The Scientist and Jerome Siegel | Mar 1, 2016 | 10+ min read
Once believed to be unique to birds and mammals, sleep is found across the metazoan kingdom. Some animals, it seems, can’t live without it, though no one knows exactly why.
The scientific community bid farewell to researchers who furthered the fields of molecular biology, virology, sleep science, and immunology, among others.
Technologies such as noninvasive brain stimulation and virtual reality gaming offer insights into how dreams arise and what functions they might serve.
SIDEBAR : Sleep Research Resources Some consider sleep an unavoidable nuisance; others, a sweet indulgence. For the most part, though, we take our slumber for granted, rarely considering why we spend a hefty chunk of our lives unconscious. But for sleep researchers, that question represents a supreme mystery. Exactly what purpose sleep serves, as well as how the body regulates sleeping and waking, remain largely unknown. Behavioral scientists and physiologists have pursued these questions for
With human research trials resulting in dozens of successful deliveries in the US and abroad, doctors move toward offering the surgery clinically, while working to learn all they can about uterine and transplant biology from the still-rare procedure.
Credit: Howard Hughes Medical InstituteThe above graphs show data from teenagers and adults who participated in an 11-day activity study. Each person's Horne-Ostberg score was plotted on the x-axis and his average waking time on the y-axis. The Horne-Ostberg survey identifies a person as an "evening" or "morning" type. As part of its annual educational outreach lecture series, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute recently had high school students participate in a large-scale circadian rhythm sci
Just 20 years ago, scientists didn’t even realize muscles had their own circadian clocks. Now they are beginning to appreciate their importance in health.