Eliminate Sleep? Is evolution proof that we can't get rid of the need for sleep?

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: sao123

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: Don Rodriguez
Think about it.

If we were able to eliminate sleep - wouldn't it have been facilitated via evolution?

As it appears as humans as a whole, (not talking about specific age groups), our sleep necessities appear to have remained the same - we have not even even lessened the volume necessary... (as a whole, not age groups). People claim to be able to function on less sleep, but as far as I can find there is no scientific proof of this....

edit: also - almost all animals need sleep - the better majority of them - wouldn't evolution have "taken care" of that also?


right?

Sleep = regeneration/recuperation period. Makes perfect sense in evolution. Try to explain rest/sleep with ID.

God rested on the 7th day. deal with it.

According to Christian beliefs, you are made in the IMAGE of God. Not made like god. Just because God can go at it for 6 day straight and then rest doesn't mean you can. You are most definitely not God.

Explain why humans slept before the advent of Christianity and still slept after Christianity.

well, to be technically fair, this is the Hebrew god we are talking about, who did exist before Christians. But yes, humans have been sleeping before any god appeared.

I wasn't talking about the Hebrew beliefs But it amounts to the same thing like you said.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
lol @ turning this into a Christian bashing argument

I am a firm believer in pre-emptive strike

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: takeru
is there a study about long term affects of sleep deprivation? like, compare people who NEED 8+ hours of sleep to function properly as opposed to people that have been accustomed to sleeping only around 3-4 hours a day, and still function the same as someone with a full nights sleep?

Pretty sure they have done this. The shrinks did a lot of sleep/sensory deprivation studies. There is a reason why sleep deprivation is used on prisoners.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: sdifox

According to Christian beliefs, you are made in the IMAGE of God. Not made like god. Just because God can go at it for 6 day straight and then rest doesn't mean you can. You are most definitely not God.

Explain why humans slept before the advent of Christianity and still slept after Christianity.

Because they are lazy bastards?

Introspection.... Damn, you are right...

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Incidentally, I'd love to see some kind of experiment on fruit flies:
Slowly lengthen the duration of daylight, maybe at a rate of 5 minutes per generation, or perhaps at an even slower rate. Eventually, it might result in flies which are active their entire lives, without any designated sleep time. It would be interesting to see if there are any ill effects, and also to see if their lifespans shorten by around 30%.

That seems to be the case (From Science Jul 18 2008):

In 2005, Cirelli and her team reported in Nature the first dividend of such a random genetic screen. Her team observed 9000 different mutant fly lines for altered sleep need. One of the most extreme lines slept only 4 to 5 hours per day, compared with the normal 9 to 15 hours--and remained alert even after sleep deprivation. These restless flies, which tended to die earlier than normal, turned out to have a mutation in a gene called Shaker, which encodes a protein channel that controls the flow of potassium across cell membranes. Functional Shaker channels help neurons return to baseline after firing; defects in them increase neuronal excitability and had been previously linked to epilepsy but not to sleep.

For those wondering about the function/necessity of sleep, there are a few hypotheses being bounced around (from the same article as above), but nothing completely solid yet. Two main ideas centering around metabolic activities and synapse building/learning. Imo, the two aren't necessarily exclusive of each other.

One way to get at the basic cellular purpose of sleep is to compare which genes and proteins are active only during sleeping or waking. In mice, rats, sparrows, and flies, numerous genes involved in protein synthesis and cholesterol metabolism work mainly during sleep. An accumulation of such research, including their own mouse studies, led Pack and colleagues to propose in 2007 that a key function for sleep is to give the body time and energy to rebuild molecules that are used up during waking. The C. elegans nap cycle squares with this idea, Raizen says. During lethargus, the worms synthesize a new skin-like cuticle and double the cell nuclei in their intestines, even though the cells themselves don't divide. "Those are two intensely biosynthetic events," he says.

Tired insects have helped suggest that the nervous system may need sleep for a related reason. When comparing genes in rats and flies that are active during waking and turned off during sleep, Cirelli and Tononi, both now at UW Madison, noticed that several were involved in building and strengthening synapses, connections among neurons in the brain that are a result of learning. If all the new synapses accumulated day after day, the brain would soon run out of space and energy, says Cirelli. (Already, the brain accounts for one-fifth of human metabolism.) She suggests that during sleep, the synapses are trimmed so that only the most robust connections remain. "You don't lose the memories, but ? you wake up with a leaner brain," Cirelli says.

That hypothesis remains to be tested, but there is a general sense that sleep has something to do with taking the nervous system offline for maintenance. Sleep-deprived humans and rats perform poorly in mental tasks from college exams to mazes--and flies are looking quite similar. Shaw, now at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and his colleagues have done experiments, not yet published, demonstrating that sleep-deprived flies make about 50% more mistakes than well-rested flies in a learning test.

 

[DangerAardvark]

Originally posted by: Gibsons

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Incidentally, I'd love to see some kind of experiment on fruit flies:
Slowly lengthen the duration of daylight, maybe at a rate of 5 minutes per generation, or perhaps at an even slower rate. Eventually, it might result in flies which are active their entire lives, without any designated sleep time. It would be interesting to see if there are any ill effects, and also to see if their lifespans shorten by around 30%.

That seems to be the case (From Science Jul 18 2008):

In 2005, Cirelli and her team reported in Nature the first dividend of such a random genetic screen. Her team observed 9000 different mutant fly lines for altered sleep need. One of the most extreme lines slept only 4 to 5 hours per day, compared with the normal 9 to 15 hours--and remained alert even after sleep deprivation. These restless flies, which tended to die earlier than normal, turned out to have a mutation in a gene called Shaker, which encodes a protein channel that controls the flow of potassium across cell membranes. Functional Shaker channels help neurons return to baseline after firing; defects in them increase neuronal excitability and had been previously linked to epilepsy but not to sleep.

For those wondering about the function/necessity of sleep, there are a few hypotheses being bounced around (from the same article as above), but nothing completely solid yet. Two main ideas centering around metabolic activities and synapse building/learning. Imo, the two aren't necessarily exclusive of each other.

One way to get at the basic cellular purpose of sleep is to compare which genes and proteins are active only during sleeping or waking. In mice, rats, sparrows, and flies, numerous genes involved in protein synthesis and cholesterol metabolism work mainly during sleep. An accumulation of such research, including their own mouse studies, led Pack and colleagues to propose in 2007 that a key function for sleep is to give the body time and energy to rebuild molecules that are used up during waking. The C. elegans nap cycle squares with this idea, Raizen says. During lethargus, the worms synthesize a new skin-like cuticle and double the cell nuclei in their intestines, even though the cells themselves don't divide. "Those are two intensely biosynthetic events," he says.

Tired insects have helped suggest that the nervous system may need sleep for a related reason. When comparing genes in rats and flies that are active during waking and turned off during sleep, Cirelli and Tononi, both now at UW Madison, noticed that several were involved in building and strengthening synapses, connections among neurons in the brain that are a result of learning. If all the new synapses accumulated day after day, the brain would soon run out of space and energy, says Cirelli. (Already, the brain accounts for one-fifth of human metabolism.) She suggests that during sleep, the synapses are trimmed so that only the most robust connections remain. "You don't lose the memories, but ? you wake up with a leaner brain," Cirelli says.

That hypothesis remains to be tested, but there is a general sense that sleep has something to do with taking the nervous system offline for maintenance. Sleep-deprived humans and rats perform poorly in mental tasks from college exams to mazes--and flies are looking quite similar. Shaw, now at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and his colleagues have done experiments, not yet published, demonstrating that sleep-deprived flies make about 50% more mistakes than well-rested flies in a learning test.

That's fuckin awesome. Sleep is evolutionarily stable. /thread

 

[alkemyst]

sleep is the only time your body rebuilds really...

 

[evident]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
lol @ turning this into a Christian bashing argument

I am a firm believer in pre-emptive strike

yeah, this thread quickly turned into a troll fest. see this vid