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I am the Online Community Manager at PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science). My job is to try to motivate you to comment on the papers there. My scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. You can contact me at: Coturnix@gmail.com

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Bloggie Stuff

Sleep:

Light and Time

Two of my SciBlings have recently covered papers that my readers should find interesting: Joseph: Bright Light and Melatonin Treatment Improves Dementia: A study published in JAMA indicates that treatment with bright light alone (1,000 lux), or bright light combined...

My picks from ScienceDaily - Sleep edition

Circadian Math: 1 Plus 1 Doesn't Always Equal 2: Like a wristwatch that needs to be wound daily for accurate time-telling, the human circadian system -- the biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours -- requires daily light exposure...

(Non) Adaptive Function of Sleep

From November 01, 2005, a review of a review......

Development of the human sleep patterns

What it really means when we are talking about babies "sleeping through the night"

When Should Schools Start in the morning?

The fourth part of a four-part series on the topic, this one from April 02, 2006.......

More on sleep in adolescents

This is the third part of the series on the topic, from April 01, 2006......

Sleep Schedules in Adolescents

Earlier this year, during the National Sleep Awareness Week, I wrote a series of posts about the changes in sleep schedules in adolescents. Over the next 3-4 hours, I will repost them all, starting with this one from March 26,...

Adolescent Sleep Schedule

This kind of ignorant bleating makes me froth at the mouth every time - I guess it is because this is my own blogging "turf". One of the recurring themes of my blog is the disdain I have for people...

Books: "Snooze...Or Lose! - 10 "No-War" Ways To Improve Your Teen's Sleep Habits" by Helene A. Emsellem, MD

My regular readers are probably aware that the topic of adolescent sleep and the issue of starting times of schools are some of my favourite subjects for a variety of reasons: I am a chronobiologist, I am an extreme "owl"...

Do androids dream of electric sheep? Sure, if they sleep.

To sleep or not to sleep: the ecology of sleep in artificial organisms: We systematically varied input parameters related to the number of food and sleep sites, the degree to which food and sleep sites overlap, and the rate at...

The Open Sleep Journal and The Phylogeny of Sleep Database

One of the latest additions (just two days ago, I think) to the Directory of Open Access Journals is a journal that will be of interest to some of my readers - The Open Sleep Journal. The first volume has...

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)

This post is perhaps not my best post, but is, by far, my most popular ever. Sick and tired of politics after the 2004 election I decided to start a science-only blog - Circadiana. After a couple of days...

A nice brief tutorial on sleep

On Brain Rules...

Post-doc with a leading Sleep research group

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITY in SLEEP MEDICINE Charles A. Czeisler, Steven W. Lockley, Christopher P. Landrigan, Laura K. Barger Harvard Work Hours, Health and Safety Group Division of Sleep Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School The Harvard Work Hours...

'Insomnia: A Cultural History'

Book excerpt in today's Wall Street Journal: Chapter 6: Wired: It is likely that insomnia will increase with the expansion of the 24-hour economy into more and more lives, and more of each life, because wakefulness and the wired world...

My picks from ScienceDaily (the Sleep edition)

Daytime Nap Can Benefit A Person's Memory Performance: A brief bout of non-REM sleep (45 minutes) obtained during a daytime nap clearly benefits a person's declarative memory performance, according to a new study. People Had More Intense Dreams After Sept....

Genetics and Biochemistry of Sleep

Keystone sleep/circadian meeting. Jay Dunlap, Emmanuel Mignot and Amita Seghal are organizing a Keystone meeting on Genetics and Biochemistry of Sleep in Lake Tahoe, March 7-12 (click here to see large):...

A Sleeping and Dreaming Exhibit

Sleeping & Dreaming exhibit hosted by Wellcome Trust will be open until 9 March 2008: Why are scientists still perplexed by sleep? What do the insights that our dreams bring us mean? And is a life without sleep conceivable? Sleeping...

Evolution and Adaptive Function of Sleep

The panel discussion from the 'Waking Up To Sleep' (February 9th and 10th, 2007) conference has been filmed and the video is now online. A very interesting discussion on the evolution and adaptive function of sleep. Watch it here. More...

Sleep Apnea webcast

Dmitriy Kruglyak posted a summary of last week's Cephalon webcast. The topic was Sleep Apnea, something I guess a number of my readers would be interested in. So, go ahead and listen to the podcast and read Dmitry's summary and...

Hypnic Jerk

No, that is not a really nasty guy who hypnotizes people. It is a technical term used to describe the feeling of falling one sometimes experiences at the moment one drifts into sleep. It often makes the person wake up...

Brain, Symmetry and Sleep

Hmm, I did not know this - apparently the left hemisphere of the human brain falls asleep first, and the right one a little bit later in most people. I wonder if that has any connection with the reason we...

Sleep News

All-Nighters Equal Lower Grades: With end-of-semester finals looming, here's an exam question: Will pulling an all-nighter actually help you score well? To the dismay of college students everywhere, the correct answer is "no." Morning Jolt Of Caffeine Might Mask Serious...

Sleeping with the New York Times

Being out of town and all, I missed it, but NYTimes published a whole lot of articles about sleep yesterday. Of course, as I enjoy poking around bird brains, the article by Carl Zimmer - In Study of Human Patterns,...

Less you sleep, craziest the dreams!

There is an intriguing article in Scientific American about the consequences of sleep deprivation. When the brain is finally allowed to catch up with sleep, it tries to make-up for the loss of slow-wave sleep, but it also tries to...

Yes, delay the school starting times

From the Independent: The head has identified research which says that teenagers would be more likely to take in what they are learning if they started school two hours later. He is considering changing the school timetable for sixth-formers as...

Do whales sleep?

It is Marine Megavertebrate Week right now, so why not take a look at one of the most Mega of the Megaverts - the grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus): Do whales sleep? You may have heard that dolphins do - one...

Waking Experience Affects Sleep Need in Drosophila

There is nothing easier than taking a bad paper - or a worse press release - and fisking it with gusto on a blog. If you happen also to know the author and keep him in contempt, the pleasure of...

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)

This post is perhaps not my best post, but is, by far, my most popular ever. Sick and tired of politics after the 2004 election I decided to start a science-only blog - Circadiana. After a couple of days...

Sleep Schedules in Adolescents

Earlier this year, during the National Sleep Awareness Week, I wrote a series of posts about the changes in sleep schedules in adolescents. Over the next 3-4 hours, I will repost them all, starting with this one from March 26,...

Chronic vs. Acute Sleep Deprivation

In all animals, vertebrate and invertebrate alike, one of the defining features of sleep is the "rebound", i.e., the making up for sleep debt after an acute sleep deprivation event. However, the problem of modern society is a chronic sleep...

Sexual Activity Reported In Dreams Of Men And Women

I wonder if this new study was designed better than this one: In a detailed study that served to investigate the actual nature and content of sexual dreams across a large sample of dream reports from men and women,...

Sleep News

More stuff from SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies: Sleep Deprivation Affects Eye-steering Coordination When Driving: Driving a vehicle requires coordination of horizontal eye movements and steering. Recent research finds that even a single...

Sleep News

Children With Sleep Disorder Symptoms Are More Likely To Have Trouble Academically: Students with symptoms of sleep disorders are more likely to receive bad grades in classes such as math, reading and writing than peers without symptoms of sleep disorders,...

Sleep News

Sleep Deprivation Affects Airport Baggage Screeners' Ability To Detect Rare Targets: A lack of sleep may affect the performance of airport employees, which can, in turn, compromise the safety of airline passengers. Sleep deprivation can impair the ability of airport...

Sleep News

Wide Range Of Sleep-related Disorders Associated With Abnormal Sexual Behaviors, Experiences: A paper published in the June 1st issue of the journal SLEEP is the first literature review and formal classification of a wide range of documented sleep-related disorders associated...

Sleep Genes are not the same as 'Genes for sleep'

Back in the late 1990s, when people first started using various differential screens, etc. looking for elusive "genes for sleep", I wrote in my written prelims (and reprinted it on my blog several years later): Now the sleep researchers are...

The unnecessary heroics (like injecting yourself with toxins)

If you watch Tony Wright on his webcam every single millisecond of his experiment, you will likely have some interesting experiences yourself, apart from seeing how sleep deprivation messes with his mind. And his health....

Creating slow-wave sleep on demand

Press-release just in - Deep Sleep: Researchers Discovery How To Simulate Slow Wave Activity: ----------snip------------- During slow wave activity, which occupies about 80 percent of sleeping hours, waves of electrical activity wash across the brain, roughly once a second, 1,000...

Do whales sleep?

It is Marine Megavertebrate Week right now, so why not take a look at one of the most Mega of the Megaverts - the grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus): Do whales sleep? You may have heard that dolphins do - one...

Actography

Good. Everyone expected it, but it is nice to have it tested and confirmed. Makes life easier and research cheaper. Measuring Movement To Assess And Manage Sleep Disorders: Actigraphy, the use of a portable device that records movement over extended...

Sleepwalking as an Alibi

Sandra has a post about an interesting case of a person who commited a crime (and was acquitted) while sleepwalking. The term "sleep disorder" was used as a defence. But, is it a disorder at all? It naturally occurs in...

PERIOD clock gene variants affect sleep need in humans

The most exciting thing about this study is that this is, as far as I am aware, the first instance in which it was shown that a circadian clock gene has any effect on sleep apart from timing of it,...

Sleep deprivation halts creation of new neurons in the hippocampus

This is interesting: Study: Sleep linked to brain cell creation: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science research on rats found that the hippocampus portion of the brain was directly affected by a lack of sleep for a long...

Quality of Wakeful Life affects the Quality of Sleep

Slow-wave Activity During Sleep Affected By Quality, Intensity Of Wakefulness: A study published in the February 1st issue of the journal SLEEP provides a first direct demonstration that the "quality" and "intensity" of wakefulness can affect slow-wave activity (SWA) during...

New potential sleeping pill

If you discover a brain chemical which, when missing or malfunctioning (due to a mutation in its receptor) abruptly puts people and animals to sleep when they don't want to - a condition called narcolepsy - then you can work...

The Cultural Politics of Sleep

Nicole Eugene recently defended her Masters Thesis called Potent Sleep: The Cultural Politics of Sleep (PDF) on a topic that I find fascinating: Why is sleep, a moment that is physiologically full and mentally boundless, thought to be a moment...

This aired too early in the day for my adolescent brain...

I was too busy with the conference so I missed the NPR Morning Edition story on one of my favourite subjects: Adolescent Sleep, which was followed by two more stories on the same subject! I am glad to see this...

Sleep Deprivation - Societal Causes and Effects

Here is the second guest-post by Heinrich (from March 20, 2005):...

What are Dreams for?

Jonah has a good rundown on a new paper on the neuroscience....

What Is Sleep For?

Back in March 2005, I asked Heinrich of the She Flies With Her Own Wings blog to guest-post on Circadiana. He wrote two nice posts and this is the first of them (March 18, 2005). Perhaps I can get him...

Puffy ankles? You may get sleep deprived.

Fluid Displacement From Legs To Neck Can Lead To Obstructive Sleep Apnea: When a person lies down, a small amount of fluid displaced from the legs to the base of the neck can narrow soft tissue around the throat and...

The link between sleep and memory, from a somewhat different angle.

Memory Improves After Sleep Apnea Therapy: Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may improve their memory by using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). A new study published in the December issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College...

New York Times Gets It Right, Just To Screw Up At The End In Blind Adherence To The He Said/She Said Journalism

Now behind the Wall, but plenty of excerpts available in this March 26, 2005 post......

A vicious cycle of alcohol and insomnia

Recovering alcoholics with poor sleep perceptions will likely relapse: "The usual perception of alcohol's effects on sleep in nonalcoholics is that it helps sleep," explained Deirdre A. Conroy, the corresponding author who conducted the research while a postdoctoral fellow at...

Waking Experience Affects Sleep Need in Drosophila

There is nothing easier than taking a bad paper - or a worse press release - and fisking it with gusto on a blog. If you happen also to know the author and keep him in contempt, the pleasure of...

An Excellent Article about Sleep

Sleep: it's required: "....short sleep can hasten the arrival of the inevitable long sleep"...

Good Article On Sleep

Occasionally, an article on sleep in the newspapers is actually good. Like this one....

No all-nighters for you!

Shelley went to the Society for Neuroscience meeting and saw a talk on sleep deprivation, memory and hippocampus....

It's all connected - sleep, hunger, obesity

Shorter Nightly Sleep In Childhood May Help Explain Obesity Epidemic: ------------------snip----------------------- This research shows that shorter sleep duration disturbs normal metabolism, which may contribute to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Even two to three nights of shortened sleep...

Sleep in Infants

I tend to rant about sleep in adolescents for various reasons, but other people focus on other age groups. Infants are one such group, interesting because it takes a while for their circadian rhythms to consolidate resulting in "sleeping through...

What is a 'natural' sleep pattern?

Nothing too complicated today, but something you should all know.

It's not the quantity, but timing

Study says no video games on school nights: According to Dr. Iman Sharif, the results were clear-cut. "On weekdays, the more they watched, the worse they did," said Dr. Sharif. Weekends were another matter, with gaming and TV watching habits...

(Non) Adaptive Function of Sleep

An article I really liked...

Circadian Rhythm of Caffeine Effects

Since every chemical induces a different response in the body dependent on the time of day when it is administered, I am not surprised that this also applies to caffeine: A new study at the Université de Montréal has concluded...

Viagra keeps you up at night

No, not (just) that part - your brain. A new study shows that a single dose of Viagra makes symptoms of sleep apnea worse. And sleep deprivation resulting from sleep apnea may be one of the reasons why you may...

New issue of the journal SLEEP

You can see some highlights here....

Alternative sleep therapies

Over 1.6 Million Americans Use Alternative Medicine For Insomnia Or Trouble Sleeping: A recent analysis of national survey data reveals that over 1.6 million American adults use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to treat insomnia or trouble...

New Sleep Articles

The latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine is devoted to sleep. The articles are freely available. Here is the press release: Incorporate Sleep Evaluation Into Routine Medical Care, Expert Says Sleep is an integral part of health, and assessment...

Wide Awake

I feel a professional duty to watch - once it is available - and review this movie about sleep deprivation and insomnia. Sounds pretty good and informed, as well as entertaining, at least according to the article: Night after night...

Sleep Deprivation in the classroom, in the cockpit and on the space shuttle

Students not getting enough sleep: College students may believe they are being more productive when they sleep less, but in reality it is causing harm to their bodies. The National Sleep Foundation points out that receiving less than six hours...

Rich people sleep better

I've heard of this before, but now I see an actual study has been published: There's more to a good night's rest than going to bed early. Sleeping comes easiest and lasts longest for the wealthy, white, and female. Reporting...

When Should Schools Start in the morning?

The fourth part of a four-part series on the topic.