeper) sleep... you reach REM quicker, etc. I'm not an expert on such things but that's my understanding.
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Re:X-Men (Score:5, Insightful)
It is rather disturbing.
Of course you know what will happen. They'll make it so people need less sleep so they can work longer.
Not like they'll be allowed to spend their new awake time on leisure. "Hurray! We can now work people an extra 20 hours a week!"